Chapter 20
Peter
Instead, I faced what international political analysts might term “regime change.”
The smell hit me first. Before I’d even closed the front door, my nose was flooded with the aromas of baking dough, melting cheese, and the sharp, buttery detonation of popcorn.
The scents were layered over each other in a sensory combination so aggressive that it registered less as “food” and more as “ambush.”
And then there were the sounds. Cabinet doors slammed, something metal clattered against something ceramic, and the particular rhythmic chaos of Benji Kwon dashing through a kitchen at full operational capacity, which was indistinguishable from the sound of a construction worker dismantling a room and rebuilding it in a different configuration while narrating the process to a cat who did not care.
I set my keys in the bowl by the door because the bowl existed for this purpose.
I hung my jacket on the hook.
I removed my shoes, placed them beside the door, then aligned them, because the world was clearly descending into disorder and I intended to maintain standards at the perimeter.
Only then did I step into the kitchen.
Three fully cooked pizzas were arranged on the counter.
They were homemade pizzas, on cutting boards, golden-crusted and bubbling, each one topped differently in what appeared to be an organized progression from conservative (margherita) to ambitious (something involving figs and prosciutto) to unhinged (an arrangement of toppings I could not immediately identify but included what appeared to be sliced peaches and chili flakes and a drizzle of honey that was still being applied by Benji, who was holding a squeeze bottle at a height that suggested he believed honey application was a form of performance art).
Three more pizzas were in the double oven. I could see them through the glass at various stages of doneness, rotating on the racks in a production cycle that implied a volume of food designed for significantly more people than currently occupied this apartment.
Popcorn was happening in three separate pots on the stove, because apparently one pot of popcorn was insufficient for whatever Benji had planned. Each pot was producing kernels at a rate that had already overflowed one bowl and was threatening a second.
Benji stood in the middle of all of it, wearing an apron I didn’t know I owned over his boxers and inside-out dinosaur shirt.
His hair, now orange (because orange was apparently the correct follicular pairing with pizza) defied several laws of physics.
His movements carried the frantic precision of a man who was running late for something he hadn’t told anyone about.
I opened my mouth to ask why there were six pizzas in my kitchen on a Monday evening, but a loud banging sounded at the front door, silencing my voice before it could even escape my mouth.
Benji held up one finger, set down the honey bottle, vaulted over Potato (who was on the floor in the direct center of the kitchen’s primary traffic lane, because Potato’s spatial awareness was nonexistent and his commitment to inconvenient locations was absolute), and sprinted to the front door.
“Jacks!” he said loud enough for every person living with a twenty-mile radius to hear. “You’re early. Come in. Come in. Put the beer wherever. Peter’s home. No, he doesn’t know yet, but he’s going to be fine with it.”
I stood in the kitchen, my kitchen, surrounded by six pizzas and three pots of popcorn.
Jacks walked in carrying a six-pack and a canvas bag, his face wearing the mild, apologetic expression of a man who suspected he was arriving at a crime scene but had committed to attending and wasn’t about to flee lest the cops suspect he was in on whatever had occurred.
“Peter,” Jacks said.
“Jacks.”
“I brought beer.”
“I see that.”
“I also brought the movie. I was told I’m in charge of the movie.”
“Of course you are. You’re in charge of the movie for an event that I’m learning about right now—at this moment—as you walk into my kitchen.”
Benji reappeared from somewhere behind me, having completed a lap of the apartment at a speed that suggested he was powered by adrenaline, Red Bull, and the knowledge that he had approximately thirty seconds to explain himself before I started asking questions in the tone I used when a pet owner told me they’d been “supplementing” their dog’s diet with chocolate.
“So,” Benji said. “The bar is closed tonight.”
“I know the bar is closed tonight. The bar is closed every Monday.”
“Right, but this Monday the bar is closed for a deep clean. Finn hired an industrial crew to do the floors, the vents, and the whole kitchen exhaust system. It’s a full shutdown, which means the entire gang has the night off, which never happens.
Peter, we never all have the same night off.
It’s like a solar eclipse of scheduling, on the Mayan calendar, because that would be more dramatic and mysterious.
