The clerk meets my gaze in the mirror. “I’m sorry.” She grimaces. “Let me try again. This color normally works well with every skin tone. If you—”

I wave her off. “Nah. It’s fine. I have the same problem. I’ve got to run anyway.”

And it’s true. Time has gotten away from me, and Boyoung is probably waiting at the restaurant. She’s always punctual. The hostess at Tofu greets me with a Korean hello—annyeonghaseyo. I try to echo it back but based on the funny expression on the hostess’s face, I can tell I’ve butchered the pronunciation again. There are a handful of Asian people in this town and I sense that I’ve embarrassed myself in front of half of them.

Boyoung is at the table near the window overlooking the parking lot. A slight smile dances around the corners of her mouth.

“Did you hear?” I slide into my side of the booth.

Boyoung nods. “Your pronunciation is getting better,” she lies.

“It’s terrible, but thanks for not laughing at me. One of these days, I’m going to say it perfectly. It might be the sole Korean word in my vocabulary, but I’m going to sound like a native when I say it.”

“That’s not true. You sound like a Korean when you say ottoke and ppalli ppalli.”

“‘What to do’ and ‘hurry up’ and ‘hello.’ I feel like I could navigate the whole of Seoul,” I joke.

Boyoung giggles, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth.

“How’s class?” I ask as we wait for our pizza to arrive. Pizza is Boyoung’s favorite American food, yet she only likes it from this Korean restaurant that serves the most amazing fried chicken around as well as super-cheesy oven-baked pizza. They don’t make it in Korea like they do here, she’s said repeatedly. In the months that I’ve known Boyoung, the girl has eaten pizza here every week and it’s always the same—cheese with pineapple and ham.

“Great. I am almost done with my fellowship paper.” Boyoung is part of a cultural educational exchange at the local college. It was a new graduate school program that started this spring and my Korean friend was one of the first participants.

I feel like some proud mother whenever Boyoung talks about her project. She picked a college here! In the Midwest! All the way from Korea! Boyoung fascinates me. I don’t know many Koreans. There is the couple that run one of the three Asian groceries in town. I’m a little abashed to go in there because I don’t know what half of the items on the shelves are for. I’ve used the internet to decipher what I could about the things that Mom made at home when I was younger like the vermicelli noodle dish with the dried mushrooms and the kimchi jjigae, with a broth made out of dried anchovies and seaweed, which sounds terrible but is one of my favorite dishes ever. I took Boyoung there and she explained a bunch of things to me and even bought a few ingredients for me to try. A certain type of ramen was the best and had I tried cheese in it? No, never, and it was shockingly good. Microwave rice beats instant rice by the length of a marathon or three. Curry vegetables out of the refrigerated section weren’t half bad.