A Cab Called Reliable by Patti Kim Page A

nose and eyes like that when you laugh—you’ll get wrinkles. Why do you laugh so loudly? What do you have to laugh about? What do you have to cry about? Did your mother die? Is that why you cry? Or are you crying because your mother’s still alive? Are you going to stop the tears or not? Stop biting your nails. They’ll think you go so hungry, you have to eat yourself. Who taught you to eat your fish like that? You leave all the good parts. Suck out the fish eyes, they’ll make you see better. Don’t make me buy you eyeglasses. Where do you go to buy eyeglasses here? Suck out the fish brain, it’ll help you speak English. Then you can go buy your own eyeglasses. Chew on the bones, but don’t swallow them. Chew and spit them out. America has no place to remove fish bones from a stupid girl’s throat. Girls stupid enough to swallow fish bones deserve to choke. Don’t hold your rice bowl in the palm of your hand. You want to make me a mother of a peasant? At home, eat slowly; outside, eat fast or everyone else will eat your seconds and thirds. But don’t eat like you haven’t been fed. Eat like a lady. Get your seconds and thirds, like a lady. But get your seconds and thirds. What do they feed you at school? Do you get enough? Crazy girl. Why aren’t you eating? What are you going to live on? If you don’t eat, you’re going to be a midget. You’ll never grow as tall as these American girls. Don’t you want to look like them? Don’t you want to be Miss America? Eat. Your hair won’t grow. You won’t ever need a bra. Your teeth will fall out. You’ll stay ugly like that forever. Who’s going to marry you? We’ll have to send you back to the bridge where the lepers live. That’s where we found you, underneath a bridge. You don’t belong to me. No child of mine sucks on ice cubes used to freeze fish. Get away from me. You’re so dirty. I can’t believe you’re sucking on those ice cubes. No one’s going to marry you. Again? You’re crying again? What do I have to do? You want butter and soy sauce in your rice? You want fried kimchi? You want fried anchovies, pork dumplings, kelp? Stop complaining. The cabbage here isn’t the same. What do you want me to do, fly to Korea? How am I supposed to make you shik keh in this country? Even if I could, I wouldn’t make it for a selfish, picky girl like you. You should know. You expect to find jja jjang myun here? Been deh dduck, paht bing su, ho dduck —in America? Eat what you have or starve. What do you want me to do? You want pink fish eggs, green fish cakes? You want rice cakes, don’t you? You want dates and pine nuts? Where am I going to find rice cakes? Ahn Joo-yah, what are you crying for? Did your mother die? What are you crying for?”
    There was an uncomfortable silence in the auditorium. When I looked up, I caught sight of my teacher, leaning against the kitchen door with her right hand over her heart. The two flute players below me yawned. There was a shuffling in the back where mothers began setting up trays of cookies, cakes, and donuts. When I said, “The end,” the audience politely applauded. I reluctantly bowed, said thank you, and returned to my seat, where Jennifer Beechum, elbowing me, said, “Way too weird. Way too dark. Way too depressing.”
    That evening, my father brought home an electric typewriter that was missing its A and E keys and told me not to make any rice for tomorrow’s dinner because he was going to take me to a Chinese restaurant. He asked how graduation ceremony went. Showing him my writing, proudly wearing its gold star, I told him I had read it aloud without making a single mistake, without stuttering once. He skimmed through the pages, palmed my head, tilted my neck back, and said that my writing was the prettiest he had ever seen.

10
    When I told my father that a black boy on my bus was