Frankly in Love (19 page)

Behind the booth smiles a gentle old woman in a simple country hanbok looking like she just stepped out of a fragile scroll painting.

“I want that sesame one,” says Joy, transfixed like a child with desire.

I begin working up an ember of courage. Because suddenly I find myself having this urge to order in Korean for my girl.

The food, the drums, the little kids in their white doboks.

I point and say, “I chalttok dugae jeom juseyo.” Two of these cakes, please.

The old woman’s smile fades to a flat line, then darkens to a scowl. She starts barking at me with the black crescent of her mouth. I can catch most of her words.

“Chalttok?” says the old woman. “I don’t know what this chalttok is. Maybe you should learn to speak Korean right.”

The food vanishes, the drums go mute, the white doboks collapse, suddenly empty of their children.

I got
chalttok
wrong. It’s
chaltteok
. The difference is small, like
cheese
versus
jeez
. But a person would never ask for extra
jeez
on their pizza.

A native person.

“You fucking kyopos are all stupid,” says the old woman. It’s like she’s deliberately using basic Korean to make sure I understand every word.

Kyopo
is what they call a Korean person living abroad. I don’t know who
they
is. I don’t seem to know anything right at this moment. Except for the fact that my feet are leaving the ground again. You already know how they do that at moments like these. It is an alarming feeling, but also comforting, and I know that makes no sense.

“What is going on?” says Joy. “What did she just say?”

I look around. The K-pop pounding out of those speakers? Indecipherable. All this signage? Gibberish. The people? They look like me, but I know it is all some kind of elaborate visual trick. I could pass a hand right through them as though they were phantoms.

I fooled myself into believing I belonged. My brainlock is the best brainlock.

“Let’s go,” I say.

I pull her toward the festival exit and the gray, drab world beyond. I want to vanish like a ghost and pretend me and Joy never stumbled upon this place.

“Hey,” shouts a male voice. “Wait up.”

A hand touches my shoulder, and I turn. A young man, just a little older than me. He looks like me, knits his brows like me, frowns like me. Unlike me he wears a blue LA hat and a tank shirt and has muscular arms inscribed with fine geometric tattoos.

He offers me a fancy clear sealed bag containing four sesame rice cakes. I can’t bring myself to call them
chaltteok
right now.
Rice cakes
they will be.

“Dude, I’m so fucking goddamn sorry my grandma was such a dick to you just now,” he says. “Bitch can be such a bitch-ass, salty-ass bitch sometimes.”

This outpouring of heartfelt profanity fills my soul with warm orange light. It also cracks me up. I look at Joy: she’s covered her mouth to hold the chuckles in.

“That was your grandma?” says Joy.

“She calls me stupid all the time because my Korean fuckin’ sucks.”

I blink. My parents have their problems, but at least they’ve never called me stupid for not knowing Korean.

The guy jiggles the bag. “Take ’em. My way of saying sorry.”

He’s earnest, this guy. He really wants me to take the bag. So I take the bag.

“We’ll save these for dessert, I guess,” I say with a shrug. “Thanks.”

The guy gets an eager look in his eye. “Wait, you haven’t had dinner yet?”

“Uh,” says Joy.

“Follow me,” says the guy. When he sees our hesitation, he stomps his foot and waves hard like he’s performing a
party-people-get-down
move on stage. “Come on, babo saekkidul,” he says with a happy twinkle.

“He just called us stupid fuckers,” says Joy.

“I like this guy,” I say. “Let’s go.”

He skates through the stalls and people, and me and Joy tap-dance single file to keep up with his nimble fat white sneakers. We pass the samulnori quartet, then a stage thundering with K-pop dancers, until we reach the far end of the festival grounds.

It’s not as fancy here. Just a ring of parked food trucks and folding tables filled with diners. This crazy corrido-cum-trap-beat mash-up vibrates the air with the steady tempo of a gangster stroll, overlaid with mouthy rap in both Korean and English. I’ve never heard shit like I’m hearing right now. It is sublime. I capture it all with my Tascam.

In doing so, I capture the guy’s name, too.

“I’m Roy Chang,” says Roy Chang, “and this is my whip right here.”

