Chapter 24 Red Alert
The morning of Mom and Dad’s surprise party was bright and blue—the kind of thing people not from Los Angeles would have assumed you could take for granted, but I’d been readying myself for something gray and hazy and terrible, and also readying myself for Greg somehow blaming me for it.
I got to Greg and Marisol’s five minutes early, and joined them in the backyard where they’d already set up a huge tent for shade.
“Old white people need to be protected from the sun,” Marisol said cheerfully.
“Young white people too, look how pasty I am,” I said. “OK, young-ish. Anyway, what do you need me on?”
“Greg needs someone else to get all the tables set up—though he won’t admit it. Hmmm, maybe that’s a better job for me. Tablecloths and chairs as we go? And dealing with everyone as they arrive?”
“Sure, I’m on it,” I said.
“Also, I’m sorry, Greg told me about Chloe—”
“I’m really OK,” I said. “It’s fine. I mean, no, I have feelings, and I’m sad and I miss her but, you know, I’m OK. Thanks for checking in on me.”
“Well, sure, of course you’re OK,” she said like a person who’d never sent a poor lonely Clementine email in her life.
“Anyway, I’ll get to work. Let me know if you need anything else.”
The truth was that I wanted to be snottier about all of it, but I liked Marisol so much—loved her, even—and there were so many worse ways to spend a morning than out in the sunshine. Thanks to my new yoga class, none of my joints made a noise as I carried chairs around the yard and got tablecloths into place.
My phone buzzed with messages from my friends—the two group chats that ruled my life—and Sadie, all around the same time, and I ran to the front to lead them in. When Fiona and Hailey had heard that my other friends had offered to take charge of the potluck situation, they demanded to contribute as well. I wasn’t sure Fiona had cooked anything in her life, so I wasn’t surprised she rounded the corner hoisting a professional-looking container.
“It doesn’t mean that you care less if you pay a caterer,” she said with an eye roll.
“You were the one who offered,” I said, “but thank you. Thank you, everyone.”
My gut told me I should be genuinely shocked that these people were all here, including my boss and a couple of people who were so freshly back from their honeymoon that they were still tan. But rationally I wasn’t surprised at all; these people had all formed actual friendships with me, and this is what actual friends did.
“What’s going on?” Greg walked up and looked around at the group arranging the food next to the steam trays of tamales that Marisol had already set out. (It was extremely hard not just sitting down to consume several tamales.) “We told people to start arriving in a half hour. Also are all these people on the invite list?”
“These are my friends who’re helping with the food,” I said. “I told you that.”
He eyed them suspiciously and walked off, which was rude but definitely for the best.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I don’t know how to explain other than that’s always my brother’s vibe.”
“That was so exciting,” Fiona said. “I’ve heard about him for so long.”
“We went to high school together!” Hailey said. “You’d think I’d at least get a greeting.”
“Not really how he rolls,” I said. “I’m going to make sure everything’s good for Sadie to get the bar set up—y’all can introduce yourselves and figure out how to lay out the food?”
“On it,” Ari and Phoebe said at the same time, and I felt like you couldn’t leave anything in better hands than with two alpha lesbians running things, so I walked over to make sure Sadie had everything she needed. Per their web site, I knew that Johnny’s did on-location events, but I was pretty certain that this was their first straight wedding anniversary in the suburbs. Sadie had even given me a deal, though I planned on tipping extremely well for—well, for all of it. Seeing her here, seeing all of my friends, I felt more taken-care-of than I could have imagined.
Mom and Dad’s friends started arriving before long; when you were in your twenties and thirties, no one ever came until at least thirty minutes after the start time on the invite, but apparently sometime between then and your sixties you started showing up ten minutes before. It was fine, though, the drinks were flowing and the spread looked amazing and even Dad’s weird friend Jerry was smiling.
“What did you end up telling Mom and Dad to get them to stop by?” I asked Greg, keeping an eye on the time. Any minute now.
“I just invited them to lunch,” he said. “It wasn’t some big complicated thing.”
I sighed and headed back to my friends, who had fully claimed one table right in the center. “Y’all don’t have to stay, you know. I’m sure you have way better things to do with your Saturday than this.”
“We really don’t,” CJ said in their standard dead-serious tone.
“Yeah, I have a babysitter for three hours,” Hailey said, “and I am getting every last minute out of those three hours.”
“Us too,” Bianca said.
“Clementine,” Greg hissed at me, appearing out of nowhere like some kind of annoying magic trick. “Mom and Dad are pulling up.”
“Should we all yell surprise! ?” Marisol asked, walking up next to Greg.
