“Wait, do you remember Bubble Day?” Alex asks. In a crazy twist of fate, Alex and I discovered that not only did we both grow up in New York, but before I moved to Korea, we both attended the same elementary school, PS 41 in the West Village.

“Yes!” I say slapping my hand on the table excitedly. “Oh my gosh, best day of school ever.”

“Even better than the annual field trip to the Central Park Zoo?” he asks with an eyebrow raised.

“Oh yeah, way better,” I say, laughing. “I mean, I loved the seals, don’t get me wrong. But come on, Bubble Day was next-level!”

Every year on the day before the whole school started a week of standardized testing, the teachers hosted “Bubble Day” to help us kids learn how to fill out the multiple-choice bubbles on the Scantron forms. We were given bubble gum (which was usually forbidden), and at recess the local firefighters came by and used their hoses to make a huge soap-bubble pile on the basketball court for us to play in. My friend Inez and I used to put a handful of suds on our chins, both of us saying “ho-ho-ho” in our best Santa voice over and over until we were cracking up with real laughter.

I’m so relaxed reminiscing with Alex that I don’t even realize the couple from across the café who was sharing an almond croissant is walking toward us until they’re right next to our table.

“Excuse me,” the girl says with a tentative smile. “Are you Rachel Kim? Sorry, I don’t want to intrude, but would you mind taking a photo with me?”

She holds up her phone hopefully. “I don’t want to intrude” is one of the most frequent things people say while doing exactly that.

“Oh!” I say, caught off guard. I recover quickly with a smile, sneaking a quick side glance at Alex, who raises his eyebrows in confusion. “Of course. I’d be happy to.”

Okay, so maybe I’m not a pushover with just Leah and the Cho twins.

She excitedly hands off her phone to her boyfriend, and we pose for a photo. I can feel Alex staring at us, trying to figure out what he’s missing, and suddenly realize that somehow, in our past hour of conversation, we must not have covered what I do for a living. Does he really not know?

After the girl thanks me for the photo and leaves, I turn to Alex with a sheepish smile.

“Okay, I feel like a total grandpa asking you this, but… are you famous or something?” he says, laughing.

“I mean… is it rude if I say yes?”

He laughs again.

“But yeah, people do tend to recognize me. I’m part of a girl group called Girls Forever. We’re, um, pretty well-known in the K-pop world.”