A Girl Like Gracie (2 page)

It’s true. Alfie looks more like my dad. He
even has blonde hair and blue eyes. But I look like my Korean mom.
I have dark hair and dark eyes. I’m small like her too, except my
feet. My feet aren’t big by American standards though.

My face grows warm at his
beautiful
comment.

“
Gracie, you can sit by Alfie’s
friend,” Dad tells me, pointing to the boy who is sitting by Alfie.
He is watching me, probably amazed by the fact that Alfie and I,
being twins, do look so completely different.

I walk over and take a seat by him. Dad’s
friends sit on the other side of the table.

“
Hi,” I say to the boy.

“
Hey,” he says back.

Alfie leans forward. “This is my friend,
Jace Daniels,” he tells me, then looks at the boy between us.
“Jace, this is my sister. She sucks.”

“
Alfie,” Dad warns him in a scolding
tone.

Alfie sits back and looks forward.

The staff brings out bowls of soup for
everybody. There is some kind of noodles. I’m not sure what kind of
soup it is, but it smells awesome.

I look at all the forks and spoons laid out.
Everybody else is starting to eat.

“
You start from the outside,” Alfie
says, his voice sounding sarcastic.

“
I know that. I just…” I clear my
throat. “Do you guys have any chopsticks? I haven’t ate with a fork
in, like, four years.”

What I don’t tell them is I tried to eat
with a fork at the airport and ended up spilling food all over
myself. How have I forgotten how to eat with a fork?

“
We don’t have chopsticks,” Claire
says.

“
You’re such a brat,” Alfie says.
“Just eat with the fork.”

“
No need,” Dad says.
“Fredrick!”

The butler walks back in the dining
room.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Do you still keep all our left over
sauces and chopsticks when we eat take out?” Dad asks.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Can you bring some for Gracie,
please?”

“
Right away,” Fredrick says, and
leaves the room. A few seconds later, he walks back in with a pair
of throw away, bamboo chopsticks. He hands them to me and I take
them.

“
Thank you,” I say, bowing
slightly.

“
Fredrick, can you make sure we get
some nicer ones in the house for Gracie?” Dad asks him.

“
Yes, sir,” he says, then walks back
out of the room.

I pull the chopsticks out of the paper
wrapper and grab the noodles. I put it in my mouth and start to
slurp the hot noodles. About halfway through the first bit, I
notice that everybody at the entire table is looking at me. I
finish slurping the noodles.

“
What?” I ask, with my mouth full of
food.

“
You’re slurping,” Alfie
says.

“
Okay,” I say, still not understanding
why everybody is staring.

“
Actually, it’s quite common for
people in Korea to slurp their food,” Jace says, turning to look at
everybody on the other side of the table. “I learned about it in a
Korean history class I took my sophomore year.” He turns to me. “It
must be a habit you picked up there.”

“
Joesonghamnida,
” I say, bowing to everybody. “I
mean… sorry. I’ll try to remember the American customs so I don’t
annoy everybody.” I then smile. “I’ll eat well!”

I grab another big bite of noodles, careful
not to slurp this time. Everybody still watches me, so I smile at
them. Eventually, they turn back to their own bowls and begin
eating.

“
So, Gracie, do you speak Korean?”
Patricia asks me.

“
Yeah. I always have. So does Alfie.
Our mom used to speak Korean with us, because she wanted us to know
both Korean and English,” I answer.

She looks at Alfie. “I had no idea you spoke
Korean.”

“
I don’t,” Alfie says. “Just because I
understand the language doesn’t mean I speak it. There is no point.
I’m American.”

“
Alfie, don’t be rude,” Dad
says.

“
Sorry, Mrs. Sherwood,” Alfie says to
her.

“
Gracie, are you coming to the charity
ball this Saturday?” Patricia asks.

“
Ball?” I ask.

“
Yes, she is,” Claire says. “I got her
the most amazing dress for it. She’s so small, she will look good
in anything.” She looks at me. “Well, almost anything.”