He gestures toward a red food truck emblazoned with the words
ALL DAE EVERY DAY
. The
dae
means
big
, and there’s a five-foot-tall
大
character in case you don’t get the pun.

Roy spots my Tascam. “You a musician?”

I nod sheepishly.

“Enrique’s a music nerd too,” says Roy. “I’ll introduce you.”

Roy pounds the truck. “Hey, yo, two express VIP orders, kimchi quesadilla hana, jidori gochujang chicken and waffles hana, tres cervezas, por favor!”

“Al gesseo,” says Enrique, as in
roger that
.

Roy seats us at a table, and the food follows in a flash.

“What’s in this?” I say, intrigued.

“Just eat, don’t think,” says Roy.

So we do. And once I start eating, I simply cannot stop. It is a perfect mix of all the comforts of my life: the kimchi of home, with the cheese and tortillas and pickled cactus I love from being a Californian, and finally waffles, because waffles.

“Gnughngh,” say me and Joy.

“They like it,” says Roy to Enrique, who’s come over to watch us gorge ourselves.

Enrique jabs a thumb at Roy. “They call this guy the future of American cuisine, ha.”

“How the fuck can I be the future if I’m already here and I’m already a grown-ass American?” says Roy.

Enrique asks to have a listen to my music—including “Song for Brit”—and he likes it so much that he gives me his
email address so we can keep in touch. I give both him and Roy my email address too, without hesitation. Because I have this strange feeling that we’ve already somehow met, and it’s like we all graduated from the same school.

We finish up our food, drink our beers. We get up.

“Can we grab your seat if you’re leaving?” says a voice.

I turn. It’s me again, another guy who looks like me, except now way older: crow’s-feet at the eyes, receding hairline. He’s with his wife, who is black. Standing between them is their daughter, who looks about seven. She’s dressed like an elf.

“Absolutely,” I say.

“Your daughter’s so freaking beautiful,” says Joy.

“Say thank you, baby,” says the wife. They all seem used to such compliments.

“Thank you baby,” sings the daughter.

I want to give the family my email address, too. But that would be weird, and so me and Joy bid farewell to Roy and Enrique and stroll away slow.

I take out my phone and start typing.

“Who are you texting?” says Joy.

I show her:
I miss you, big sister Hanna.

Joy smiles and touches Send. And right away, Hanna’s reply appears on the screen.

Miss you too Frankie

It’s late. The freeway is a blank ribbon for us to travel upon. Orange streetlamps zip overhead like the sun rising and setting in looping time lapse.

We’re both quiet. Just processing the evening.

When we near Playa Mesa, Joy touches my hand.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” she says.

“Okay,” I instantly say. It’s eleven thirty. I want to watch the sun rise with Joy. Then I want to watch the sun set with Joy. Over and over.

She takes my phone and engages the parental management protocols, and once we receive the
Have a fun
confirmation, I guide the recalcitrant Consta to the one place I know we can be alone and free and private.

Westchester Mall, the biggest mall in Orange County, Southern California.

The parking lot is dead as a lava flow. I drive straight across
acres of painted white herringbone and park right up front. We walk up the grand entrance ramp and enter.

It’s empty inside. All the luxury stores, shuttered. The notes of the world’s tiniest sonata drift down like dust from the top of the track-lit cavern. I love coming here because it makes me feel like I’m the last person on the planet, and ever since I was little, I’ve had a fantasy of being the last person on the planet.

I murmur this quietly to Joy, because this space around us feels holy and deserving of a soft voice.

Joy holds my hand and matches my step. “That sounds like it would be terrifying.”

“Oh, it would only be for like a year,” I say. “Like a temporary pause.”

“And then what?”

“And then one morning I would wake up and unpause, and everything would pick up right where it left off.”

“I guess that might be fun for a year,” says Joy, biting a dry spot on her lip. “A planet-pause. Although I’d be afraid of going insane.”

We pass by a great funnel carved from wood with two slots to accept coins, with the sign
DONATE FOR SCH
OOL SUPPLIES IN OUR
DISTRICT: WATCH YOUR
COINS SPIN AND SPIN!

“I think tonight I realized why I’ve always had that fantasy,” I say.

