14-7-1 Contest

Chapter Two

The daughter bought plane tickets online for the lowest possible price and went about preparing for her journey. She highlighted the itinerary and double-checked the boarding times. She circled the layover times at California and Hawaii and marked the phone numbers and addresses of surviving relatives in both her cell phone and travel book, just to make sure. She updated her passport picture -- it was six years old, and she was no longer the awkward, pubescent girl with braces and cheeks full of red acne -- and she took out of the bank four hundred dollars, nearly depleting her savings.

The night before her morning flight, she carefully poured her grandmother's ashes from the jade urn into a large zip-lock bag. Her anxiously watching mother then swept the urn's insides with a dry rag in order to make sure all of her got out. The thought of leaving some of grandmother behind worried the mother, and the daughter kept touching her lucky necklace again and again.

In the morning, both mother and father accompanied her to Dulles International Airport, that concrete-and-steel confection of early-morning tempers, distilled voices and pattering footsteps. In her black carry-on suitcase, the daughter had the essential papers and, of course, her grandmother. It amused her to think of her grandmother within the confines of her bag, like a spoiled heiress's puppy.

The father cleared his throat several times and said, Well. Have a safe trip. Call us at the layover.

Her mother kissed the daughter and said, Well. Please be lucky. And be polite to the surviving relatives. And watch out for the grandmother.

They all hugged; the mother was sniffling. The daughter was reminded of her first day of college, when her mother left on her desk a plate of fermented persimmons that filled her room with the scent of home and rotting fruit. Her roommate had pinched her nose and said, "Ugh! What is that god-awful smell?" and so the daughter had thrown them away in the dumpster, which was far away from her civilized hallmates, all of whom had blonde hair and cartilage piercings. But thinking about college brought back memories of that unfortunate day when the daughter had returned back home without graduating, without a degree. Instead, college had given her thirty grand in loans to repay and a new source of quiet shame.

Would it be the same when she returned from Korea? She experienced a sudden wave of despair, of desperate undertaking, of advancing failure, although the task was so simple she couldn't imagine it going wrong. The mother and the father waved at her as she went through security, as she passed through the gate. She kept repeating the same sentence in her head, as she had on her first night at college, sleeping in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar building full of unfamiliar people: I am no longer the daughter. I am no longer the daughter.

***

The plane was crowded, and the businessman sitting next to her was annoyed to be seated Coach. He grew grouchier when she refused to give up the window seat. The girl watched the houses, trees and roads grow smaller and thinner and less substantial; white wisps of cloud secured her away from a world where she was a cashier at Target and stayed home on Friday nights with her mother watching Korean dramas. Up in the air, she was a different girl; she chewed her gum loudly and she listened to Britney Spears and she read, from front to cover, a boring magazine filled with all sorts of interesting tips. She learned:

1. One should never wear lipstick three shades darker than the skin tone
2. One should always put metallic shimmer in the crease of the eye
3. One should never have sexual intercourse on a yeast infection
4. One should always make sounds when giving a blowjob

because that would convince the man you liked it as much as he did. In her little blue diary she kept in her purse, she made these notes:

1. I don't own lipstick.
2. My eyes do not have an eyelid crease. This is why my eyes are small and the white people call me "chink".
3. I have never had a yeast infection and I have never had a sexual intercourse.
4. It is difficult to simultaneously blow and make noises. I can manage a grunt but it sounds like a sneeze with the breath of air. The crochety businessman gave me a "look".

She dozed during the layover in California, but once over the Pacific Ocean, she discarded her role as American girl and comfortably settled back into the skin of Jinhee, former daughter, former student, former child. She picked up her book on the mudang, the spiritual shaman of traditional spiritualism, and by the time she fell asleep, soaring somewhere over the vast Pacific, she had already read the book front to cover three times.

Word Count: 826
Total Word Count: 490 + 826 = 1,316