Chapter 13
Benji
Terri called on a Monday morning while I was bottle-feeding LaTavia, who was the calmest of the Destiny’s Child kittens and the only one who didn’t treat feeding time like a full-contact sport.
“Mr. Kwon, I’m calling with an update on your unit,” Terri said without preamble.
“Hit me, Terri.”
“The initial assessment indicated six to eight weeks for repairs. Unfortunately, during demolition, the contractors discovered additional water damage in the subfloor and the shared wall with 4C. The revised timeline is ten to twelve weeks.”
“Ten to twelve weeks.”
“I understand this is an inconvenience. The building will continue to cover Mr. Loupier’s rent abatement for the duration. If the current arrangement is no longer workable, we can explore alternative placements, though availability is limited.”
“No, the current arrangement is fine. Peter and I have worked out a good system.”
“Wonderful. I’ll update Mr. Loupier separately.”
“I can tell him.”
“Building management prefers to communicate directly with all affected tenants.”
“Right. Professional channels. Absolutely. You’re a pillar, Terri.”
“Have a good morning, Mr. Kwon.”
LaTavia burped with a force that seemed structurally impossible for an animal her size and fell asleep in my palm.
I set her back in the bathroom with her sisters, counted all five heads (Beyoncé was suspiciously close to the window, which I’d reinforced with packing tape and a copy of Peter’s veterinary pharmacology textbook), and went to the kitchen to read the morning Post-its.
Your shampoo is migrating. Found it in my shower again. Please contain your products to your designated shelf. The bathroom is not a territory to be colonized.
— P
Gentle reader, this requires some context.
The bathroom situation had been a source of ongoing diplomatic tension since approximately day three.
Peter’s side of the bathroom was a masterclass in organization.
There was a single bar of unscented soap, a bottle of the most joyless conditioner I’d ever encountered (the label said “fragrance-free” like that was a selling point and not a cry for help), a razor, and a toothbrush.
Four items arranged at right angles on the shelf to the left of the showerhead, which he had claimed through the unspoken yet immutable law of First Occupancy.
My side of the bathroom was, by Peter’s standards, an act of war.
I had shampoo, conditioner, a deep conditioning mask, a leave-in treatment, a curl-defining cream (I don’t have curls, but the cream smelled incredible, and I refused to let my hair texture dictate my product choices), a body wash, a body scrub, an exfoliating glove, two face washes (morning and evening formulas, because my skin had different moods, and I respected each), a toner, a serum, and a moisturizer with SPF that I applied every day regardless of weather, because sun damage never cared about clouds and neither did I.
Peter had looked at my shelf on the first morning and said, “That’s a lot of bottles.”
“That’s a lot of judgment from a man who uses bar soap on his face.”
“Bar soap works fine.”
“Bar soap works fine the way a hammer works fine for hanging a picture. It’s technically functional, but you’re causing damage you can’t see yet.”
He’d walked away from that conversation. I’d interpreted his retreat as a concession. On reflection, he’d probably interpreted it as the fastest available exit from a discussion about exfoliating gloves.
The shampoo migration was a legitimate grievance, and I’ll admit that freely. My shampoo kept ending up on his side of the shower because his side was closer to the water stream, and the lather genuinely was better with warmer water, and I kept forgetting to move it back.
It was not a deliberate incursion.
It was a logistical inevitability caused by the laws of thermodynamics and the architectural limitations of the shower.
Peter did not see it this way.
Peter saw it as a pattern of territorial aggression conducted through hair care products.
I pulled a pen from the cup and wrote back:
The shampoo is not migrating. It’s EXPLORING. It has an adventurous spirit, like its owner. Also, your conditioner is a human rights violation and I moved my shampoo closer to the water stream because the lather suffers on the cold shelf. This is science.
— B
I used one sparkle emoji.
This should have been the end of it.
In a normal household, between normal people, the Shampoo Situation would have been a minor footnote in the history of cohabitation, resolved through a brief conversation or the purchase of a shower caddy.
We were not normal people.
We were a man who communicated through refrigerator stationery and a man who had opinions about lather temperature. Between us, we had enough stubbornness to fuel a small nation—or a conflict between small nations.
The Shampoo Situation was about to become an international incident.