Joy does this move I like, where she releases my hand, slides her hand up my arm, squeezes once, then drops her hand back into mine again: catch.

“Okay, little boy Frankie, why?” says Joy.

I think about that mean old grandma, and Roy, and the food trucks.

“Because then I could just be whoever I wanted, and no one would be around to judge me.”

Joy smiles to our strolling feet. “That old woman was psycho, wasn’t she.”

We pass the food court. There’s Pretzel Wrestle, still wafting yeast and butter. There’s the shitty Italian place, shitty Asian fusion place, shitty Tex-Mex place, then three hamburger joints. A one-stop microcosm of mainstream white American cuisine.

“I feel really myself when I’m with you,” I say. “I think that’s why I wanted to come here.”

“To see us totally out of context?” says Joy.

I smile. Joy gets it. She gets all of it. “Come here.”

We kiss. To my surprise, she grabs my ass with both hands.

“I can’t believe I get to do this with you out in the open,” she says. “Great idea to come here, Frank Li.”

In the distance I hear a short radio squawk. Joy’s head bolts up.

“What was that?” she says.

“Probably Camille or Oscar,” I say, meaning the security guards.

“Should we go?” says Joy.

“No, they walk super slow and chitchat nonstop. Let’s stay as long as we can—come on.”

I lead Joy around a corner and head down a long dogleg
toward the Nordstrom anchor store. Once we’re out of any possible line of sight, I slow down to our usual stroll.

We kiss and kiss. We kiss each other
while walking
. There’s no one around but us. We’re on planet-pause in our little abandoned paradise.

I lead Joy to a fountain in the Crystal Atrium. It is a low polished structure formed from simple modernist angles, surrounded by a stone ledge the color of chocolate.

“So much for Lake Girlfriend,” I mutter.

“What’s Lake Girlfriend?” says Joy.

FOUNTAIN CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE:

DO NOT CLIMB

The fountain is drained of water, revealing a dusty calcified lake bed full of mesh and hoses and stained light fixtures.

It’s also full of coins.

Joy’s eyes are still twinkling. “Dude, there’s like a hundred bucks in there.”

“Dude,” I say.

Then I get an idea.

I jump into the fountain and begin collecting coins, using the front of my tee shirt like a basket as I squat.

“Come help me,” I say.

“You’re insane,” says Joy.

But she jumps into the fountain, too, and begins collecting coins alongside me. I bump her, almost spilling her take. She bumps me back. In a few minutes, we stand with our tee
shirt bellies full of hundreds of coins, like grinning mutant marsupials.

There’s a radio squawk in the distance, followed by a shout.

“Hey!” says a voice.

“This way,” I say. Me and Joy step out of the fountain and run like hobbits with legs akimbo back up the length of the dogleg.

As we scamper along, Joy looks at me with realization. “I know what we’re doing!” she cries.

And she does, because she’s the first one to reach the great donation funnel carved out of wood. It must be six feet in diameter. We kneel at opposite ends, dump our tee shirt payloads onto the floor, and each hold our first coin in the slide slot.

“On three,” I say.

“One,” says Joy.

“Two,” I say.

“Three.”

We release. The two coins dance around in perfect graceful arcs until they reach the funnel bottom, where they accelerate in gravity-defying horizontal circles of perfect centripetal force. Finally they plink-plink into the treasure abyss below.

“Those two are me and you,” I say.

“You’re so cheesy,” says Joy. But I can tell she loves it.

“More coins,” says Joy.

“Faster,” I say.

We slot in coin after coin, and soon the wooden funnel thunders with a metallic wind. I pause to record a good length
of it with my Tascam. It sounds like an endless flock of fighter jets soaring just overhead.

WATCH YOUR COINS SPIN AND SPIN!

It only takes us about ten minutes to get through all the coins. Sometimes the coins reach the bottom without collision; sometimes they clash and cause a big sloppy avalanche. It’s both exhilarating and meditative. We don’t try to engineer either conflict or harmony by fine-tuning a precise rhythm or using matching denominations or anything like that. All we do is keep slotting the coins in as fast as we can.

This is the real metaphor, right here.

Finally the last coins plink-plink away into the void, leaving a philosophically significant silence of remarkable size.

