Chapter 1
There’s this story that my mom loves to tell, about the day I was born. That year, Los Angeles was in the middle of a record-breaking drought. But when her water broke—“I swear to god, Samantha, I’m not lying”—the skies opened up and started pouring rain.
A decade-long drought was over in one day—that’s how powerful the storm was. And when I was born eleven hours later, the power had gone out in the hospital, and her first look at my face was by the harsh light of a nurse’s cell phone.
When I was little, this story made me feel special. Like my birth was a miracle, so much so that the natural world veered off course to welcome me in this spectacular way. And it was easy to feel special when I was small—when my mom’s world revolved around me, shaping me into the best human I could be.
But as that changed, so did my perception of this birth story. Was it actually a way of telling me that I was a perpetual pain in the ass, from the second I was born?
SAMANTHA, WHERE ARE YOU?
A raindrop fell on my cell phone screen, obscuring the aggressive text from my mom. I looked up at the darkening sky just in time to see a flash of lightning.
“Shit-shit-shit.” I slipped my phone into the pocket of my electric-blue knit dress and started to run from my car to the front steps of Oakwood Country Club. The drops immediately turned into a true downpour, and, within seconds, I was completely soaked. When I finally reached the covered entrance of the country club, my socks squished in my Docs. Guess they weren’t actually waterproof. And my dress was a splotchy freak show—wet spots transforming the stretchy material into a piece of abstract art. Yeah, I was looking pretty sharp for my country club interview.
The things I’d rather do than go to a country club interview:
- 1) Eat glass
- 2) Dig a ditch
- 3) Argue with a white person about “All Lives Matter”
The rain came down in sheets as I squeezed water out of my hair. My phone buzzed again.
YOU BETTER BE ON YOUR WAY.
Again, I ignored the text. I didn’t respond to all-caps texts from anyone but my best friend, Val, and only if it was because they were sending me a thirsty gif that needed my immediate attention. Also, there was something about the way my mom refused to ever use an exclamation point in texts, even when in all caps, that was a stealth power move. Not showing enthusiasm was my mom’s tactic of keeping people in her life in check. So, no, I wasn’t going to scramble to respond to her. Besides, I wasn’t technically late for the interview. Mom just had zero chill.
I watched two luxury SUVs almost collide into each other in the parking lot. One of the drivers threw up his hands in exasperation, the windows fogged up with heat. As one car passed the other wildly, its tires created a giant wave of water that doused a woman running across the lot. She looked utterly shocked as she scrambled toward her own car.
The drama. On instinct, I pulled out my phone and started a voice note.
Hi, Halmoni.
Have you ever noticed that when it rains in Los Angeles, reality shifts?
Like, sunny pastel buildings suddenly look dirty—stains showing up against hideous stucco walls. Flowers that haven’t existed for years bloom in the cracks of the center divider on freeways. You completely forget how to drive. What is driving? Water is touching my car!
A little boy with neatly cut dark hair pushed the country club doors open and bolted out, releasing a peal of laughter at the sight of the rain—a true rarity here in the fall. His parents tugged him back as he bolted straight toward it, hands reaching out eagerly.
There’s also a part of it that’s magical, right? We don’t get real weather here. So, when we’re reminded of these forces beyond our control—it feels otherworldly.
As if to punctuate that point, another flash of lightning lit up the sky. My body tensed as I waited for the rumble to come. And when it did, I felt it through my entire body—a roll of thunder that rattled my bones.
Where was I even going with this? It was a habit I picked up a couple years ago—narrating
dumb stuff I was thinking for my grandma, who loved listening to the voice notes I sent as if they were her own personal podcast.
When it rains here, you can kind of believe in something bigger than you. The possibility of something divine that could change your life in the time it takes for a crack of lightning to flash through the sky.
I stopped recording and pushed the doors open, the brass handles aged with a nice patina. Whatever genius revelation I was about to have evaporated as I walked into the lobby of Oakwood Country Club, across its plush, dark-green carpets, past a giant arrangement of fragrant lilies.
