Chapter Twenty
Teague
I own one pair of jeans without holes.
I’m wearing them. I’m also wearing a black t-shirt that doesn’t have a band name on it, which took fifteen minutes to find in a drawer full of band shirts, and I’ve taken out the smaller of my two ear piercings, leaving just the studs and the septum ring, which I considered removing and decided against because the septum ring stays.
That’s the line. I’ll dress like a civilian but I’m not pretending to be one.
Brunch. With Zoe’s parents. And her friends. At eleven.
I said I’d go. I don’t know why I said I’d go.
Actually, I do know. Keely’s voice carries and Zoe’s face does the thing and I said “when’s brunch” before my brain could file a formal objection.
And now I’m standing in my bathroom looking at my reflection and trying to figure out if there’s a version of me that a middle-aged Black couple from this neighborhood will accept at a table with their daughter.
The hair stays. Obviously. The pink mohawk is not negotiable. I touched it up yesterday, fresh dye, buzzed sides clean. If they’re going to look at me, they’re going to see me.
I meet Zoe outside the restaurant on Calloway.
She’s already there, standing on the sidewalk in a yellow sundress and white sneakers, looking like a person who has never caused a single moment of parental distress in her life.
She sees me and her face lights up completely and she even gives an adorable little shriek of delight.
“You came.”
“I said I’d come.”
“I know but I thought you might bail.”
“I don’t bail. I just complain internally.” I look at the restaurant. It’s a place with chalkboard menus and exposed brick and the word “artisanal” in the window. “Are they inside?”
“They’re at the table. Mom got here early. She always gets here early. It’s a control thing.”
“I get here early too.”
“I know. You two have that in common.” Zoe takes my hand. Her grip is warm and firm and she doesn’t let go when we walk to the door. “They’re going to love you.”
“They’re going to tolerate me.”
“Same thing in the Kimball family.” She pauses. "Also...heads up. It's just my parents. My friends bailed. They love my mom and dad, but it's a different vibe."
I bite back a sigh. This just got a lot more complicated and I don't do complicated. Or pressure. Or meeting parents. But apparently here we are.
We walk in. The restaurant is bright and full and smells like coffee and batter and the low hum of Sunday conversation.
Zoe leads me past the counter to a table near the window where two people are sitting with menus and water glasses and the careful posture of parents who are about to meet someone important.
Martin Kimball is tall. Tall enough that his presence fills his side of the table.
He’s in a button-down and glasses and he’s got the build of a man who has spent decades being steady and solid, a frame that carries weight without broadcasting it.
His hair is graying at the temples. His hands are folded on the table, large and still.
Patricia Kimball is watching us approach with an expression that’s working very hard to be neutral.
She’s in a dress with earrings and her hair is done and she’s made an effort for this meal in a way that tells me she takes meeting people seriously.
Her eyes track from Zoe to me and I can feel the assessment happening.
The hair. The tattoos visible on my forearms. The piercings. The rings. She’s cataloging.
“Mom, Dad. This is Teague.”
I extend my hand to her father first because instinct tells me he’s the one to start with. “Mr. Kimball. It’s nice to meet you.”
His handshake is firm and measured. He looks at me directly, not unkindly, just reading. “Teague. Zoe’s told us about you.”
“Good things, I hope.”
“She said you’re a bartender.” Patricia’s voice is warm and bright and working very hard. “How fun.”
There it is. How fun. The two words that mean a mother is recalibrating her expectations in real time. I’ve heard those words before, from teachers, from exes’ mothers, from every well-meaning person who’s ever looked at me and tried to find the polite version of what they were thinking.
“I manage a bar in the neighborhood,” I say. “Anthem, on Granger. I’m working toward buying it.”
“Buying it?” Martin’s eyebrows lift slightly. “That’s ambitious.”
“I’ve been saving for three years. The owner and I have a purchase agreement.”
“So you’re a business owner.” He says it differently than Patricia said bartender. He says it like he’s reclassifying me. Bartender is a job. Business owner is a category he respects.
We sit. Zoe is next to me, her knee pressed against mine under the table, radiating supportive energy so intensely I can practically hear it humming. I pick up the menu. It's an all-day brunch. Pancakes, eggs, things with avocado.
“The avocado toast is amazing,” Zoe says. She orders it without looking at the menu, which means she comes here often, which means this is a Kimball place, which means I’m sitting in their territory and eating their food and I need to not think about that or I’ll spiral.
I order eggs and toast. Simple. Controllable. Patricia orders a frittata. Martin orders steak and eggs because Martin Kimball is a man who orders steak and eggs and doesn’t need a chalkboard menu to tell him what he wants.
The conversation starts careful. Where are you from? (Here. Grew up in Fishtown, moved to this neighborhood three years ago.) How did you meet Zoe? (She came into my bar.) What does your family do? (My mom’s in Jersey. We’re not close. I don’t have much family.)
Patricia’s face softens at the family answer. Not pity. Recognition. She’s a woman who understands that family isn’t guaranteed, even if hers is tight and warm and shows up with chicken in Tupperware containers.
“Zoe says you’re into music,” Martin says. “Punk?”
“Yes, sir. It’s been my thing since I was a teenager.”
