Chapter 9 Baked Potato Curious
Chapter 9
Baked Potato Curious
I ’d hoped to get through the rest of the week as easily as possible, even though I still hadn’t received the messages I’d wanted to from my friends. Yes, of course the group chat had resumed, but we were back to the standard conversations like Hailey asking for recommendations if she did something wild like switch up her nightly moisturizer, and Fiona sending us an article about investing for retirement that Hailey and I both promised to look at later. It was like the night at Casita Del Campo had never happened.
I wanted to be offended on Chloe’s behalf, but I couldn’t stop picturing Hailey’s fast defense of Will or imagining the conversations that he might be having with Michael at any given moment. And I knew that no matter who I’d shown up with it would have gone the same way. After all, Chloe was beautiful and funny and had an iCloud storage account ninety percent full of dog photos. She should have been enough for them.
I did my best to keep all of that from swirling nonstop in my head—though I couldn’t say I was doing an amazing job at it—throughout our kickoff meeting with the leads from Celebration Pictures about their upcoming gay romantic comedy, Silly in Love . I often didn’t have a whole lot to do in client meetings; BME’s exciting creative strategies were generally what got people in the door. My role was full of logistics, requirements, limitations, and early on in projects I knew I could come off as a killjoy instead of someone who just wanted to set realistic expectations. After this many years on the job, I knew to smile and feign enthusiasm early on, and worry about the details later.
Unfortunately, that gave my brain plenty of spare energy to worry that breaking up with Will hadn’t only ended the thing I’d wanted to end but also things I’d wanted to keep intact, like the only two close friendships I had. I knew that Hailey’s baby and Fiona’s future babies made our friendships more work to schedule, but I was willing to do that work. I’d schedule around babies, current and future! Now, though, it felt less like we had different commitments and responsibilities, and more like my path was leading me far away from the one my best friends were on together. Being single hadn’t felt as scary when I imagined having Fiona and Hailey’s support. After my breakup with Will, though, after watching Fiona and Hailey walk arm in arm away from me, I didn’t know what I still had.
“… media planning?”
I jolted out of my worst-case-scenario-ing and made an expression that I hoped would look exactly like I had been paying attention this entire time.
“Yes,” Phoebe said to Jeremy, who was a VP at Celebration Pictures and our main contact at the indie film studio. “Clementine runs our media planning division, and she and her team can place the entire campaign.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he said, leaning back in his chair like this was the most casual part of his whole day. “We used to work with a separate agency, but it just seems so old-fashioned now, you know? Thanks to dashboard automation, we can just do so much of it in-house these days.”
“Sure,” Phoebe said evenly, though not without sharing a brief look with me. I loved how polite she was with clients without ever seeming like she’d forgotten to be a person, too. “I know Clementine would probably say that some nuance is lost in automation, but we’re here to work with whatever solution you’d like.”
The rest of the BME team stayed in the conference room as Phoebe walked the Celebration Pictures team to the parking lot. I got out my phone to check my email, but was stopped in my tracks by the sight of new messages from both Greg and Chloe.
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Aubrey, who managed research and analytics—and shared Tamarah as an assistant—said with a polite smile. “Just because a client suggests Phoebe shutter part of the agency doesn’t mean she’s going to. Not right away, at least.”
“I’m not worried,” I said as calmly as I was capable of, considering I’d actually asked for the opposite of getting laid off, and—well, it was very much like Aubrey, who once forwarded me a WebMD article about lung cancer after she heard me coughing in my office, to plant a seed of terror in my gut.
Still, I’d very well known that cough had been due to a sinus infection. I didn’t have as easy an explanation for a changing media landscape.
Phoebe leaned back into the room. One of my favorite parts of this job was the post-meeting talks, after the client had gone, and it was just us. Agency life had lots of playing nice, even in an ideally run company like this one. Being led by a smart and progressively minded woman did not negate the need to kiss client ass more than occasionally. It was great when they left and we could be ourselves again. Like, for example, it would have been an excellent time for Phoebe and the rest of the team, sans Aubrey, to laugh off Jeremy’s suggestion that my entire role was outdated.
“Anything time-sensitive to discuss?” Phoebe asked casually instead. “If not, I say we reconvene tomorrow afternoon after everyone’s hashed out their details. Clementine, feels like we’re set for now, but we’ll pull you back in if we need you. Sound good?”
It didn’t, absolutely not at all, a client had just suggested I didn’t even need to exist, but I smiled and nodded anyway. The day only got more annoying when I got back to my office and checked the five (!!) messages from Greg.
They started normally enough:
Me and Marisol think we should all get together soon to discuss more about Mom and Dad’s party.
