“Totally,” I say, nodding eagerly. I can’t contain the biggest smile as I take my first bite of dinner.
I still haven’t gotten a yes, but the following week, Umma and Abba KakaoTalk with Manager Kong for hours at the kitchen table as I try to listen in from the living room. After their long video calls, Umma and Abba go on and on about what a nice person Manager Kong is. This confuses me, because Manager Kong strikes me as a lot of things, but nice isn’t one of them.
S.A.Y. sends over their trainee contract for my parents to look at. Both my parents, but especially Umma, hate signing contracts, and this one is literally seventy pages long. Umma asks the ladies in her Bible study group if anyone knows a lawyer in Korea, and it turns out Deaconess Min, my friend Jinny’s mom, has a cousin’s wife’s brother who understands the crazy-complicated Korean entertainer contracts. Umma convinces him over KakaoTalk to look at mine, and he says it’s pretty standard. Yes, the company will totally own my time while I’m a trainee, but it doesn’t try to pull any insane tricks like some of the smaller K-pop companies do.
What really worries Umma and Abba is a clause in the contract that says S.A.Y. can delay making a decision about the final girl group lineup way past late August, and during that time, I’ll still be trapped in the company as a trainee. Umma and Abba insist on changing it so I’m allowed to leave S.A.Y. if they haven’t made a decision by August 29—the day before the first day of my junior year at Fort Lee Magnet.
Umma and Abba stay up late one night to negotiate this point with Manager Kong and the S.A.Y. lawyers. The lawyers put up a huge fuss, saying that they can’t agree to that, that they’ve never made an exception like that for anyone before in the history of the company. But Umma and Abba are adamant.
For an entire week, S.A.Y. goes completely silent.
To my surprise, I’m actually kind of relieved. There’s something comforting about being able to continue with my regular life, knowing I had the talent, knowing S.A.Y. wanted me, without actually having to go to Seoul to prove myself.
But I also know that there’s a fire within me that won’t let me admit this out loud. When Umma and Abba check in with me, asking if I still want this, I keep saying yes.
Finally, on a Sunday afternoon, S.A.Y. KakaoTalks Umma and Abba back. While we’re still in our church clothes, they sit me down at the kitchen table.
“S.A.Y. has agreed to our deadline of August twenty-ninth,” says Umma, pressing her lips together firmly. “Their only condition: If you quit their trainee program before that date, and they still haven’t chosen the girls to debut, we will be billed for the full cost of your training, which will be tens of thousands of dollars. I don’t tell you that to say you can’t quit early—if they mistreat you, or you’re unhappy, we want you to quit right away. We will find a way to pay the price. We just want to make sure you’re serious about this. That this is really your dream.”
I’m shook. In no scenario did I see this working out. I nod my head slowly.
We work out a plan—or really, they do, as I listen with my mouth hanging open: The day after my last AP exam, I’ll fly to Seoul with Umma. Umma will stay in an apartment in Seoul paid for by S.A.Y. the entire time I’m training at the facilities. Umma will take that time to take care of Harabuji, whose condition is getting worse; he’ll probably have to be moved to a hospital. For the first month, I won’t be able to see Umma or even leave the training facilities at all while I get acclimated to trainee life. After that, I’ll be able to spend Saturday nights and all day Sunday with Umma each week, but that will be the only break from training I’ll get. Back home, Abba will take care of the store by himself with help from Tommy, who’s staying in Jersey for the summer for football camp.
“Does this sound good?” Abba asks.
Suddenly, I burst into tears. I sob in Korean, “Yes, this is everything I want.”
Umma and Abba are shocked by my reaction. “Why are you crying?” asks Abba.
“I’m crying because I’m so happy,” I blubber, even though that’s not exactly true. I’m crying because I’m amazed they’re willing to let me do this. I’m crying because I can’t believe I thought Umma kept me away from singing because she didn’t love me enough.
Umma comes around the table and holds my head against her body. “We just want our Candace to be joyful,” she says.
Every night for the next three weeks, I have a panic attack about how much my family is sacrificing to let me go. My parents are going against everything they believe about parenting, and the American dream, to let me do this. I feel so grateful and unworthy that most nights, I cry myself to sleep. I can’t help but think a huge reason Umma is going through with this is so she can take care of Harabuji in Korea. There’s nothing good about Harabuji being sick, but it is making all this feel like it’s really going to happen. Knowing this fills me with too much guilt to handle.
I study for my end-of-year exams harder than I’ve ever studied in my life, and I end up acing them, even Honors Precalculus, the exam I was most worried about. I get fives on my AP Bio and Lit exams. I do extra work at the store. I even practice the viola a little.
Before she’s off to volunteer digging latrines in Paraguay for the summer, Imani schools me even harder on K-pop history, going all the way back to the beginning of the modern hip-hop era, with H.O.T. and S.E.S. and Shinhwa from the nineties. I cram as much Korean language as I can, watching K-dramas with Umma and Abba after dinner most nights—they couldn’t pay me to watch them in the past.
When S.A.Y. sends over a packet of fifty song lyrics I should know before I arrive (twelve of them are American songs, three of them by Ariana Grande, thank goodness), Umma even goes over them with me during slow moments at the store. “You need to understand the meaning of every word to know how to perform it,” she says while we dissect the lyrics for “Into the New World,” Girls’ Generation’s debut single from 2007. “This song is about beginning a journey that’s sure to be long and uncertain, yet moving forward with courage, knowing you have a heart full of hope and love.”
“Wow, really?”
I’ve watched the “Into the New World” MV with Imani, who told me it’s a girl group classic that I’d probably have to sing a bunch of times as a trainee. But it struck me as a bubblegum pop song sung by nine adorable, smiley girls who looked like they were in the fifth grade. I had no idea it was so deep.
“Make sure you’re thinking about that meaning when you sing the chorus,” says Umma. Then she clears her throat and sings the lines for me.
I’m speechless. I’ve only heard Umma sing a handful of times in my life; she barely sings above a whisper during hymns at church. Her voice is rich, coating my ears and raising goose bumps on my skin. I’m so glad she’s coming with me on this journey, just like the song says.
Just after she finishes singing, a tired-looking blond woman comes in to buy some Advil and order a tarot bubble tea. Umma mixes the tea for her like nothing happened.
Tommy, Abba, Imani, and Ethan all come to Newark Airport to see us off. I almost wish they wouldn’t. What if this is a total disaster, and I have to come back in a week, full of shame? I mean, I’m probably going to fail: I speak terrible Korean, and I can’t dance!