“How cool was that,” says a female voice.

Me and Joy look up. Twenty feet away stand Camille and Oscar, in their ill-fitting security uniforms.

“Never have I witnessed such beauty emerge from everyday objects,” says Oscar.

“How long have you been standing there?” I say.

“For most of it!” says Camille. Camille has a way of talking that sounds like constant whining, even if she’s agreeing with you or wishing you well. “Frank, you know officially those coins were property of Westchester Mall!”

I stand and tap the sign by the funnel.

DONA
TE FOR SCHOOL SUPPLI
ES IN OUR DISTRICT

“Think of the children,” I say.

“The Westchester Group thanks you for your generous donation on their behalf,” says Oscar.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Frank?!” says Camille.

“Uh, this is Joy,” I say.

Joy shakes hands with Camille and Oscar, who then share a look of approval.

“Frank,” says Oscar. “Please be aware that all sectors are ours to patrol this evening except parking structure Europa top level, northeast corner, and we will attempt no patrol there. That area remains in perpetual penumbra because of a malfunctioning lamp.”

I smile.

Oscar holsters the walkie. “Go, young lovers.”

We drive in silence. It takes a while to even find parking structure Europa, given the size of the mall. While I drive, I notice a strange nervousness has fallen between me and Joy. I catch her staring at me. She catches me glancing at her.

We are driving to the top of an empty parking structure.

Why?

I don’t even know. I just feel compelled to go. Joy, too: there she sits, with her fingertips tented upon her knees in eager anticipation.

Oscar was wrong about the malfunctioning lamp.
All
the lamps up here are off, leaving nothing but pristine moonlight. I park at the farthest, highest corner. The night is sapphire clear, and we can see lights stretching beyond the curved back bay of Playa Mesa all the way to San Marco, Paloma,
Karston, and beyond. To our right is the pitch black void of the Pacific dotted by the lazy pinpoint strobes of oil platforms at rest.

“How late is it?” I wonder.

“Pretty late,” says Joy.

“Should we head home soon?”

Joy replies by cracking her window open an inch. So I crack mine, too.

“I feel shy,” says Joy, and laughs.

“You know, humans laugh to each other to break emotional tension,” I say, and laugh too.

Then we fall silent again. The leather seats creak every time I move a millimeter.

“Your shirt’s all stained and shit,” I say.

“So’s yours,” says Joy. She reaches to touch my abdomen.

I lead her in for a kiss that turns into two that turns into a dozen, easy. Joy suddenly hates the passenger seat she’s in. She kicks against the insides of the car and twists her body around to clamber over the idiotically located center console with its infernal parking brake and hindering drive shifter.

Finally she settles, straddling my lap, and straightens her hair:
Here I am. Hi.

It’s just a pause, long enough for us to gaze at each other in the moonlit dark. The windows are already fogging right on cue, despite being cracked. She and I are lead stars in a classic romantic film everyone knows and cherishes. We can feel the next part coming up.

We kiss long and slow. We stop for a breath.

“I want you,” says Joy. “Okay?”

She is scared to death saying this. I can see it in her eyes. I can smell it on her skin. Because love is more terrifying than anything. Love is a mighty blue hand coming straight for you out of the sky. All you can do is surrender yourself and pray you don’t fall to your death.

I try to reply, but my throat sticks. I clear it.

“Okay,” I say.

We kiss again. The mighty blue hand is taking us somewhere—we don’t know where, it’s terrifying, but here we go. My hand discovers the skin just beneath her shirt—a place I have touched before, but now that there is only bare skin, it feels totally new. She accepts my touch as a kind of permission to touch me back. Suddenly her hands are gripping every part of my torso with an urgent but delicate probing.

I suddenly hate Joy’s shirt. She hates mine, too. Off they go. I already know where the clasp of her bra is, and undo that. Joy elbows the horn once—toot—and we giggle.

“Does this thing go back?” she says, meaning the seat.

“It does,” I say, and reach down to press a button.

The leather seat inches back slowly, oh my god for an eternity does it recline, and makes a long fart sound along the way. It is the best fart for the moment. We crack up and cover our mouths with wonder: are we really going to do this?

We are.

We do.