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You never get a second chance to make them. And my husband must have a doozy of a first impression with me.
Well ... technically it was a second impression. The first was when I grabbed his scarf and spun him around like a top at the airport. By accident! Always want to reiterate that. But how did my second impression go?
Better than the first.
Maybe.
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Outdoor pictures wrapped up and Letty was wishing she listened to Ben’s suggestion about the coat. But at least they were done. The photographer dismissed them and Ben walked up to explain what would happen next.
He spoke to Ki Tae first and turned to Letty, “Now comes the wedding breakfast.”
“Breakfast? Don’t you mean lunch?”
Ben shook his head. “It may be lunch time in the real world, but in the show you and Ki Tae have just walked out of the morning ceremony to enjoy your first meal together as husband and wife. The audience has no idea you spent two hours taking pictures for the publicity campaign.”
“Makes sense. And I’m starving!” Letty looked at her groom and held her hands over her stomach as she gave a pitiful whimper.
Ki Tae nodded and copied her movement showing he was also hungry.
“See that.” Letty smiled at Ben. “We don’t need you. We communicate just fine.”
“Don’t tell the director that.” Ben looked over his shoulder as if he expected to find the man in the yellow ballcap listening to every word. “He might decide he doesn’t need me either.”
“Don’t worry, my good man.” Letty propped her right hand on her hip and adopted a snooty tone. “I’ll keep it a secret as long as you do your job properly.”
“Thank you, madam!” He folded an arm in front of his stomach and bowed like a subservient butler.
Letty giggled and Ki Tae’s eyebrows dipped together in bewilderment as he watched the playacting. Ben motioned for them to follow him and they left the chilly rooftop for a cozy kitchen setup on the second floor. The other couples were nowhere to be seen. It looked like this wedding breakfast-lunch would be just the two of them—and Ben and the camera crew.
Her brand new husband disappeared to get his makeup retouched, and Ben led Letty over to the island in the middle of the kitchen.
“This is where you have a flirty time making breakfast together. Director Cho wants you to be sure and feed Ki Tae at some point, compliment his cooking, and toss a little bit of flour at him, but not enough to ruin his expensive, sponsored clothing.”
“Oh my word! Talk about orchestrated.”
“Don’t tell me you thought all those cute interactions on the variety shows were spontaneous?” Ben quirked his mouth at her.
“Of course they’re spontaneous. Maybe the director gives them a few hints. But the cast members truly love each other like a big happy family.”
Ben snorted. “If you only knew how many—”
“I can’t hear you!” Letty slapped her hands over her ears and singsonged, “La-la-la!”
Ben kept talking for a few seconds, but stopped when she shook her head and refused to listen. A crewman carrying a huge plastic box with wires gave her an odd look as he passed, but it didn’t even phase her. Letty was used to being the weird girl in the room. She saw Ben hold up both hands and mouth an “OK” and she uncovered her ears a little at a time.
“Fine,” he said. “They’re all big happy families who love each other and get together all the time when the cameras aren’t filming.”
Letty nodded. “Exactly! Now, where’s that adorable husband of mine?”
She spun around and almost bumped into her cameraman, who was following closely behind her.
“Oops. Sorry, Ducky. I forgot you were there. You must be part ninja.”
Ducky’s expression didn’t change as he kept filming.
“Letty, you’re breaking the fourth wall,” Ben said. “Don’t talk to him. He’s not there.”
Letty rolled her eyes and leaned closer to the cameraman. “Sorry, Ducky. I can’t talk to you. You’re not really there.”
A woman with an armload of groceries approached the kitchen island and set out a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, oil, and a few condiments. She spotted a smudge on the tiled counter and swiped at it half-heartedly with the sleeve of her sweatshirt before leaving. Letty walked over to the spot and saw a food stain from whatever had been cooked there the last time. She hunted under the sink where she found a dish towel and some soap. Letty combined the two under running water until she had a nice soapy lather and scrubbed at the dried residue.
“You don’t have to do that.” Ben reached for the towel. “Let me.”
“Hey! I’m the wife here.” Letty shooed him away. “Let me enjoy playing house for a while.”
“Forgive me, madam.” He motioned to the soapy spot. “By all means, enjoy yourself. I’m going to check in with the director.”
Ben left Letty to her Suzy Homemaker fantasies, and she had the white tiled counter sparkling by the time her K-pop husband returned from makeup. Ki Tae walked in the kitchen, flanked by a crowd as one woman fixed his hair, another straightened his jacket, and another ran a lint roller down his back.
He approached Letty and gave a gentle bow with his head. She grinned at him and copied his movement then started telling him about the time she was six years old and decided to surprise her parents by making breakfast while they slept. Instead of the sweet smell of pancakes, it was the fire alarm that woke them.
“Hopefully, my cooking ability has improved since then. But I’m not promising anything. Even if I did—”
“Whoa! Whoa, Letty.” Ben jogged up and held his arms in an X. “He understood maybe ten percent of that.”
