The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,21
old Pokémon cards from under the dresser.
I cleared my throat. “Mom, can you please leave? I’ll clean up later. I promise.”
She held up the trading cards and asked Kate, “You play these too?”
“When I was younger,” Kate said, amused.
“He used to play all time. Pokémon this. Pokémon that. You know what that make me? His mother?”
Kate shot me a concerned look, and I shrugged. I had no idea what in the hell Mom was talking about.
She took the bait. “What does that make you, Mrs. Kim?”
Mom held her head high and puffed her chest. “I am Poké-MOM!”
Kate snorted hard. Any harder and she would need to see an ENT specialist.
Mom jokes. So grossly underrated compared to Dad jokes.
“Oh God, can you leave please?” The warmth in my cheeks spread through my whole body. I was on fire, and not in the “boy, you got this!” sense. Thankfully, my mom exited quickly, taking the laundry and Pokémon cards with her.
Kate wiped her eyes. “Oh my God, your mom—she’s so funny!”
“Yeah, she’s a real riot,” I said flatly.
She took a small handful of Cheez-Its and popped them in her mouth. “Fank your murm for thith,” she said with her mouth full, giggling as she walked over to the short walnut bookcase under my window. Kate examined the trophies my mom had lined up in a perfect row just before I kicked her out.
She swallowed. “Damn. You really do Krav Maga? Isn’t that the martial arts where you attack to kill?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. But it’s more like, defend yourself to the death, for me at least. I have two more belts to go.” The last two were basically impossible to get. For brown and black belt, I’d need to master choke holds plus gun and knife disarmament, which would take several years minimum. That was some military-level shit. “All you learn the first few months is how to kick a perp in the balls.”
“Well, that sounds handy. Or should I say, ballsy? Can you teach me sometime?”
I snort-coughed my juice again. It burned. So painful. “You can lend my mom that joke. And sure. I’d be happy to let you practice pretend-kicking me in the balls. Maybe after work one night.”
We smiled, and our eyes locked for a fleeting moment. She glanced down and went back to trophy scrutiny. “You got first place in one hundred meters last month? Wow, you’re fast.” She peered closer at a small, shield-shaped plaque next to my latest track award. “And only second place in archery?” she smirked. Wiping the dust off my name with her index finger, she asked, “Who got first place?”
“This guy Nate Bishop. He cheated, though. He took an extra turn. But he’s not around anymore.” Nate moved to Olympia a month ago and I heard he went by Nathaniel now, his full name. Good riddance. He really was a better shot than me, and all around a better, stronger, faster Nate. Way better looking than me, too, the bastard. Nate 2.0.
“No rock climbing or mountaineering awards, Nate? Such an underachiever.”
I scratched my brow. “Mountain climbing is on my bucket list. Rock climbing’s not my thing. Way too scary. Too high for me.”
“I was kind of joking about the last two things. I don’t have any awards or trophies like these. I only do theater, and I never win trophies for getting my lines right.”
She didn’t ask any more questions, a relief really, because no normal person likes to talk about their fears.
By some stroke of luck, I’d moved all of my grade school trophies and other embarrassing old arts and crafts projects to my closet just a few days earlier. She didn’t see my cringeworthy honorable mention for fifth-grade spelling bee or my most improved fourth-grade soccer certificate. “Most improved” awards were the worst: you sucked at something and got better. It didn’t mean you were actually any good.
“This is so cute,” she squealed, lifting my “Fastest Tadpole—Freestyle” medal from the shelf. Crap, I’d thought that I’d thrown that out years ago, or at least had