Work Text:
“You’re what now?” Ken’s voice cracks in the middle. He sounds—about as totally blindsided as he is.
“Ken, Jesus, you look like I said I was pregnant. I’m looking for jobs around here,” Suzanne says. She’s twirling her fork between her fingers, some sort of complicated pattern that he’s never seen her do before. “It’s not the end of the world or anything.”
“I remember you sitting right there,” Ken says, looking over at the empty chair on their left, “and swearing on the Cross that if you got the chance to leave, you’d never live in New Jersey again.”
“Well, Ken,” says Suzanne, “sometimes people say things when they’re sixteen and then later they change their mind. For example,” she points at him with the fork, “I can remember a time when you told me that if you got the chance to date JC Chasez, you’d never look at another human being again.”
“Okay,” Ken says, “okay, fine, I didn’t—”
“And since you were willing to say that to your girlfriend’s face, I’m pretty sure you meant it,” she finishes. “So.”
“But why?” he says. “You’ve got that awesome job. You have a gorgeous lake and a working public transit system and, like, multiple museums. You have blues music coming out your ears. Two of the best business schools in the country—”
“I live in Chicago, Ken,” she says. “I know all of this.”
“So?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says. She holds up the fork again. “Maybe I missed Safi’s pie too much.” She snags another bite.
Safi learned how to make pie six feet away, in Ken’s dad’s kitchen, and he’s been making them pie every holiday for ten years. “You should definitely tell him that, then, I guess,” Ken says. “I mean. If his pie is better than any food available in Chicago. He’ll like that.”
There’s a minute of silence, and then she says, “You know, that wasn’t quite the reaction I was expecting.”
Her hands are still, resting on the table. She’s wearing five different rings, glinting in the light from the window. She never used to wear rings; he likes how they look on her. He thinks about getting to see her changes as they happen, instead of twice a year, too bright and impossible to take in all at once.
“It hasn’t sunk in,” he says, too soft. “Give it a minute or two. It’ll be there.”
Suzanne always shows up in a cloud of exotica—clothes, jewelry, opinions on finance, stories about music and art and food. She’s been like that since the beginning, though, coming through Ken’s front door in high school and dragging a whole other world in with her. He never wanted her to stop talking, was always trying to come up with questions that she’d think were interesting, just so he could listen to what she had to say.
In retrospect, it’s not one hundred percent a mystery why she broke up with him. But he doesn’t think he’ll ever get rid of the seed of that, of this need in him, when she arrives, to just watch her walk, talk, her heels and her highlights and her French nails.
He’s wondered, sometimes, if he was just jealous. That she was going places, and he was never going to be able to go anywhere. But now that she’s coming back, what does that mean?
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s take a break from me, then. What about you?”
“Uh,” he says. “My dad got a job in Philly. A good one.”
“He what?” she says. “Kenny, that’s great!”
He nods. His dad has worked part-time, substitute teaching, teaching summer school, teaching for a year here and there, whatever he could get, for almost as long as Ken can remember. Their tiny apartment has been all they could afford, and sometimes they couldn’t quite afford that, and they had to borrow money from his mom’s parents, who never really had that much to spare. When Ken started working full-time, it got a little better, and since he got his last raise, they’ve even been able to save up a little. But now—
“Safi met a woman who turned out to be the principal of this really great school there,” Ken says, “and they’re like best friends now or something, so she agreed to call Dad in for an interview, and—he got the job.” Suzanne meets his eyes for a helpless little Safi, what even are you moment. “It pays really well,” he says. “Like. Really well.”
“Good to know he’s finally getting what he deserves, then,” she says. “Is he going to move?”
“He’s thinking about it. The commute would be brutal.”
She looks at him. “What are you going to do?”
He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“You always wanted to get out as much as I did,” she says.
“I still want to,” he says. He looks down at the table. “But I don’t want to leave anybody behind, so.”
“So that’s a problem,” she says dryly.
“Yeah. I don’t know.” He looks up at her. “How’d you decide to come back?”
“It was pretty simple,” she says. “I realized that I was spending a hundred hours a week at work and I hated everyone at my job. When you hate everyone you ever spend time with, it’s time for a change.”