I look down at my clothes and cringe.

I wish somebody would’ve sent me the memo
that this was a formal family dinner.

“
Nice shirt,” Jace says to me. “You
like Vivaldi?”

I nod.

“
Our Gracie can play the piano,”
Claire says, proudly.

Our Gracie? Since when did she consider me
hers? Ugh… this dinner! Will there ever be an end to my
torture?

The staff comes back out and takes away our
bowls and then brings out the next course. I notice that everybody
else has meat on their plate, but I don’t. I have some jasmine
rice, which is my favorite, and a bunch of veggies with some kind
of a sauce. Yum.

I devour the meal way too quickly while
conversation is going on around me. After I finish the food on my
plate, I sit back.

“
Jal
meog-eosseubnida!”
I say.

Everybody looks at me again.

Ah, crud. I keep forgetting I’m not in
Korea.

“
What did you say?” Elliot asks
me.

“
I said ‘I ate well’,” I
answer.

“
You ate… well?” he asks, looking
puzzled.

“
It’s a Korean thing,” Alfie says,
sounding annoyed again. I think he’d rather pretend I’m not here.
Or, even better, if I really weren’t here.

“
Actually, it’s rude if you don’t say
that in Korea,” Jace says.

I nod.

“
I hope you saved room for dessert,”
Claire says to me. “Our apple pies are vegetarian.”

“
Apple pie,” I say, sitting up. “I
definitely have room for pie.”

Alfie laughs. “I’d like to see you try to
eat apple pie with chopsticks.”

“
No problem,” I say.

I eat everything with chopsticks. Or a
spoon. But never a fork. I hated that there weren’t forks the first
few weeks there, but then I just got used to it. Now, I don’t like
forks. It’s weird how much I changed in the four years I lived
there.

“
So arrogant,” Alfie says, shaking his
head.

I frown, not liking how my brother now views
me. How has he grown to hate me so much?

I sit down my chopsticks and stand up.
“Actually, I don’t think I want any pie. I’m leaving first.” I bow
to the table, and realize about halfway down that I probably made
my brother angry, but I don’t care. I turn and walk out of the
dining room and walk up the stairs to my own room. Once my door is
shut, I walk over to my bed, fall down face first, and I cry.

I cry for the family that I once had that is
no longer the same.

I cry for the mom I left behind is
Seoul.

I cry for my dad, who couldn’t even be
bothered to say hi to his only daughter, that he hasn’t seen in
four years, when he got home from work.

And I cry for my twin brother, who
completely despises me.

My life is different now, and I have to
accept it. But right now, I just want to cry.

Friday, August 5

I’ll study hard!

When I wake up the next morning, I decide
that it’s going to be a good day. I won’t let my rude brother get
me down. I won’t let the fact that I’m in another country get me
down. And I definitely won’t let the fact that my dad has basically
ignored me since I got here get me down.

Nope.

I’m going to smile. And laugh. And make
friends. And start a life here. After all, this is the country I
was born in. I spent most of my life here. Thirteen years of it, to
be exactly. Four years in Korea has changed me a lot, but not
completely. I am still American.

I get up, take a shower, and get ready for
the day. I look through all the pretty new dresses in my closet and
choose one. I get dressed, and even put on a new pair of shoes.
After I’m dressed, I grab my handphone off the nightstand, and head
out the door.

When I walk out, Alfie’s door opens at the
exact same time. My heart sinks, because I know I’m probably going
to get yelled at some more. But when I look up, I see that it’s not
Alfie. It’s his friend, Jace.

“
Hey,” he says.

“
Hi,” I say, remembering not to
bow.

“
I… um… was just leaving,” he tells
me. “Alfie is in a bad mood.”

“
Sorry,” I say. “It’s my fault he’s
cranky. He hates me.”

