Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(18)

“Oh,” says Brit Means with quiet surprise, as if remembering the existence of a world outside Playa Mesa.

“Hey,” I say.

“It’s okay,” she says. “You’re busy, and I’m keeping them waiting anyway.”

She glances outside. Them? She means her parents. Waiting, in a car parked just outside. They must have stopped by on their way back from their trip. Of course. Why else would they be out here, an hour away from Playa Mesa?

There’s a chunk. Dad’s vanished into the walk-in cooler. I sneak a kiss on Brit’s cheek.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at school, okay?” I say. “Okay?”

“Okay,” says Brit, and trails those fingertips of hers along the back of my pinky before leaving.

Bing-bong, and she’s gone. My floating feet touch ground again.

There are too many worlds in my head—Palomino High School, The Store, the Gathering—all with their own confusing laws of nature, gravitational strengths, and speeds of light, and really all I want to do is reach escape velocity, bust out into space, and form my own planet tweaked just how I want it.

Planet Frank. Invitation only.

I take out my phone. Miss you already.

Brit begins to write something back. She takes a long, long time. But in the end, all she says is: Me too.





chapter 8


i propose to joy




A week goes by, and it’s time for another monthly Gathering. Dad drives, as a kind of up-front compensation for the likely fact that Mom will have to drive his drunk ass home from the Gathering tonight. In the back seat I feel something in my front pocket: the tiny paper scroll, the one crazy-man Charles handed me at The Store on Sunday.

I unscroll it. It is a photocopy of many handwritten words, all traveling in a spiral toward a central drawing of a naked man, woman, and fetus inscribed in a triangle, circle, square, and finally a pentagon. It feels vaguely astrological. Vaguely satanic. The words don’t help, either:


The Sept of Man inscribes the Septs of Wo-Man and Child in a tri-planar M?bius tetramid resting upon the Present plane. The fourth plane is Fear, the fifth plane is Hope, the sixth plane is Absolute Solitude. The seventh plane encompasses all planes and is therefor Known as the Infinite Realm of the Vaginal Ouroboros.




And on and on.

My mind is blown, but not in any kind of good way.

“Mom,” I say. “Have you ever read these things?”

Mom glances up from her phone. “I never read. Charles, he crazy.”

“You keeping paper,” says Dad. “Maybe true things he writing.”

“Sure,” I say.

Then Mom-n-Dad fall silent again, thinking their thoughts.

I want to take a picture of the scroll and send it to Brit, but then I’d have to use the flash, and then there would be questions, and then I just kinda give up on the whole idea.

I roll the scroll back up and pocket it. I make a mental note to show it to Brit later.

If this were a movie, now is when I would say my piece, tell them about me and Brit, and there would be arguing and bickering but then the whole thing would end in group hugs and tears, and Mom-n-Dad would realize the melting pot that is the American dream.

This is why I prefer horror movies. There are no group hugs in horror movies.

We get to the Songs’ house: a sleek bunker straight out of Architecture Porn, overlooking a quiet cove by the sea. Not one, but two gleaming QL7s are parked on the hexagonal concrete driveway. Joy’s dad has done well for himself since coming here. Better than my dad, even though they all started off equal. At least I assume they did.

We enter, take off shoes, bow, all that. Mom-n-Dad force me to say hi in Korean, and when I do everyone makes a big deal out of it. Then Mrs. Song, a watchful osprey of a woman, makes Joy do it.

“Insa jyeom hyae,” she says, and prods Joy’s shoulder blade.

“Annyong haseyo,” says Joy, barely audible.

Everyone makes a big deal out of it.

“Okay, you have fun,” says Mom finally, smiling all stupid.

Everyone—Dad, Mr. Song, Mrs. Song—is smiling at us, all stupid.

“Eyyyy,” I say with jazz hands.

The parents finally vanish to admire the spread—it looks like Mrs. Song has been experimenting with French roasts and sauces—and Joy and I now stand alone.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.”

“Where’s all the other Limbos?”

“There are no other Limbos.”

I stare at her. “Are you serious?”

“Dude,” says Joy. “We never have Gatherings on weeknights. That didn’t raise a red flag for you?”

“Huh,” I say.

“They sent my little brother to a slumber party. A slumber party, Frank. This whole thing is a setup,” she says.

“Huh.”

Joy looks up at me with a mock-serious face, like we’re in a sci-fi epic. “They’re mating us like a couple of goddamn zoo pandas, Frank.”

I do a spit take, but dry. That was funny. This whole thing is funny, if funny suddenly became exasperating. I know they’ve always thought the idea of me and Joy falling in love was cute. But now they’ve gotten serious about it. They’re executing some kind of thought-out plan. And now I realize why.