Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(22)

It’s silent for a moment. Then someone—Mrs. Song, fiddling with her giant Korea-only phone/tablet thing—abruptly puts on an adult contemporary rock song: some insipid string of croony cliches.

Meanwhile Dad pours the wine all the way to the rim of our glasses as if it were orange juice and we were six.

I never knew I could feel this way / The clouds are breaking it’s a brand-new day Joy is vibrating, like she’s itching to flip the table. “Oh man oh man, I can’t do this.”

“Stay strong,” I whisper.

We both crack up.

The parents freeze and gaze at us with these big, dumb happy-donkey smiles. Then they all catch themselves and clumsily resume their adult conversation, like drunks trying to be sly.

It’s excruciating, but it’s working. So it’s a sweet pain.

“Let’s toast,” I say. “I hear booze can help.”

We can’t lift our glasses—they’re too full—so we duck our heads and sip and immediately regret it, because damn, who seriously drinks wine straight up like that without at least mixing it with Sprite or something? Alcohol, I don’t get you.

“Hey,” whispers Joy. “Watch this.”

“What?”

“Just look at me for a three-count.”

I look into her eyes for three seconds, and out of my right ear I can hear the grown-ups’ table fall dead silent.

“Now look at the grown-ups’ table.”

I do, and so does she, and the drunks pretend to chatter again.

“Look back at me,” says Joy.

And I do. I always assumed her eyes were black for some reason. But they’re not. They’re a deep hazel. I find myself wondering if they would be big enough to meet Mom’s ludicrous size requirements. Her upper eyelids have that little double fold to them: that ssangkkeopul so coveted by Koreans they’ll risk cosmetic surgery to get it.

I don’t have ssangkkeopul. Does that mean I should be envious?

Eh, whatever. I like my eyes. They’re black, by the way, like the soul of an ultra-rare level twelve chaotic evil antipaladin.

“Huh,” I say. “I never noticed you have ssangkkeopul.”

Joy attempts to look at her own eyelids, which is funny. “They went like this after puberty for some reason. Mom says they make me look tired.” She blinks, tugs her eyelids flat.

“Stop doing that, dude. It’s like Chinese-Japanese-look-at-these-dirty-knees.”

“Jesus, that shit.”

“Sorry to remind you.”

Chinese-Japanese-look-at-these-dirty-knees was a racist song white kids used to sing to kids like us when we were little. It was always accompanied by the pulling of the eyelids, to make things extra ching-chong.

“Anyway,” I say. “Your eyes look nice just the way they are.”

Joy just starts laughing her full-on Joy laugh, eekeekeek-honk-eekeekeek, because two things are happening right now: the grown-ups’ table is as dead silent as fascinated meerkats, and the music playing is actually singing the words: You’re beautiful just the way you are / Girl, you know you’re a shining star “Ah, fuck,” I say, and laugh too.

“Look back on three,” says Joy. “One, two, three.”

We do, and the parents start talking again.

I feel the potential of immense power. Total perfect mind control will be mine.

Dad approaches and knocks his heels together to stand at attention, and I swear he considers a curt bow but decides against it. He sees my still-full glass. “You no drinking wine?”

“Dad, I’m so full, I’m gonna barf.”

“Eigh,” says Mom.

“You wanna go visit the vomitorium so we can keep eating?” I say to Joy.

“That’s disgusting,” says Joy, and giggles, and nudges my shoulder.

And the parents fall silent again. Really, it’s like a light switch.

Finally it’s time to leave. Me and Joy execute the fatal finishing move of tonight’s smashing inaugural test run.

“I’ll get the car warmed up,” I say. It’s chilly for Southern California, meaning an arctic 60 degrees, and Mom likes a warm car even if it increases the likelihood of Dad throwing up in a to-go cup.

I go outside. Joy follows me.

I do just like we planned: start the car, crank the heat, and leave the vehicle.

Then, in full view of the Songs’ open front door, I lean in to Joy and make like I’m kissing her cheek.

“We’re a couple of goddamn zoo pandas,” I whisper into her ear.

She laughs.

Let me tell you something. I live to make people laugh. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers, doesn’t matter. I just have to. If you for some reason don’t know how to make someone laugh, then learn. Study that shit like it’s the SAT. If you are so unfortunate as to have no one in your life who can make you laugh, drop everything and find someone. Cross the desert if you must. Because laughter isn’t just about the funny. Laughter is the music of the deep cosmos connecting all human beings that says all the things mere words cannot.

Joy laughs and we separate, and the orange rectangle of the Songs’ front door has become crowded with silhouettes.

This is gonna work gangbusters.





frank li



in