Chapter 8 Like Normal Humans
Chapter 8
Like Normal Humans
O bviously, in retrospect, I should have been even more nervous to roll up to brunch last Sunday. Hindsight, etc. Still, my anxiety had not been at a particularly low level. Tonight, though, on the way to dinner with Hailey, Fiona, and Chloe , my nerves had found new heights to soar. They had self-actualized!
“You’re making a weird face,” Chloe said, as I parked the car a block down Hyperion Avenue from Casita Del Campo. “And you’re comfortable being so terrible at parallel parking, so I know it’s not that.”
“Wait, is it that bad?” I shrugged and turned off the car, already giving up straightening out the car any more. “I just need this to go OK. There are at least a million ways it could go sideways.”
“You’re overthinking this,” she said, hopping out to the curb.
I sighed and took my time grabbing my bag and joining her on the sidewalk. “I’m not. If anything, you’re underthinking it. What we’re doing is ridiculous and if we get found out—”
“How would we get found out ?” A laugh bubbled out of Chloe. “Do you think your friends are going to be all are you two only pretending to be together so that you can avoid awkward social scenarios? No one will think that.”
“No, but we don’t know each other very well.”
“That’s normal early on,” Chloe said. “Do you expect them to quiz us like some old nineteen-sixties game show?”
“Not with those handwritten cards or anything, no,” I said. “Fiona can just be—I don’t know. Very focused.”
“She’s the one who loves capitalism,” Chloe said, nodding. “The other one’s the mom.”
“No, don’t say she’s the mom , she’s a whole person besides that,” I said, even if I apparently hadn’t made that clear enough for Chloe to realize it. I tried to think of a quick fact about Hailey to offer Chloe, but someone walked up quickly behind me and I did my best to step out of the way right as I saw that it was Fiona.
Chloe’s eyes narrowed at the apparent stranger getting up in my space, so I shook my head lightly and smiled. “This is Fiona.”
Fiona shot her hand out like an important businessperson eager to close an important deal. “Fiona Stockton.”
Chloe shot me the tiniest of bemused looks, but Fiona saw everything.
“You’re Chloe Lee?” Fiona asked, still finishing the handshake. How long did business handshakes go on in her field? The marketing side of the entertainment industry ran more on emotion-free hugs. “I googled your business. It seems you’ve had a lot of success. Have you thought about expanding or franchising?”
“Hey, let’s all act like normal humans and go see if Hailey’s at the restaurant,” I said, backing down the sidewalk and hoping they’d follow.
“She’s running a few minutes behind,” Fiona said, walking over to me and then, of course, taking the lead. I tried to let it go, again, that there was apparently a full ongoing conversation between my best friends that didn’t include me at all. There was so much about my life—especially these days—that didn’t include my two best friends, after all. Still, it was tough keeping it from getting under my skin. Just another sign that they were headed off in a separate direction, and maybe eventually there’d be even less use for me.
“But let’s get the table,” Fiona continued. “Chloe, I saw that your pet salon uses organic shampoos and other supplies. Are those products you buy, or do you make your own? Have you trademarked them and looked into distribution across your vertical?”
“What did I literally just say about acting like normal humans?” I sighed and waited for Chloe to catch up. “I apologize for all of that MBA talk.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Have you not figured out that Phoebe is doing the same to me all of the time? And anyway, I have an MBA too.”
“Wait, you do?” I asked, and then tried to pretend that I was kidding because it felt bad to not know the state of your girlfriend’s level of business degree.
“I wanted to run my own business,” she said with a shrug. “My dad strongly suggested it.”
“Did he know what kind of business?” I asked, and Chloe cracked up. “Sorry, was that mean?”
“No—well, maybe! And of course he didn’t. That degree definitely gave me two extra years of parental approval though, worth every penny.”
I laughed, but then noticed that Fiona’s eyes were narrowed.
“You didn’t know your girlfriend had an MBA?” she asked.
“It’s not hanging on my wall or anything,” Chloe said.
Fiona frowned. “It’s not on your LinkedIn profile?”