Each step I took toward my parents was punctuated by a squish.
Squish-squish. Squish.
“Hey.”
My parents turned at the sound of my voice. My mom registered my bedraggled state—eyes sweeping over me from head to toe. “Oh my god.”
I tried to smile. “Look, I’m on time!”
My dad looked baffled. “How in the world …?” He waved his hand in the general direction of my ruined clothing. The image that my parents wanted me to project for this interview, I’m sure.
My mother, on the other hand, looked her part. A Burberry trench coat was cinched at her waist, a dusty rose skirt peeking out from the bottom. Her long, dark hair was perfectly blown out and balayaged. A raindrop wouldn’t have dared to come within four feet of her.
“You knew the interview was today, what were you thinking?”
My mouth dropped open. “What? As if I could have predicted a downpour the second I parked the car?”
“Well, gosh, Samantha, there’s this thing called the weather report.” Mom was what businesswomen in Nora Ephron movies were like—acerbic. She had that quick wit and a sharpness that always cut to the bone.
I waved my hand through the air. “Who even checks that in LA? It’s either you wear a sweatshirt or not.”
Mom pinched the bridge of her nose. “Where were you after school?”
“I was helping Curren with his film for NYU.”
My parents exchanged glances. Lickety-split, but I still saw it. They didn’t hate my boyfriend, but they didn’t love him.
“You spend so much time helping this guy with his college stuff,” my mom said, her mouth set into a line. “Are you even getting anywhere with your own applications?”
This subject being brought up here of all places made my eye twitch. “Mom, I’m fine.”
“What’s ‘fine’ mean? You want to be on top of this so you’re not scrambling to get it all done!” Mom’s voice was raised and she glanced around, aware of her ruffle
feathers.
“I’m not going to scramble.” I dabbed under my eyes with my fingers, hoping to catch some mascara streaks.
“True, you’re not a scrambler.”
I let out a short laugh and my mom shook her head.
“My true dying wish would be for you to prioritize something important like this opportunity over helping your boyfriend.”
The word “important” pinged against the walls of my skull as an elderly couple walked by us in matching pastel windbreakers. I gazed at the pale pink wallpaper, the floral-print curtains.
I couldn’t help blurting out, “I just … why is this so important? I don’t understand why I have to be here.” My dad lurched away from us, suddenly fascinated by a watercolor painting of a French café hanging on the wall.
Mom drew close and pushed a strand of my damp hair behind my ear. “Because. They want to know our entire family. And, if we become members, you might have a place here for yourself in the future.”
Sometimes I felt like I was on a hidden-camera TV show. Like, the time when my mother acted like joining a country club was a legacy she should proudly pass onto her daughter.
“What?” I asked, the word sounding stupid to my own ears. “Is this a … thing … that I’m supposed to want?”
But before my mom could respond, a white guy with a deep tan and a soft chin approached us. “Hi, are you all the Kang family?” he asked, glancing down at a clipboard.
Mom’s face instantly transformed from irritated to sparkling. Her brow smoothed out, her eyes widened, and her smile was dazzling. “Yes, we are! I’m Mrs. Kang. But please call me Priscilla.” She held out her hand and the guy took it eagerly, his face blushing a bit. When my mom turned on the charm, most men turned into sweaty, flushed pervos.
“Great! I’m Tate Green, the director of new memberships here. We can sit over in the great room for the interview.”
He walked us over to a set of lemon-yellow striped sofas by a large picture window overlooking the golf course. We sat down on a long sofa and Tate took the armchair across from us.
Tate glanced down at his clipboard. “Well, let’s just see here … Dr. Kang, you work at Valley View Hospital?”
My dad nodded. “Sure do.” He was relaxed, his right foot propped over his left knee. In his navy suit and tortoise-shell eyeglasses, he and my mom looked like an attractive, wealthy Asian couple in a BMW commercial. The American Dream realized.
“And how long have you been a surgeon there?”
