When she was a child, her father always talked to her to be number one. Her father not only talked it to her actually, but also to her two brothers and sister. Because she was a child, she only accepted it without daring to ask more for the specific one. Until now, she even does not understand what her father’s means.
Her family comes from the colored race living in America. Then, she assumed that as immigrants, her father wanted all his children to be rich and useful people, especially for the colored ones. Furthermore, most of her father’s generation lived in a poor condition, automatically father hoped all of his children would be able to be number one. Though in fact, her family is considered richer than any other colored people surrounding hers, her father insisted her and her sister and brothers to do better than him.
Uniquely, when saying number one, her father never held up his index finger, middle finger instead. Later, when she grows up, she knows that actually her father’s way in expressing becoming number one with middle finger is a symbol or world’s sign language for “fuck you”. In her opinion, she wonders whether her father wanted her, her sister, and brothers to be number one while fucking the world, or otherwise, the life would fuck them. Unfortunately, when she is confident enough to ask, her father is blank and forgets about what he has said to all his children. Afterward, she wonders that whether her job, working in Washington Post Magazine, is the same as being number one.