Famous Adopted People by Alice Stephens

Famous Adopted People by Alice Stephens

Author:Alice Stephens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unnamed Press
Published: 2018-02-25T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter 10

“I was always just a little afraid of being sent back to wherever it was I came from.”

–Melissa Gilbert

When Ting brought my breakfast the next morning, I was dry heaving into the toilet. She came into the bathroom and knelt beside me, pulling my hair back from my face. “Go away!” I rasped.

Last night’s bottle of champagne had been just the beginning of our bacchanalia. There were tumblers of Chivas Regal and then sake, soju, and wine with Cookie’s sushi dinner. The meal was a revelation in sea flesh, platter after sumptuous platter emerging from the kitchen, each one a jeweled mosaic accented with the perfect garnish: diaphanous slivers of fugu arranged into the shape of a flying crane, strips of eggplant for the legs, neck, and beak; marbled rectangles of rosy whale meat artfully fanned over shiso leaves and dotted with tiny yellow blossoms; vermilion fatty tuna, alabaster squid, and creamy blue suckered octopus tentacles arranged to resemble the North Korean flag; a massive lobster spilling snowy flesh from its tail while its tentacles yet waved. The evening culminated with Hennessey X.O, sipped and then gulped as we reviewed the audition clips of the finalists for this year’s crop of the Joy Brigade, which Honey explained was the ultimate dream of all North Korean girls and their families, securing their position in the “core class,” with all the privileges and opportunities that came with that coveted designation. As we watched an endless parade of teenaged girls disrobe, I learned that Jonny had recently been married to the daughter of a powerful general, a political arrangement that Honey assured me would soon blossom into a love match, because “Sally” was beautiful, graceful, and charismatic. “And none of this hiding the woman at home,” Honey chided Jonny. “You need Sally to be your Jackie O, an inspiration for all the commoners and a trendsetter for the women to model themselves after.”

Honey took her Joy Brigade obligations very seriously, keeping a careful evaluation of each girl, rating her on beauty, figure, breasts, legs, sex appeal, comportment, talent, and patriotism. Oddly, a 1 was the highest rating, a 5 the lowest, so the girls with the least points won. Each candidate gave an impassioned speech on her warm feelings for the Dear Leader, a few words of which Jonny would translate before collapsing into giggles at their clumsy metaphors or scoffing indignantly at their lack of ardor. Then she had to walk back and forth, bow, clap, wave, perform—the accordion was especially popular—and, finally, disrobe. Honey and Jonny favored full-figured girls with apple cheeks, a strong jaw that tapered to a softly rounded chin, and big, plump wonton-shaped eyes.

It seemed as if we auditioned every pubescent schoolgirl in North Korea, and I quickly found it depressing, but then Yolanda brought in a second bottle of Hennessey, and I decided to go with the flow, shouting out whatever free-association thing floated in my brain—Teacher’s pet! Banana tits! Wants it hard! Likes to kick puppies!—until Honey told Yolanda to take me back to my room.



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