While they talked, I stared at Tate. I mean, how long does one need to be a brain surgeon before they were allowed in these hallowed, green-carpeted halls? He seemed to feel my gaze on him and shifted uncomfortably a few times, glancing at me every once in a while.
When he looked at his clipboard again, presumably to ask my mother what her LSAT scores were, I interrupted. “I have a question about Oakwood, Tate.”
My parents’ heads swiveled toward me, but I ignored them, leaning forward, a stream of water dripping off my collarbone and into my lap. I patted at it, absent-mindedly. “When did Oakwood Country Club have its first POC member?”
Without even looking at her, I could feel my mom’s soul leave her body.
Tate blinked. “Oh. Um,
POC …”
“ Person of color.”
He blinked again. “Yes, yeah, I knew that. Well, um, I wouldn’t know off the top of my head …”
My mom’s voice cut through his stammering. “Tate, what are your summer activities for teens?” She not so subtly placed a firm hand on my knee.
The relief was palpable when Tate straightened up and said, “We have several to choose from. Camps for golf, tennis, swim, and even arts and crafts. Is Samantha interested in any of those activities?”
I smiled blandly. “I’m graduating high school this spring. So, you will probably never see me again, Tater.”
My mom let out a peal of musical laughter. “Samantha’s the comedian of our family. We’re very excited and proud of her for graduating.”
Tate looked down at his file again. “Will she be joining her brother, Julian, at … oh, well, at Yale?” He grinned, an unspoken “Good for you” relayed to my parents. Their smiles were wide, but I could tell they were a little forced.
Never in one million years would I ever get into Yale. Or UCLA. Or a state school with a party reputation that guaranteed an STD your freshman year.
Unlike my brother, Julian, whose childhood as a literal genius put him on a path of studying some kind of sciencey thing so niche that he was featured in the New York Times, I was a solid B-student who had to take summer school so that I could raise my GPA every year.
While they chatted about Julian’s excellence some more, I stared out the window and had to squint against the blinding green of the grassy grounds.
“Samantha.”
My mom’s voice shook me out of my grass fugue state. “Tate wants to know about your activities at school.” There was a hint of a plea in her voice—like, “Please act normal.”
My activities. My mom knew I wasn’t involved in any clubs or sports or anything. I threw her a look.
“Well, I go to class. Talk to friends. Eat lunch. Go to class again.”
Nervous laughter all around. Tate scribbled something down on his clipboard, nodding his head. “Haha. Funny. So, are there hobbies or things you’re interested in?”
I had agreed to this because it seemed to matter to my mom, and I didn’t want to get into a fight. But this was really pushing it. What absolutely killed me, though, was that, yeah, if I weren’t being interviewed by some preppy reject from a John Hughes movie, I could talk about the things I enjoyed. Like, genuinely. Movies, books, podcasts. That absurdly long article in the New Yorker about the history of bananas.
But that wasn’t what Tater wanted to hear. Or my parents. They had tunnel vision—only seeing what they understood.
The green grass blinded me. “Yeah, I have interests. Like the climate.”
The smile never left his face, but his body shrank back with trepidation. “Wonderful.”
“Yeah, so that leads me to another question. Does Oakwood use greywater for its irrigation?”
Dismay crossed poor Tate’s face. Before he could stammer out yet another non-answer, my mom looked at me with a deceptively serene expression. “Samantha, I know you’re a budding activist”—what?—“but we’re the ones being interviewed right now, so let’s pull back a bit, okay?” The words were said lightly, good humor running beneath them. But I knew my mom was gonna straight-up murder me after this unless I smoothed it all over.
So, I smiled in response, knowing how to ease the room. “Haha. Sure. Just something to consider since I know that California has statewide water restrictions on golf courses and your lawns look incredibly green.” Everyone held their breaths. “Anyway, I’ve really been into body-boarding lately.”
The collective exhale from that room could have levitated the entire country club to the moon.
Chapter 2
The TV was blasting in the family room while my parents made dinner that evening. I could hear snippets of the local news when I walked into the kitchen after my shower.