“Maybe Happy anniversary! has more clarity,” I said. “If we can get everyone onboard with that quickly.”
“I got you,” Ari said, jumping up and quickly making the rounds.
Mom and Dad peered into the backyard a few moments later, and magically everyone chorused Happy anniversary! almost in unison. Despite every irritating moment that led to this, I was grateful for all of it to see how happy they both looked.
“Was this the two of you?” Mom asked Greg and I, hugging him and then me.
“Me and Marisol, yep,” Greg said. “And Clementine helped.”
“It was the three of us,” I said quickly instead of punching Greg, which is what I felt like doing. I knew, of course, that I hadn’t done as much as the two of them, this being their house and all, but come on .
“Thanks so much, kiddo,” Dad said, hugging me, and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Jerry accidentally told me last week at the club, but, don’t worry, I didn’t mention it to your mom.”
“Oh, god, I knew that would happen,” I said, cracking up. “He’s a force of chaos. Thanks for keeping it still half a surprise.”
“It made it fun knowing how excited she’d be,” Dad said with a smile directed at Mom, who was talking to Marisol and the kids. I thought about the four decades they’d been together and the care they still took with each other, and I felt lucky to celebrate them today.
“I can’t believe how many people showed up,” Mom said. “It’s going to take us an hour just to say hi to everyone.”
“Longer if Jerry tries to tell stories from the club,” Dad said. “We should get started then.”
I saw that their gazes both snagged at exactly the same moment, obviously when they realized that a table full of queers—plus Fiona and Hailey—was right smack-dab in the middle of their friends.
“Clementine’s friends are here,” Greg said as if he was alerting them to a nest of rats on the premises. “It’s like back in high school, remember, she couldn’t do anything without everyone she hung out with.”
“Pretty sure that was everyone in high school,” I said.
“Well, some of us grew up,” Greg said. “But I guess that’s having a real job and real responsibilities for you.”
“Dude, come on ,” I snapped. “I don’t know if you’re actually unaware of this or just conveniently forgetful, but I do have a real job besides making cat toys. I run an entire department for a company that I’m very proud of. Also, the cat toys are pretty profitable! And I know I don’t have kids, and I absolutely understand they’re a bigger responsibility than Small Jesse Pinkman or whatever—”
“Who is Small Jesse Pinkman?” Mom asked. “Is that the woman you’ve been dating? Greg said something about you being bisexual now.”
Oh my god .
“I’m not bisexual now ,” I said. “I’m bisexual … in general. And, thanks, Greg, for not letting me come out to Mom and Dad on my own time, even though I asked you for that.”
Greg stared at me, as if he’d never expected to be called out for anything by anyone ever. “I was trying to help. I thought maybe it would be easier if I—”
“Well, you were wrong. And, no, Mom, Small Jesse Pinkman isn’t a woman. He’s a cat. My cat.
“And”—I turned back around to point at Greg—“before you say a word about cat ladies or spinsters or whatever, there is nothing wrong with living alone with a cat. Or bringing all of your friends along as your date instead of your spouse or partner. Those people have been there for me, and I know you and Marisol think I’m so sad and lonely, but it would be impossible for that to be true considering the people my life is full of.”
“Clementine,” Marisol said in a gentle voice, “I’m sorry if I ever—”
“Today is about Mom and Dad so I really want to keep it about them,” I said. “And today is the last day I’m tolerating any of this, OK? You all made me feel so shitty about myself that I—”
I shook my head, cutting myself off. “I’m sorry. Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad. I love you both so much.”
I walked off toward my friends, but Mom cut me off at the pass.
“I feel like an idiot,” she said. “Jesse Pinkman was that little drug dealer on the show your dad used to watch.”
I nodded, blinking back tears. “That’s true.”
“Clementine, I know it’s always been tough between the two of you.” Mom looked like me, short and curvy, and sometimes it was a little like seeing myself in the future—though with more sensible patterns and colors. “And we all know Greg likes to make himself the hero of every story.”
“It’s weird no one ever calls him out on it, though,” I said, though the no one felt wrong, because one person had.
“Your father and I are so proud of you,” she said. “You just always made it look so easy. You were so good at school, and you found this career doing whatever it is with ads and marketing, and we just never felt like we had to say anything. It was so obvious you were doing great. Greg struggled with so much of it, and we’re so happy with how his life’s turned out.”
“No, completely,” I said. “Me too. Marisol’s amazing, and even if the kids hate me, they’re amazing too.”
Dad walked up to us and touched my shoulder. “I just want you to know that I watched all of the episodes of Queer Eye .”
