Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(98)

Dad’s being cryptic. Here we go.

“What does neohumanistic mean, Dad?” I say dutifully.

Dad takes a sip. “I am Korean. You Korean too. But you also American boy, hundred percent. You so-called neohumanistic. You know neohumanistic what it is?”

“Sort of,” I say, looking into my beer.

“Spiritual essence, so-called nucleus of soul, like particle, physical particle. You know what is quark? Nothing different. Atom? Nothing different, same-o same.”

“Okay, Dad,” I say.

Meanwhile, Dad winds up for another round of free-form arcana. I gird myself. Tonight is our last night together. Must maintain.

“Anyway,” says Dad. “Anyway.”

He’s silent.

“Anyway what, Dad?” I say.

“I very proud you,” says Dad. “So, so proud. I love you, my son, okay?”

He places his hand atop mine. His skin is so thin. He has a hospital needle port thing taped to his wrist, and always will.

I can barely get out the words, they’re so frozen shut. “I love you too, Dad.”

I get that old floaty feeling again, but this time it’s not me doing the floating. It’s not Dad. It’s all the crap around us. The chairs and toaster and pots and pans and thousands of kooky knickknacks atop bookshelves coming unmoored from their spots in the carpet.

It’s beautiful, this constellation of ephemera.

“Anyway,” Dad declares, restoring gravity with his voice. “Life is but a dream.” He releases my hand with the pretense of wiping clean his sweating beer can. He’s never been comfortable with prolonged physical affection. It’s never been his way. And that’s fine.

“Come on, Dad. Don’t be morbid.”

“No, I’m not be morbid,” says Dad. “Life is but a dream. My dream? So beautiful dream I’m having whole my life, God giving me. Beautiful wife I having. Store success having. Beautiful son Stanford going. My daughter too, beautiful woman she becoming. You telling Hanna my dream is best dream.”

“Tell her yourself,” I say.

Dad laughs, which in Korean means, I am so terribly ashamed by my own behavior.

“Dad,” I insist. “Tell her yourself. Okay?”

“Okay, Frank.”

“You need to talk to Hanna. She has big, important things going on right now. You hear me?”

“Okay, Frank, okay.”

I sip the bitter-sour beer. Who likes this crap? I sip it again, and again.

Thank you, beer.

“I going sleep,” says Dad. “Big day tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I’m sleeping, you waking me before you going, okay?”

“Of course, Dad.”

“Also music study? No money earning, music,” says Dad. “You majoring business. More better.”

I just laugh to myself. Because you know what? I’ll do what I want anyway. I need to. So did Dad, after all.

“Okay, Dad,” I say.





chapter 37


fire hazard low




Before me and Paul hit the road, I have one pit stop to make: Q’s house.

He forgot his big bag of dice again.

“Wait here,” I tell Paul, and run up the three-hundred-kilometer-long gravel driveway.

When Q opens the door, he’s all alone.

“Where is everybody?” I say.

“Mom-n-Dad are with Evon up in SF tooling around before Stanford starts,” says Q. “She said you might want these back, by the way.”

Q hands me a fistful of cables in Loco-Lime? green, Grape-Escape? purple, Citrus-Spin? orange, and so on. All the colors of the rainbow, in order.

“Thanks,” I say.

“What about your million relatives?”

“Mouse World Theme Park,” says Q.

“Jesus,” I say.

“I told them I had tapeworm.”

“Nice,” I say, and give Q a fist bump. “You forgot your big-ass dice.”

I hand him the bag, and he presses his lips to mine.

“What—” I say, only to have him kiss me again. Curiously, his lips are softer than Joy’s. More tentative. He smells like lime soda and Blazing Hot Nachitos.

When he pulls away, I see his eyes are brimming with tears.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he says.

A wave surges the sea level in my chest; two new tears sting my eyes with their salt. Suddenly realizing that Q, my top chap, has been living with a secret fear—secret even to me—for who knows how long makes me want to rage out against entire stupid world.

But Q does not need rage right now. He needs the opposite.

I wipe his tears with both my thumbs and study his face. I never noticed how fine it was, how lovely in shape. I never noticed his freckles, even. It is a face, I realize, whose beauty shows itself only when it’s ready—a face that has the grace and strength it takes to reveal the true self just beneath. It is a face someone will no doubt fall in love with one day. So I tell Q this.

“One day you’re gonna make some lucky boy very happy.”

“I’m gonna miss you,” he says.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” I say.