Chloe and I burst into laughter and followed Fiona into Casita Del Campo. The Mexican restaurant was painted hot pink outside, and a variety of bright colors, from room to room, indoors. It was a solid choice for giant platters of classic Mexican fare, but considering it was also the kind of place that hosted drag nights and flew pride flags, I had a feeling my friends suggested it for dinner tonight by typing LGBTQ+ restaurants into Google and texting me the nearest result.
I found that both deeply cringeworthy and endearing.
The host guided us to a table right away, and as Chloe and I sat down across from an intense Fiona, I felt like we were in some kind of bizarro job interview situation.
“Should I hand over my résumé?” I asked, even if I was the only one who knew what I was even talking about.
“Very funny,” Fiona said. “By now my assistant would have already given it to me. And I wouldn’t hire you, you look too nervous.”
“Wow, she barely had a chance at this fake job,” Chloe said, nudging me.
“What’s that about?” Fiona asked, a sharp nod in the direction of Chloe’s elbow. “Did Clementine tell you something about the so-called evils of capitalism and my involvement therewithin?”
“Oh, no, we’re already on to capitalism?” Hailey squeezed into the booth next to Fiona. “Can we save the economic systems talk for dessert? Or never? Hi, you must be Chloe, I’m Hailey. I’m so sorry, the sitter was five minutes late, and even though I was going against traffic—anyway! What else did I miss?”
“Fiona would never hire me because I look quote-unquote too nervous,” I said.
“Who wouldn’t look nervous in front of Fiona!” Hailey laughed and leaned in to side-hug Fiona, a person who probably had never initiated a side-hug herself. “Wait, are you interviewing for a job? What did I miss? What’s even happening? Chloe, I’m sorry, I should be getting to know you better but first I want to clear my confusion.”
“No, I’m not worth getting to know,” Chloe said. “Clear up your confusion instead, it’s the better call.”
I glanced over at Chloe while Fiona began reviewing her fifteen-point (!) interviewing system with Hailey. “Obviously Fiona’s methods of taking over the world via finance or whatever are the most important thing we have going on, but—I don’t know. Don’t say you’re not worth knowing.”
“OK, Mom,” she said with a grin.
“Must be nice! My mom never says things like that.”
“Oh, mine either! Sit up straight or get a real job , those are things I’m used to.”
“Getting a real job is a big focus of my mom’s, too,” I said.
“Wait, you have a real job,” Chloe said. “You use PowerPoint and Excel.”
“Those are the main markers, yes,” Fiona said in a serious tone that made all of us burst into laughter. “Though of course you do have a real job, Clementine.”
A server stopped by to get our drink orders, and I noted that Fiona ordered a margarita. I also tried not to feel any sense of relief at that; my friends could have all the babies they wanted and our relationships would still be intact. Their happiness was top priority for them, and I knew it. Making wishes about the contents of my friends’ uteri was not cool behavior.
“Is this still about your side hustle?” Hailey asked me after the server had left.
“Yeah, at least partially.” I glanced at Chloe. “I guess it’s time you know this about me.”
“Wait, how does she not know?” Hailey asked.
“Well, I don’t lead with it,” I said, because that much was true. Even if Chloe and I had been real-dating, I’d absolutely wait longer to drop that I devoted as much time as I did to crafting horoscopic toys for cats. There was nothing suspicious about Chloe’s ignorance on this specific matter.
I hoped.
“Clementine, you have to tell me,” Chloe said. “Immediately.”
“I don’t understand you,” Hailey said, shoving her phone at Chloe. “If I did anything this cute, it would totally be what I led with. It might be the only thing I told people about.”
I watched Chloe’s face intently as she scrolled my Etsy page. Sure, Chloe had an adorable dog and a business grooming other people’s dogs, and she might be a fairly small person, but there was nothing cutesy about her. Despite that I still thought this whole thing was a terribly misguided and regrettable decision, I guessed I hoped that Chloe didn’t feel that way, too.