“And you know how much we love Ellen!” Mom said.
“I hope you know you could have told us sooner,” Dad said. “We just didn’t know because you and Will seemed so happy.”
“For a long time we were,” I said. “And this isn’t about him at all. It’s just about me. Not today, though! Today’s about the two of you.”
“Don’t worry about us, we’ve had forty years of todays,” Mom said. “When you find someone like your dad and I have, your love’s big enough to hold everyone else, too.”
She pulled me in for another hug. “Well, sweetie, we should go make the rounds before Jerry starts in on one of those standup comedy specials he’s been watching on Netflix.”
“ Hurry ,” I said, and watched as people from throughout my parents’ lives greeted them. I hoped that someday, even if I never had decades with anyone, there were enough people in my life to fill up this many tables.
It hit me, though, that something was missing. Someone was missing. And not because I was lonely, or because I didn’t want to die alone, or because being at an anniversary party really did make you think about the beauty of spending your life with someone who loved you. Missing Chloe had nothing to do with any of that. I thought of Mom’s words, a love big enough to hold everything. I loved Chloe, I realized with a shock. What I felt for her had room for all of it. For all of me.
“I—I have to go,” I said, rushing over to my friends’ table. “Not to sound like I’m seventeen and sneaking out of a—can y’all cover me? There’s something I need to—”
“I actually think you should stay,” Ari said with a nod behind me.
I understood from her tone—and that practically every single other person I knew, coworkers and ex-boyfriend excluded, were already here—what was happening, but I still had to turn to see it. I had to turn around completely to see Chloe Lee walking toward me, clad in her brightest Nooworks jumpsuit, Fernando’s leash in one hand and a stack of Tupperware in the other.
“Kimbap’s here,” she said, stopping right in front of me with a grin that threatened to melt my heart down into a pile of ashes. “Fernando, sit.”
It was when he sat down that I realized his leash was looped safely around Chloe’s thumb. And it didn’t escape her notice that it hadn’t escaped my notice.
“Here’s the thing, Clementine,” she said. “I hated how people used to treat Fernando. He’s a dog . The worst thing I could imagine was holding back his awesome semi-feral-except-for-me energy, making him some robot dog who barks on command. For some reason—even though I work with dogs for a living —I couldn’t see past this decision I’d made almost ten years ago when I slowed down my car and let him jump into it. But the older he was getting, the crankiness was dialing up, and I was like, what the fuck am I doing? And then my algorithms had me following all these queer dog trainers who specialized in force-free dog training, and—I mean, look at him!”
“He’s sitting so properly,” I said, feeling proud of him even if I had no right to. “He’s a good dog, though. He always has been, even when he’s running around like he’s on dog cocaine. I totally get why you’d be scared to take away from that.”
“The canine cocaine? Sure.” She met my eyes again. “There’s this thing they taught me in our first class, not to think of this stuff as commands, like I’m leading the dog military or something else terrible, but cues. I’m just cuing him up for stuff. Which I like, I guess. I mean, it’s working, we’re both still ourselves, so, yeah.”
“I’m so glad, Chloe. Well, thanks for bringing the kimbap,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. Seeing Chloe in the backyard of the home I’d grown up in was almost too much. A nonreligious miracle or something. “You were totally off the hook on that, though.”
“No, I promised to bring you a bunch of white people Korean food, and I don’t break promises.” She laughed and shook her head. “I actually have broken a million promises over the years, but I’m working on that too.”
“Oh,” I said, smiling. Smiling more? Had I ever been so happy to be in someone’s presence? “Are you in force-free training too?”
“Something like that. Bianca’s got me going to her kickboxing class so I get to punch people, but with consent.”
I laughed. “I’m not sure how any of that qualifies as force-free , but that sounds so good for you. Not to sound patronizing.”
“Nah, it is good for me. Can you help me with these?”
I lifted the containers out of Chloe’s arms while trying not to act like it was a huge deal she was letting me help her, and led her over to the shaded tables holding the feast.
“This is a good spread,” Chloe said, surveying the offerings.
“Your friends helped a lot,” I said.
“Yeah, I think you have to call them our friends now.” She bit her lip and flashed me a look, and I felt untethered seeing the shock of the want and need in her eyes. “OK, so I was worried I’d do this part badly, so—hang on …”
Chloe dug into her pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. “Since I’m bad at saying things aloud, I wrote you a letter, which I’m going to read to you. No, fuck, this is already stupid.”
“It’s not,” I said quickly. “Read me your letter.”
