Page 23 of Rules for Rule Breaking
To make matters worse, she was starving. She hadn’t eaten before she went to her grandmother’s apartment, and she didn’t want to eat the hard-boiled eggs her mother packed, so the only thing in her stomach was a Yakult.
Winter rolled the window down and stuck her hand outside, feeling the wind whip between her fingers as the other cars zipped by. Bobby refused to go even a mile over the speed limit. According to him, it was dangerous and unnecessary since they were a little bit ahead of schedule thanks to Kai. She felt more at ease with the warm wind blowing her hair all over the car, but then Bobby hit an unevenpatch in the road and her stomach let out an ungodlyglopas she was jostled around.
“You didn’t eat this morning?” Bobby asked, more of an accusation than a question.
Winter refrained from hurling an insult back. She promised Halmeoni she’d try to be nice. And now that they were officially on the road, it was time to start.
“I went to visit Halmeoni this morning and I didn’t get a chance,” she replied.
“Well, we’re not supposed to stop anywhere before we get to George Washington.”
Winter held her stomach. “Can’t we get breakfast? We’re ahead of schedule anyway. And then instead of eating while we’re at George Washington, maybe we can do something else, like go to one of the Smithsonians.”
Winter could tell Bobby didn’t hate the idea. She knew rearranging his meticulously planned itinerary would give him major anxiety, but one thing he did love was museums. They had gone on a school-wide field trip to the Museum of Life and Science when Bobby was in fifth grade and Winter was in fourth, and everyone else was interested in running around outside and not having to do actual schoolwork for an entire day. Bobby went around to each exhibit, making notes in one of his notebooks, giving each and every plaque of information individual appreciation. It was endearing until he got freaked out in the butterfly exhibit when a “million-eyed beast” landed on his nose. He spent the rest of the trip sitting on the school bus listening to soft rock with the bus driver.
A search for nearby pancake houses revealed there was one called Jim’s right off the highway and rated four stars. Honestly, Winter didn’t know how someone could mess up a pancake. So if it had goodreviews, that must have meant they were really good.
Bobby redirected the GPS, and they drove along a winding road until they arrived at an unassuming building with a parking lot desperately in need of repaving and a letter board sign displaying the day’s special (lemon blueberry pancakes) with a few letters either missing or hanging off.
They pulled into a spot, and it already smelled like syrup and bacon. They went inside and were greeted by a hostess with tired eyes in a red-striped uniform and white apron. She told them they could sit anywhere they wanted, so Winter chose a booth in the corner. She slid into it and positioned her paper place mat and rolled-up silverware in front of her. Bobby followed suit and awkwardly smiled at the hostess before she went back to her station at the front of the diner.
“Do you feel like everyone is staring at us?” Winter asked, looking around at the other patrons, who all seemed to all be at least fifty years old.
“We’re probably the first Asian people they’ve ever seen. Don’t pay attention to them,” Bobby said. “As long as they’re microaggression racist and not macroaggression racist, we’ll survive.”
“You think that’s why?” Winter replied. “I think it’s just because we’re young.”
“Maybe. Why don’t you ask them?”
Winter gave him a look as she unwrapped her silverware and placed it on top of her napkin. “Let’s ask for chopsticks and see what happens.”
Bobby let out a begrudging laugh.
They looked over at the booth next to them. There were two men Winter assumed were a father and son because they had the same blue eyes and lack of a neck. They seemed to work at some kind ofconstruction business. They wore plaid shirts, and their pants and boots were covered in flecks of different-colored paint. The younger one looked back at Bobby Bae and whispered something to his father. They both then drained the last few drops of their coffee and went to the front to pay.
“Well, I guess we have our answer,” Bobby said.
A waitress with about four inches of silver roots and blue eye shadow came to take their order.
“You both ready to order?” she asked in a thick regional accent Winter wasn’t used to hearing.
Winter ordered a stack of lemon blueberry pancakes with bacon and scrambled eggs on the side. Bobby ordered waffles with eggs over medium and turkey sausage. The waitress jotted down their order on her pad and then disappeared behind the breakfast bar to fetch their drinks, an orange juice for Bobby and an iced coffee for Winter.
“Did you order waffles at a pancake house?” Winter asked, trying to hide the judgment in her voice.
“I like waffles better than pancakes.”
“Yeah, but we’re at apancakehouse. That’s like going to Harvard to study art.”
“Harvard actually has a wonderful visual arts program, so the joke’s on you.” Bobby let out a slow breath. “Waffles are the same as pancakes. They’re just cooked differently. They have little pockets specifically designed to allow for even syrup and butter distribution. That combines two things I love: breakfast and innovation. With pancakes, your syrup runs all over your plate, touching all your other food. It’s chaos.”
“Delicious, sugary, buttery chaos.”
“Avoidable chaos.”
With the well of insults having momentarily run dry, the two sat in uncomfortable silence, awaiting fresh material.
They were relieved when the waitress came to drop off their plates, and Winter made a show of dousing her entire plate in syrup. Her young arteries quivered looking at it, but it was worth it to see the disgusted expression on Bobby’s face.
