Trina

When Sonia asked me to display the new stack of Biweekly newsletters in the reading room on Wednesday, I couldn’t help but notice one of the front-page headlines: Eleventh Annual World Culture Day a Success.

World Culture Day was a second-grade event in Foxfield, if you were in Mr. Harley’s class.

The article was about a month and a half late, of course, but sometimes the Biweekly did that—saved fluffy stories to print weeks later when news was slow. Apparently, Mr. Harley’s World Culture Day was still a highlight of the school year.

I looked over the article quickly and sighed, remembering.

I had Mr. Harley in second grade.

So did Vic.

And so did Trina.

If I had just raised my hand for Argentina or Thailand or Mexico, or really any other country at all for the World Culture project, maybe Trina wouldn’t hate me so much.

But no—I had to pick South Korea.

My first choice had been China, because the food at Jade Noodle Shop was my absolute favorite, but Nina Moore got China, and I ended up with South Korea.

Trina picked South Korea too, but Mr. Harley assigned her Russia instead.

Korea was an obvious choice for Trina since her older brother, Trey, had been adopted from Korea as a baby. I had no personal connection to Korea at all, so why did I pick it?

I’d have to blame Aunt Julie.

Aunt Julie had just taken my mom and me to a Korean restaurant for the very first time, and we loved everything about it: the wooden tables only ten inches off the ground, the square red pillows inviting us to sit snuggled side by side, the rectangular paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, giving off a dim and cozy light. The waitresses wore traditional robes as they served us bowl after tiny bowl of precut food to mix in with our rice: vegetables of every texture and color, sauces, mushrooms, dumplings, egg.

The smell and taste of the delicious food were still fresh in my mind and on my tongue when Mr. Harley explained the project we were about to begin, so after I lost out on China, South Korea seemed like a good idea.

We had two weeks to prepare our displays, and I went all out. The day of the event I set up poster board with my own watercolor paintings of snow-covered mountains, wide fields of rice, and rocky land jutting into beautiful blue sea. I made another poster about fermented foods, with an ink drawing of a fermentation pot used to make kimchi, a traditional Korean food. I had paper menus from the Korean restaurant Aunt Julie had taken us to, and a tray of chopsticks people could practice using. I gave chopstick lessons throughout the morning, which I was only able to do because Aunt Julie had drilled me until I mastered the technique. She made me pick up dozens of raisins and drop them in a jar until my hand cramped and the sight of a raisin made my head spin.

But the best part of my display was the food, which Aunt Julie had helped me prepare. I had a vat of warm rice and lots of small dishes containing some of the key elements to bibimbap. Bibim means “mixed” and bap means “cooked rice,” which I explained while visitors made their own bowls of bibimbap, choosing from seasoned carrot, cucumber, shitake mushroom, radish, bean sprouts, and a red chili paste sauce to mix into their rice. I also had a regular soy sauce for people who didn’t like spicy.

My display was a hit because of the food.

Vic’s French table was also really popular because she had cheesy, warm samples of quiche Lorraine cut up on small plates for everyone to try.

Trina didn’t have a crowd.

Trina had a pretty set of Russian nesting dolls for people to play with and a whole book of postcards showing Moscow and Saint Petersburg and Russian architecture and landscapes, but the only food she had was borscht.

Borscht is a traditional Russian soup. It was a staple of the Russian diet, especially in the freezing-cold months, when it became the best way to warm up from the inside out. It was also bright red, and superthick, and suspiciously lumpy. It did not look appetizing. When Joey Tarquinio left his Guatemala table to look at the other displays and saw the huge bowl of borscht, he yelled, “Eww, blood! I’m not eating blood!”

Mr. Harley had a private talk with Joey then, and one of the teacher’s aides told Trina her soup looked delicious, but it was too late.

At the end of the event, as we were starting to clean up, I asked Trina if I could taste her borscht. (Aunt Julie hadn’t taken me to a Russian restaurant yet.)

Trina looked at me with a face hard as stone.

“You don’t know anything!” she shrieked at me, her eyes blazing. “You’re not even Korean!”

And I saw it—the rage in her.

She should have been mad at Joey for making fun of her soup.

Or at Mr. Harley for assigning her Russia instead of South Korea.

But no, she was mad at me.

I should have folded that day when we both raised our hand for the same country. I should have dropped my arm and let her have it. I should have walked away. But I was only in second grade, and I didn’t.

I shuddered at the memory and let out a long, deep breath, hard enough to push it away from me.

I fanned the newsletters out on the counter and read another headline: Mayor Investigates Need for Library. The article began: “With technology advances in today’s society and universal access to the internet, is a public library an effective and efficient use of taxpayers’ money? Mayor Trippley is currently—”

The bell jingled then, and I looked up to see a family walk in with two huge IKEA bags stuffed to the top with books to return. I neatly placed the Biweekly on top of the stack and made my way over to Sonia to help.