And I thought, instead of everyone sitting in their separate apartments staring at walls—”
“You invited them here.”
“I invited them here.”
“To my apartment.”
“To our apartment.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Let it out. Then clicked my tongue. And blinked.
“Without telling me.”
“Without telling you in advance. I’m telling you now with full transparency and honesty and also with six pizzas, which I made from scratch, Peter. The dough has been rising since noon. I learned the fig-and-prosciutto combination from Rod. The peach situation is experimental, but I’m confident—”
“How many people?”
This was a concession disguised as a question.
Benji knew it was a concession, and I knew he knew, and it annoyed me to no end that he knew, and he knew that I knew, and I knew that he knew that I knew.
Our negotiation proceeded along its previously established track: I requested logistical details, he provided them with confidence, and by the time I’d assembled enough information to mount an objection, I’d already agreed. It was all sadly predictable.
“Just the crew. Finn and Chase, Jacks”—he gestured at Jacks, who was standing in the living room holding his beer with the posture of a man trying to occupy as little space as possible—“Rod and Ruthie, Mia, Dante and Dostoyevsky—”
I clicked my tongue again.
“Dante is bringing his dog to my apartment.”
“Dostoyevsky is very well behaved. He sleeps twenty hours a day and is basically a greyhound-shaped rug.”
“We already have a dog-shaped rug. His name is Potato. He’s occupied every available horizontal surface.”
“Potato will welcome the company.”
“Potato is a medical condition with legs. He doesn’t welcome anything. He endures.”
Another bang at the door interrupted our ridiculous conversation. Benji held up his finger again and sprinted.
I looked at Jacks.
“Did you know about this?” I asked.
He held up “don’t shoot” hands. “He texted the group at 2 p.m. I think he’s been planning it since the deep clean got scheduled last week.”
“He’s been planning this for a week and didn’t mention it.”
“He mentioned that you’d handle it better as a surprise than as something you had time to dread.”
This was, I realized with great irritation, an accurate assessment of my psychology.
A week’s notice would have produced a week of low-grade anxiety, escalating objections, and at least twenty-three Post-it notes outlining the reasons my apartment was unsuitable for social gatherings.
A surprise gave me no time to build fortifications, which meant the only available response was to deal with what was already happening.
Benji had outmaneuvered me.
Using pizza.
And popcorn.
And other people’s dogs.
From the front door, I heard Mia’s voice at full volume, which was her only volume, followed by the sound of bags being set down and shoes being removed and the general commotion of a person who entered rooms the way weather systems entered coastlines.
“Peter!” she called from the hallway. “I brought Milk Duds because Benji says you have a secret sweet tooth. I’m going to find out if that’s true.”
“I don’t have a sweet tooth,” I said.
She appeared in the kitchen doorway, took in the pizza situation with the approving nod, and said, “Benji says you ate an entire sleeve of Oreos last Tuesday while reading the newspaper.”
I clicked my tongue.
Then I looked at Benji, who had materialized behind Mia.
He looked at the ceiling.
“The Oreos were on sale,” I said.
“An entire sleeve, Peter?”
“It was a long article. I ate the cream first, like a civilized person.”
She hugged me before I could establish a defensive perimeter.
I stood rigid for approximately one point five seconds, then patted her on the back twice, because I understood that hugs required reciprocation and I was willing to make the effort even if the execution was, by any objective measure, mechanical.
“The pizzas smell incredible,” she said. “Did Benji make all of these?”
“Apparently.”
“He learned the dough from Rod. Did he tell you? Rod’s been teaching him.”
I looked at Benji.
He was back at the stove, managing the popcorn with the focused intensity of a man trying to appear casual about the fact that he’d spent an entire day preparing food for an event in my apartment that I hadn’t known about, using techniques he’d learned from someone he worked with because he’d wanted it to be good.
Not adequate.
Not functional.
Good.
The kind of good that required rising dough and fig-and-prosciutto combinations and experimental peach situations.
I filed this away.
I filed most things about Benji away these days.
His drawer was getting very full.