All About Lulu (24 page)

I work at a
fl
orist now after school and weekends. I like the
fl
owers. They’re beautiful. They don’t have to mean anything. I wrote a story in English Comp about a girl who works at a
fl
orist, and she’s very lonely, and all day long she takes FTD orders from boyfriends to their girlfriends, and sells
fl
owers to husbands, and talks to women about bridal bouquets, and at night she goes home and eats chicken pot pies and wa
tches the news, and practicall
cries herself to sleep wishing she had somebody to watch the news and eat chicken pot pies with, and fall asleep with. She can’t even have a dog in her apartment. The story wasn’t about me, though.

Because in the story, a lonely guy starts bringing her
fl
owers picked from his own garden, which he arranges himself, and the girl and the guy fall in love, and they live happily ever after. If the story were about me, the girl wouldn’t accept the
fl
owers, or she’d throw them away. Anyway, I got an A for the happy ending.

I haven’t seen Dan, and I hardly ever go to the Saloon anymore, or the Frontier Room or the Vogue, and never the Comet, because Dan still hangs out there sometimes. That whole scene is done with, anyway. It’s all hype now. A lot of the kids are just bored rich kids and European tourist kids looking for the heart of “the Seattle scene,” hoping to catch a glimpse of Mark Arm or Chris Cornell, hoping to touch the hem of Kurt Cobain’s
fl
annel shirt. The rest of them are just drinking beer.

I hardly drink anymore. I stopped drinking coffee. It makes me restless. I drink this herbal tea that smells like poop, I forget what it’s called. It looks like homegrown po
t. I buy it in big bags at Tenz
ing Momo. It has a calming effect.

Mom said something about you working at a radio station? Is that true? Why didn’t you tell me
that? Why are you always so mod
est? What are you doing there? Are you a DJ or something? I hope! I hope someday you have your own show where all you do is talk. Or I hope you call the Dodgers games like Vin Scully, like you did when we were kids. Whatever you do, I know it will be special, it will be good. I hope you get everything you ever wanted.

So does this mean you quit Fatburger again? If so, good for you.

If not, oh well. A job’s a job, right? Did Troy decide where he’s going to transfer? Am I asking too many questions? It’s just that I DO miss you, and your sad funny insights, which makes it even harder to tell you what I have to tell you:

I don’t think it’s a good idea that you visit me spring break, for a number of reasons. And hear me out, before you get mad. For one, I’ll be extremely busy with work, also I’m starting an internship around then, so I wouldn’t get to see you hardly, anyway. And the biggest reason is, even though my life is starting to have the appearance of a normal life, I’m still not on terra
fi
rma. I’m not sure I could handle all the feelings your visit would stir up. And when I say I’m not sure, I’m even less sure what the consequences of not being able to handle it might be. So, let’s plan something for summer. I’ll come down. Or better yet, we can meet in San Francisco.

Love,

Lulu

P.S. It’s called valerian tea.

It was drizzling, and my duffel bag was heavy, and I was tired, and full of bad coffee, and my eyes were playing tricks on me, and my ass was asleep, and the daisies I’d bought twenty-two hours earlier were already wilting by the time I reached Lulu’s doorstep. But nothing could deter my giddiness as I anticipated the sight of her.

She answered the door in baggy pants and a gray T-shirt. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her crazy hair was tamed into an uneven bun atop her head. Her heart was not singing, that much was clear, and she wasn’t even smiling; in fact, she was frowning, but she was still more beautiful than Helen of Troy.

“Oh, William, William, William,
why
? How could you just
show
up
like this? How could you not tell me? You promised.”

“Great to see you, too,” I said. “Here, I brought you these.”

I handed her the daisies, and stepped around her into the apartment. I hadn’t even set my bag down when I heard the toilet
fl
ush down the hall. A moment later, Troy emerged. All the spring went out of his step the instant he saw me.

