Frankly in Love

by David Yoon

  Monday rolls around. In Calculus, Brit drops her eraser and I pick it up for her.

  “Thank you,” she says, eyes ablaze.

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  “Well, you two are cordial,” says Mr. Soft, with a perplexed look like someone may have just farted roses. “Okay, turkeys, brief history of the farce that is the modern SAT.”

  Class ends. I give Brit a long parting look, and she holds it until she vanishes around a corner.

  “Amore,” says Q. He claps his hands. “So. Blood Keep ended badly. Paul Olmo’s mage is dead.”

  I shoot Q a look. A character dying is a big deal, and unlike in video games it’s permanent. “No shit. What happened?”

  Q shrugs. “Got greedy. He’s been running this scam where he ripped off our party’s gems and swapped in fake ones so no one noticed. But oh, they did.”

  “Paul did this?” Paul turned in loose wallets to the lost and found. Paul didn’t steal.

  “The party offered him an ultimatum: battle them or preserve some of his dignity through suicide.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You think you know people,” says Q, breathing mist onto his glasses.

  I can see two dozen gem-shaped metaphors incoming, and I just have to laugh.

  Just then Joy Song emerges from the crowd, eating from a bag of gigantic grapes. I know these grapes. They’re called wang-podo. Wang is Korean for king size, and podo just means grapes. Anyway, I think Koreans have a thing for really super-big grapes.

  Joy sticks her tongue out and sidearms a wang grape—thwack—onto my neck.

  “Fuck,” I say, laughing.

  “Hahahahaahehehehahahaha,” says Joy.

  I pick up the grape and fling it at her.

  “Aaaaaaa,” says Joy, and runs away. But she looks back to share a grin with me.

  Q just gives me a sober look. “Oooookay?”

  “Well,” I say, struggling for words. “We’re family friends, right? But we got to talk with each other at a Gathering, like really talk, and it turns out she’s super cool.”

  “Uh-huh,” says Q, still with that look.

  “Don’t think with your mouth open,” I say.

  Later, I’m driving us to Q’s house. Tonight is chicken tetrazzini, but with Louisiana hot sauce because only someone with the taste buds of a baby would eat that shit plain.

  “So, you like Brit,” says Q slowly.

  I swim the car side to side. “I like Brit, yes.”

  “Then what was that whole Joy thing?”

  “Joy and I are good friends,” I say. “Just up until now I didn’t know how good of friends we could be.”

  “So you’re just really good, really brand-new friends.”

  “Basically.”

  Q’s phone buzzes, but he ignores it. “Why didn’t you just say that, then?”

  I feel Q’s words pinging around in my brain.

  Why didn’t you just say that?

  Why didn’t you just say?

  Why didn’t you?

  Why?

  I should tell Q everything. I don’t want to deceive him about my . . . deception.

  That sounds weird.

  “So listen,” I say. “There’s something you should know about me and Joy. Let’s just say we have a special relationship. With special benefits.”

  Q’s eyes widen.

  I put up jazz hands. “Whoa whoa whoa. Not special benefits special benefits.”

  Q’s fartphone buzzes again. It’s his mom, who Q puts on speaker.

  “Will?” says Q’s mom. She still calls him that. “Please do not put me on speaker.”

  “Too late, Mom.”

  “Can you pick up your sister from the dojo on the way home, please?”

  “I’m in the middle of a very important conversation, Mom.”

  “We’re happy to do it, Mrs. Lee,” I say. Q punches me and I barely feel it.

  “Thank you, Frankie.”

  Q hangs up and aims a finger at my eye. “Continue.”

  “More like to be continued,” I say back. “Let’s get your sister first.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We shovel our way through dinner, sweating heroically from the spice. Evon is apparently too smoking hot to perspire the slightest bit, even after seconds.

  She offers me a napkin. “So. Brit.”

  I look at her, but her beauty is too painful and I must avert my eyes.

