Free Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller Page B

American goods on the table, naming them as I sampled each one: “Be-enna sa-sa-gi. Pow-da mil-ku. Cheezu Wheezu.”
    â€œThey were supposed to be for my mother,” she said after I had devoured everything. I was so angry that I couldn’t taste what I had eaten, and that made me angrier.
    â€œDon’t try to make me feel guilty,” I said, glowering.
    â€œHer darkie boyfriend brought them one day,” Sookie said, rolling the empty Vienna sausage can around the table. I didn’t remember eating those, but I must have; I could still taste the juice it was packed in. “He came by a couple weeks ago looking for her. He had gone to the club where she worked and they told her she was sick at home. So he came here. ‘You Duckie’s sister-san?’ he asked me.
    â€œDo you know, Hyun Jin,” Sookie asked, “what I thought of when he asked if I was my mother’s sister? Remember what my mother told us, the secret about miguk eyes?”
    â€œThat fairy tale that Americans cannot see who we are?” I scoffed.
    â€œI didn’t believe her, either,” Sookie said, “But when her boyfriend asked me that, I began to wonder if what my mother told us was true.”
    â€œWhat did you tell the guy?” My chest felt tight, as if I were the boy trapped by the fox girl’s spell.
    Sookie shrugged. “I told him, ‘No I am not, you blind, fat-nosed American.’ ” She grinned. “Then I told him in English: ‘No. No sister-sans. Me baby-san. Duk Hee mama-san.’ ”
    I was impressed. I didn’t know her English was so good. “Then the darkie left?” I asked, still wondering how she got the food.
    â€œWell, the darkie didn’t leave right away,” Sookie said. “First he just stood at the door shaking his head, looking like a confused cow. ‘Mama-san?’ he repeated: ‘Duckie mama-san, you baby-san? Old, how muchie?’
    â€œI told him again, slow so he could understand: ‘Duk Hee. Is. Not. Home. She’s at the hos-pi-tal.’ And I closed the door on his face.”
    â€œNo!” I said. “You should have been nice to him. He’s your mother’s boyfriend.”
    â€œWell,” Sookie shot back, “I could barely understand a word he was saying. Besides, I figured my mother could always get another boyfriend.”
    I shook my head. She knew her mother had been working that Joe for a while. Most of her boyfriends were good-timu boizu. But that one, she was hoping would get serious enough to ask her to marry him. Americans were different from Koreans that way; an American man would marry a “young sexy” if he thought he loved her enough.
    Sookie held up her hands. “Hyun Jin, wait. Wait until I finish the story before you say anything. Listen:
    â€œAfter I closed the door on his nose, I was thinking the same things you’re probably thinking. That I ruined my mother’s chances, right?
    â€œBut you know what, Hyun Jin? That darkie came back! The next night. And with a bag of food—American food that I never saw before.” She held up the packages in front of her. “This and this and this. And more.” She looked at the table and sighed. “Which is now all gone.”
    â€œHe just gave you the food? All of this? For nothing?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it. It would have taken all the money my father made in a year at the store to buy all that food.
    â€œI told you to let me finish the story,” Sookie snapped, suddenly angry. “When he gave me the food, he told me, ‘You hungry, you find me. Chazu. Club Foxa.’ ”
    â€œWhy would he give you all that for nothing in return?” I stopped to think. “I bet he was in love with your mother! I bet he was coming to take her with him. I bet he saw you, and thought, ‘Oh, no! she has a child from another man,’ And that was it. I