Chapter 28
Do you ever look around your kitchen and think, Wait—am I supposed to clean that? The cabinet door, the wall, inside a drawer, a can opener, whatever. Like there’s a whole list of basic things everyone knows except you, and you somehow missed the memo about brushing your teeth.
Yeah, me neither. Anyway, it’s just going to get dirty again.
Sincerely, Libby
Image: The inside of a drawer lined with stained contact paper, peeling in patches, with particle board shavings and multicolored crumbs.
#hazmat #whendoesadultingstart #wegotthefunk
Jean didn’t come home that night or the next, and she wasn’t at either of the cater-waiter gigs Libby was lucky enough to pick up over the weekend, working through the pounding headache of her hangover and into a state of deeply dehydrated regret.
Libby checked her phone every time she had a break, but the only notifications were comments on her Love, Lillibet shit posts, which seemed to have struck a chord. Libby didn’t remember ever getting this kind of response when they were faking content. She replied to a few, because she didn’t have anyone else to talk to, and a couple of them were funny. One described her aesthetic as “half-empty vending machine in the darkest corner of a hospital basement,” which struck Libby as exactly right. Some people understood her. Maybe there was something to be said for the kindness of Internet strangers.
On Sunday, Libby dragged herself up the stairs after an exhausting evening at a couple’s baby shower. Being on her feet for hours in cheap shoes was hard, but the part that really sapped her will to live was watching the blissful lovebirds hold hands and smile at each other. It was a miracle she hadn’t puked onto a tray of appetizers.
All she wanted was to scrub off the funk of feta cheese, overcooked puff pastry, and secondhand smugness, so of course that was when her roommate returned, locking the bathroom door behind her. Unless it was a burglar who’d realized there was nothing valuable in the apartment and decided to grab a quick shower before moving on to greener pastures.
Libby barely cared, unless whoever it was used all the hot water. It was enough to make you long for a house with twenty-seven bathrooms … and one very special shower.
She collapsed onto the couch in her sticky black pants. The fabric was shiny at the knees, worn to the brink of splitting even though she waited as long as possible between washes. Libby had been looking forward to throwing them away, but that wasn’t an option now. Maybe her followers would know whether air freshener worked on clothing. Although she should probably take them off first.
After a few minutes, the bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam. Jean walked into the living room wearing her bathrobe, a towel wrapped around her hair.
“You came back.” Libby was going for nonchalant, like she’d barely noticed her absence, and if it had crossed her mind to wonder if Jean was ever coming home, it certainly wasn’t because Libby minded one way or the other.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not your mom, Libby.” It sounded like a punch line, but neither of them laughed. Jean sat down on the edge of the coffee table, not quite in Libby’s space but close enough to knee her in the shin.
“I’ll always come back, you big loser. You’re stuck with me. That’s the deal. Even if I’m a dick sometimes.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Libby admitted, knocking her legs against Jean’s.
“That I’m a dick?”
“The other part.”
“For an ace reporter, you can be a little slow on the uptake.” Jean winced. “Too soon?”
“It’s fine. I think we have some salt in the kitchen if you want to go ahead and pour that on the open wound.”
“Just put it on my tab.” Jean patted her leg. “Of dick things to say.”
“Could you maybe stop saying dick, though?” Especially since Libby would be living in a dick-free universe for the foreseeable future.
Jean pretended to think it over. “Mmmm, probably not. I still have to apologize for being a dick about your boyfriend. Sometimes when I feel bad about something, I strike first, you know?”
“I think there’s a psychological term for that.”
“You’d know. Being the star psych student in the household.”
“B-minus,” Libby admitted. Once you started narcing on yourself, it was hard to stop.
“The point is, I get it. Love makes you crazy. Or lust. Whatever it is.”
“You mean ‘was,’” Libby corrected. “We’re extremely past tense.”
“Unless he sees your cry for help.”
Libby got a vivid mental picture of a small airplane trailing a banner over his house in the mountains. Jefferson, I’m sorry. Please come back. I’ll learn to hike. Love, Libby.