“Clementine, do you mean to tell me you’re responsible for the cutest fucking cat toys I’ve ever seen in my life? Man, you were making cat toys back when you couldn’t even have a cat because of your boyfriend’s whole thing—”
“—allergy,” I corrected.
“Still. It must have been hard pining for a cat and thinking you’d never have one,” she said. “I’m glad you do now. And I’m glad Small Jesse Pinkman has these to bat around. What’s his sign, anyway?”
“He’s an Aries, thanks for asking,” I said. “What about Fernando?”
“Since he’s literally a street dog, your guess is as good as mine. Based on personality, Gemini seems the safest bet.”
Chloe glanced up at Hailey. “Someone named Michael just texted you, poop emoji looks normal again .”
Hailey frowned. “Did he type poop emoji or did he use the poop emoji?”
“Is the meaning vastly different depending?” Fiona asked in a horrified tone.
“You can sound like that all you want,” Hailey said, smiling widely. “Once you have a baby, you have no idea just how many times you can text and talk about poop.”
I felt a streak of something that felt like disappointment, but couldn’t be, only a terrible person would be disappointed that soon all of her best friends would have babies and text about poop. “Wait, you just ordered a drink, are you—”
“No,” Fiona interrupted me. “Hailey jumps the gun, as you know.”
“It was more of a general poop-emoji-related warning,” Hailey says. “But Michael’s bad at using Siri—how can a person be bad at using Siri, you ask, I know, it’s strange and adorable—so instead of the poop emoji, often it just says, you know. Poop emoji.”
I glanced at Chloe to see what she thought about all this poop and poop emoji talk, but she was still scrolling through my Etsy shop.
“Let’s talk less about poop,” Fiona said, wrinkling her nose.
“Less about emojis too, maybe,” I said, which cut whatever tension had sneaked in. Or maybe that was just in my head. Lately when it came to my best friends and babies and all the conversations that no longer involved me, it was hard to tell what was actually happening and what was an invented conflict that made me feel on the outs nonetheless. (Well, of course, and an actual text chain I was not part of.) I’d never felt conflicted about knowing I never wanted kids of my own, but I hadn’t at all been prepared for how it would feel to be in a group where I was the only one who felt that way.
Maybe, if Will had wanted the same things I’d wanted, this part of adulthood wouldn’t feel so lonely.
The server was back with our drinks and to take our orders, and I tried to feel—well, not normal , exactly. Less shot through with potential conflict and tension.
“How do you guys feel about clowns?” Hailey asked.
“Not positively,” I said, as Fiona asked, “ Why? ” and Chloe barked out a “No.”
“I’m planning Ellie’s birthday party,” Hailey said. “It needs to be perfect.”
“Then I’d suggest a hard no clowns rule,” Fiona said.
“Clowns do balloon animals,” Hailey said with the tone of a lawyer landing a key piece of evidence in a trial. “Sometimes face-painting.”
“Surely,” Fiona said with a grimace, “there are other ways to achieve those two activities without bringing a clown into the mix.”
“Does anyone even remember their first birthday?” I asked, which was apparently, from Hailey’s and Fiona’s and even Chloe’s faces, the wrong thing to say. “You know what I mean. Only that it doesn’t have to be perfect, and will Ellie care about a clown or balloon animals or face-painting?”
“People form memories around photographs,” Hailey said. “When she’s older, I want her to see pictures from this party and see how loved she was, always, by so many people. So every detail needs to be right.”
I flashed back, high school study hall, me skimming the material before tests and Hailey reviewing handmade notecards and murmuring nervously about her GPA.
“It’ll be fine,” I said, but because I’d already said the not-remembering thing, I could tell that it didn’t read as comforting. It was just a brush-off.
“As long as there are no clowns! So, Chloe, how did you two meet?” Fiona asked, back in interview mode again.
“I already told you this,” I said quickly, because as grateful as I was for a topic change, not necessarily this topic . Was she suspicious? Out to poke holes in my story? The story was true, though. What was I worried about?
“It’s cute hearing it from both people’s perspectives,” Hailey said, leaning forward like she was an eager child at story time and Chloe was the best librarian in the world. Was that all Fiona wanted, too? I couldn’t tell if I was catching a whiff of suspicion off my friend or if that was just the stench of my own guilt.