“
Oh
, hey,” he said.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. So, here we were, the familiar crowd of three. Someone had some explaining to do. Troy must have been thinking the same thing.

“I’m maybe transferring here for fall,” he explained. “I just came to—”

“I invited him,” said Lulu.

“I thought you were busy.”

She was still frowning. “I am,” she said.

Disoriented, and stupid with surprise, all I could do was look at them for a moment. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I demanded of Troy.

“Why didn’t
you
tell me?” was his reply.

“Well, one of you ought to have told
me
,” said Lulu. “
Somebody
ought to have.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, you’ve done that,” she said. Then she looked at me, disheveled, miserable, and a little wet, still clutching my duffel bag, which was getting heavy. She softened. “Here,” she said, taking the bag. “Sit down. And don’t be sorry,
I’m
sorry, that was awful of me, I’m awful.

You came all this way, and all I can do to welcome you is—I’m sorry.

Make yourself cozy.”

As Lulu turned her back to me, setting my bag in a corner, I gave Troy the stink eye. He looked a little hurt and confused, but mostly guilty.

Lulu’s apartment was sparse. There was very little to de
fi
ne the space: a pair of straw mats, a paper lantern, some white walls. The wood
fl
oors were warped, gouged, and painted gray. Her old yellow footlocker was draped with a black silk scarf and served as a coffee table.

Beyond that, the lone piece of furniture was a queen-size futon, an amorphous blob with a gray slipcover, coaxed and cajoled onto a wooden frame, where it perpetrated a sofa, upon which Troy and I presently sat, shoulder to shoulder. There were two plants, one on either side of the Blob; they could not have been farther from the window nor could their placement have made them any less accessible to the eye from our vantage. As for Lulu’s bedroom, I could not see into its darkness through the partially opened door.

Lulu stood in the adjoining kitchen clutching a freezer bag of valerian tea as she watched the kettle, which had uttered its
fi
rst groans of expansion atop the glowing burner.

“It kind of stinks like poop,” she said, unsealing the ziplock and taking a whiff of its contents. “But it’s incredibly relaxing.”

Indeed, the stink was inescapable, as though a Great Dane had parked his Alpo on the coffee table. While Lulu
fi
dgeted with the tea preparations, I began to notice something else about her apartment.

For all its straw-mat simplicity, the space could not belie a certain clutter. Papers were wedged beneath the Blob in stacks, candlesticks and umbrellas were stuffed inside baskets along with magazines and books. Everything was tucked away, compartmentalized, hidden from view, but if a big enough wind were to blow through the apartment, it might look like her old room.

A white cat emerged from the bedroom, unfurling its tail and lick-ing its chops. It had green eyes and spots of brown and orange on its face, and one spot of brown at the end of its tail.

“That’s Esmeralda,” Lulu said. “Esmeralda’s my absolute darling, the answer to all of my prayers.”

The cat vaulted onto the kitchen counter and sniffed around a bit before it began the business of circling and circling,
fi
nally settling into the shape of a cinnamon roll upon the countertop, where it closed its eyes.

“Since when did you start praying?” I said.

“Since a long time ago,” she said. “Anyway, I just adore Esmeralda. I aspire to be like her. She teaches me absolutely everything.”

“How long before you’re shitting in a box?” I said.

“Very funny,” she said, but she wasn’t laughing, she wasn’t anything, really. “Go ahead, you guys can tease me all you want.”

“
I’m
not teasing,” said Troy.

“
I’m
not teasing,” I mimicked in a whiny falsetto.

“Well, it’s true,” said Lulu. “Esmeralda is my best friend. She’s patient, she’s sweet, and most of all, she never lies. I know what to expect from her. She’s straightforward and true.”

“Animals can’t lie,” said Troy. “That’s what the Garden of Eden was all about. The forbidden fruit was self-knowledge, you know, like self-consciousness. That’s the original sin.”

“Thank you, Joseph Campbell,” I said. “And what the hell’s a snake? A fucking vegetable?”