“I love the people I spend time with,” he says.
“Yeah,” she says.
He shakes his head. “I’m glad you’re coming back,” he says. “I’m—really, really glad.”
“Thanks,” she says. “That means a lot to me, Kenny.”
Suzanne has to go have coffee with her mother, and she’s only been gone for ten minutes before Ken gives up and goes over to Maria and Safi’s place.
“Kenny?” Maria calls when he comes in. “Get in here!”
He follows her voice to the bathroom; she’s on her hands and knees, twisted underneath the sink, with what looks like…plumbing accoutrements scattered around her. “Uh,” he says.
“Get over here and help me,” she says. “You have to hold this like this while I tighten the thing—”
“What even happened?” he asks, getting down next to her on the damp bathroom floor, having to basically sprawl on top of her to reach the pipe.
“The bathroom flooded is what happened,” she says. “Good thing I was home, or we would’ve been living in a fucking swimming pool. Tighter.”
He holds it tighter. “Since when are you a plumber?”
“Since our landlord can’t return phone calls, so about two years now,” she says. “Whatever, it’s a good skill to have. And this isn’t so bad, remember when the toilet exploded?”
“I remember asking you never to tell me about the time the toilet exploded,” Ken says. “Overnight hotel service at my place in exchange for no information, I think was the deal.”
“That’s right,” she says. “Okay. Well, I’m glad you stopped by now, because doing this with only two hands would’ve been a bitch.” She makes one last aggressive move with her wrench, jostling them both, and squirms back. “Okay, let go.”
He sits back next to her while she scrutinizes the pipe. After a second, she stands up and turns on the water. It runs without incident. “Look at that,” she says. “I fucking rule. Safi owes me lasagna and so much sex.” She stands up. “I’m going to change, and then we can hang out,” she says. “There’s tea and stuff.”
“On it,” Ken says, and goes to get it started.
He makes the tea, and gives her a mug of Mango Ceylon when she comes out of the bedroom. “What’s up?” she says, sitting at the table.
He blows on his jasmine. “Suzanne’s in town, have you seen her yet?”
“Not yet,” she says. “We’re having dinner tomorrow night. I always have to schedule in a few hours for her, because if I just see for a few minutes at her mom’s Christmas party, I come out of it thinking she’s bought into the flashy finance world and become all superficial, and I forget that I’m just assuming that because she’s the most beautiful person in the world, you know?”
“She’s kind of done the opposite thing, this time,” he says, sidestepping the most beautiful issue, because he and Maria have had enough conversations about how stupid they get whenever they look at Suzanne.
“The opposite of what thing?”
“She says she wants to move back to New Jersey,” he says. “She’s looking for jobs and stuff.”
Maria’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “Shit,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Wow, that’s—that’s awesome,” she says, and starts to smile. “I almost forgot what it was like to yell at baseball with her. She never even visits during the season. We can yell at baseball again! She’ll make me watch Project Runway with her. Safi’ll have someone to go get manicures with.”
“I went with him,” Ken says.
“Once,” she says. “And then you dodged all his invitations and he complained about it for a solid month.”
“It was weird,” Ken defends himself. “I don’t like people touching me that much.”
“I’ll make sure to tell Peter when he gets in,” Maria says, eyes crinkling over her Mango Ceylon.
“Strange people. It’s weird when strange people touch you that much.”
“Well, they don’t have to touch you, because they can touch Safi and Suzanne instead,” she says. “God, this’ll be great. I hope she actually does it. I miss seeing her all the time. This is how she becomes this crazy beautiful ice sculpture, you know, when she goes away to Chicago for six months and you forget that she looks like that.”
“Maybe you forget,” Ken says.
“And you guys could—could you guys do something? Or is that totally over?” Maria’s eyebrows come down.
“Maybe you guys could do something,” Ken deflects. “Start up lesbian nights again.”
“Lesbian nights were great,” Maria says. “But—I mean—you have a thing.”
“Thanks,” says Ken.
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Ken says. “Just the two of us—I always just kind of wanted to follow her around and stare, you know? It wasn’t the greatest.”
