seeing
Eleanor.
‘Dad …’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ his dad said, setting down the magazine. ‘You can be ungrounded as soon as you learn to drive a stick. Then you can drive your girlfriend around …’
‘What girlfriend?’ his mother said. She came in the front door, carrying groceries. Park got up to help her. His dad got up to give her a welcome-home tongue kiss.
‘I told Park I’d unground him if he learned how to drive.’
‘I know how to drive,’ Park shouted from the kitchen.
‘Learning how to drive an automatic is like learning how to do a girl pushup,’ his dad said.
‘No girl,’ his mother said.
‘Grounded.’
‘But for how long?’ Park asked, walking back into the living room. His parents were sitting on the couch. ‘You can’t ground me forever.’
‘Sure we can,’ his dad said.
‘Why?’ Park asked.
His mother looked agitated.
‘You’re grounded until you stop thinking about that trouble girl.’
Park and his dad both broke character to look at her.
‘What trouble girl?’ Park asked.
‘Big Red?’ his dad asked.
‘I don’t like her,’ his mother said, adamantly. ‘She comes to my house and cries, very weird girl, and then next thing I know, you’re kicking friends and school is calling, face broken … And everybody, everybody, tell me that family is trouble. Just trouble. I don’t want it.’
Park took a breath and held it.
Everything inside of him felt too hot to let out.
‘Mindy …’ his dad said, holding a wait-a-minute hand up to Park.
‘No,’ she said, ‘ no. No weird white girl in my house.’
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but weird white girls are my only option,’ Park said as loudly as he could. Even this angry, he couldn’t yell at his mother.
‘There are other girls,’ his mother said. ‘Good girls.’
‘She is a good girl,’ Park said.
‘You don’t even know her.’
His dad was standing, pushing Park toward the door. ‘Go,’ he said sternly. ‘Go play basketball or something.’
‘Good girls don’t dress like boys,’ his mother said.
‘Go,’ his dad said.
Park didn’t feel like playing basketball, and it was too cold outside without his coat. He stood in front of his house for a few minutes, then stomped over to his grandparents’ house. He knocked, then opened the door; they never locked it.
They were both in the kitchen, w a t c h i n g Family Feud.
His
grandmother was making Polish sausage.
‘Park!’ she said. ‘I must have known you were coming. I made way too many Tater Tots.’
‘I
thought
you
were
grounded,’ his grandpa said.
‘Hush, Harold, you can’t be grounded
from
your
own
grandparents … Are you feeling okay, honey? You look flushed.’
‘I’m just cold,’ Park said.
‘Are you staying for dinner?’
‘Yeah,’ he said.
After dinner, they watched Matlock.
His
grandmother
crocheted. She was working on a blanket for somebody’s baby shower. Park stared at the TV, but didn’t take anything in.
His grandmother had filled the wall behind the TV with framed eight-by-ten photographs. There were pictures of his dad and his dad’s older brother who died in Vietnam, and pictures of Park and Josh from every school year.
There was a smaller photo of his parents, on their wedding day. His dad was in his dress uniform, and his mom was wearing a pink miniskirt. Somebody had written ‘Seoul, 1970’ in the corner. His dad was twenty-three. His mom was eighteen, only two years older than Park.
Everybody had thought she must be pregnant, his dad had told him. But she wasn’t. ‘Practically pregnant,’ his dad said, ‘but that’s a different thing … We were just in love.’
Park hadn’t expected his mom to like Eleanor, not right away – but he hadn’t expected her to reject her, either. His mom was so nice to everybody. ‘Your mother’s an angel,’ his grandma always said. It’s what everyone always said.
His grandparents sent him home after Hill Street Blues.
His mom had gone to bed, but his dad was sitting on the couch, waiting for him. Park tried to walk past.
‘Sit down,’ his dad said.
Park sat down.
‘You’re
not
grounded
anymore.’
‘Why not?’
‘It doesn’t matter why not.
You’re not grounded, and your mother is sorry, you know, for everything she said.’
‘You’re just saying that,’ Park said.
His dad sighed. ‘Well, maybe I am. But that doesn’t matter either.
Your mother wants what’s best for you, right? Hasn’t she always wanted what’s best for you?’
‘I guess …’
‘So she’s just worried about you. She thinks she can help you pick out a girlfriend the same way she helps you pick out your classes and your clothes …’
‘She doesn’t pick out my clothes.’
‘Jesus, Park, could you just shut up and listen?’
Park sat quietly in the blue easy chair.