  “I think that’s sweet,” says Evon. “Although isn’t she a little young?”

  “She’s literally three months younger than me.”

  “Anyway, it’s cute.”

  “Wait,” I say. “You know I’m like a month older than you, right?”

  “And I’m three seconds older, because—” says Q.

  “Stop,” says Q’s mom.

  We forget to clear our dishes, are reminded to, go back to clear our dishes, and run upstairs to Q’s room to start cramming for the SAT. I can tell Q is dying to ask me questions about Joy, and I too am dying to tell Q everything, but we get the work out of the way first because we are those kids and the test is only a couple days away.

  The SAT is a ridiculous exam, written as if it were geared toward aliens visiting Earth for the first time.

  Valentine’s Day is an important celebration of love and deep friendship where people send each other traditional “valentines.” If there are 110 valentines to be sent within a group, and each member of that group must send one valentine to everyone else in that group, how many people are in the group?

  “It’s eleven,” I say. “Each person sends ten valentines, because you don’t send a valentine to yourself, and eleven times ten is 110.”

  “Yay, your logic is mind-altering,” says Q. We close our books. “Now: about your special relationship with Joy. Are you or are you not playing two girls at once?”

  “That’s awful, no!”

  “Are you one of these so-called players, plotting to use Brit to make Joy jealous enough to leave Wu and get together with you?”

  “No, but that is impressively complicated.”

  “Give me the straight dope. Don’t make me wrassle you.”

  “Listen.”

  “I’ll take you down.”

  “We’re dating, but it’s all fake.”

  Q stops. He makes a stank-face. “Hah?”

  I take a breath and continue. “We made our parents think we’re dating, so that way I can go out as much as I want with Brit, and Joy with Wu.”

  “Because Brit is—”

  “Mmm.”

  “And Wu is—”

  “Right.”

  “And your parents don’t—”

  “Exactly.”

  “Ahhhh.” Q nods and nods, appreciating the cleverness of the setup. But his face contracts. “You’re swapping gems.”

  I think about Paul Olmo, waiting to unload his sachet of glass baubles while the rest of the party was asleep.

  “I am not swapping gems.”

  “A gem swap this is.”

  “Did you steal my charger?” says a voice. It’s Evon, dressed in a shiny outfit that could be meant for either sleep, exercise, or a night out.

  “You’re rudely interrupting a prolonged dialogue of great intensity,” shouts Q.

  I toss her a Loco-Lime™ green charger from my bag. “Use mine.”

  Evon snatches the charger out of the air without looking—impressive—and points it at me. “At least some boys are gentlemen.” She shuts the door behind her.

  “Shut the door,” says Q, too late.

  “Anyway,” I say, returning to Q. “It’s a win-win setup.”

  I can see Q consider me and Joy’s scheme as if considering the integrity of an algorithm,
and his eyes dart brightly back and forth until he hits a snag.

  “But for how long?” he says finally.

  “As long as we can,” I say with a shrug. “Summer? Graduation?”

  “And then what?” says Q.

  “Then we’re in college, and we can really do what we want.”

  Q levels his brow at me. “And then?”

  “No and then,” I say, quoting a favorite movie of ours.

  “I just think you’d be better off coming clean to your parents, even if you take months to do it.”

  “I’m not pulling a Hanna.”

  “Hanna did it too abrupt and without warning,” says Q. “You should ease them into it. Ease.” He carves a gentle path with both hands.

  I don’t want to go down this path of his. “Do I seriously have to formulate a long-term parental diplomatic strategy just to date a girl? I mean, you wouldn’t have to.”

  Q concedes this point. “In theory. In reality the whole thing is moot, unless—”

  Q cuts himself off. Is he thinking of someone?

  I pounce. “Unless what? Unless who?”

  I study Q’s face. It’s fascinating: Q is suddenly shy.

  “Come on,” I say. “Who is it you like?”

