Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(79)

They said they don’t want me to see you anymore, says Joy. I don’t understand what’s going on They said the same thing to me, I say. We should talk.

Sorry one sec, says Joy. Shopping for dorm stuff right now Dorm stuff. College.

Huh.

Little early, don’t you think? I say.

The only thing I hate more than shopping, says Joy, is long checkout lines I wait for her to text back some more, but I guess she’s busy. I head downstairs to find a pink box and some money sitting on the counter. Open the box, and behold: donuts, and a note.


You don’t working at Store today OK Frankie don’t worry Daddy he will be fine. I helping him you relax maybe go to Q house and play game together OK? Don’t worry anything I love you.





—Mommy


I stare at the words I love you.

“I love you too, Mom,” I say, mostly to see how saying those words would feel. It feels funny and a little embarrassing, like a phrase in a foreign language—Je t’aime, Maman—but I don’t care.

I can’t believe Dad still went to The Store knowing he has a terminal illness. But then again, he’s been going to The Store for weeks. He’s known for weeks. If it were me? If I had learned I had six to twelve months? I would drop everything and go skydiving, race cars, go to music festivals, do anything besides stand around at The Store.

But that’s because I don’t know anything about life, and am therefore an asshole.

Dad worked The Store with his two bare hands, right alongside Mom. He knows everyone who passes through its doors. Every day Mom-n-Dad work, and every night they stack up the bills on the coffee table and do the accounting.

To Dad, The Store must provide a kind of comfort I could never imagine.

Skydiving doesn’t provide comfort. Neither do race cars or music festivals or blablabla.

If I found out right now that I had six to twelve, where would I go for comfort?

I look at my phone again.

I want to see you, I say.

I want to see you, says Joy, at the same time.

Jinx, I say.

Where? says Joy.

I don’t care, to be honest, I say. You decide.

Cafe Adagio? says Joy.

Eh. Can’t deal with people today.

The beach? A hike?

How about this, I say. You just come over here.

After what happened last night? Isn’t your mom gonna be there?

She’s at The Store until 3 today.

Why?

Unforeseen circumstances.

You sure, yubs?

Just come over.

I put the phone in my pocket, and the house falls silent but for the white waves of freeway traffic coming over the high backyard wall. I realize I’ve never recorded that sound before. I should. But I can’t bother right now.

I head upstairs into Hanna’s room.

The place looks like she left without much thought. Everything’s the same—movie posters on the walls, shelves spilling with old compact discs and vinyl and books, all waiting for her to return and tidy things up. I wonder if Mom-n-Dad are hoping she will return someday, somehow. Maybe that’s why they left her room untouched.

I lie on her bed. I can feel the weight of my phone in my pocket.

Does she already somehow know about Dad?

I can imagine Hanna learning about Dad via one of Mom’s crazy mom-emails, and the mixture of terror and frustration and anger such a message would produce. I wonder if Hanna’s supposed to learn something like this through an email from Mom—they don’t talk on the phone anymore—or if I should tell her.

I call Hanna.

Hey, it’s Hanna, leave a message.

I kill the call.

I like Hanna’s room. Hanna’s room feels cool. I don’t care if she’s probably long over it and everything it contains.

I miss my big sister.

I’m in your room looking through all your crap, I say.

Hanna doesn’t text back.

I wander to the guest room, which we call the storage room since we almost never have guests. In the far back of the crawl-in closet—there, in the far, far back—is an old black spy suitcase made by Legionite, some defunct company from the 1970s.

I spin the brass combo lock wheels with my thumbs: 7-7-7 for the left latch, 9-9-9 for the right.

Inside the suitcase are artifacts from another time. Among them:


A name tag from an extinct restaurant named Cup-N-Saucer etched with the gaily dancing eponymous cartoon characters and the word DIANE. Diane is Mom’s English name, D+I+A+N+E+L+I making seven letters.





A still-new ten-pack of ballpoint pens printed with the address of EAT MY KRUST SANDWICHES, one of the first businesses Mom-n-Dad tried out. The pens are so old the phone numbers on them don’t even have area codes.





A little wooden abacus





A flaking book in Korean about Victorian literature filled with underlined passages. The inside cover has PROPERTY OF FRANK LI in Dad’s panicked handwriting. Frank is Dad’s English name. It is also mine.





A tough old yearbook from Mom’s high school. I open it to her picture—I’ve dog-eared the page—and see her at my age. She’s pretty. She’s in a uniform. All the kids are in uniform. Everything’s in Korean. There are no autographs, because I guess back then in the Korean countryside no one did stuff like that to such an expensive item.