Page 2 of Rules for Rule Breaking
“Have I? Will you show some interest in my education and take me to visit MIT?”
“You know it’s our busy season,” Appa said. “Your mother and I areessential workers, Soon-hee. We can’t pick up and leave our practice so we can fly all over the country with you.”
Appa was very proud of their dermatology office, which they affectionately referred to as “our practice.” This was something that both amused and embarrassed Winter. Sometimes their work involved finding cancerous lumps, but most of the time they were popping pimples and extracting ingrown hairs.
It seemed that no one wanted to visit Boston with her. Not her best friend, Emmy, and not even her own parents. Emmy had the valid excuse of preparing to move to Germany early next month, butWinter’s parents were choosing lancing abscesses over their only child.
“Ugh!” Winter groaned as she stomped upstairs to her bedroom.
She changed into a T-shirt and jeans, making sure to put on her dirtiest pair of tennis shoes. Then she looked in the mirror. Winter was satisfied with the way she looked, though she knew from everything she understood about Korea that she would have been considered plain if she lived there. She thought herself to be of average height, rounder in some places, her eyes hooded and untrusting. And even if her straight black hair could do nothing but fall limp over her shoulders, she still probably wouldn’t have done anything with it. There was no section on her transcripts for looks. There were other ways of expression that she enjoyed more than fashion.
Winter grabbed her phone and stomped back downstairs.
“I’m going to visit Halmeoni,” she called to her parents, making a show of tap-dancing across their hardwood floors in her beat-up Chuck Taylors.
Her parents raised their eyebrows at her but didn’t say anything.
Halmeoni lived in an elderly community, which was about a twenty-minute walk away. Winter found herself marching over to Halmeoni’s apartment often, mostly when Bobby Bae had won something at school Winter believed she deserved instead and when she needed a Chanel Eau de Parfum–scented shoulder to cry on.
“Tell your grandmother hello for us,” Appa said.
“She’syourmom. Call her,” Winter retorted, and walked out the door. She then stuck her head back inside and said, “I love you both. I’ll definitely tell her you said hello.”
Her parents smiled, and she headed out into the hot North Carolinian day, where there were dads in golf shorts mowing their lawns, happily sipping on cans of Cheerwine.
Bobby Bae
2. WE WILL NOT MEET OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL
The Baes sat down for dinner on the terrace at precisely six p.m. Though their patio wasn’t bigger or nicer than the Reynolds’, their neighbors, the Baes liked to eat out there as much as they could. Dinner alfresco was a win inThe Book of Bae.
“Bobby,” his father, Robert Sr., said, nudging his son hard in the shoulder.
Bobby refrained from soothing his shoulder and looked up from his plate. “Yeah, Dad?”
“I heard a joke today. Want to hear it?”
Bobby sighed. “Sure, Dad.”
“What does a robot do at the end of a one-night stand?”
“What?”
“He nuts and bolts.” Robert Sr. laughed jovially, making his beer belly, which hung over the top of his khaki golf shorts, jiggle.
Bobby’s mother, Diana, laughed at her husband despite herself, but Bobby remained stone-faced.
“My handsome boy. You never smile,” Diana said. “Lighten up, son.”
Bobby smiled, but he did not lighten up.
He took a piece of sangchu from the bowl in the middle of the table and filled it with a perfectly round dollop of rice. He then aligned the meat next to the rice, spread some spicy soybean pasteover the meat, and rolled the entire thing into a perfect little bite without breaking the spine of the lettuce. He chewed quietly as he watched his parents joking and laughing, often with their mouths open and food inside.
Bobby always prided himself on being the perfect son. He did exactly what he was supposed to without being asked, so his parents rarely had to parent him. Nevertheless, Bobby thrived on structure, so he often parented himself. And, if nothing else, Bobby Bae was the best at everything he did, so he parented himself at an excruciatingly high standard. He got perfect grades, was in all sorts of extracurricular activities, including volunteering with animals and the elderly, and made his own pocket money by participating in online gaming tournaments. He was tall and slim, with a head of thick hair that he often tossed out of his face while bent over his game controllers.
“Bobby, we have to talk to you about something,” Diana said, suddenly getting serious.
Bobby wiped the condensation off the bottom of his glass and put it down on the cedar patio table. “What is it?”