“I’m a friend of Clementine’s company,” Chloe said. “So we’d met at one of the Big Marketing Energy holiday parties.”
“I thought she rescued you from street harassment,” Hailey said, as Fiona frowned.
“She did,” I said, as Chloe said, “ Rescue is a strong word.”
Fiona’s frown was still directed at us.
“Technically we’d met before,” I said.
“But she had that boring boyfriend then,” Chloe said.
Now Hailey was frowning too. “Will? He’s such a sweet guy.”
“I didn’t say he was boring,” I said. “Chloe just—”
“Picked it up from context clues,” Chloe said with a laugh.
Fiona and Haley exchanged nervous looks. They were, I was certain, already planning the texts they’d send to each other later.
“What’s the cutest dog you’ve ever groomed?” I asked Chloe, not only because I did genuinely want to know, but it also seemed the kind of subject that might unite the booth again. “Or can’t you say?”
“Why couldn’t I say?” Chloe asked, furrowing her eyebrows, an action I did emphatically not find extremely cute.
“Groomer/client confidentiality is I believe what Clementine is doing her best to respect,” Fiona said. “Which I have a hard time believing exists.”
“Correct, I can talk all I want about the cutest dogs, though you’re all warned that now that I’ve started I may spend at least thirty minutes just on the Pekinese mix named Cappuccino.”
All of us, even Fiona, squealed at that, and Chloe scrolled through photos of freshly groomed dogs as well as some impressive before-and-after shots, and before long our food was there and then it was much easier to pretend the whole meal had been more like the dog photos show-and-tell and way less like Fiona and Hailey’s faces when Chloe had said the word boring .
After the check had come and we’d walked outside, I did my best to casually hug my friends good night and wait calmly while Chloe shook their hands. I knew that if Fiona was still in interview mode that Chloe in no way had landed the job, and I was eager to get home and away from this entire interaction.
Hailey cleared her throat right as I was about to head toward my car, after Chloe had already taken a couple of steps away. “I should … say something.”
“Oh?” I asked in what I hoped was a very casual tone.
“Well, you know that Michael and Will are friends,” she said with a slight shrug. “And they still are. So I just wanted you to know he’s still sort of in my life.”
“Oh,” I said in what I hoped was a similarly casual tone. “Has he—”
“He hasn’t said anything, as far as I know,” she said quickly, reaching out and touching my arm. “But I hated the thought of you—I don’t know. Things can be complicated, which is tough, but I feel like as long as we’re all honest, it’ll work itself out.”
“Okay,” I said. What else was there to say? Will was allowed to be friends with whoever he wanted, and so was Michael. No matter how hard I sort of wished that Will just sort of didn’t exist as far as my own personal life went these days.
“Hay, where’d you park?” Fiona asked.
“Oh my god, so far away!”
“I’ll walk you,” Fiona said, looping her arm through Hailey’s and barely waving goodbye again to Chloe and me before taking off down the sidewalk in what I pretended was not great enthusiasm .
Back in the car, we buckled our seat belts and I tried not to dread what Chloe would say.
“This might sound crazy,” Chloe said as I started the car and pulled out onto Hyperion, “but I have an idea.”
“I assume it’s never see my friends again .”
She snorted. “What? No. Your friends are fine, even if they’re on your ex’s side, which is fine in theory but they could at least fake it around you. I was going to say you should let me sell your cat toys at my shop.”
“Wait, what?”
“I know that it probably sounds like Phoebe and your capitalist friend are getting to me, but it just makes sense. Tons of my customers also have cats, and as cute as your shit looks on Etsy, I bet it’s even cuter in person.”
I shrugged, doing my best to seem modest. “It’s pretty cute.”
“Perfect. So you’re in?”
“You don’t want to … discuss any of that?”
“Your friends wanted to meet me because they had to satisfy their curiosity about this special woman who made their friend gay, as far as they see it, right? They’ve met me, I’m nothing special, they’ll lose interest. By the time we break up, they’ll be less weird with the first real girl.”
