Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

“I want to see this movie,” Elizabeth said. It would only be part of the story, of course, but maybe there was more to Lydia than she knew. If Lydia had been hoarding Kitty’s Mustache ephemera, than maybe she was also taking notes. “Did she have diaries?”

“For every day of her life, starting at fifteen.” Naomi smiled. “She did all the work for us, you know?” Naomi uncapped a pen and handed it to Elizabeth. “Need another copy of the form? Ashley?” The assistant was at her side in less than a second.

Elizabeth didn’t think about Zoe, who she knew would be happy enough either way. For the first time in a long time, she really thought about Lydia, her long-lost, faraway friend. Twenty-seven was such a dumb time to die. But more than Lydia, she thought about Andrew, and herself. The imaginary girl that Naomi had talked about, that was her — both then and now. She wanted to see herself pick up the guitar and write that song. She wanted to watch Andrew fall in love with her on the spot, once he knew what she was capable of. She wanted it for both of them, and signed her name. “Give me one for Andrew, too,” she said. When Elizabeth left Naomi’s office, she went into the bathroom, dried off the countertop with a paper towel, and forged Andrew’s messy signature, just as she’d done a thousand times on school permission forms and credit-card receipts. In their family, she was in charge of the paperwork, and so that’s all she was doing, taking care of their joint business. It wasn’t a big deal — just two seconds of ink on a sheet of paper. In another two seconds, she’d be in the elevator, and then she’d be in the subway, and then she’d be back in the office, and she’d fax it in, just like she faxed a thousand other forms all day long. Nothing to see here, nothing at all.

At home, Zoe’s piles of stuff migrated from surface to surface, stacks of unread magazines and bobby pins, but at Hyacinth, all the counters belonged to Jane. Everything was labeled with masking tape, everything was face out. All the salts were next to one another, fine to coarse to flakes.

What people didn’t understand about chefs was that it was only partially about cooking. It was about having a vision, a voice, a set of personal beliefs that were so strong that you needed to build something around them. There was literally no reason to open a restaurant if you felt like someone else was doing it better than you could. After twenty-five years of working in kitchens and ten years in her own place, Jane was still sure that no one else was doing Hyacinth better than she was. The restaurant was a glorious machine, and she was its engine — the mastermind. And all she wanted was to be the mastermind of the rest of her life, too.

Jane had a headache, and the headache’s name was Ruby. Zoe had it worse in terms of direct combat, that was true, but they could also cuddle up and go play dress-up in Zoe’s closet and talk about obscure bands that no one else had ever heard of, and it was all fine. Jane was the baddie. She was always the one who had to tell Ruby she couldn’t have another ice cream, or that she couldn’t force all of her preschool friends to call her the Queen and do her bidding. Jane was the boss, and the boss never got to cuddle.

Her own teenage years had been remarkably easy. Massapequa was a fine place to grow up. She played on all the teams, and went out for pizza with her friends, and had crushes on movie stars, just like everyone else. Everyone was a virgin, so it didn’t matter that she was a lesbian virgin. What was the difference? They all had bad haircuts and listened to Z100. The summer before she left for the NYU dorms, Jane had spent every day in the local pool, avoiding little kids because they were obviously peeing at all times. She had freckles everywhere, even between her toes.

All summer, her parents treated her like she was made of glass, and she didn’t understand why until it was over and they were packing the car full of pillows and boxes and books. Unlike Ruby, Jane had siblings — two brothers and a sister, all younger than she was. Like Ruby, Jane had had no idea what it meant for her parents to have their oldest child get ready to leave home. Leave home! It sounded so final. At the time, Jane had thought her mother was experiencing some very prolonged kind of stroke, where she was always blinking back tears and staring at Jane like she was the new episode of Dallas . But she understood it now. Children wanted to go. Children knew that they were old enough — it was prehistoric, baked-in knowledge. Only the parents still thought they were kids. Everyone else — tobacco, the voting booth, porn shops — said otherwise.

Jane moved through the kitchen slowly. She rotated jars so that they were facing the right way. The bell rang over the door, and Jane looked up to see her sous-chef, Clara, striding in. Clara was good — as solid as they came. Someday she’d want her own place, too. There were always more children to leave. Jane could feel herself drifting into the danger zone, and cleared some space on the counter. She grabbed the bread flour and the salt and the yeast, and when Clara walked in, Jane nodded hello. Baking bread for no reason had always been Jane’s favorite form of stress relief, and Clara knew well enough to go about her own work instead of asking questions.

Andrew was happiest when he was busy. Ever since the night of the party, he and Elizabeth had been great. It was as if she understood that he needed her to just be on his side, to support him, and he understood that she needed him to be present and supportive like always, and so they were. It didn’t hurt that they were having sex more often — it wasn’t quite back up to trying-to-conceive levels, which had been exhausting for both of them in the several years after Harry was born, when they were so intent on giving him a sibling, but it was good, really good for people who had been together for two decades. It was a part of their relationship that had always been satisfying, a gentle reminder that they still knew how to do things right. Not that Andrew actually knew how often anyone else had sex. He assumed that Elizabeth knew whenever Zoe or any of her close friends had an orgasm, that she got a text message automatically, but guys weren’t like that, even guys like him.

Tuesday mornings were the guided-meditation group, Wednesdays were yoga, Thursdays were dharma talks, and Fridays were the cosmic trances. Andrew knew he probably wouldn’t be able to go every week, not without giving Elizabeth some big, drawn-out explanation. He could invite her, maybe, but she might hate it or poke fun, and then he’d have to explain to Dave how his wife wasn’t into getting transcendental. Elizabeth had always been supportive of his various endeavors, but for now, he wanted to keep it to himself.

Most days, Andrew walked over after Elizabeth left for work. They’d set up a woodshop in the garage, and Andrew was building some bookshelves for the rooms upstairs. Dave would wander in and out, half dressed. Sometimes he looked like he’d just woken up, with tiny clusters of sleep still in the corners of his eyes, and sometimes he looked like he’d been up all night. They’d talk a bit, just one rung up from basic office watercooler chitchat. Lately Dave had been talking about a boat — a floating EVOLVEment.

“In the summer, it could be here in Brooklyn. Maybe docked next to the Brooklyn Bridge, where Bargemusic is, all decked out so the tourists want to know what’s going on. And then in the winter, we sail south — Vieques, Saint Maarten, maybe.” Dave had his arms crossed over his bare chest. He had a patch of hair in between his pecs, a fleur-de-lis of brown curls.