I opened to a picture of my family in the backyard. Dad was holding Gina and I was holding Sophie. Mom was standing between us, dressed in spiky heels and squinting from the sun. Gina and Sophie wore matching polka-dot dresses and sparkly paper crowns.
I looked at my eight-year-old self. Stocky, with a crew cut and ears sticking out like coat hooks. And tan. It"s silly how people call Asians yellow when my skin gets brick brown in summertime. Next to Dad, who"s six-two and all muscle, I looked like a little puffer fish. I used to tell Dad that I wanted to grow up tall and strong like him. But he"d always answer the same way: "You"re built like a fireplug, son. No one messes with fireplugs."
"How come you"re not holding me?" Gina demanded, looking over my shoulder.
I shrugged. My sisters keep score of everything, from the number of squirts of chocolate syrup in their milk to how many times they get to sit by the car window.
Gina brought out a few more mini-alb.u.ms. We looked at everything from Mom and Dad"s honeymoon photos to a picture of us three kids in the backseat of the van, holding Frazer after his hip surgery. Soon Sophie got bored with TV and hopped up beside us to look, too.
The more I stared at the pictures, the worse I felt about the essay. My parents have always acted like I was their firstborn-Italian just like them-and on most days it didn"t bother me. But mirrors don"t keep secrets and, like Mom"s shop, our house is covered with mirrors. How many mornings had I jumped out of bed and stared into the dresser mirror, wondering who I looked like and who that person was? How many nights, while I brushed my teeth, had I studied my reflection, a face utterly unlike my sisters" or my parents"? Probably a million. And every time, I thought about that story of the emperor with no clothes. Was I the b.u.t.t-naked emperor of Nutley, New Jersey, being duped into believing that I was Italian inside and out, because everyone was afraid to speak the truth?
I picked up my folder, pulled out the essay a.s.signment, and reread it. Yikes! Dad always says the devil is in the details. The last line said the essay was due in nine days. Usually Mrs. Peroutka gives us over a month for writing a.s.signments. How had I missed that?
Quickly I grabbed the phone. "Joseph here, desperate to hire an Internet consultant."
"Sure," Nash answered. "Everything okay?"
"My essay is due sooner than I thought, all fifteen hundred words."
"I"m on it, Joseph. Anything special you want me to research about Korea?"
What did I want to find out, anyway? Enough to fill an autobiography. Or to help make my deja-vu dream make sense. For years I"d had the same weird dream: me walking along a dirt road with other Koreans, but I didn"t know who they were. I was pulling a red wagon, but I never knew where I was going. Everything was always fuzzy-especially faces.
But for now I had to stick with getting the essay finished. "Stuff about the city of Pusan. In Korea, back fourteen years ago when I was born, I guess. And if something comes up about a baby being found, that"s even better."
"Do you know any details about where they found you or the time of day? The more specific, the better the chance I might uncover something."
"I know nothing," I replied, "but I"ll try to ask my parents and get back to you."
"The old guy still has it!" Dad shouted as he sunk the ball into the hoop.
"The old guy got lucky," I snapped back.
Ouch. The basketball slapped my palm as I blocked Dad"s next shot. Wrestling for the ball, he grabbed my waist and overpowered me. He used to box when he was young, and his arms are still thick and strong. I smacked his backside in a last-minute attempt to shake him, but he made the basket anyway.
The score was 52, and Dad was up. But I"m nothing if not persistent. A minute later, while Dad gushed in his greatness, I caught him off guard. I grabbed the ball, faked left, drove right, and made the layup.
"The hoop master scores!" I shouted, my fist raised to the sky.
"Not too bad for a young punk," Dad shouted just before he swiped the ball back and nailed the equivalent of an NBA three-pointer.
"Anytime, senior citizen!" I said, though I was the one breathing heavy.
We took a break. The sun shone directly overhead, and a warm breeze blew on the blacktop of Campbell Park Elementary School. My old stomping grounds, where Gina and Sophie were now in the second grade. The air smelled of fresh-cut gra.s.s and tar from the resurfaced parking lot.
I guzzled from my water bottle. Our T-shirts lay balled up on the gra.s.s, soaked with sweat. A Little League game had started behind the school, and we heard cheering and clapping. Dad gazed toward the baseball fields. He gets quiet this time of year. Late spring is peak season for window washers. Mom says Dad is just exhausted from the long hours, but I don"t think that"s the only reason. I think he hates washing windows for a living, and it hits him more during the busy periods.
Mom told me that Dad didn"t have the chance to go to college. The sons of Italian immigrants back then were expected to pick up a trade and start making money right after high school, like generations going back all the way to the old country. That"s why New Jersey"s yellow pages are still full of masons, plumbers, and carpenters with Italian names. Grandpa learned that new housing developments in northern Jersey needed window washers, so when Dad turned eighteen, his parents bought him a used pickup truck and painted "Calderaro Window Washers" on the side. That was the only career counseling he ever got.