I pulled up to a red light and shot her a look. “You’re a real girl. And also you’re not not special , remember?”
“Oh please, Clementine, you know what I mean.”
I tried to imagine it, the next time, a woman beside me who was for real, who I’d confessed feelings to, who I’d kissed, who I’d had sex with, who I’d spent nights next to. A woman I hoped would be around longer than a couple of months. Would it go better then?
“I know it sounds dumb,” I admitted, “but I just wanted all of you to like each other. The opposite feels symbolically bad.”
“Your friends don’t like your fake girlfriend? I don’t think that’s symbolic of anything,” Chloe said. “Also, to be honest, I didn’t try very hard to like them because of the whole temporary thing. A real girlfriend would try so much harder.”
We were silent the rest of the drive to her apartment, but once I pulled the car over on her block, Chloe hopped out as if the mood hadn’t seemed dire at all.
“See you Sunday for brunch,” she said. “I’ll drive since parking near Lady Byrd can be terrible and I’m not sure you’re up for the task.”
I smiled faintly and watched her let herself inside. My phone buzzed with a text, so I kept the car in park and checked my screen. I was hoping for a Chloe’s great! or even just a That was fun! , even though Chloe had already called it and obviously I could feel that they just wished I was still with Will. Somehow I knew that a lie would make me feel better, like at least my friends were ready to support me. And, of course, not that they knew, but considering that I was also lying, it would even things out.
The text was just from the site I ordered my bras from, letting me know there was a sale on sexy robes.
knock knock
I jumped in my seat and held back a scream, only to see Chloe standing outside my car with Fernando on his leash. He barked three times in high-pitched succession.
“Shit, sorry,” she said as I rolled down the window. “I was taking Fernando out and saw that you were still here and just wanted to make sure everything was OK.”
“Sure, just having a minor heart attack is all,” I said, trying my best to speak normally even though there was at least a split second I thought I was about to be murdered.
“Look, I know you’re sad that no one wanted to split dessert with you,” Chloe said, leaning into the car, just a little. “But the truth is, Clementine, that no one likes flan. It’s disgusting.”
I laughed, even as I kind of wanted to cry. “It’s like a bunch of dairy products and caramel. What’s not to love?”
“Come on, there’s a parking spot open around the corner that even you can maneuver into. I’ll make you dessert upstairs.”
It was, even for a fake girlfriend, a romantic gesture, but that was because I pictured her baking a sheetful of cookies or even whipping up a batch of brownies from a box.
“I can’t believe this is safe. In fact, I’m sure it’s not.”
Chloe rolled her eyes at me and pointed to my right hand, which was holding a marshmallow and a couple squares of fancy dark chocolate between two graham crackers. “I’ve been doing this my whole life.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re lying,” I said, and she grabbed the uncooked s’more from me and held it by one end as she torched the other with an ancient-looking Bic lighter.
“This would be easier if you stopped shrieking,” she said, which was news to me, but given that Fernando was regarding me with wide eyes and a cocked head, I couldn’t deny that I’d apparently been, unawares, screeching as the flames neared Chloe’s fingers.
We both burst into laughter as Chloe presented me the, somehow, perfectly burnt square. “I can’t believe this worked.”
“People never trust me,” she said, putting together a second s’more. “Isn’t this better than flan?”
“No!” I said, but then I took a bite. Somehow this dangerously built construction was perfect : gooey, sweet, just a little salty.
“You’re lying,” Chloe said, calmly torching her own s’more like she did this every day. Did she?!
“Hey,” I said, as she shoved the whole s’more into her mouth.
“What?” she asked, or at least she asked something that sounded a bit like what while her mouth was full of s’more.
I had been this close to telling her how I’d needed this, how friendship in my thirties felt so much harder than it had in the decades before, and how my very fake relationship now seemed to be one of the last dominos primed to knock over my very real friendships. But as I watched Chloe stack up another pair of s’mores, I realized that she already knew.
“These are better than flan.”
A grin overtook her face. “Clementine, I told you so.”