Chapter Text
BOB: So when you run the restaurant are you going to call it "Louise's Burgers?" -- from Carpe Museum
GENE: I bet when you reconnect in your thirties, you guys will get married." -- from Late Afternoon in the Garden of Bob and Louise
Of all the people to roll into her restaurant -- her being used very loosely, according to her father -- Logan Bush isn't the person Louise is expecting. For one, when he finally did leave town for college, he made a pretty big show of telling her. This was all post-garden fiasco, the thing that took whatever they'd sort of gotten going during the awful will-not-be-named seminar debacle and smashed it to tiny pieces. The day he got accepted to a school not anywhere nearby, he walked into the restaurant, letter in hand, and actually rubbed it in her face.
And then she never saw him again.
Until literally, like, right now.
Louise is hardly at a loss for words. He pushes open the door and she's taking a delivery order -- an idea of hers that's gone incredibly well, you're welcome, dad -- and she's going to laugh because he looks hysterical, but he also looks super depressed so she doesn't. Instead: "You got fat. Probably from eating all that crow, right?"
"Ha fucking ha. Twerp."
Louise is twenty-one years old. She is the furthest thing from a twerp. But she lets it slide. "I thought you were, and I quote, 'totally outta here.'"
"I, uh. I got a job. Here. In town, I mean. Working for Fischoeder."
Louise raises an eyebrow. She's...a little impressed. "You know he's totally crooked, right?"
"I'm gonna be his accountant."
Now she laughs. "Oh my god. You've been gone for, like ten years, and that's the job you have? You're gonna be his accountant?"
"Hey, I have a master's degree, in case you were wondering--" God he's funny when he gets mad. Louise laughs, full on, bellyaching laughs and Logan puffs up like one of those allergy kids without his epipen and just walks out the door.
Louise doesn't even stop to wonder why he was there in the first place.
Later, her dad comes up from the basement with a crate of buns, nursing his back after he puts it down. "Who were you laughing at?"
"Stupid Logan."
Bob looks up. "He's here?" Louise nods. "Wow. God, I bet he's living with his parents. It's like an epidemic." He glances up, like he can see through the layers of their apartment to Louise's room that she's not living in, but wishes she just would. Secretly. "Dork," he adds, eyes flicking back to Louise and grinning. "Did he get fat?"
"Eh, not really. Just the usual."
"So...not like me."
"Nope." Louise smiles and hands her dad a cup of water and an Advil. "Not like you."
For just a little while, Louise completely forgets that Logan is back in town. Things at the restaurant have never been busier, even though it couldn't have happened at a lousier time. Bob threw his back out last fall, and he's been suffering with it for months now, ignoring everyone's (Linda's) loud and sometimes angry (also Linda) suggestions that he just get surgery. But he doesn't want to be out and he's pretending he can't afford it and there's no one else who could do what he does.
Well. Tina could. But Bob won't call her and ask for help and Louise won't do something he doesn't want her to do and Gene, while fabulous, is mostly useless. To the restaurant. Not to the family. But when they need it -- like, on the verge of closing down for the day need it -- Gene is right there. Louise doesn't even have to call. He just seems to know.
Or their mother calls him, which is probably the more likely scenario.
Like today. Linda comes downstairs and says that Bob isn't getting out of bed, which might be an actual first for him. Louise can't remember a time when he dad wasn't up before everyone else, grumbling about something, cooking something -- it's what he does. So when he doesn't make an appearance -- and when Louise sneaks upstairs to check on him and he's completely and totally passed out -- she does, sort of, have a mini freak out in their weird bathroom.
"Don't hog the thing, Louise, I had chorizo for breakfast!"
Louise practically falls into her brother's arms, but only metaphorically because she's got her shit together a little bit more than that. She comes out of the bathroom and kicks Gene in the knee and tells him to turn on the charm because she's manning the grill.
"We don't say manning anymore, Louise."
"Oh my god, shut up."
"Whatever." Gene disappears into the bathroom for fifteen minutes and comes out ready to go. "Okay. Let's do this thing."
Gene does the thing he's always done best -- entertains. The front half of the restaurant is alive with music from Gene's phone on the new speakers, his stories and his laugh. Of the three of them, Louise definitely thinks Gene grew up to be the most functional. Every so often, she sees Linda's head peak down from the stairs to the apartment and then disappear, but she knows well enough to stay out of the way. The rush comes and goes. Louise flips the last lunch burger and slides it out the window, the rough noises of her childhood that haven't faded.