Dad’s friend Jerry walked past us briskly, grabbing a bunch of kimbap and three deviled eggs before walking off.
“This is,” Chloe said, “the perfect setting for this. Just like I imagined.”
“Come on,” I said, taking her by the hand and leading her and Fernando away from the crowd, inside the house. “My brother’s kitchen. More like you pictured.”
“Yep, exactly this.” She let go of my hand and unfolded the piece of paper. “Seriously, though, stop me if this is too cheesy.”
“I want to hear your letter,” I said.
“ Dear Clementine ,” she read. “I feel like I’m reading a book report.”
“Is that part of the letter or just how you’re feeling?” I asked, and she laughed.
“ Dear Clementine. I’m sorry I’ve acted like such a complete asshole and I said things to you like I don’t need you instead of the truth which is that I had all these big feelings for you and had no clue what to do about it. I’ve never been good at relationships and so when someone incredible showed up in my path, instead of being real with her ”—Chloe glanced up at me—“ with you , I came up with this whole fucking plan instead of just asking you to dinner like an emotionally mature person would have done. Instead of walking you outside to your car and kissing you that very first night.
“ The truth is that I’m the same as Fernando. I like who I am, even if maybe that’s semi-feral. I like my friends and I like my life and I like my business and—well, I love this guy. ”
Fernando barked as if he knew, and we both laughed.
“ And I know how people saw me ,” she continued, “oh that Chloe, she’s so crazy, she’ll punch a man for looking at her the wrong way, and even though that isn’t actually me, it’s not not me . I still thought there was this—god, this is so embarrassing to say aloud. Like this untamed quality in me. And I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to compromise for someone, especially someone who’s just gonna end up disappointed by the actual reality of me anyway, just mainly a person who wants to hang out with her dog and listen to musicals, and so I had this whole no relationships thing. Like compromise is only bad.
“ And then I met you and you had all of that figured out, this idea that you could put together the kind of life you wanted without having to follow any of the rules that didn’t suit you and the truth is that you made me rethink everything, Clementine. You’re so fucking worth compromising for.
“ Also, my friends were right when they were all thank god you have Clementine. I realized that they didn’t mean thank god you have someone like anyone at all, but that was all I could hear. They meant what they said, thank god you have Clementine , specifically you and how much happier I am because you’re part of my life.
“ I was such an incredible jerk to you at the wedding. All I could think of was you ending things two weeks later, finishing up at your parents’ party and then you jumping on the apps to find someone actually deserving of you. The thought of seeing you in all the photos later was gonna break my heart, and instead of admitting that, it was like I couldn’t stop finding new ways to treat you like shit.
“ I know you might not want to forgive me and that’d be more than fair, but I do promise that I’ll work on being less of a feral asshole. Sincerely, me .”
She refolded the paper and started to tuck it back into her pocket, but I stopped her.
“Can I see it?” I asked, and she nodded. Her handwriting was even and cute, and it made the letter look like a note someone would have passed me once upon a time in school. My name, written by her hand, shook something deep inside of me. “Wait, what’s this thing at the end?”
“Oh, no,” she said, trying to grab it back from me. “I had this idea I would sing Abba’s ‘Take a Chance on Me’ and then I thought it was the dumbest thing I’d ever written down, so I tried to scratch it out but—”
“I’m sure you’ve written down way dumber things,” I said, and she laughed.
“Thanks for that.”
“Chloe,” I said, realizing how I’d missed how her name felt in my mouth, knowing that, in and of itself, wasn’t enough. Not yet. “There’s really nothing I want more than—well, than you . But also it was kind of messy and bad sometimes, and I don’t want to let all that stuff go again.”
“No, you shouldn’t, I was a real asshole to you and you deserve better than that.” She leaned in close to me, looked up into my eyes. “But I’m working on being better than that. For you and for everyone else I care about. And I’m sorry I treated you the way I did.”
“Yeah?” I asked, leaning in closer too. “I’m sorry, too. I definitely did want to find someone else to spend my life with after the thing with Will ended, and—well, I know how he made me feel, like it didn’t matter what I wanted or who I was, just that there was a plan for life and he was going to do the plan. And if I made you feel like I was just doing that, you were part of my new gay plan—”
“Clementine,” Chloe said with a laugh. “I loved being part of your new gay plan. Look, I didn’t believe any of that baby gay shit I said. I’d just had such a stupid embarrassing teenage crush on you. And if I wasn’t built for a real relationship, how else was I gonna have you all to myself?”
I laughed, my face flushed at the thought. “Really? All those times we hung out at company parties talking about bacon-wrapped dates?”