But progressed quickly to:
I have a lot of appointments this week so should probably be tonight.
Red alert: Marisol made reservations at Sammie’s for 6:30, be on time!!!
Since Will broke up w u can you still handle the beverage situation or are we gonna have to figure it out
And, finally: Come with beverage solutions!!!!
Normally the best thing that happened when my brother sent ridiculous texts was to screenshot them and immediately shoot them off to the group text. It wasn’t only that last night’s awkward dinner was still fresh in my mind; there was obviously more than a small chance that Fiona and Hailey would actually agree with Greg.
I didn’t know how I could ever be a functioning person again if that happened, so I kept the messages to myself. And I remembered that the bright red 1 in the top lefthand corner of my phone was due to an unread message from Chloe, so I tapped back to find it.
How are you today?
Even though it was sent alongside a Dana Scully gif, I was still surprised at Chloe’s thoughtfulness. Not that she’d been thoughtless, not exactly, but the entire one of her best friends is my boss thing didn’t feel entirely considerate, and considerate sure felt like at least a neighbor of thoughtful .
Still, I felt weak between the meeting’s end and Greg’s wall of annoyingness, so I screenshot it after all and sent it to Chloe in lieu of an actual answer. I supposed it was my actual answer.
WTF is this Sammie’s place we’re going to tonight?
I sat up with a start at Chloe’s message. “We”?
Wasn’t that part of the deal? I’m your girlfriend until this party’s over? The literal party, not being metaphorical or some poetic shit.
I couldn’t ask you to do that , I typed. Two nights in a row with my weird people? Greg’s beyond weird. He’s like a cartoon villain except his evildoings just consist of trying to make me feel shitty about my life.
The scariest kind! Obviously I’m in, as long as you answer my question about Sammie’s. I tried to look it up on Yelp and please tell me it’s the place with a cartoon baked potato on its sign.
That is indeed the place. Are you sure?
Yeah, it was asking an incredible amount of Chloe; Greg was not for the weak of heart. Not that Chloe was weak of—well, anything, as far as I’d seen. Still, it wasn’t just that he and I couldn’t stand each other, it was also that I didn’t love who I was around him. Somehow the brattiest parts of my teen self found ways to weasel back in there, even if I was a full-on adult otherwise.
But it was also the bigger thing, the bi thing, the coming out thing. I couldn’t believe how much coming out there was! I wished I could just check some box and have it announced to the world with a no-questions-asked policy. Talking about my personal life was already something I didn’t love, but this felt even bigger because it was laced with my sexuality as well, definitely not something I brought up much if at all. Especially not to my family . When people perceived you as straight and everything seemed to be set at default, there was a simplicity in that, I now realized. Except it had never been my actual truth, and now the actual truth was on its way out there.
But Chloe texted back that she was sure, so I supposed I had to be too. I guessed somewhere deep down maybe I wanted to be? I tapped back to the thread with Greg and took a deep breath. There was, I knew, no going back from here.
Just so you know, I’m dating someone else, and she’s joining me tonight.
Unfussy and succinct, an update of plans and a coming out, all in one go. All those skills I learned once upon a time to write marketing copy coming in handy after all!
It hit me with no shortage of force that this was exactly the favor Chloe had offered me with this ridiculous charade. If I were newly dating someone for real, I would have in no way felt comfortable enough sending that person a screenshot of my brother’s latest nonsense. Family nonsense would be for later, when I was certain someone had strong enough feelings that it would take more than an annoying brother and my potentially even-more-annoying responses to him to make them run for the hills.
I picked her up right after work, and shot her a smile I hoped was more grateful and less panicked , though those two emotions were really duking it out for top honors at that moment. She was wearing what I’d already come to think of as her usual, a casual but bold-printed jumpsuit with bright Crocs, and I was already accustomed to her scent of what seemed like very high-end hair products. I wondered—I could actually barely get through the thought in my own head without laughing aloud.
“What?” Chloe asked, snapping her seat belt while I’d already pulled out back into traffic.
“I was just thinking how you always smell like fancy hair stuff, and it hit me that maybe it’s fancy dog hair stuff, sorry, why am I even admitting this!”
Chloe cracked up. “Clementine, of course it’s fancy dog hair stuff, does it look like I spend that much effort on my own hair?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Your hair looks good all the time, I assume a lot of product goes into it. Isn’t that the thing with short hair?”
Chloe shrugged, running her hand through her hair. “I guess. I dunno, I buy all my hair stuff at Target. Which horrifies my mom.”