And right about three o'clock, when the place is emptying out and her father is meandering down the stairs like a kid lost in a theme park -- Logan reappears.
Louise is grateful it isn't lunch. Otherwise she might have grilled his face.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, feeling braver behind the expanse of the counter.
"I'm hungry. You do serve food here, right? Not just nutriloaf or something?"
Louise points out the window. "We are a dining establishment. The prison food can be found across the street." But she hands him a menu anyway. "The burger of the day is Challa At Your Bok Choi." Logan groans. "Complain to the writer, he's in the back." Logan looks behind her through the little window and his neck gets a little red, so he hides his face behind the menu. Louise snorts.
"Cheeseburger," he says.
"You want fries?"
"Uh. Yes."
"Uh. Okay." She puts his order up and goes around to make it, bumping into her father trying, and failing, to tie his apron. "Dad. What are you doing?"
"Something. I'm doing something, Louise."
"Bobby." Linda tries to pull him away from the grill. "You need to go back to bed."
"I've been in bed all day, Lin. I'm going insane up there, I can't do it anymore. I am going to make a burger, even if it's for Berry Bushes or whatever his name is out there."
"Who?" Linda looks through the window to Logan, who appears to be trying to make himself completely invisible. "Oh that little punk. I'll tell him where he can eat--"
"Mom." Louise steps in front of her and stops whatever momentum she was getting by putting a hand on her shoulder. "Just...let him eat, okay?"
Linda frowns. "We hate him, Louise."
"No, I hate him. You hate his mother. Let's keep it that way, okay? Spend your energy somewhere else. Like getting a crane to carry dad back into bed."
From the grill Bob groans, wobbling a little on his feet. Almost on cue, Gene is there, Bob's arm around his shoulder. "Okay, dad. You tried, we're all very proud of you, medal of valor and all that good stuff."
"I hate this." The sound of her father's voice makes Louise uneasy, but she fills his spot at the grill while the three of them get back upstairs.
Louise glances up and Logan is looking at her, but pretending he wasn't. "You want everything on it?" she asks.
"Yeah. Yes. Please." Louise rolls her eyes, but drops a piece of cheese onto the burger and preps the rest of it, dropping a basket of fries seamlessly. She's got her own rhythm back here and it works best when her dad is out of the picture, for just a bit. He does things his way and Louise heard enough of her dad and grampa's fights when the old man was alive to know why the extended Belcher family Christmas was such a shouting match. So Louise makes microchanges to the front of the store and lets her dad dinosaur his way around the back until his feet hurt, then does things the Louise-way.
She walks around and sets his order on the counter, opening the little fridge they added underneath and pulling out a coke. "This okay?" He nods. "Great." She leans back and watches him for a moment. "So. You came back."
"I wasn't expecting to," he says, popping the tab. "I applied for the job before I realized where it was, but it pays better than anything else I was doing or planning on doing." He takes a bite, stops, and looks at her. "This is really good."
"Don't talk with food in your mouth. Infant." Louise drops his bill next to him and goes back into the kitchen to ignore him while he eats. He must realize she isn't going to talk to him anymore because he leaves what he owes on the counter and his phone number on the back of the check. Louise decides to throw it away.
A few times a week, right around three, Logan comes in for a meal. If it were every day, Louise might be inclined to read into it, but this town has few palatable places to eat, so it makes sense he'd make this one of his late-lunch places. They don't really talk more than they have been, but after a while he stops placing an order and Louise just starts making it around two-fifty so it's almost ready when he comes in. He doesn't leave his number again, but he doesn't ask why she hasn't texted him. They fall into a thing. It's not a big deal.
"Do you still live here?" he asks one day, sort of out of the blue. It's during the period of time when Louise ignores him to get ready for the dinner crowd and it surprises her. She thought they had a thing.
"I have a place." Her name is on the window, she splits the profits with her parents, and it's enough to have a place of her own that she has always desperately needed. "Why? You living with your mom?"
Logan scowls, but nods. "For now," he says quickly. "I do actually need a place. Just wondering what's around here."