“… the most rain Los Angeles has seen in decades … the last time LA had a storm this large was in 1995, when several people died in disastrous mudslides and flooding.”
Mom had her back to me, searing salmon on the stove, the sizzle loud and satisfying. My dad was chopping some fennel on the island when he looked up at me, shooting me a grim look. A bit of a warning about Mom’s mood, I would guess.
I padded over to a cupboard and grabbed a mug, filling it with tap water before popping it into the microwave.
“Why don’t you use the kettle?” Mom pressed down on the salmon fillet with her spatula.
The cold marble countertop dug into my backside as I leaned against it. “Mother. How many times do I have to tell you that microwaves don’t cause cancer? Don’t listen to that bing-bong juice lady.”
She cracked a smile then waved the spatula at me. “Gwyneth likes her.”
“If Gwyneth told you to put a jade egg in your—”
“Sam!” my dad yelled.
Mom and I started laughing and I was pleased. Getting my mom to laugh had been a hard task lately. A beat of silence passed before I said, “So, let it out.”
“Let what out?” Mom lowered the heat under the cast-iron skillet and turned on the range hood fan so that I had to raise my voice.
“I know you’re mad about the interview!”
She finally turned to look at me, wiping her hands on her pin-striped apron. “Listen, I’m not mad. Just—”
“Let me guess! Disappointed.”
“For the love of god, may I be allowed to finish?” Mom’s voice was testy.
“Okay.”
“Like I was saying. No, I’m not mad. But I wish you wouldn’t be so overwhelmingly obvious in not caring about something that I clearly do care about.”
The microwave beeped but I ignored it. “It’s a little hard for me to care about joining a country club. You must know how bizarre that is in this day and age.”
“I don’t know, actually.” Mom turned on the oven. “Not everyone is as judgmental as you, Samantha.”
I almost choked. The audacity of such a statement coming from her.
She continued, “Also, I felt sorry for that Tate kid with you asking all those inappropriate questions.”
I spun around to grab the mug from the microwave, still hot to the touch. “It’s only inappropriate to backwards-ass institutions like country clubs. Also, golf courses? Do you know how much water goes into maintaining those things in Southern California?”
Mom tossed the spatula into the sink. “While I’m ecstatic you’re showing concern about the environment—”
“Well, yeah. I don’t really have a choice, living here and all!” I interrupted.
“I can’t also help but wonder, why don’t you put that energy into joining the environmental club? It would be great on your college applications,” Mom said.
“You know, not everything in life has to be mined for the glory of college apps.” I reached for a chamomile tea bag to dunk into my mug. “Why can’t I just have an interest in something without it being used to turn me into a dutiful little consumer-driven citizen?”
Dad let out a low whistle. “That’s harsh, Sam.”
I flushed. “Sorry, I don’t mean—”
“To categorically insult us?” Mom asked, her voice steady.
An awkward silence settled in the kitchen. Dad busied himself with something in the fridge.
“I’m talking generally,” I said. “The world could use less consumerism.”
Mom laughed. “Okay. Well, enjoy that commune in the woods.”
“Mom. Easing off on consumerism doesn’t mean you become a doomsday prepper. There’s, like, an in-between there.”
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed, and she frowned down at it. “Why does this son of mine insist on texting questions that require an actual conversation?” she asked.
“Because he prefers machines to speak for him over any human interaction?” I asked dryly. Julian had truly thrived during lockdown like no one else on planet Earth.
She shook her head and tapped on her phone. The distinct digital jangling for FaceTime echoed in the kitchen.
“Hello?” Julian’s calm voice
rang out.
Mom’s face broke out into a grin. “Julian! What exactly’s going on with your tuition for next semester?” The two of them chatted about something money related and I popped my head into frame, behind Mom, making a face.
Julian squinted at the screen. “Hi, Sam.”