That probably wasn’t what Jean had in mind. “What are you talking about?”
“This Watch Me Melt Down in Real Time bit you’re doing.” Jean pulled her phone out of the pocket of her robe, opening the Love, Lillibet profile. Which probably needed a new name, now that the posts were signed, “Sincerely, Libby.”
The simple act of shedding the L-word—well, both of them, but especially Love—felt like a big step toward honesty. Libby’s mother had been big on tossing a “Love you, kiddo,” over her shoulder as she walked out the door, but she never looked back to see how Libby felt about being left behind or gave her daughter a chance to reply. Eventually Libby gave up—on the word as well as the feeling.
“I was afraid I was going to come home and see your little friend Jiminy in a top hat, doing tricks.” Jean clicked on one of the shots of Libby’s new acquaintance.
“I call him Rocheo.”
“First of all,” Jean said, passing the phone back to Libby, “no. And second, I’m pretty sure that was two different bugs. You had a ménage going.”
That tracked. Maintaining stable relationships wasn’t Libby’s strong suit. Unlike showing her ass on the Internet. “I guess I kind of lost my filter.”
“I like it.” Jean shrugged. “Why let Lillibet go gently into the night when you can take the nuclear option?”
“You know what’s weird?”
“Besides you making peace with the insect kingdom?”
“I think I might miss her,” Libby confessed.
“Hildy?”
“No. Well, yes, but I was talking about Lillibet.”
Jean gave a low whistle. “How the turn tables.”
“I know. But there was something freeing about being her. The total confidence. She thinks it, she says it. Zero self-doubt.”
“See? For an uppity hobag, she wasn’t all bad. Nothing is ever completely black-and-white. Except old movies.”
“I think maybe on some level I wish I was more like that. Fearless.” Instead of timidly tiptoeing around the idea of being brave.
“Definitely not afraid to take up space.” Jean shot Libby a significant look.
“Yeah.” She was starting to realize that was part of putting yourself out there: Having the courage to want things and then reach for them, regardless of the consequences. For Libby, it had never been the “no” she dreaded so much as the possibility of pissing people off by asking in the first place. Which was not a super-healthy way to relate to other humans. “I’m not saying I’d ever go full Lillibet, but there might be times when a little of that energy could be useful.”
Jean pointed at her. “Like Bruce Wayne and Batman. Your secret alter ego.”
“Minus the crime-fighting and the rubber suit.”
“And the butler.” Jean sighed. “We could use one of those.”
“I’m afraid we missed our chance.”
“We’re back to that one-bathroom life.”
Libby’s molars ached, possibly because of how tightly she was squeezing her jaw. “You don’t mind? That I pulled the plug?”
In retrospect, those first anti-Lillibet posts might have been her way of lashing out, like she was kicking over the block tower they’d built together. But they’d morphed into something else. Self-examination. Apology. Emotional purge. Probably other stuff Libby wasn’t even aware of yet.
“Art is ephemeral. We’re always going to be growing and changing. Trying new things.” Jean looked at her toes, which were painted her signature bloody red. “Closing the casket on the past.”
“Um, ominous much?”
“Speaking of doom and gloom, I saw them.”
“Who?”
“Hildy. And Mr. Freeze.”
It was like that poem about fire and ice, only inside Libby’s gut. “Where?”
“The resort.”
Another stupid mistake: Assuming they’d gotten on the next plane home. Libby made a mental note to bang her head against the wall later. She had more pressing concerns now. “Did you talk to them?”
“I thought about it. But I was already hiding behind a planter, and it seemed weirder to jump out and be like, Hey, remember me?”
“Yeah. I can see how that would have been strange.” Libby hesitated, not sure she wanted to know. “Are they still there?”
“They checked out this morning.”
It was amazing how things could hurt all over again, even when you thought you’d felt the worst. “So, they’re probably gone.” For real this time. On a plane, off the island, across an ocean.
“Probably,” Jean agreed. She slid Libby a sidelong glance. “Do you need a snack?”