"How"s school going, Joseph?" Dad leaned back on the gra.s.s.
School made me think of my essay, but I decided to stick with good news first.
"I"m doing a drum solo for the concert next month," I said. At the Christmas show I"d played "Carol of the Bells" in a quartet. Dad practically climbed onstage to videotape me double-timing it between the timpani and the bells.
"A solo? Way to go. I bet your grandparents will come up from Florida for that. Joseph the Drummer Boy, that"s what they call you."
"Just make sure Nonno Calderaro doesn"t wear one of those loud orange shirts like he wore last year, okay?"
Dad laughed. "I"ll try. So, how are grades?"
"I got an A plus on my science lab this week, and an eighty-four on my social studies quiz. It should"ve been a ninety, but Mrs. Peroutka gave tricky multiple-choice questions."
"No excuses, Joseph. You need top grades going into high school, and you"re an honor student. Good job in science, though." He wiped his head with his T-shirt.
This was my first conversation with Dad lasting longer than thirty seconds since my birthday dinner. So far no one had drawn blood, so I figured I"d try him on the essay. Maybe he"d have an idea.
"Anything else you want to talk about?" he asked, as if he"d read my mind.
Call me Chicken Calderaro. Just thinking about this suddenly made me clammy. "I"ve got to write an essay, Dad, about my ancestry. Family roots from Korea, that sort of stuff." I bounced the basketball as I spoke. "But I don"t know where to start."
Dad scratched his back. "I could tell you plenty of stories about Nonna and Nonno Calderaro. How they came from Siena, just south of Florence, in August of 1947."
I said nothing.
"New York City was an oven in the summertime back then," he continued. "Nonno told me it hit a hundred and three degrees when he and Nonna arrived, and the water fountain broke, no kidding. The only valuable thing Nonno brought from Italy was a pair of silver shears his father gave him. Which his father"s father gave him.
"Both your grandparents worked in an upholstery factory in Brooklyn for three years, six days a week. They saved every nickel until they could open their own tailor shop." Dad paused, then added, "A tailor shop that made custom suits for Wall Street bankers."
I was listening, but honest to G.o.d, I didn"t get Dad. He knew I"d heard Nonna and Nonno Calderaro"s immigrant rags to middle-cla.s.s riches story umpteen times. I knew things were hard back then. But why was my life hard for Dad to talk about? After all, he chose to adopt me.
Dad kept going on about the neighborhood his parents moved to after they opened the tailor shop. Italian Harlem, that"s what they called it. I grew madder with each word. Why"d I ever think I could talk to him about this?
"They"re not my ancestors," I blurted, interrupting Dad.
The Mad Meter suddenly switched on and started pulsing at an eighth-note tempo.
"That"s a heck of a thing to say about your grandparents," he said.
"They"re great, Dad. But I"m asking you about my Korean relatives, and you"re not helping."
"I don"t know any more than you do, Joseph. Talk to your mother about that."
Dad picked up his water bottle and T-shirt from the gra.s.s. Time to go home.
Talk to your mother, he"d said. As if I"d asked what"s for dinner.
Towel Boy.
On Monday afternoon the school bus screeched to a halt in front of the post office and I hopped off. Rain sprinkled on my face like salt on french fries. I was headed to the library. So far, the only thing Nash had found about the day I was born was that Pusan had set a record for rainfall. That would hardly take fifteen hundred words to describe. So I decided to get a few library books and load my essay up with a bunch of who-what-where facts about Korea-in case Nash didn"t find anything in time. Maybe if my writing was clever enough, Mrs. Peroutka would forget about all that ancestry stuff.
First, though, I"d stop at Mom"s shop to get money for a snack.
By the time I got to Shear Impressions, my backpack was soaked and my hair looked like black spaghetti. Nutley was setting its own record for rain.
"Joseph, my little water rat. Where"s your umbrella?" Mom called from the register as she rang up a customer.
"Hold the flattery, Mom. I"m off to the library on an empty stomach. Can I have three bucks for a salad?"
"Salad my behind. You"re headed to Randazzo"s Bakery," she said.
Mom"s customer handed her a tip and smiled as if she was in on the joke, too. She was one of what Mom calls her SOWS, Sweet Old Wash "n" Setters.
Aunt Foxy walked out from the back room with her arms full of wet towels. She was dressed up fancy: a red satin blouse, huge hoop earrings, and a suede skirt, which meant she was over her recent wrecked romance. Aunt Foxy usually wears a sweat suit without makeup when she"s recovering from a breakup. She"s had plenty of boyfriends, but Mom says no one ever treats her good enough. Not that I"m betraying any deep family secrets by saying this stuff. You hang out in a hair salon for more than ten minutes and you could write a biography about any one of the hairdressers.
"I"m so happy to see my favorite teenaged G.o.dson," Aunt Foxy called out.