“Well,” Maria says, “supposedly you’re a grown-up now, and so is she. Maybe you could be better.”
“Maybe we should wait and see if she actually comes back before we plan our futures,” Ken says.
“Whatever,” says Maria. “I’m buying her a Phillies cap, I bet she lost the one I got her senior year.”
Eventually Maria gets sucked into some kind of Facebook battle with one of her co-workers—professional wrestling is involved, and that’s all Ken needs to know about that—so he pulls out his notebook and writes lyrics for a while.
He has almost—almost—reached the point where he doesn’t feel like a pretentious asshole, writing lyrics into his little spiral notebook like every other jackass who thinks he’s having profound thoughts about stuff, but sometimes—well, sometimes he walks outside at night and he can’t breathe because the sky’s so enormous around him, and he figures that writing lyrics about two hundred thousand million stars all several billion years old isn’t the worst thing he could be doing with his time. And sometimes Safi steals his notebook and does—God knows what, magic, and an actual song comes out of it.
So he actually starts getting into it—like, what are two hundred thousand million stars next to Suzanne?—and he’s not paying too much attention to Maria, who’s progressed to looking up interviews with pro wrestlers on Youtube in the bedroom, so he doesn’t actually notice when Safi gets home. Not until long arms wrap around him from behind and he’s pulled back against the chair while Safi presses his face against Ken’s hair and breathes, “Heyyyy,” into his head.
Ken wriggles away from the vibrations, and Safi drops a kiss on his hair and stands up. “What’s going on? Did Maria fix the sink?”
“Yeah,” Ken says. “She says you owe her lasagna and sex.”
“And I am so very, very happy to pay up,” says Safi. “I will go start the sauce now. You still writing or do you want to help?”
“I’ll help,” Ken says, because cooking with Safi is like participating in a magic trick. He wishes he could do it more often—well, that’s what he always wishes, but he never—
“What’s up?” Safi says, when Ken stops, halfway out of his chair, struck by possibility.
“Uh,” Ken says. “You know my dad might be moving to Philly.”
“Yeah,” Safi says. “Come on,” tugging Ken by the wrist, because Safi can never just talk, he has to be doing something at the same time. He propels Ken to one of the counters and hands him a cutting board. “What about it?”
“I’m—you know, I’m not really sure what I’m going to do if he does,” Ken says. “I mean, he just found out, and I haven’t really thought if I’ll stay in our apartment or—”
“Move in with us,” Safi says. “Or we’ll move in with you, maybe, would that be weird? Or we could all get a different place together. You spend half your time here anyway.”
“Uh,” says Ken. “Maybe. That sounds—maybe. I mean, you have to talk to Maria and stuff, right? But—thank you.”
He’s thinking about how he used to dream of ditching everything and moving to France or something, but he’s also thinking about how he feels when he’s with Safi and Maria. He’s never wanted to run away from this apartment.
And he’s also thinking—if his dad has his own money, and Ken’s splitting rent three ways, well, who knows. Maybe someday he could become a person who could go to France anyway, and then come back.
“Great,” says Safi. “Here.” He hands Ken an onion.
Ken looks at it.
“I know you know what do with that, you have definitely done it before,” says Safi. “Here.” He hands over what Ken knows is both the largest and the sharpest of his knives. “Go to town. I’ll be over here mincing the garlic.”
They all sit down to dinner, and Safi says, “Who wants to pray? Ken?”
Ken shakes his head. “Maria does it better.”
“It’s not about doing it better,” Maria says, but she bows her head and says, “Dear universe, tonight we are thankful for Ken’s dad, because of how he put up with us when our parents wouldn’t and cooked us dinner when we couldn’t do it ourselves, and we’re glad he has a new job. And we’re also thankful the sink was fixable. Thanks, universe.”
“Thanks,” says Safi, and, “Thanks,” says Ken.
Maria opens her eyes. “Also I am thankful to Safi for the lasagna.” She serves herself a slice.
“I helped, kind of,” says Ken.
“You totally helped,” says Safi. “I am always thankful when I don’t have to chop my own onions.”
“Because of how you cry like a baby,” says Maria.