“It’s a
myth
,” said Troy. “I’m just saying—”

“You’re just
talking
,” I said.

He stopped talking. He shifted slightly away from me atop the Blob.

“Oh, let’s not talk about religion,” said Lulu. “I’ve tried just about all of them, and they’re none of them worth arguing over.”

“I’m not arguing,” said Troy.

When the tea was
fi
nished, Lulu brought it steaming on a tray and set it on the coffee table. It stunk like a bedpan. Lulu sat on her knees on the wood
fl
oor across from Troy and me. As the tea steeped, Lulu spoke at length on the subject of Esmeralda and her many charms and fascinating idiosyncrasies. Troy and I listened and listened. We watched Esmeralda, though there was really nothing to see—she was conked out on the counter, inert as a paving stone, probably dreaming of tuna
fi
sh or a clean litter box.

Lulu stood up at one point and put on some New Agey music that I didn’t recognize: a potpourri of cellos and chimes and didgeridoos, the musical equivalent of frankincense. Then she sat back down on her knees across from us, and she poured the tea into three cups.

Lulu raised her cup to her lips and blew softly upon it, so that a ghostly curl of steam crawled upward over her face, and when she sipped, she looked at Esmeralda on the counter, and her eyes smiled lovingly over the rim of her cup. I used to know that smile, and what it was to have those crinkly eyes bestow their unreserved approval upon me.

“Here kittykittykitty,” I said.

Esmeralda opened her eyes and unfurled her tail. I encouraged her further with little smooching sounds, and the cat waved her tail about playfully by way of reply. I held out my
fi
ngers as though I were dangling a herring, and Esmeralda hopped off the counter and padded toward me across the wooden
fl
oor. But before she got to me, Troy scooped her up and set her in his lap, whereupon she circled, circled, and settled to rest.

“She likes you,” said Lulu.

“Troy always had a knack for pussy,” I said.

“Oh, stop it,” she said. “Why do you always have to be so disgusting?”

“It was a compliment,” I said.

“You’re just jealous,” she said.

I could feel my face color.

“She’s soft,” said Troy, petting her.

Lulu leaned over and they both pet her. “She’s the softest. The softest and the sweetest and the wisest.”

Oh brother, I thought.

“Isn’t this tea nice?” she said.

“I really like it,” I lied.

“Me too,” said Troy. “It makes you feel
…
in the moment.”

I nearly choked.
In the moment.
Please. Ha! The tea tasted like boiled shit, which of course I would eagerly have partaken of, had Lulu set it in front of me. “I see what you mean about the calming effect,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s really nice,” she said. “It’s one of my simple pleasures.

I’m
fi
nally starting to enjoy the little things. I’m tired of thinking big.

It gives me a headache. I’m tired of being smart.” Then she turned her attention back to Esmeralda. “Ith wittow kitty gittin watts of wuv from mummy and Twoy? Duth wittow kitty wike wuv? Mummy wuvs wittow kitty thooo much. Wittow kitty make mummy thooo happy.”

I never thought I’d want to kill a cat. I love animals. Or maybe it was Troy I wanted to kill. I wanted to kill something, or stop something, or communicate something, before Lulu lost her mind completely. But maybe Lulu was right. Maybe I was just jealous. Maybe Lulu was truly content in her little daily things, maybe normalcy was the answer: cats and nowhere jobs and sparsely furnished apartments.

Maybe valerian tea was the doorway to enlightenment. Maybe stable, reliable Troy was the man to carry her across that threshold, but I doubted it. It seemed to me that Lulu was even, too even. Like she didn’t even know she was in despair. I longed for that strong wind to blow through the room and scatter Lulu everywhere in all her swirl-ing, eddying complexity, and though I knew that it was within my power to stir those winds, the very rules of engagement had changed.

To win Lulu, I had to disarm her. And the best way to do that, I reasoned, was to stop talking. And so I did.