“Hey, Julian,” I said, scanning his face. It was so strange to go from seeing someone every day of your life to every few weeks via a screen. Whenever I saw Julian now, he looked a little different. Like today he had a light shadow of stubble. Weird. And his cheeks were more hollowed out than usual. But the changes were always subtle—he was Julian, after all. The short and tidy haircut always remained the same, as did his dark, serious eyes set under straight, serious eyebrows. Julian was fated to meet a flighty, artistic love interest one day, since he was clearly playing the role of the uptight, handsome scientist who needed to live a little.
My face inspection was interrupted by a flash of something colorful in the background. “Is that … are you playing Breath of the Wild ?” I asked.
The phone shook as Julian reached for something hastily. The screen in the background turned black. “Yes. I had a break from studying tonight.”
Julian acted like playing video games in his dorm room was the height of debauchery. Which was a bummer considering playing video games was the one overlap between us growing up. We never talked about our feelings, but we logged hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours playing games together. And because Julian couldn’t even have a casual hobby, his interest in video games didn’t just end with playing them. He became something of an antique video game collector—he owned all of the Nintendo consoles starting from the first Nintendo Entertainment System on. His old bedroom at home looked like a nostalgic shrine for former nerd Gen Xers.
Mom shot me a look. “Julian’s allowed to relax once in a while, Samantha.”
“I wasn’t criticizing him!” I exclaimed.
Julian let out a short laugh. “You’d be criticizing the way I’m playing. Can’t get past the Yiga Clan Hideout for some reason. My instinct is to blame the AI walk cycle, but I don’t think it’s that.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that complicated, dude. The Yiga Clan is just really hard. You can’t just explode your way out—it requires finesse. And being observant. You know this game teaches you how to beat it each time you lose.” Unsurprisingly, Julian overanalyzed video games, always taking them apart in his brain, dissecting what made everything work. “Took me an entire weekend of being holed up in my room to beat them.” I glanced at Mom. “You didn’t hear that, Mom. But isn’t it so fun? The story is so good and stays with you for days.”
“Being observant isn’t my strong suit,” Julian said.
Dad pushed between us to shove his face into view. “Hey, kid. How’s biochem going? As brutal as I remember?” I took a step back, literally pushed out of frame.
Julian’s answer was interrupted by a loud knock on the kitchen French doors. My aunt Gr
ace was standing outside in a wet raincoat. She waved when we made eye contact.
When I opened the door, the sound of the pouring rain filled the kitchen and Aunt Grace slipped inside, wiping her boots on the indoor mat. “Wow, this rain!” she exclaimed. “I literally saw a car wipe out on the 2 just now. This feels biblical.”
“Everyone’s acting like it’s the end times.” I took her coat from her. “I didn’t know you were coming over!”
She took off her boots and dropped her overnight bag on the floor. “I texted you!”
“What?” I checked my phone. It was dead. “Ugh, sorry. My phone battery lasts for like two hours these days. Even when it’s not on. How is that even possible?”
Mom made a tsk sound. “You still haven’t replaced it? Julian gave you that gift card.”
Julian’s disembodied voice asked, “You haven’t used that yet?”
“Hi, Julian,” Grace called out.
Dad held the phone out to face her. “Hi, Aunt Grace,” said Julian.
She waved and grinned. “Look at that five o’clock shadow. So manly.”
There was a beat of awkward silence and Julian didn’t respond right away. When he did, it was with a strained laugh. “Yes.”
But Aunt Grace answered smoothly, used to Julian. “Not that being manly matters. In any way at all. You do you.”
I laughed while Julian replied with a stuffy “Thank you.”
Mom took the phone back and wrapped up the FaceTime with Julian while Aunt Grace sniffed the air. “Mm, smells good in here. What’s cooking, gang?”
“Salmon and roasted fennel,” Dad said. “Did you bring any booze?”
Aunt Grace held up a canvas bag from a hipster wine shop on the east side. “Who do you think I am?” She walked over to put it in the fridge, landing a kiss on top of my head along the way. “It is so nice to be in this warm, dry suburban house.”
Mom took the wine and inspected the label. “We need to get your landlord to fix that leak of yours. ...
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