“Clementine,” she said almost reverently, and I expected a diatribe about the wonder of canapes. “You’re my dreamgirl.”
I actually let out a little yelp of surprise, and she burst into laughter.
“Sorry, should I have just said, yeah, the bacon-wrapped dates really got me going? Come on. You’re interesting and so smart and your laugh’s so—god, is there a word that’s like infectious but doesn’t sound so dire?—and in case you forgot, I would build a shrine to celebrate your body.”
I yelped again at that, and now she laughed even harder.
“My friends all knew,” she said. “I talked about the hot girl at Phoebe’s office all the time. It was like our inside joke, my unrequited pining. I never thought I’d get so lucky to—anyway. Of course I ended up fucking it up. So I’m here now to tell you I want to figure this out together. And I know I should have told you sooner, and maybe if I were you, I wouldn’t forgive me—”
I covered her lips with mine, kissing her like we never had before, sweetness and openness and the future stretched out ahead. We were good at this too, I felt it right away.
“I should have told you sooner, too,” I said. “When I met you, I thought maybe you’d ask me out, and I was like, oh, maybe it could actually be this simple.”
Chloe snorted. “God, imagine that, me just asking you out instead of all of this.”
“You know what’s funny,” I said, sliding my arms around her waist. I hadn’t actually ever held her like this, and I liked how it felt, close but casual, too. “I kind of liked all of that, actually.”
“Oh, absolutely, me too, we’re a couple of weirdos,” she said, cracking up. “Bianca kept telling me, you know that no matter what you called it, you two were just dating .”
“She said the same thing to me.” I leaned in to kiss her again. “Maybe it’s true, and maybe we were just two people running away from having one real conversation. But I want to figure this out with you, too.”
“I know I seem semi-good at all of this today,” Chloe said, “but it’s gonna be messy. I’m probably going to get weird again.”
“Well, I’m still not very good at real conversations, so, yeah. I think messy and weird are assumed at this point.”
We kissed again, and watched each other as the kiss ended.
“We’re together ,” Chloe said. “I kind of can’t believe it.”
“Me either.” I took a deep breath. “Just being honest, feelings and all, that I was falling extremely hard for you. You’re so brave and so funny and you find so many little ways to take care of me when I need it. And now that this is something we’re doing on purpose —well, I know this is going to sound a little like a threat, but I’m going to fall in love with you, Chloe Lee.”
“ Fuck ,” she said, and for a split second I worried I’d ruined it, gone and said too much or shared the wrong thing. But even before Chloe said another word, I felt that go. I knew her enough by now to trust her with my words. To trust her with my heart.
“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said.” Chloe shook her head and grinned. “I try to write a whole letter for you and here you are just undoing me with your beautiful threats. I guess I’ll have to threaten you right back, because I’m falling in love with you too, and the truth is that I’ve been doing that for maybe this whole time.”
I kissed her again, and then she was kissing me, and we continued this back-and-forth until our lips ached and our breath was lost.
“Wait,” Chloe said, stepping back. “I have an idea.”
“Better than this?” I asked, tugging her to me again.
“No, check it out,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket and tapping a few times before victoriously holding it in the air.
“What … is happening?” I asked. “Did you just change your Facebook status like it’s 2006?”
“I was playing the Abba song for you!” she said, making a face and looking at her phone screen. “It was going to be super romantic.”
“It’s romantic enough without Abba,” I said, grabbing her by the collar and kissing her again.
“Red alert!” Greg shouted from the next room, and we burst into giggles and pulled away from each other like teenagers caught making out by a parent as he walked into the kitchen. “Some Abba song just started playing over my speakers.”
“I feel like you should think about how often you employ your red alerts and what for,” I said. “Chloe. Did you somehow connect to my brother’s Bluetooth speaker system?”
“That doesn’t seem possible,” she said. “Normally I can’t even do something like that on purpose.”
“Could you,” Greg said, sighing with all of the apparent effort in the world, “please do something about it?”
“What’s to do?” she asked with a shrug. “People love Abba. Who am I to giveth and then taketh away?”
Greg frowned. “Didn’t you two break up?”
“Yeah, red alert, queer women are really good at doing that and getting back together,” Chloe said with a laugh.
“That’s not how to use a red alert,” Greg said, which made Chloe and I shriek with laughter.
We headed out of the kitchen and fit ourselves into an empty spot at the table of our friends. Chloe slipped her arm around me, and I looked at her in surprise.
“Not too squishy for you?”
She pulled me in tight. “Red alert: just squishy enough.”