“
He doesn’t hate you. He loves you,”
Jace says. “Actually, he’s missed you a lot. I’ve known him about
four years now, since he started at my school. We became friends
immediately. He always talks about you, like, all the time. He was
so excited you were coming. I don’t understand why he’s acting like
he is.”

“
We kind of stopped talking when I
lived there. Over the past couple years especially. At first, we
texted each other nonstop. Then the talking got less and less until
it completely stopped,” I say. “When my handphone went off, I knew
it was never him.”

“
Handphone?”

“
Mobile phone,” I correct.

“
Cellphone,” he says, then leans
closer. He whispers, “Maybe you should try to act more American.
For his sake.”

“
I can’t take back the past four
years,” I say. “Pretending I never liked in Korea isn’t an option.
It changed me.”

I start to walk towards the staircase and
Jace follows me.

“
So, did you dress like a bum last
night on purpose?” he asks me.

“
A bum?” I ask. “I was hardly dressed
like a bum.”

“
You know what I mean,” he
says.

“
I didn’t get the memo that it was a
formal dinner,” I say. “I didn’t do it on purpose, though I do find
it odd that everybody dressed up last night. Was it a special
occasion?”

“
Well, Mr. James invited everybody
over to meet you,” Jace says. “He was excited to show you off. But
dinner here is always formal. Everybody knows that.”

“
Do you eat dinner over here a
lot?”

“
Yeah,” he answers. “We don’t really
have family dinners at my house, so I come over here. It beats
eating alone.”

“
My mom and I hardly ate together
either,” I say. “I had school from nine to four. Then I had night
school. I was getting tutored for a few hours each night in
different subjects, and I was taking a Japanese class two nights a
week, an advanced piano class two nights a week, and taekwondo one
night. It’s actually weird being here. You guys are on break, so I
won’t go back to school for a few weeks, and when I do it’ll be
different. I remember school in America being very
easy.”

“
Easy?” Jace asks. “Then you can tutor
me, cause I think it’s hard.”

I laugh as we walk down the stairs.

“
So you can speak Japenese?” he
asks.

“
Not fluently,” I answer. “But me and
my mom went to Tokyo a few months ago on a vacation. I was able to
get us around. We never got lost or ordered anything weird on the
menu, and nobody had problems understanding me. I think if I lived
in Japan for a year, I could be fluent. The food there is good. I
would stay there a whole year, just to eat their sushi
everyday.”

We stop at the bottom of the stairs.

“
You’re kind of awesome,” Jace says,
smiling at me.

He has a nice smile. His teeth are really
white and straight, like you would expect a Hollywood actor’s to
be. He has dimples on both sides of his cheeks. His hair is light
brown and sticks up in random directions over his head. His eyes
are dark blue, which isn’t something I’m used to seeing in Korea.
Everybody there has brown eyes.

“
I better get going,” he says. “It was
nice to talk to you, though. See you at the ball
tomorrow.”

With that, he turns and walks out the front
door.

“
Gracie? Is that you?” I hear Claire
calling. Her heels clank against the floor and she walks towards
the foyer where I’m standing. When she sees me, she stops in her
tracks, putting her hand over her heart. “Oh, Gracie. You look so
pretty in that dress.”

“
Thanks,” I say, lowing my head a
little. It feels weird to accept her compliment.

“
Your dad had to go to work today, but
he did want me to give you the homecoming gift he picked out for
you,” Claire says. “He was going to give it to you after dinner,
but you ran away so quickly. I’m sorry about Alfie.”

“
It’s not your fault,” I quickly say,
hoping she drops the subject. I want today to be a good day, and if
she keeps talking about Alfie, it won’t be. My heart is broken
because of the way he’s acted towards me lately, and I don’t know
what to do to mend our relationship.

She smiles. “Come with me.”

I follow her as she walks out the front
door. In the front of our circle drive, there is a shiny, white car
sitting in the driveway. There is a huge pink bow on it, and it’s
sparkling in the sunlight. I don’t know what kind of car it is, but
the logo says Porsche. The top is down on the convertible and the
leather seats are black.