“That is a thing that I do,” Safi agrees. “Oh, hey, Maria—well, how is it, first?”
“Good,” says Maria around a mouthful.
“Awesome,” says Safi. “So—you know, Ken’s dad might move, and if that happens, Ken isn’t sure where he’s going to live.”
“Move in with us,” says Maria, still with her mouth full.
Safi looks at Ken with eloquent eyebrows.
Ken shakes his head. “I—thanks, guys. I mean, we’ll see what happens. But thanks.”
“We would’ve asked you before if we thought you’d leave your dad,” Maria says.
“He wouldn’t let me help with rent if I didn’t live with him,” Ken says. He’d thought about it—because with Suzanne and Peter gone, if Safi and Maria were together, that left him out in the cold. And there’d been a while where it really felt like that, at first, when Maria was going to school and working and didn’t have time to do anything but come home and fall into bed with Safi. But the last couple of years, it’s been—it’s been okay. It’s been good.
“Yeah, so,” says Safi. “But now—maybe even if he doesn’t move? You could try just staying over more, see how you like it.”
“Thanks,” Ken says, a little too overwhelmed to look at them, so he’s staring down at his plate. “That’s—thanks, you guys.”
“No problem,” Maria says. “It’d be awesome to have you around.”
After dinner, there’s a debate about whether to watch Jurassic Park (Safi) or play Cards Against Humanity (Maria). Ordinarily, Ken would be advocating for some slightly sappier option—not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with dinosaurs or terrible, terrible choices—but he’s too happy to make the effort. It’s a little strange.
And then his phone lights up, and it’s Peter. Hey, I’m in town. Where are you, do you want to meet up?
At Safi and Maria’s, he texts back. If you hurry, maybe you can catch the beginning of Jurassic Park, because Safi seems to be winning the argument.
Cool, see you soon.
“Hey,” he says into the wind-down of the argument (“I guess we could play Cards Against Humanity after the movie.” “Aren’t you leaving for work at five-thirty tomorrow?”) “Hey, Peter’s coming over.”
“Hey, I didn’t know he was in yet,” says Safi, abandoning the argument. “That’s cool. Maybe we should invite Suzanne too, have the whole crowd?”
“She’s busy with her family tonight, I think,” Ken says. “But I was thinking we could—Christmas Eve, or something.”
“That sounds awesome,” Maria says. “Yeah. Then we could all play Cards Against Humanity.”
Ken laughs.
Peter shows up while the tour of Isla Nublar is still mostly going according to plan. “Heyyy,” Safi says, pausing the movie and hopping up for a hug. Peter lifts him off the ground, and then repeats it with Maria, who swears at him until he puts her down, and then it’s Ken’s turn.
Being hugged by Peter always seems like it’s what a hug from a really friendly grizzly bear would be like. Ken shuts his eyes and enjoys it, and keeps leaning into him after he’s back on the ground and technically no longer being hugged.
“Hey, we’re watching Jurassic Park,” Safi says. “Sit down, the T-Rex hasn’t attacked yet or anything.”
“Give me a second to say hi, why don’t you,” Peter says, laughing. “Are velociraptors really more interesting than I am?”
“They can’t stop movies in the middle, you know that,” Ken says. Maria’s always been like that, and Safi’s picked up on it since they started living together. “Come on, I’ll get you something to drink, we can say hi while they watch the dinosaurs rip people apart.”
“We can’t help our priorities,” Maria says. “No, you guys catch up.”
In the kitchen, Ken finds the wine and pours some for Peter, and they sit down at the kitchen table, Peter pulling his chair up close to Ken’s, so their knees brush. “Hey,” he says. “I heard about your dad. That’s so great.”
“You heard already?” Ken says. “From where?”
“Suzanne and I had dinner,” Peter says. “She wants to move back, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ken says. “Right when I was thinking about maybe leaving, how’s that for timing.”
“You’re really thinking about it?” Peter leans forward.
“I—” Ken shakes his head. “I don’t know, maybe not. I want to go see the world, but I don’t want to leave everybody here. Especially Safi and Maria, it’s been the three of us since kindergarten, you know?”