“I went through a phase myself.” He says it casual, almost throwaway, cutting into his steak. “College. Different music, same energy. Gil Scott-Heron. The Last Poets. A lot of spoken word. We were angry about some of the same things, just came at it from different directions.”
I look at him. Martin Kimball, post office worker, church-going father, steady man in a button-down, just told me he listened to Gil Scott-Heron in college.
Gil Scott-Heron, who put a poem over a beat and told America its revolution would not be sponsored by Xerox, who laid the blueprint for everything that came after, who was punk before punk had a name.
“Gil Scott-Heron is foundational,” I say.
“He is.” Martin nods. Cuts another piece of steak. “Different era. Same fight.”
Patricia is watching this exchange with an expression I can’t read. She looks at Martin, then at me, then at Zoe, who is eating avocado toast and glowing.
“Do you have any hobbies besides music?” Patricia asks. “Zoe mentioned you have tattoos.”
“I do.” I hold out my forearms. The koi, the geometric piece, the older work on my upper arms visible below the sleeve of my t-shirt. Patricia looks at them with the expression of a woman who is being very open-minded.
“Those are… detailed.”
“My artist is talented. She works at a shop on Granger.”
“Tattoos are very popular now,” Patricia says, in the same tone she used for “how fun.” She’s trying. She’s trying so hard. I can see the effort in the set of her jaw and the brightness of her smile and the way she keeps picking up her water glass and putting it down without drinking.
We eat. The conversation moves to Zoe’s work at Station 11, which is safe ground, and both parents light up when she talks about the drills and the crew and Hayes’s training methods.
They’re proud of her. Unambiguously, visibly proud, and watching them watch Zoe talk about firefighting is like watching two people see their child become real in front of them.
“We should go,” Zoe says eventually, after the plates are cleared and the coffee has been refilled twice. “Teague has a shift tonight.”
We stand. I reach for my jacket on the back of the chair. I’ve been sitting on it the whole meal, draped over the chair back. I pick it up and put it on the way I always do, one arm, then the other, shrugging it onto my shoulders, and the patches face out.
Martin sees them.
He sees them. Stops reaching for his wallet.
His eyes move across my back, left to right, and I can feel him reading.
Black Lives Matter, bottom right, fraying at the edge.
Trans rights, center back, bright pink thread.
Kids over guns. Eat the rich. No more billionaires.
The older patches underneath, faded and layered, a record of every march and rally and show I’ve been to for a decade.
The jacket isn’t a costume. I didn’t put these patches on for today. They’ve been there for years, through rain and sweat and sun, sewn on with thread I stole from my mom’s sewing kit and thread I bought at the dollar store. They’re fraying and faded and real.
Martin looks at the jacket. Then he looks at me.
His expression does a thing I wasn’t expecting, a small recalibration, the same one he did when I said business owner instead of bartender except deeper.
He’s not seeing a punk girl with a mohawk anymore.
He’s seeing the patches and reading the politics underneath and finding them credible.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. He just nods, once, small and weighted, and then he pulls out his wallet and pays for brunch because Martin Kimball pays for brunch and that’s not negotiable.
Outside, on the sidewalk, Zoe’s hand finds mine.
Patricia hugs Zoe. Then she turns to me and hesitates for one second, just one, and then she hugs me too. Briefly. Carefully. Like she’s hugging something she hasn’t figured out how to hold yet.
“It was lovely to meet you, Teague.”
“You too, Mrs. Kimball.”
“Patricia.” She steps back. “Come for dinner sometime. I’ll make chicken. It's my specialty.”
Martin shakes my hand. Same firm grip as before, but he holds it for an extra beat.
“Take care of our girl,” he says.
I snicker. “She takes care of herself. I’m just keeping up.”
Something moves in his face. Not a smile. A recognition. Then he lets go and puts his arm around Patricia and they walk to their car, and Zoe and I stand on the sidewalk on Calloway Street watching them go.
“Your dad saw the jacket,” I say.
She watched him do it. I could tell.
“He read every patch.”
“I know.” Zoe squeezes my hand. “He does that. He reads things. He doesn’t talk about it. He just reads and decides.”
“What did he decide?”
“He paid for brunch.” Zoe turns to me. “My dad doesn’t pay for brunch for people he doesn’t respect. That’s his love language.”
I look at her. Zoe Kimball. Twenty-two years old. Standing on a sidewalk in a yellow sundress holding my hand. Her parents just left and her father nodded at my patches and her mother hugged me and I’m standing in the sunlight with someone who brought me into her family and I didn’t run.
“I have to get to work,” I say. But I've still got hours. I just need...I don't know exactly. But I need to recalibrate. I need some quiet for a bit.
“I know.” She kisses me. Quick, warm, on the mouth, in public, on the sidewalk where anyone could see. “I’ll come by later.” She doesn't push. She doesn't call me out on wanting to hide for a bit. She just kisses me.
“You always come by later," I say, teasing her.
Her smile is warm and wanting. “That’s because later is where you are.”
She walks away, sundress swinging, sneakers on the sidewalk, phone already out, probably texting Keely.
I watch her go. Then I turn and walk to Anthem even though it won't be open for a few hours and I put on the Pretenders and stand behind my counter and think about a man who listened to Gil Scott-Heron in college and nodded at my jacket and paid for my eggs.
Different era. Same fight.
I think maybe he’s right.