“We don’t have anything.”
“Poor Rocheo.”
“I know.” Libby rubbed her chest like she had indigestion, but this was not a feeling Rolaids could cure.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Jean asked, in her trying-to-be-sensitive voice.
“Yeah, because I’m sure solitude is the perfect cure. What would help with this loneliness? Being more alone!”
“Hair of the dog,” Jean said, plopping onto the couch beside her. “You’re not alone, Libs.”
“I know.” She paused for effect. “I have Rocheo.” A sharp elbow connected with her rib cage. “You were right about some of that stuff. Like how I’m scared of putting myself out there. I try so hard not to be something that I forget to be my own thing.” And if Libby was serious about profiling other people, she needed to practice taking a hard look at herself.
“To be clear,” Jean said, leaning her head against Libby’s shoulder, “I’m also at least fifty percent full of shit.”
“It’s part of your charm.”
“I like to think so.”
“One thing you were wrong about.” Libby glanced at the top of Jean’s head, the smooth darkness of her hair divided by a razor-sharp part. “You are like my mom. Not my actual mom, but what I wanted her to be. Someone who wouldn’t mind if her life was totally intertwined with mine, you know? Permanently connected, even if we hit a rough patch.”
“We’re like each other’s moms.” Jean hesitated. “Don’t tell me if that’s a messed-up psychological syndrome.”
“We took the same class, Jean.”
“I know, but I skipped a lot. Hence the lower grade. Though I basically had a C-plus.”
Libby let that pass. “I don’t think there’s anything demented about accepting someone unconditionally. Flaws and all.” She squeezed Jean’s hand.
“Are you proposing?”
“You wish.”
“Okay, but will you at least post something sappy about me? And I owe it all to my best friend, who is also available for freelance art commissions.”
“Maybe.”
There was a knock at the front door. Libby’s heart skipped a beat, pierced with the irrational hope that it was Jefferson, bending the rules of time and air travel to find her. She tried not to look disappointed when Keoki walked in, carrying bags of food.
“SOS,” he said.
The fact that Keoki was delivering the message in person rather than by text sent a pulse of alarm up Libby’s spine. Given how low her emotional reserves were running, she hoped this was one of his menu-related crises. This garnish or that one? With the demi-glace or without? Her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten at work. Too busy during the event to take a break, and too blue to hang around afterward.
The smells coming from those bags were enticing enough to get Libby off the couch, at least long enough to grab plates and silverware from the kitchen. She returned to see Keoki unloading a six-pack of beer.
Jean pinched him, patient as always. “Are you going to tell us or what?”
“If it’s about planning a baby shower, I have a whole list of what not to do,” Libby assured him.
He cracked open a beer, taking a long swallow. “Didn’t want to do that in front of Cici.”
“Because she’s pregnant?” Libby guessed.
Keoki shook his head. “She’d ask why I was upset. And then I’d have to tell her I quit my job.”
“What the hell, K?” Jean shoved him with both hands, putting her full body weight behind it. Keoki didn’t budge.
“Did something happen?” Libby asked.
“I think it’s been building.” He unpacked a family-size container of lo mein, peeling off the lid. “There I was, following Jacques’ recipe for croquembouche, and I thought to myself, You know what would take this to the next level? A lilikoi glaze.”
“And that was the problem?” Jean prompted, when he lapsed into a reverie. “Jacky boy didn’t like your special sauce?”
“I didn’t even ask him about it.” Keoki sighed. “I knew he would say no because he’s not interested in trying new things. Especially if it’s not his idea. And then I thought, You know what was more fun than this?”
“Dental surgery?” Jean guessed.
“Nah, having the freedom to create. Like when I got to invent all those recipes for Lillibet. That was cool. Really flexing my muscles. In a culinary way. That’s what I want my daughter to see. Her dad stood for something. He went after his dreams. To make her proud.”
Not it, Libby mouthed at her roommate, who was better at delivering harsh truths. Or in-your-face partial truths, depending on the situation. Jean patted Keoki’s arm.