“Oh, mine’s the opposite. Once I was running errands with her and pointed out this moisturizer I use, and she was like, you spend how much on face cream? I didn’t have it in me to tell her about the serums and toners too.”
“Your face looks great, though,” Chloe said, and I knew it was meant as a so there to my mother, but it still felt nice to hear.
“Thanks. Yours too. Pass along the compliment to Target.”
She laughed again. “So what do I need to know about your brother other than his texting style is a nightmare?”
“Before I even get into Greg, I guess I should tell you that him and his wife only know that Will and I broke up, and they—like my friends did initially—assume Will dumped me, and so I just sent a text that I was seeing someone new and she was coming tonight and—honestly I’m nervous to check my texts. I have no idea what he’ll say or how he’ll react. I know it’s what year it is and it’s Southern California and whatever else you’re thinking, but—”
“Hey,” Chloe said in a gentle tone I hadn’t heard from her before. “Clementine, you don’t have to explain homophobia to me.”
“Sorry, I’m just—”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way.” She laughed, though her tone was still gentle. “Just that I get it. I’m on your side here. We can talk about it or you can also just tell me about the baked potato options at Sammie’s.”
“There are twelve kinds. But I always get the same one. Classic loaded baked potato. Why mess with perfection?” I sighed and looked out onto the sea of red lights, evening rush hour traffic back to the suburbs. “Greg and I never got along. We were just always so different. I guess I was always just kind of a dreamy kid who looked forward to going to college and growing up somewhere bigger than where I was, whereas I guess he was having fun in the moment, you know, friends he made in places that weren’t extracurriculars or Gifted and Talented class. This is me telling you I was a nerd, I guess.”
“I’d expect nothing else!” she said. “Same here, despite how I turned out.”
“Yeah, exactly,” I said. “My parents definitely expected more from me, career-wise, than this part of marketing no one even understands. They didn’t go to college, so it was this big deal for them that my test scores were so good and I could get some financial support from these colleges that were interested in me. I mean, I still have student loan debt, but it felt really cool to be wanted. It was cool to be wanted, I hate that this has all worked on me, retelling my own life story like it’s shameful now.”
“My younger sister’s one of the top three neurologists in the Bay Area,” Chloe said. “Which, I’m sure you can understand, would put me at an accepted lower ranking within my family regardless, but in a Korean family …”
“I don’t want to stereotype,” I said quickly. “But, yeah.”
“So what does your brother do?” she asked.
“He’s a home inspector,” I said. “Which is a great job, it sounds like, at least. But I literally have no idea why my family’s now all, Greg is a great success and Clementine is our disappointing failure . Lost potential and all. In high school I didn’t date anyone and went to prom with a big group from the yearbook staff, so I should have really succeeded at something, I guess. Greg fucked around in high school but then a few years later he met Marisol and got his job in his field, and it was like he decided to become a cartoon grownup. It’s like he associates having a good time with youthful nonsense or whatever, so it’s all gone. He’s humorless and obsessed with responsibility and hard work. Which makes no sense to me, because I think being an adult is mostly so much better—and way more fun.”
“Hear, hear,” Chloe said. “I like being old enough to truly appreciate youthful nonsense.”
“Also, he’s still up there,” I said. “He’s the one who runs errands for Mom and Dad and brings the kids over every Sunday night for dinner. I’m the one down here with my own life, even though, you know, say the word and I’d help out too. I’d come for dinner! But it’s like I chose something else for my life, so they don’t include me and that’s just …” Fine was on the tip of my tongue, but even if not fully delving into my feelings was exactly how I wanted to proceed with this, abject lying didn’t seem right.
“Anyway, it’s just this thing within our family where Greg surpassed expectations so he’s the winner now, and I didn’t, so I’m the—I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense when I say it aloud. I like my life and I know it’s good. And there shouldn’t be winners and losers in families anyway! I know all of this. When I’m around them, though …”
I glanced over at Chloe, who had somehow unlocked my phone and was browsing Spotify.
“Sorry, I’m probably saying too much about this. Also, you could ask next time. I have some pretty personal playlists.”
Chloe cracked up. “I would never browse someone’s personal playlists. Just figured we’d both rather something else was on instead of Kai Ryssdal. And you don’t have to apologize for your family. That’s the whole point of this, right?”
I wasn’t sure; it felt a little above and beyond. But Chloe started laughing and hit play on Abba Gold and traffic lightened up, and before long we were pulling into the Sammie’s parking lot, right on time.
Greg had texted that he and Marisol were already there, and it was then, while we were walking inside—well, while we’d started walking inside and Chloe stopped to take a selfie with the baked potato sign—that I saw his response to my earlier message.