  Like I mentioned, Q and I normally never talk about romantic interests. But he must have them. Sure, he’s a huge socially awkward nerd—but he’s a boy just like any other boy. It just feels weird to talk about romance with a friend you’ve had forever. He liked a girl one time in middle school—Kara Tram—and we barely talked about it. She moved away, and that was that.

  Q thinks with his mouth open for a long moment before speaking. “That bit of information is only for the queen herself, old chap.”

  “Amelie Shim.”

  Q’s lips go tight. He shakes his head. “Mmm.”

  “Naima Gupta.”

  Q sighs. “No, and it doesn’t matter anyway. The objet of my affection is already going out with someone else.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It positively fellates.”

  “What can you even do?”

  “Just pine away,” says Q. “I can pine like a tree.”

  I lean in and whisper. “Who is it?”

  “So we get to college, and then what?” says Q, ignoring me. “Your parents will still call and visit. And what about after college? Are you still swapping gems? One day, college ends. And then?”

  This is exactly what I didn’t want to talk about. I just wanted to talk about how sweet me and Joy’s setup is, and how freaking magical my night with Brit was. Not this future crap.

  “Hanna is and then,” I blurt. “You know how she married Miles at city hall? Because she knew Mom-n-Dad would never show up to a real wedding? That’s and then. She and Miles’ll have kids, and they’ll grow up, and Mom-n-Dad will get super old, and that’s and fucking then.”

  “Hey, hey,” says Q.

  “She married a black dude. You of all people know how basic this bullshit gets. Come on, man.”

  Q puts an arm around me and squeezes my shoulder. “I feel you. I really do.”

  “I don’t know and then. No one does. I just—I had a really great night with Brit. One of the best ever. That’s all I really want to talk about right at this moment. This moment in time is about all my brain can handle.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” says Q, calming me. “I feel you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re good,” says Q.

  “Got a little worked up.”

  “It’d be weird if you didn’t, old boy.”

  I smile at him. “You’re so great, you make that wall in China feel like a chain-link fence.”

  Q smiles back. “You’re so cool, global warming’s scared of you.”

  “You’re so bomb, they had to evacuate the building.”

  And so on. This is our version of the Dozens, except instead of insulting each other’s moms, we hurl compliments back and forth. We call it the Baker’s Dozens. In a round of the Baker’s Dozens, no one ever loses and everyone wins.

  “I’m happy you’re happy, and to hell with everything and everyone,” says Q, squinting at me through his invisible monocle and raising an invisible gimlet. “To this moment in time.”

  “To this moment.”

  We invisible-toast.

  chapter 12

  illuminating

  “Frankie-ya, you want beer, something?” says Dad. “Joy, hi, nice see you.”

  Dad sets a six-pack of beer—nice stuff, supposedly, IPA something-or-other—onto the floor as if feeding a cage of strange animals, and steps out again. It’s the Kims’ turn to host tonight’s Gathering.

  “Daddy,” says Mom’s voice. “Don’t give alcohol.”

  “They take SAT, should be relaxing now,” says Dad.

  Yes: I took the SAT this morning. Although it feels a little like the SAT took me.

  First, I sneezed on my test booklet, a prodigious specimen, and had nothing to wipe my nose with except the test booklet itself.

  Then a girl’s cell phone went off, and she was almost disqualified but for an impassioned three-minute speech about her dreams of becoming a pediatrician. That bit of theater was entertaining, sure, but it also destroyed my concentration.

  When we Apeys gathered by the flagpoles, I could tell by the way everyone was kicking at the balding grass that they hadn’t done so well, either.

  “It’s not over by a long shot, guys,” said Paul Olmo. “Let’s grind our butts off for test two.”

  “Grind our butts off?” said Naima Gupta.

  “You know what I mean,” Paul said. “Come on, isang bagsak.”

  Isang bagsak is this Filipino thing where we all applaud in unison, going faster and faster until we end the whole thing in one big clap. Paul calls it a unity clap.