“That’s beautiful, K. But she also needs diapers and shit.”
He frowned at her. “You’re the one who said we had to be bold.”
“You guys seriously need to stop listening to me.” Jean slid the container of noodles closer to her plate. “I try stuff on. Throw it out there and see what sticks.”
“What are you going to do?” Libby cut in, hoping to distract Keoki from that terrifying window into their friend’s mind. And maybe also pick up a plan she could loosely copy for her own life.
His shoulders sagged. “I don’t know. That’s why I came to you guys. You always have ideas.”
Libby assumed he was talking about Jean, but he looked back and forth between the two of them, wide-eyed and trusting, like maybe Libby had something to contribute, too. Not as a wannabe influencer but as his friend.
“Okay.” She set down her plate. “Let’s figure this out.”
* * *
Two hours later, Libby was folded up in a corner of the couch, a notebook balanced on her knees. Keoki reclined on the opposite end, feet propped on the table and his hands linked behind his head, while Jean was upside down in their only other chair, to increase the blood flow to her brain.
Righting herself with a groan, Jean checked her phone. “I think I’ve been awake for two days.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Keoki asked.
“No.” Libby glanced down at the list of search terms they’d already tried. Using Google as a Magic 8 Ball wasn’t getting them anywhere except a state of depression, so it was time to switch tactics.
“What do you most want?” Libby asked Keoki, as if she were a therapist instead of his failing-at-life childhood friend.
“To be a good dad,” he said at once.
“Right.” Libby pretended to make a note. “I think we’ve established that.”
“Gourmet baby food?” Jean suggested.
“I think I’d rather cook for people with teeth.”
“See? That’s good.” Libby pointed the pen at him. “We’re narrowing it down. What else?”
His cheeks puffed as he made popping sounds with his lips, like a fish on dry land. “Not having to do the same thing every day. Be able to go outside sometimes. Enough work for a small crew but not filling out paperwork for hours and hours. I want to be able to think about the food, you know? Seeing people’s faces when they eat something amazing. Not stuck in an office. Or yelling at sous chefs.”
“You never yell.” It sounded like Jean was accusing him of something.
“Why start now?” he replied reasonably. “I want to be the person who says, Hey, welcome. Let me feed you. Like at Tutu’s house. A place people come to relax. Sit awhile. No pressure.”
Libby felt the first stirring of an idea, followed by a wash of doubt. Her faith in herself was at an all-time low.
“What?” Jean was watching her with narrowed eyes. “Do you have something to share with the class?”
“It’s not that original.”
“Libby, don’t make me come over there.”
“You would be a really scary teacher,” Keoki told Jean.
“Excuse you, I’d be scary at a lot of things.”
“I heard they’re going to have a vacancy. At the food court in Kahuku.” Libby waited for a reaction. So far her friends mostly looked confused. “The smoothie place is closing. They were talking about it at the party I worked on Saturday. Maybe that could be … something to consider?”
“A food truck.” Keoki scratched the underside of his chin. “It’s not exactly the same as a restaurant.”
“No,” Jean agreed, her voice slow and thoughtful. “But it might be easier to get up and running. Lower start-up costs.”
“And we’d help,” Libby volunteered. “I’ve got nothing but time.” And sad feelings, but those were less helpful in launching a business.
“I’ll do your logo and shit,” Jean chimed in. “Menus, to-go boxes. We can paint the whole truck.”
“Keoki’s Kitchen could be right there next to the garlic shrimp and the mandu stand.” Keoki squinted like he was looking at the picture through a haze.
“Good smells,” Libby pointed out. “A lot of happy people.”
“Okay.” He stood and started gathering his dishes.
“That’s it?” Libby set down her notebook. “You’re going to do it? Just like that?” She might be on the risk-averse end of the spectrum, but surely this was too spontaneous. Even Jean looked taken aback.
“No. I’m going to go home and ask Cici what she thinks,” Keoki replied. “She’s way more practical than us.”
Jean stacked her plate on top of his. “With all due respect to Cici, that’s a pretty low bar.”