“Did I ever tell you,” says Peter, “I remember you guys, I guess you were in first grade and I was in second. Maria’s dad was picking all of you up.”
Ken makes a face. “No, I don’t think you ever did.”
“Yeah, well—he was yelling at Maria for something, I forget what, but she started crying, and then Safi hugged her and started crying too, and then you started crying, and you were all just clutching at each other and crying, and he kept yelling, and—” Peter shakes his head. “I just remember thinking that he was a terrible dad but it was good that you guys all had each other as friends.”
“Right on both counts,” Ken says. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”
“I thought about it a lot,” Peter says. “Because you know—I was kind of a loner for a while there.”
Peter didn’t really have any friends at all until his junior year, their sophomore year, when he was in choir with Ken and Safi and Suzanne, and they started hanging out. He doesn’t like to talk about it, mostly, and Ken has sometimes tried to imagine how lonely it must have been, what it would have been like to do elementary school and middle school and half of high school with no friends. It’s terrifying. “Yeah,” he says, and nudges himself forwards a little so their legs start to tangle, Ken’s knee between both of Peter’s.
“So, I wanted friends like that,” he says. “I thought about it a lot.”
Ken can’t handle that any more, and he’s had a glass of wine, so he half-stands and leans forward to wrap his arms around Peter’s shoulders. And of course, because it’s Peter, he pulls Ken in until he’s falling into his lap.
For once, Ken doesn’t protest being manhandled, just says, “There you go,” into Peter’s hair. “Just like that.”
Peter’s arms tighten. “You can come to New York,” he says. “Stay with me. Find a job, get into the music scene. You’d kill them.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m sitting on your lap right now,” Ken says.
“That’s why I’m saying it out loud,” Peter says. “I think it all the time. I wish I could get all of you to come to the city. Remember the Silent Pioneers?”
The Silent Pioneers was their band name, back in high school. “Maria’s the only one of us who still practices,” Ken says. “Unless Suzanne’s breaking the guitar out after work in Chicago.”
“You don’t know,” Peter says, and Ken hears the smile in his voice. “Maybe she plays at blues clubs on Friday night. Maybe she’ll come to New York with me instead of moving back here, and we can be a duo.”
“Maybe,” says Ken, and tightens his arms. He doesn’t want Peter to go back to New York at all. He thinks about going with him. New York is something else, and Peter is—Peter. Whole unto himself, more than any of the rest of them are, but always happy to let them in.
Suzanne texts them all the next morning, let’s ditch my mom’s holiday party and do Christmas Eve just us. Safi instantly invites them all over, so Ken finds himself back in Maria and Safi’s apartment, this time with a bottle of wine that he actually bought and brought over, instead of just mooching off of them.
“How did you have time to make all of this?” Ken asks Safi as they’re sitting down to eat. The table is absolutely laden. “I saw your kitchen last night. There was none of this.”
“Well, Peter brought a couple of things,” Safi says, “but mostly, you know, it doesn’t take eighteen hours to cook food. I just made it all today. Maria was at work, so I was bored anyway.”
“It’s time for grace,” Maria says. “Ken, you were chicken last night, you have to do it today.”
“Okay, fine,” Ken says, and they all bow their heads. “Dear universe, thank you for Suzanne and Peter, and for Safi being magic. And thank you for—choices, and for friends who love each other. Thank you, universe.”
“Thank you,” everyone echoes.
They dig in. It’s all fantastic, of course, and Suzanne makes a moaning noise around her fork when she tries the duck. Ken shifts a little in his seat, because—well, there’s Suzanne all perfect hair and makeup and suit and jewelry, and then there’s Suzanne in the Phillies sweatshirt that Maria forced on her when she said she was cold earlier, mouth full of Safi’s food.
He kicks at her a little, under the table. She kicks back at him, swallows and grins. “Try it,” she says.
It basically melts in his mouth. He closes his eyes.
“Man,” Maria says. “Safi, you win forever.”
“Hell yes I do,” says Safi. “Look at Kenny’s face. He’s going to expire or something.”
Ken opens his eyes. “If I do, I’m glad this is my last meal,” he says, and takes another bite.
