Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(10)

“You’re such a cheater.”

“I’m still doing the assignment,” I say. “I’m just being efficient about it.”

“Done,” she says.

We retract our leads and set our pencils down.

“Yours look good,” I say.

“Yours look good too,” she says, gazing at me.

Dear lord Flying Spaghetti Monster in Pastafarian heaven. I think Brit Means is flirting with me.

“What do you wanna do now?” I say.

“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

She sits closer. Now is the moment in the teen movie where I sweep the homework to the floor and kiss her. But like I said, my kissing track record is exactly one item long, and was an accident.

I’m pretty sure Brit’s kissing track record is as short as mine. But she must be ready. Right? Why else would she be sitting so close? Is that how this works?

I have no idea how anything works. I have no idea what is happening. I stare back into her eternal ancient gray eyes looking all ancient and gray and eternal into mine and find that they are also inscrutable. I could be totally wrong. It could be that Brit’s just the strange type of girl who likes to sit close and stare and say nothing.

“Forgot my glasses,” says a voice, and we look up just in time to see Brit’s dad’s hoodie vanishing around a corner.

“Let’s go outside,” says Brit, suddenly standing. “There’s something I want to show you.”



* * *



? ? ?

We step out into a night full of crickets on loop. Like most of Playa Vista, there is only one streetlamp for miles. Outside that single icy cone of light is the pure impenetrable darkness of the new moon sky, with only the stars and the glint of many parked cars visible.

“What’s with all the cars?” I say.

“Someone’s having a big house party. I’m pretty sure it’s Armenian independence day.” Brit hops and crouches, inspecting the cars. She moves like a long-haired imp.

“Look,” she says, and cracks open one of the cars.

“Brit,” I say, laughing.

“They’re never locked,” she says, opening it farther. “I find it so revealing about people’s biases. People just assume certain things about certain neighborhoods. They wouldn’t leave their doors unlocked like this over in Delgado Beach.”

“Well, Playa Mesa is freakishly safe, after all.”

“If we did a study, we would find a correlation between unlocked cars and neighborhood income levels, I bet you a million bucks.”

“Ha ha,” I say, but stop short. Because to my horror, Brit has ducked her head inside the car and is now emerging with a tin of mints. She pops one in her mouth. She tosses me a mint, too.

“Have one,” she says.

“You’re insane,” I say, and laugh, and look around.

But I eat the mint.

Brit carefully closes the door, then latches it shut with a bump of her hip. “People keep the artifacts of their lives in their cars. Makes me feel like an archaeologist. A carchaeologist.”

“We’re gonna get busted.”

“Frankly, Frank Li, you’re being paranoid,” says Brit, with mock sass. “Anyway, even if we do get busted all I have to do is be all, Oh-em-gee, I’m so drunk, anyway you should really lock your car, bye!”

Brit has switched to California Valley Girl Patois with no effort, and it makes me twitch a little.

In Language class Ms. Chit would called this code switching. It’s like switching accents, but at a more micro level.

The idea is that you don’t speak the same way with your friends (California English Casual) that you do with a teacher (California English Formal), or a girl (California English Singsong), or your immigrant parents (California English Exasperated). You change how you talk to best adapt to whoever you’re talking to. But it’s not just about adaptation, as Ms. Chit explained. People can code switch to confuse others, express dominance or submission, or disguise themselves.

I’ve always thought I’m pretty good at code switching. But the way Brit does it is true mastery. It’s like watching her become a different person entirely. It makes me wonder what other codes she can speak.

“This one . . . No, there’s a blinking light on the dash,” she says. “This one, maybe.”

She pops the door open: “Aha.”

“I am jacking cars with Brit Means,” I say.

“Tell me, though: is it jacking if they’re unlocked?” she says.

“How long has this been a hobby of yours?”

“Only a couple months. I’ve found alcohol, cash, just cash lying out in the open. An old instant camera. It’s crazy.”

“Wait, are you keeping this stuff?”

Brit unearths something. “Look. High-fidelity compact discs. Who listens to CDs?”

She flings one at me and I fumble to catch it like a Frisbee. It’s all in Armenian.

“Dude, put this back,” I say. I wipe the disc clean of my fingerprints, just in case the FBI gets called to investigate, and start to fling it back to her when she quickly hits the car’s lock button and slams the door shut.

“Too late,” she says, giggling. “You’re stuck with that.”