“I know. But what are we supposed to do? Stand here and stare at each other until the translator gets back? Even if he doesn’t understand my words, he can sense the feeling behind the story. Ki Tae is clever like that.”
Ben looked over at the clever Ki Tae who was busy flicking a stray thread off his sleeve. “Yeah. I can see you two really connected.”
The booming voice of the director put an end to the discussion. Everyone scrambled to find their positions and Ben joined a short line of people sitting on the floor near the director’s chair. Some held cameras, one woman opened a notebook, and one man held up a poster board with something written in Korean.
The filming began and the fake husband and wife tied matching pink aprons around their waists. Ki Tae stared at the assortment of pots and pans and looked at Letty with a shrug.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” she said. “I got this.”
Talk about living the fangirl dream. Letty gloried in the chance to prove to her bias that she was a better cook now than at six years old. She cracked the eggs without a single shell falling into the bowl, whisked them gracefully with a tablespoon of milk, poured them into the pan, and deposited the light, fluffy results on a nearby plate. The final touch was using the ketchup to draw a red heart over the eggs. Letty smiled up at the camera and pretended she was a chef on a cable cooking show.
“You should always remember to finish your dish with a flourish,” she said in her best TV host voice. Letty shook the ketchup and began to draw her heart, but nothing came out. She tried squeezing the bottle and got the exact same results. Ki Tae leaned over and tapped the plastic bottle on top and said something in Korean.
“Knock, knock,” Ben translated in her ear.
Letty smiled at her hot but unhelpful sous chef and pounded on the end of the bottle. Her professional persona started to crumble as her perfect eggs got colder and colder. Maybe it would be easier to unscrew the cap? She grabbed the end and twisted it, but the air pressure must have built up in the container. She heard a noisy pop as the cap shot off and an explosion of ketchup propelled onto the front of her outfit.
Ki Tae gasped as he stared at the mess covering the top of her once white wedding dress. He reached out a hand but just stood there as if unsure what to do.
So much for looking like the perfect, graceful bride. Letty didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But there was one lesson she’d learned early on. When all else failed, play it off like a pro. Letty threw her arms in the air.
“Ugh! They got me!” She clasped a hand over her heart and staggered backwards to grab onto the counter with her other hand. “I can see the light,” she wailed as she reached up to the fluorescent bulbs hanging above. “Tell all the folks I loved them.”
Letty sank in a dramatic pile to the kitchen floor and closed her eyes, her spontaneous condiment demise complete. She waited for everyone to laugh, but they didn’t. You could have heard a feather drop, let alone a pin. Letty peeked one eye open at Ki Tae and he stood with his hand still outstretched, mouth hanging open.
Oops. Did over-the-top death scenes not translate in Korean?
Then she heard it. A smothered snort that turned into an all out guffaw. She raised her head and saw Ben sitting on the floor by the director with his head buried in his hands, his body shaking from the force of his laughter. It was like his breakdown gave a signal to the rest of the crew that she was just playing, not mentally deranged, and they joined in.
Ki Tae chuckled as he reached down and helped her to her feet.
“You o-kay?” he asked with his adorable accent.
“I’m fine, but my dress isn’t.” Letty motioned to her outfit and shook her head since Ben was too busy to translate at the moment.
Ki Tae picked up a paper towel from the counter and sweetly wiped off a few dots of ketchup that had spattered on her face. Letty used the still wet dish towel from earlier to clean up what was left of her wedding dress.
They finished off the scene with Letty feeding Ki Tae a forkful of the ice-cold scrambled eggs, and he gave her two thumbs up as a dutiful husband should. Director Cho called “Cut” and the crew rushed to take everything down. Ki Tae’s stylist hurried him away to clean off the one miniscule spot of ketchup that landed on his designer jacket and Ki Tae waved at Letty as he left.
Ben approached from the side while looking at his phone. “It looks like we go from here to the fourth floor where you two will open wedding gifts that the fans have sent.”
“I get presents too?” Letty clapped her hands together.
“Not really. The agency keeps them all.”
“That stinks. What if it has my name on it?”
“I don’t know if the 4ever fans are going to be sending anything nice to the girl who whacked their favorite in the face with a sign.”
“Good point. Did you have the bomb squad screen these before we open them? My goal is to salvage my international reputation before the end of the show, but I can’t expect too much, too soon.”
“I think pacing your expectations is a good idea,” he agreed.
“Oh, shoot!” Letty threw up a hand and smacked her forehead.
“What?” Ben looked around. “What’s wrong?”
“I forgot to toss flour at Ki Tae! Is the director mad at me?”
“I think your impromptu death scene more than made up for not following his directions. I bet they’ll use that clip in all their commercials. How did you come up with the idea so fast?”
“What can I say? I’m a saucy gal.”
Ben winced at the pun, but Letty kept her head held high. Her jokes might be corny, like something out of an old black-and-white movie, but making people laugh was the important thing. Maybe her death-by-ketchup would be enough to appease all the angry fangirls out there who lambasted her for months on the internet. Maybe this show would be her reputation resurrection.