After dinner, Ken finds himself in the living room with Suzanne while Peter, Safi, and Maria all cram into the kitchen to make some legendary Christmas cocktail Peter read about on the internet. Suzanne puts on “Fairytale in New York” and Ken says, “Oh, wait, can’t we have real Christmas music?”
“This is real Christmas music,” she says. “But I queued up ‘Carol of the Bells’ next, so don’t get your panties in a twist or anything.”
“My panties are fine,” Ken says, as the Pogues sing, we kissed on a corner and danced through the night. “Hey,” he says. “Do you ever play guitar anymore?”
Suzanne is quiet for a second. After Happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it’s our last, she says, “Yeah, actually. Keeps me sane. Why?”
“I don’t know, Peter and I were talking about the Silent Pioneers yesterday,” Ken says. “God, that’s a stupid name, wouldn’t everyone just be like, but you’re not silent, you’re a band?”
“I haven’t hear you complain about the name in years,” she says. “I think the silence was a metaphor or something, wasn’t it? Ask Safi.”
“Ask Safi what?” Safi comes out of the kitchen, followed by Maria and Peter, all holding cocktails. “Here you go,” he says, handing his two to Ken and Suzanne and taking one of Maria’s two.
“Why Silent Pioneers?” Ken asks.
Safi starts to laugh. “Wow,” he says. “It was the name of this documentary from the eighties I watched once, about LGBT stuff, how people changed society without being activists or anything like that, just surviving to an old age and being normal and different at the same time. I thought—well, you know, I was sixteen, I thought we could all grow up and be a famous band and be together and love each other and…” he runs out of steam, weirdly for Safi, and just gestures with a hand. “Be normal and different.”
“Well,” says Maria. “We’re not a famous band. But I think we’re working on the rest of it pretty okay.” She raises her eyebrows at Ken.
Ken looks at them, at Suzanne and at Peter. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think we’re making it work.”
Maria leans over and plants a kiss on him. “And it wouldn’t kill us to get together and play something once in a while,” she says when she pulls back, “would it? Kenny still writes songs.”
“Lyrics, I write lyrics,” Ken says.
“I wrote a couple of songs,” Suzanne says, and everyone turns to look at her. She shrugs. “I had to do something. Ultimately I decided to move back to New Jersey, but first I wrote a couple of songs.”
“See,” says Maria, punching Suzanne in the shoulder, so she has to guard her cocktail. “We should play Suzanne’s songs.”
Ken’s looking at Peter, who’s standing a little apart. “Hey,” he says. “You’re the music guy. Would you want to come down to Jersey sometimes and keep doing your job even when you technically don’t have to?”
Peter ducks his head. “Yeah, you guys,” he says. “I always—I don’t want to invite myself, you know?”
“Oh my God,” says Suzanne. “What is wrong with you people, you don’t invite him home anymore?”
“He’s busy!” Maria protests. “Really busy with his job and stuff! I thought.”
“Come visit us,” says Safi. “Whenever. Quit your job and live on our couch.”
“I’m not going to quit my job,” Peter says.
“I thought I was living on your couch,” Ken says.
“You can sleep on top of Peter,” Safi says. “I would be shocked if he objected.”
“Where am I sleeping, then?” Suzanne says. “I don’t want to be left out.”
“Oh,” says Maria, “I think we could work something out.” She smirks at Suzanne, who gives her suggestive eyebrows back.
“Anyway, you guys should come visit me sometimes,” Peter says. “Check out the New York music scene. Play some open mics.”
“I am taking you up on that,” says Suzanne. She nudges Ken.
“Yeah,” Ken says. He still can’t—stay here, move to New York? Or do something else, but—he’s the happiest he ever is in this room, with these people. So.
“Okay, okay, a toast,” says Safi.
“A toast!” says Maria.
Suzanne holds up her glass. “To the Silent Pioneers,” she says.
Peter steps forward until he’s pressed against Ken’s shoulder, warm and solid. “The Silent Pioneers,” he says.
They all raise their glasses, and Ken drinks—it tastes like they lit Christmas on fire—and smiles.