Page 86 of Rules for Rule Breaking
“Bobby, I know what you’re doing. Stop it.”
“Too late!”
The bell over the door jingled, and the group of girls walked in. Kai begrudgingly stood up and went behind the counter. He left what he had been drawing on the table, which was a rough sketch of the latest panel of his Milquetoast comic.
Bobby glared at Kai, who smirked at him over the heads of the girls.
Dropping a large tip on the table, Bobby made his way outside. As he walked by the shop window, he aimed a finger heart in Kai’s direction but raised his middle finger as soon as Kai started to look too pleased with himself.
With a plan in its infancy swirling around in Bobby’s head, he rushed home to see it through.
Winter Park
41. WE WILL NOT INTERFERE IN EACH OTHER’S PERSONAL MATTERS
Halmeoni invited Winter over for dinner. When she arrived, Halmeoni was waiting on the patio. She had on one of her snappy outfits and a bumblebee brooch. She motioned to the other chair and started the conversation with everyone’s least favorite words. “We need to talk.”
“Is something wrong?” Winter asked.
“I think that enough is enough, Soon-hee,” Halmeoni said. “I’ve given you your space, but it’s been weeks, and you’re still sulking.”
“I’m fine, Halmeoni.”
“No, you’re not. But it’s okay. I got something for you that will raise your spirits.”
Winter clapped her hands together. “A present?”
“Sort of.”
Halmeoni swung open her apartment door, and there was Emmy with a huge smile on her face. She had her signature slicked ponytail that went almost down to her waist. Her outfit was effortless but intentional. In front of her were mandu-making stations set up with bowls of the filling in one corner, the wrappers in another, and the finished products at the end of the table waiting to be panfried. Winter peeked into the filling bowl. It was full of smashed-up clear noodles, chives, pork, and every seasoning in the cabinet.
Winter went through a roller coaster of emotions. “I used to love those days we made mandu together—you, Halmeoni, Nai Nai, and I,” Winter said.
Making mandu started out as a monthly ritual, but due to high demand, it became biweekly and eventually weekly. Winter and Emmy would come from playing outside, their noses running, lungs raw, smelling of sweat and earth. They’d wash their hands up to the elbows and tie their hair back before sitting down with bowls of cool water and floured plates. Nai Nai and Halmeoni would gossip in their own special language, their practiced hands splitting their time gesturing and forming restaurant-worthy dumplings while barely looking, and Winter and Emmy would enter their own little world, mixing Korean and Chinese ingredients into only mildly edible concoctions.
Winter realized this was probably the last summer she would spend with Emmy at the senior community. It was the end of an era marked by scraped knees, grass stains, slurped noodles, awkward phases followed by even more awkward phases, dancing under the sprinklers, bottling lightning bugs, giggling past bedtimes, and other endless summer memories.
Emmy dipped her fingers into one of the bowls and flicked droplets of water at Winter, breaking her out of her stroll down memory lane.
“Sit with me,” Emmy said, and Winter took a seat next to her at the table.
Halmeoni, looking pleased with herself, left the room, busying herself in the kitchen with folding dish towels Winter had never known to be folded.
Leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms, Emmy said, “We should talk about me not going to college.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going either.”
“MIT has been your dream since we met. Don’t joke like that.”
“I’m not joking,” Winter replied, leaning all the way back in her chair and staring up at the ceiling. She couldn’t bring herself to care about anything these days, much less MIT. “I don’t want to go. I probably can’t get in anyway.”
“You can’t be serious.”
If Winter’s time visiting schools taught her anything, it was that MIT was not a done deal. With an acceptance rate of about 7 percent, she had a better chance of seeing a shooting star in the middle of Times Square. And what was the point in busting her ass to go to a school in a city with no Halmeoni, no Emmy?
“I just want to enjoy my senior year and have modest expectations for college,” Winter said.
“You? Since when?” Emmy said with a snort.
