Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(97)

“Now I’ll have something to keep.”

“I’ll keep it, too,” I say.

The traffic takes on an insistent tone, and I begin to imagine a curious cop discovering her empty car.

“Your car,” I say.

“I know,” she says.

“Go do you,” I holler, before she heads toward the bushes again.

Joy looks back. Her smile glints in the dark. “What the hell else is there, right?”





chapter 36


life is but a dream




The final two weeks of summer pass like cats after an earthquake. Mom-n-Dad, sensing my melancholy, tiptoe around me. Asking if I need anything. Cutting melon after melon.

My ankle feels strong now. I feel taller, as if things healed in such a way to grant me extra height. I leave the house to go for runs without telling anyone, come back whenever, fix my own meals. I’ve been researching the local music scene in and around Palo Alto. I’m starting to see myself there.

I tell Mom-n-Dad all about it, and they can tell I’m getting excited. It makes them sappy (sad plus happy). Because just when they thought their son was all done growing, here I go changing on them all over again. I’m becoming different.

Q notices, too. We finish up Totec’s Return in a blaze of savage glory under my meat-headed command. I do not fight smart. I do not think it through.

“Totally insane man, I love you,” shouts Q.

What neither Q nor Mom nor Dad can see is the secret little chamber in the wunderkammer of my heart, and what it contains.

Back to my campaign of reckless blood: by the time Paul finally shows up to play, we’ve already destroyed the Supreme Bladeling in ?P’Qatlalteiaq’s central keep, divvied out the piles of treasure, and traveled back to our homelands. Normally we would now spend time gathering resources and healing and training for the next big campaign, but there will be no next big campaign. So Q just closes up the campaign book, folds up his cardboard screens, zips his big backpack shut, and exhales.

Paul examines his figurine of Totec before slipping it into its little special bag.

“I guess we’re finished,” says Paul. “Isang bagsak?”

We clap.

“So when do you guys leave tomorrow?” says Q.

I look at Paul. “Mr. Olmo, what time?”

Me and Paul are driving north together. I’ll drop Paul off at Santa Cruz, then keep going to Stanford.

“I dunno,” says Paul. “Nine? Ten? Maybe eleven. After lunch?”

“Sunday traffic should be light,” I say. “Convocation’s on the Monday after—it’s all good.”

“I can’t believe this is the last time we’ll—” says Paul, unable to finish.

After a truly uncoordinated group hug that evades headbutts only by millimeters, Paul and Q leave.

Seconds later Mom hustles in. “They leaving already?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” says Mom with a sag. “I saying goodbye.”

“You’ll see them at Thanksgiving.”

Mom starts to say something, but stops. I want to say the same thing.

But Dad won’t be around then.

“Are you okay?” I say.

“I’m okay,” says Mom.

“Mom, just say it. Whatever it is, I want to hear it.”

“I’m okay,” is all Mom will say, and leaves to pretend at laundry.

Joy and I have been texting again. We send idiotic stickers and animations and so on. She sends me a photo of her new dorm room, and a stealthy candid of her roommate, who looks eerily like an African-American version of Brit.

Joy’s messages start out strong but begin to dwindle as she explores her new world. And that, I decide, is perfectly okay. It would be strange otherwise.

That night Mom makes my favorite dinner of seafood pancakes and cold mul naengmyeon noodles, and we try not to panic when Dad makes a heroic show of eating with forced gusto. He winds up vomiting most of it back into a to-go cup.

“I sorry, Mommy,” he says.

“Aigu,” says Mom, which means, Don’t worry about anything. It wasn’t your fault.

She gives him water to sip. He pushes it aside.

“Gimme two beer, would you, please, Frankie-umma?” he says. That word please. He’s gearing up to something.

“Shouldn’t be drinking, you sick,” says Mom.

“Doctor say drink as much beer as I want, doesn’t matter,” says Dad.

This stops Mom cold. She sees him, sitting next to his son on his last night before college, and understands. She knows the next time I see him might be late one night, after a rushed trip back home from Stanford, in some hospital room.

So she brings the beers. She opens them. She leaves us.

“Beer is terrible,” I say. “Why do you drink it?”

“It’s all-natural barley water,” says Dad, and we toast.

I drink, because I can’t think of anything to say. I drink again. Terrible.

But it’s the best drink I’ve ever had.

“So,” says Dad. “I’m reading other day. I’m learning new word.”

Dad waits for me to take the bait, so I take the bait.

“What word, Dad?”

“Neohumanistic.”