"There's new condos by the wharf and some older stuff downtown. You could rent a house, maybe. I dunno. I just went out and got something." God, why is she talking to him?
"I'm used to the way city markets work."
"Better leave your fancy talk at your mom's house then. Us beach folk get intimidated by it."
"Yeah, well, I need a place, like, yesterday. My mother is driving me crazy."
"Uh huh."
"She hovers. All the time."
"Hey, dipshit."
He groans. "Yeah, what?"
"I don't wanna talk about your mom, okay?"
Louise is bent over a box of tomatoes from the little fridge and doesn't hear his change hit the counter, but when she straightens back up, Logan is gone, and the check's been paid.
On Fridays, Louise lets her mother close the restaurant, goes home early, and drinks a bottle of wine while she skypes Tina. It's a rare thing they get to do because Tina is terrible at texting and Louise hates texting, so this works better for them. Three years ago Tina got accepted to grad school in Portland and, when she finished, just stayed out there because she'd found her people. The last time Louise had visited, she figured her sister was right and finally felt good about the move. For the most part. On the other side of the screen, Tina is nursing her own bottle and braiding her hair.
"Gene told me Logan Bush was back," Tina says, in a way that tells Louise that Gene said a lot more than that, but she's decided to hold back.
"Uh huh." Louise is not going to entertain this train of thought for much longer, but Tina is being kind about it so she lets it go.
"He said he's cuter."
"Also stupider. He works for Fischoeder. He's his accountant."
"He went to Princeton. We're friends on Facebook," she adds. Louise rolls her eyes. "Hey, is dad okay?"
Louise nods, grateful for the topic shift,. "He needs surgery."
"You guys can afford it now, he should just go."
"The insurance would cover it," Louise admits. "But he's too freaked about it. He'd have to be in bed for, like, ever, and you know he'd lose his mind."
Tina shrugs. "Get him an Xbox."
"Mom would monopolize it."
"Get her some more stuff for the Wii."
"Your solution placate our parents with video games, while theoretically effective, kind of worries me." Louise takes a long drink from her wine bottle. They had long since ditched the glasses. "Why is Gene telling you about Logan anyway?"
Tina's brow ticks up for a fraction of a second, something only Louise would notice, and she shrugs again. "No reason. Mom called me and she's thinking about taking hot yoga." Tina leans into the camera. "Don't let mom take hot yoga."
"Hard hitting advice from my big sister. Good stuff, T. I'm going to bed."
"Say hi to Logan for me."
Louise opens her mouth to smart off, but Tina's already logged off because she was sort of always good at their game, she'd just been holding back.
"I got a place," Logan says. Louise sets his plate down and raises an eyebrow. "To live. I move in next week."
"That's thrilling."
"It's a house. Kinda north of here. Far enough that my mom won't drive there."
"Fascinating."
"It's--" Logan stops. He looks up. "You're not wearing your ears."
Louise touches the top of her head without thinking. It had taken her so long to get used to the fact that they just didn't fit her, that she couldn't replace the things that had kept her safe for such a long time -- the first day without them, she got her hair chopped off, cropped close and short until she barely had anything to pull at. Her father had cried, but Tina had moved and his dad had died and Louise stood in the kitchen with her too-small hat in her hands and almost nothing on her head and he sobbed until she couldn't stand it and wrapped her arms around him.
"They don't...they didn't fit. Anymore." Louise feels raw under his gaze and ducks her head. She can still hear the way her dad's chest rattled under her hands, the way he shook and couldn't even say he was sorry because what did he ever have to be sorry for when it came to Louise? She feels her expression sour. "Besides, you weren't around to miss them." That comes out weirder than she wanted it to. And she doesn't mention that they'd started getting tight almost a year before she ditched them, or that she suffered through an itchy scalp and a near-constant tension headache until Gene finally told her she might actually kill herself if she didn't take them off.
Tina had been the one to do it, reaching out with steady hands to pull them from her head. The three of them stood in the bathroom with Bob's razor and Louise felt her hair tickle the backs of her legs as it fell.
"You look good," Logan finally says. "Without the ears, I mean."
Louise turns and goes into the kitchen. Eventually, she hears the sound of coins on the counter and the bell over the door. She counts to ten and goes back out there. She's a Belcher, dammit.
It's going to take a lot more to unnerve her than a dumb boy and a hat that wouldn't fit him either.