When I came home from my shift that night, there was a new note on the fridge.
Your shampoo has been returned to your shelf. I’ve also organized your products by function, since the previous arrangement appeared to be random. You had two face washes beside a body scrub, which is the grooming equivalent of shelving a novel in the cookbook section.
— P
I went straight to the bathroom.
He had, in fact, reorganized my entire shelf.
The products were grouped by category (hair, face, body) and arranged by the order in which one might logically use them in a shower routine.
He’d even turned all the labels to face outward.
It was the most passive-aggressive act of kindness I’d ever experienced.
I stood in the bathroom at 3 a.m., staring at my reorganized shelf, and experienced a feeling that I can only describe as the intersection of fury and admiration.
The man had touched every single one of my products.
He had read the labels closely enough to understand the functional categories.
He had created a system . . . for my toiletries . . . without being asked.
The system was, infuriatingly, better than anything I’d had before.
I could not let this stand.
Not because the organization was bad, but because accepting it without retaliation would establish a precedent in which Peter Loupier could improve my life without consequences, and that was a power dynamic I was not prepared to endorse.
The next morning, while Peter was in the shower, I reorganized his shelf.
This was a quick operation, since his shelf contained four items and the number of possible arrangements was mathematically limited.
Still, I made it count.
I replaced his bar soap with a liquid body wash I’d been keeping in reserve for exactly this kind of emergency (cucumber-mint, gender-neutral, excellent reviews).
I replaced his sad, fragrance-free conditioner with one of my extras, a coconut-argan formula that cost more per ounce than some wines I’d served at the bar.
I was certain it would make his hair feel like it had been personally blessed by a team of angels.
I left his razor and toothbrush, because I wasn’t a monster, but I turned the razor so it faced the wrong direction, just to see if he’d notice.
Then I wrote a note and stuck it to the bathroom mirror.
Your shelf has been liberated from communist oppression. You’ll thank me when your hair stops feeling like a field of straw. The cucumber body wash is a gift. Accept it with grace and dignity.
— B
Three sparkle emojis.
Full escalation.
I went to the kitchen and waited.
The shower ran for its usual twelve minutes.
Peter showered in exactly twelve minutes every morning.
I had not intentionally timed this. I had unintentionally timed this, which was different, and which I refused to feel weird about because the bathroom shared a wall with the foster room, and the sound of the water was simply a fact of my auditory environment.
Then the water stopped.
Thirty seconds of silence.
Then the bathroom door opened.
Peter appeared in the kitchen doorway in nothing but his towel.
In his non-towel-securing-hand, he held the bottle of coconut-argan conditioner.
My note had been affixed to the bottle and was clinging for its life.
His hair was wet and already looked better, which I noted with the detached satisfaction of a humanitarian aid worker observing the early results of a UN peacekeeping operation.
His face was doing something I hadn’t seen before.
It was flitting between far too many expressions, like a traffic intersection where all the signals had changed at once and the resulting gridlock was producing something entirely new.
“You replaced my soap,” he said.
“I upgraded your soap. There’s a difference.”
“You replaced my conditioner.”
“I saved your hair.”
“My hair was fine.”
“Peter. PETER. Your hair was not fine. Your hair was enduring. It was the emotional equivalent of a man eating cold canned soup and calling it dinner. Your hair deserved better, and I have given it better, and you’re welcome.”
He looked at the conditioner, looked at me, then looked at the conditioner again.
“It smells like a vacation,” he said.
“It smells like self-respect.”
“I’m putting my soap back.”
“The cucumber wash is right there, Peter. It’s already in the shower. It’s already dispensed. You can’t un-dispense a body wash. That soap is in play.”
“You can’t just replace a man’s soap.”
“I can and I did, and your skin is going to thank me within seventy-two hours.”
He stood in the kitchen doorway in his towel, holding the conditioner.
I stood at the island in my boxers and inside-out dinosaur shirt, holding my coffee.
We stared at each other like two half-naked gunslingers whose hands itched on still-holstered guns.
“I turned your razor,” I said. “Just so you know.”
“I noticed.”
“And?”
“And I turned it back.”
“Of course you did.”
He went to get dressed.
The cucumber body wash stayed in the shower.