  Our unity clap didn’t go so well either, and just wound up sounding like sarcastic praise.

  Looking around at the Limbos now, I can tell we’re all thinking the same thing: I could’ve done better.

  I glance at the beer. “I don’t really drink, Dad.”

  “Thank you, though,” says Joy, and gives Dad a sweet look. Man, she’s good.

  Dad holds the look for a moment before gazing back at me. Then he seems to remember there are other people in the room. “Everybody doing good job today,” he says. “When is next SAT?” he adds.

  With that, the room sags. Dad just acknowledged out loud that we fell short.

  Mom-n-Dad vanish downstairs to the game of yut nori being played by all the parents on a big fuzzy mink blanket, named mink not because it’s actually sewn from murdered minks but because it’s as soft and thick as a mink coat. Yut nori is this dice game from a million years ago but instead of dice you throw fat dowels carved from solid birch wood. Then you move little tokens around on a board. I think it might be one of the first board games ever invented. I don’t know. I should look that up.

  I can hear the sticks from down below, plinking with a clear, ancient sound that feels out of place here in modern-day suburbia. Each throw of the sticks elicits oohs and aahs, or groans, or roars of laughter. I want to take my Tascam down there to record that beautiful, almost crystalline birch tone, but I’m afraid that if I do, everyone will look at me weird and start asking questions.

  So I stay and stare at the ceiling. Joy stares with me.

  “Stupid SATs,” says Joy. “I can’t wait for kindergarten to be over.” That’s what she calls high school: kindergarten.

  Joy’s plan is to get into Carnegie Mellon University, in faraway Pittsburgh, so she can learn how to make the AI-powered robots that will eventually decimate humankind.

  Ella Chang is here, crocheting some kind of amigurumi demon rabbit with fine needles. John Lim is here, playing Craft Exploit on a tablet. Andrew K
im is here too—it’s his room, after all—idly doing arm curls and staring and staring at the beer until he can take no more.

  “Fuck it, I’m having one,” he says, and twists it open with thespian gusto. Andrew has been on a low-carb regimen to lose ten camera pounds, as he calls them. Andrew’s plan is to become the first Asian-American actor to, quote, bang a white chick in a major feature film full-nude no merkin, end quote.

  I had to look up merkin.

  “You guys want?” says Andrew, holding out bottles. “Booze cures anxiety.”

  “I’m good,” I say.

  “I better not,” says Joy Song.

  “Dulls the mind,” says John Lim.

  “Gimme one of those,” says Ella Chang, and stares at John with bemused defiance. She and Andrew toast. They take a long pull. I knew Andrew partied, but I had no idea about Ella. Between school and cello practice, where did she find the time?

  Joy said I better not, as in I better not drink. So I ask her, “Wait, what happens when you drink?”

  Before Joy can answer, Andrew belches.

  “She talks,” says Andrew. “A lot. I was at a party Wu was at that one time.”

  “Andrew at a party, surprise,” says John, eyes on his screen.

  “Joy was all blah-dee-blah-dee-blah,” says Andrew.

  “Shut up,” says Joy, laughing.

  “So wait, are you still with Wu?” says Ella. She’s already on to her second beer. It’s been like forty seconds.

  Joy freezes. “Uh, mhm, yeah, yes. Why?”

  Ella blinks. “Oh,” she says. “Oh. Nothing. Never mind.”

  Then I freeze, too. Me and Joy thought all about keeping up our charade for the parents, but we hadn’t thought about the Limbos. Do we fool them too? Or are they down? Telling them would be a risk—a potential leak in our boat.

  But the fact is: we all go to the same school. We nod at each other in the hallways. It would only be a matter of time before they began to suspect things. Trusting the Limbos with our secret might be the only path of action.

  “I gotta pee,” I say, and pad down the hall in my socks to find a dark, empty bedroom. I text Joy right away.