???
It was, honestly, a better response to my coming out than I’d expected.
“Where is he?” Chloe asked as we walked in, turning her head around every nook and cranny in the main dining area. Sammie’s was like if a restaurant was also a grandmother’s attic. Growing up I’d thought of it as a fancy meal out for my family, and somehow it still triggered the same feeling for me.
“The table in the back corner,” I said. “Near the painting of fancy hats. The guy who looks like—well, not like me, exactly. Me if I were tall and in shape.”
“And a man.”
“Well, that too.”
“Is that his wife?” Chloe asked, peering at Marisol, who was talking too intently to Greg to notice us. “She’s hot.”
Something tiny twinged in my gut. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, pretty, I’ve always thought that, sure. Is she like your type?”
Chloe elbowed me. “Is she like your type?”
“My sister-in-law? No.”
We both burst into laughter, and we were close enough that I guess Greg sensed that I was having fun and some kind of alarm went off in his head. He turned from Marisol and looked right at me, then at Chloe.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Oh my god, Greg, you know I have a farther drive, could we just start one conversation normally?” I asked.
“Also, it’s seven sharp,” Chloe said, looking at her phone.
“Mine says seven-oh-one,” he said.
“Great, you win.” I sighed and sat down next to Marisol, and I could tell as soon as my butt hit the chair that I’d flopped down like a petulant teen and not at all like an adult woman bringing her new girlfriend to meet her family. “Sorry, let’s start over. Greg and Marisol, it’s great to see you both. This is Chloe Lee.”
Greg and Marisol exchanged looks, but Marisol only needed about a half second to spring back into being a regular human.
“It’s great to meet you, Chloe,” she said, hopping up to shake Chloe’s hand. “I love your haircut, it’s so daring.”
Chloe poked me on the leg as she sat down, and I knew it was only so we could laugh later about daring , but a sudden rush of heat accompanied that brief contact, and even though no one—not even Chloe—would know, I felt a follow-up rush of embarrassment. Why was my body responding like a hot girl had her hand on my leg for more than family mockery purposes?
“I’m sorry,” Greg said, then nodded at Chloe. “I’m probably too hard on Clementine. In my line of work, we take timeliness seriously. When lives are on the line—”
“Wait, aren’t you a home inspector?” Chloe asked, and I choked down a laugh at her incredulous tone.
“I am,” he said, with the gravitas of James Earl Jones narrating a documentary. “Imagine if I didn’t do my job correctly. Someone could fall right through the floor of an attic.”
“Sure,” Chloe said, and her hand was back on my leg, squeezing this time. Fuck . “I’d never thought about it that way before.”
“What about carbon monoxide?” he asked. “Silent killer.”
Chloe squeezed tighter. “Can’t be a minute late for that one.”
“Black mold,” he said, gesturing as if the mold was right in front of us, perhaps encroaching on the nearest wall art of an old Victorian shoe. A laugh burst out of me, and Chloe joined in almost instantaneously, and we were practically crying by the time the server approached.
“Should I … come back?” she asked with a wary tone.
“I doubt these two know what they want,” Greg said, using the same black mold gesture toward Chloe and me, which only set us off again.
“Nope, we’re ready, we both want classic baked potatoes,” Chloe said. “And do you want to split a wedge salad?”
“Oh my god, yes ,” I said.
“You two are cute together,” Marisol said as Greg went through a series of directions for a build-your-own baked potato. “Greg and I always order the same things too.”
Greg narrowed his eyes as he finished ordering and shifted his attention to us. “So what’s going on here, anyway? You never mentioned you were … whatever you apparently are.”
“Bi,” I said, as Chloe said, “Baked potato curious,” and then we were both laughing again. It was maybe the most I’d ever laughed around my brother.
Will, of course, hadn’t had much use for Greg either. His method for getting through any interactions had been a sort of disconnected quiet vibe, like he could either rock the boat or disengage. I’d understood—who wanted to get into it with anyone else’s annoying brother?—but it had never made me feel particularly supported.
“Being bisexual had just never come up before,” I said, in as serious a tone as I could muster, once our server had taken everyone’s orders and headed off. “I was with Will for so long, but now …”
“Hey, I didn’t ask,” Greg said, holding out his hands like I’d just described going down on a woman in exquisite detail.
“You literally just said, so what’s going on here anyway ,” Chloe said. “It’s a big deal to come out, you know. It’s a vulnerable act. You could give your sister a little grace and gentleness.”
“Thank you for sharing with us,” Marisol said, with a side-eye to Greg. “Both of you.”
