Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(3)

Q looks at me, waiting.

“Basically I guess she has to be kind, is most important.”

Q raises his eyebrows. “So no meanies. Got it.”

“And she should make me laugh,” I say.

“Any other vital criteria?” says Q.

I think. Anything else—hobbies, musical tastes, fashion sense—doesn’t seem to matter that much. So I just shake my head no.

Q gives the fountain a shrug. “That’s super romantic, like in the most basic sense.”

“Basically,” I say.

We both stare at the fountain for a moment. Then I mark the end of our visit to Lake Girlfriend with the ritual digging into my front jeans pocket for sacred coins, one for me, one for Q. Q tosses his in with a fart sound. I give mine a squeeze and flip it into the water, ploop. The coins are added to the submerged pile of random wishes: good grades, job promotions, lottery dreams, and, above all, love.

No one comes rising out of the shimmering water.

Q doesn’t know it, but I’ve secretly left out one criterion for my ideal woman. It’s one I’d rather not say aloud, even though it’s the one I worry about the most.

My ideal woman should probably be Korean-American.

It’s not strictly necessary. I could care less. But it would make things easier.

I’ve toed the dating waters only twice before, and each time something has held me back from diving in. A paralysis. I think it comes from not knowing which would be worse: dating a girl my parents hated or dating a girl my parents loved. Being ostracized or being micromanaged.

Then I consider how Korean-Americans make up only 1 percent of everyone in the Republic of California, out of which 12 percent are girls my age, which would result in a dating pool with only one girl every three square miles. Filter out the ones who are taken, the ones I wouldn’t get along with, and—worse—add in the Ideal Woman criteria, and the pool gets even smaller. Lake Girlfriend shrinks down to a thimble.

So I shelve the notion of an ideal girl for now. I realize I’ve been shelving the idea for years.

“A guy can dream,” says Q.

“A guy can dream,” I say.





chapter 2


metaphor incoming




Mom-n-Dad’s store also has two names, like me and Hanna.

Its official name is Fiesta Hoy Market, which I won’t even bother to translate because goddamn, what a stupid name. Its second name is simply The Store. The Store is its name-name.

Mom-n-Dad work at The Store every day, from morning to evening, on weekends, holidays, New Year’s Day, 365 days out of every year without a single vacation for as long as me and Hanna have been alive.

Mom-n-Dad inherited The Store from an older Korean couple of that first wave who came over in the sixties. No written contracts or anything. Just an introduction from a good friend, then tea, then dinners, and finally many deep bows, culminating in warm, two-handed handshakes. They wanted to make sure The Store was kept in good hands. Good, Korean hands.

The Store is an hour-long drive from the dystopian perfection of my suburban home of Playa Mesa. It’s in a poor, sun-crumbled part of Southern California largely populated by Mexican-and African-Americans. A world away.

The poor customers give Mom-n-Dad food stamps, which become money, which becomes college tuition for me.

It’s the latest version of the American dream.

I hope the next version of the American dream doesn’t involve gouging people for food stamps.

I’m at The Store now. I’m leaning against the counter. Its varnish is worn in the middle like a tree ring, showing the history of every transaction that’s ever been slid across its surface: candy and beer and diapers and milk and beer and ice cream and beer and beer.

“At the airport,” I once explained to Q, “they hand out title deeds by ethnicity. So the Greeks get diners, the Chinese get laundromats, and the Koreans get liquor stores.”

“So that’s how America works,” said Q, taking a deeply ironic bite of his burrito.

It’s hot in The Store. I’m wearing a Hardfloor tee shirt perforated with moth holes in cool black, to match my cool-black utility shorts. Not all blacks are the same. There is warm black and brown black and purple black. My wristbands are a rainbow of blacks. All garments above the ankles must be black. Shoes can be anything, however. Like my caution-yellow sneakers.

Dad refuses to turn on the air-conditioning, because the only things affected by the heat are the chocolate-based candies, and he’s already stashed those in the walk-in cooler.

Meanwhile, I’m sweating. I watch a trio of flies trace an endless series of right angles in midair with a nonstop zimzim sound. I snap a photo and post it with the caption: Flies are the only creature named after their main mode of mobility.

It makes no sense that I’m helping Mom-n-Dad at The Store. My whole life they’ve never let me have a job.

“Study hard, become doctor maybe,” Dad would say.

“Or a famous newscaster,” Mom would say.

I still don’t get that last one.

Anyway: I’m at The Store only one day a week, on Sundays, and only to work the register—no lifting, sorting, cleaning, tagging, or dealing with vendors. Mom’s home resting from her morning shift, leaving me and Dad alone for his turn. I suspect all this is Mom’s ploy to get me to bond with Dad in my last year before I head off to college. Spend father-n-son time. Engage in deep conversation.