"Wouldn"t have to do with that sack of towels, would it?" I pointed to the plastic bag she was filling on the floor.
She came over and gave me a hug. "Of course not."
I knew Aunt Foxy"s joy had just as much to do with the towels as it did with my being her favorite G.o.dson. (I"m her only G.o.dson, by the way.) Whenever I walk into Shear Impressions, Mom and Aunt Foxy immediately see me as Joseph the Towel Boy. I"ve been carrying wet towels to Jiffy Wash Laundry ever since they bought the shop together five years ago.
Jiffy Wash was only a block away from the library, so I didn"t mind running this errand. Besides, doing a good deed might earn me extra moolah to get two sprinkle cookies and a soda. Niente per niente. Mom taught me well.
Mom opened her purse. "Here"s four dollars. Odd numbers are bad luck," she said.
I stuck the money in my back pocket just as a tall, older girl walked in. She had a pierced nose and a b.u.t.terfly tattoo on her shoulder. If I could"ve teleported a message to Mom and Aunt Foxy, it would have said, "Don"t treat me like Towel Boy in front of her. Please."
But I wasn"t so lucky.
Aunt Foxy rested the towel bag right smack in front of me. "I counted forty-six towels. This is heavy, so don"t drag it on the sidewalk-it might rip."
The girl didn"t even look at me. She grabbed a magazine and sat down. She probably thought I was a busboy from the Chinese restaurant across the street. People always think I"m Chinese; they think anyone with narrow eyes is. It used to bug me, but like Mom always says, you gotta get over the idiots in this world.
She was too old for me anyway. Besides, she wasn"t as cute as Kelly.
Mrs. Faddegan flashed a toothy yellow smile as I dropped the towel bag on the counter.
"Thanks, Joseph. And tell your mom and Aunt Foxy that I"ll stop over later to say good-bye."
"Good-bye?"
"Guess you didn"t hear. We"re moving to Florida. No more high taxes and damp winters for us."
Her news surprised me, though Mrs. Faddegan had been threatening to leave New Jersey for years.
"Herb and I bought a condo in Boca Raton," she said, sliding a brochure across the counter. "Comes with a community hot tub and free cable TV."
"Does that include HBO and Showtime?" I asked.
"I"m not sure," she answered, her face serious, like she wanted to call Florida to find out.
Mrs. Faddegan started to say something else, hesitated, and then started again. "You might like to know that the couple who bought the business are Korean." She spoke loud over the rumbling of washers and dryers.
I nodded, not sure what to say. Mostly I was wondering how I could get out of there fast. Everyone knew that Randazzo"s ran out of sprinkle cookies around four o"clock, and I definitely didn"t want their anisette cookies, which taste nasty, like black licorice.
"The new owners open tomorrow," she said. "They"re from Flushing. Too crowded for them in the city, I guess. "Course, I didn"t tell them how traffic backs up on Grant Avenue once the packing plant lets out at five."
The Jiffy Wash was sticky hot, and the strong smell of bleach was giving me a headache. I had to hurry to get to Randazzo"s and the library before they closed.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Faddegan. Good luck in Florida. And definitely get HBO. You deserve it."
Playing Bongos for the G.o.ds.
"Stop right there. Clarinets, start earlier-after the refrain," Mrs. Athena, our pint-sized band director, called from behind the podium. She lifted her mug toward the woodwind section in between sips of coffee.
We were warming up with "You"re a Grand Old Flag." Mrs. Athena liked this tune a lot, I could tell. It"s a peppy piece with cymbals crashing and trumpets blasting, but this morning it sounded sluggish, like funeral music.
"Where"s that Uncle Sam spirit?" she asked. "Imagine it"s the Fourth of July and you"re marching down Main Street, with thousands of patriotic folks cheering and waving little flags."
This time the clarinets came in a half note too late. And then all three ba.s.soonists gave a not-me face when Mrs. Athena asked whose instrument was blowing like a moose with indigestion.
"I wish they"d get their woodwind act together," I whispered to Steve, who was slumped over the xylophone.
"No. No. No. The tempo is way off. Back to the first measure!" Mrs. Athena called, directing her words to the clarinets.
A collective groan came from the bra.s.s section and the percussion gang.
Steve tapped my head with the xylophone mallet. "I say we kidnap the woodwinds, tie them up with violin string, and hold them hostage in the custodian closet until school gets out."
"And make them listen to recordings of their own music," I added, grinning. People misjudge clarinet players as the true band kids because they"re always walking around swinging their cases, but my ears have suffered the truth: most of them don"t know a full note from a Post-it note.
We started over again. It still sounded bad. And again. Now it was badder than bad.
"Time out for an instrument check," Mrs. Athena announced, and she began walking from chair to chair, examining each clarinet like a laboratory specimen. I glanced over at the trumpets. Nash stared back and directed a thumbs-down at the clarinets.