“Don’t mention this to Mom and Dad,” I said. “It’s just that …”
I wished I had a way to end the sentence instead of just trailing off. Instead of just, as I was trying very hard not to do, shouting It’s just that the worst way I can imagine coming out to them is via you, Greg!!
“You want to tell them in person,” Marisol said. “Of course! And with Chloe, of course. At the party!”
“Of course,” I said, though I supposed I hadn’t really thought about this aspect yet, only the thought of not rolling into the party as a single person. Instead I’d really upped the list of everything entailed in a surprise party .
“So should we get through all of the agenda items for the party so by the time our food comes we can just relax and have a good time? I really want to get to know you, Chloe, but I do have OCD—the real kind, not the kind that people say to explain making lists—and will have a better time if we can cover these details first.”
“ADHD here.” Chloe raised a first in solidarity, as Greg stared at me. “Am I missing something?”
“I have ADHD too,” I said. “It’s kind of weird that hasn’t come up yet.”
“It’s because you won’t add me on Instagram where I post only the most obnoxious and basic memes,” she said, as Marisol gasped.
“You won’t add your own girlfriend on Instagram?” she asked.
“No, I just haven’t even opened it since—you know, a bunch of my photos are—” I thought about the woman in the photos, my old life, the different happy ending I thought had already been foretold. “Sorry, I know I’m taking social media way too seriously. I’ll add you right now.”
“Right after Marisol’s list,” Chloe said, but Marisol shook her head.
“This is way more important!”
Chloe swiped my phone from me and tapped for a few moments before handing it back to me. “Done. Marisol, proceed.”
We got through the whole list fairly easily by the time our meals arrived, and I felt like Chloe was at least partially to thank for the swiftness. It wasn’t that she participated much, but her no-bullshit vibe had clearly made its presence known, and Greg barely said a word that wasn’t constructive.
It was, perhaps, the best family outing I’d ever had.
“It feels like we’re in good shape,” I said, swiping out of my Notes app and wondering if I should tempt fate and order dessert while this had mostly been so pleasant.
“There’s still beverages,” Greg said. “If you can’t ask—”
“Let’s not put Clementine in that position,” Marisol said, a wise statement I don’t know why she couldn’t have made sooner in this whole process.
“What’s the beverage situation?” Chloe asked, leaning back casually in her chair.
“Last time we had a family thing, Will had this friend who has a brewery come and serve beers, and everyone loved it,” I said.
“Let’s just ask Sadie,” Chloe said.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Pffff,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The owner of Johnny’s who you’re always flirting with.”
“I am not flirting with anyone!” I said. “Just finding community.”
Chloe nearly spit out her Diet Coke at that. “Uh-huh, that’s what they all call it.”
Greg and Marisol exchanged looks.
“Long story short, I know someone who owns a bar, and I bet she can hook us up with a good deal,” Chloe said. “I’ll talk to her and let Clementine know the details. Good?”
“Thank you,” I told her.
“It’s nothing.”
It wasn’t, though. I almost couldn’t believe how, suddenly, Chloe was the complete opposite of nothing .
After dinner we walked outside together, and Greg jumped into his Chevy Suburban while muttering something about relieving the babysitter. I waved goodnight and unlocked the Prius, but as Chloe was sitting down, Marisol turned in my direction and reached out to pull me aside.
“I have to admit,” she said, “I was surprised too. But it’s wonderful! Chloe’s great. The two of you seem so well matched.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing over to my car where Chloe was scrolling on her phone. “Yeah. She’s … she is great. Yeah.”
“It’s a relief,” Marisol continued. “I was so worried for you, being alone. I hear these nightmares from my single girlfriends!”
“I was …” I searched for the word to describe what I’d been in those weeks after breaking up with Will, to describe technically what I still was now, sans fake-girlfriend. “I was fine.”
“No, of course, but, you know. None of us are getting any younger, it’s good to have someone. Drive safely, text me when you’re home, OK?”
I promised I would and got into the car.
“You OK?” Chloe asked.
“Simultaneously yes and no.”
Chloe laughed. “Sounds like the human condition in a nutshell.”
I stared at her for only a hard moment before catching myself and starting the car.
“What?” she asked as I pulled out of the parking lot onto the road that led straight to the 5 Freeway to take us back.
“Nothing,” I said, instead of How am I going to pay for my condo alone if robots take over my part of the industry and I get laid off and If this party goes off without a hitch will my family see me as a capable and successful adult even if these parameters seem odd and This thing here between us might be really nice if it were actually real and I hate that no one could be happy for me as my life actually is right now and, also, unavoidably, I’m still thinking of your hand on my thigh.