Its black ink was frail and flowed unsteadily, so she used it sparingly, for crucial notation only, like marking on her calendar the rehearsal dates given to her by Mr. Z. The sessions hadn’t yet begun, and all she knew about the play was that it was a two-hander where she’d be acting opposite a cute boy named Arik Kistorian, and that the performance was tentatively set for Christmas Day.

Helicopters buzzed over the Park house as the girls ate their ramen dinner and watched Extra—Hollywood ingénues had called each other vaginal epithets again, someone was gaining weight, someone else was losing weight. The police choppers had been circling their area ever since a slew of break-ins was reported at the start of the summer. They zipped around for ten to fifteen minutes at dusk every couple of days, looking for men in hooded sweatshirts roaming the neighborhood.

“What did they just say about Lindsay Lohan’s crotch?”

“Didn’t hear it! That dumb chopper!”

“Crank it up, man!”

“You have the remote. You do it!”

They turned up the TV and immediately their mother started yelling from the kitchen: “Don’t make so much noisy! Mama have headache!”

Their mother was wrapping up ceramic dinnerware in old newspaper and stuffing it into boxes. The girls never offered to help, hoping that as Mrs. Park grew more and more exhausted, she’d come to the conclusion that her Korea plan was doomed to fail.

The girls turned off the TV and bussed their bowls to the kitchen sink. Seeing their mother packing up nice-looking plates that had never made it to their dinner table, they rolled their eyes at each other.

“When did we get these?” asked Mira. “I’ve never seen them before.”

“Wedding present,” Mrs. Park answered, her widow’s peak drenched in sweat. “Many years old.”

“How come we never used them? They’re so chic.”

“They too good,” Mrs. Park said, matter-of-factly.

“Too good?” Mira picked up one of the plates and turned it over. “This is, like, IKEA.”

Rosemary pinched her sister’s arm hard. She knew Mira was just trying to pick another fight with their mother.

“Ma, Rosie’s hurting me!”

Mrs. Park was wise enough not to respond. She continued packing.

The girls slumped listlessly back to the den where the ceiling fan rattled, and sprawled out on the cool tile floor.

“Do you think we’ll make it to Christmas, staying here?” Rosemary said.

Mira kept quiet.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

“I am be-ing hyp-no-tized by the ro-ta-ting blades . . .” Mira stared at the fan, then flaunted her crossed eyes. “Frankly, I don’t think we’re ever going to leave this gulag.”

“What do you mean? In a couple of hours, she’ll be on the phone calling people in Korea again. At some point, someone’s going to say yes!”