Lovely, Dark, and Deep

  I’m not sure where gastrodiplomacy will lead me: maybe working in the State Department or at an embassy, maybe teaching, maybe writing. While I know there are challenges and risks, I can’t document or predict or protect myself against every single crisis. No one can, not even the perfectly healthy.

  This is my plan.

  For now.

  …

  “I don’t know, Viola,” Dad hesitates, frowning. “Your bedroom? Returning to Liberty?”

  “No, honey.” Mom abruptly leaves her side of the desk and plants herself in front of Dad, not me. Dad looks as startled as I feel, this no-honey is an unscripted deviation from their normal, in sync, dynamic duo-ism.

  I’m ready with my counterarguments, the ones I’ve written and rehearsed earlier today.

  “Plan B, honey. She thought of Plan B.” Mom glances over her shoulder at me, incandescent with pride, before she places her hand on Dad’s chest. “Plan B.”

  Dad automatically wraps his hand around hers and agrees slowly, “She did think of a doable Plan B.”

  “Not just doable, but thoughtful,” Mom says.

  “It’s the Lee & Li Way,” I tell them.

  It’s true. The hallmark of a truly great Plan B isn’t that it’s a loser’s consolation prize, the next best thing. The power of a truly great Plan B is that it is pretty darn awesome, standing on its own.

  “You’ll have to give us some time to think this over,” Mom says, picking up my plan. “We’ll want to talk to Dr. Anderson to see if he has any suggestions for making this happen.”

  Dad sits down and leans back in his chair, thinking. “We could make a couple of calls, set up a couple of informational interviews, see what’s really possible.”

  Already, Mom is mentally reviewing their database of contacts. “Remember that expert on foreign affairs we had to call for that European fiasco?”

  “Thomas—”

  “Kharim. Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “Good thinking. He’s an adjunct professor at Wesleyan now, I think.”

  They grin at each other, aglow with my possibilities. Plan B, I’ll take. From my parents’ heads, bowed together over my plan, so might they.

  Right on time, the next morning at breakfast, the doorbell rings. I rocket out of the kitchen, beating even Dad.

  “Trick or treat!” Auntie Ruth says as she hands me her key fob. “Ready?”

  Dad asks, “Wait. What?”

  “Are you giving Viola a car?” asks Roz, incredulous.

  “I’m being homeschooled at Auntie Ruth’s office,” I explain to everyone, well-prepared for this moment. After all, I am armored with every conceivable argument and with every possible layer of sunscreen, undershirt, custom-tailored, long-sleeved Wynnter shirt buttoned to my neck, heavy jeans, riding boots, safari hat, driving gloves tucked into my back pocket, and my new necklace. “You did say that if I was highly efficient, I’d be done with homeschool by eleven every day, right?” I remind my parents. “And the UV Index for the next couple of days is supposed to be especially low at that time.”

  “Viola gave me a list of everything to do to make my office safe for her. I’ve changed out all my light bulbs,” Auntie Ruth adds with a smile. “Plus, UV-protected the hell out of every single window. And I preemptively tinted all of my car windows, thanks to a medical note from that nice Dr. Anderson.”

  I lift the key fob as evidence, ignoring Roz’s “no fair” for now.

  “Don’t you think we should have discussed this first?” Dad asks with not a little judgment in his voice.

  “This was your plan. I just accelerated it to my timeline,” I tell my parents.

  Mom protests, “But—”

  “Mom. Dad.” I take a deep breath. “You guys said you wanted me to live as normal a life as possible. Well, I’m testing my limits.”

  My parents exchange aggravated looks, as I thought they would.

  “We were thinking,” Mom starts.

  I interrupt, “Mom. Mom. You’ve prepared me my whole life for this, to be ready on my own. You heard the doctor about Josh’s quick thinking.” Mom flinches at that name, but I continue, “He thought to throw the blanket over the sunroof, but Mom, you thought of the blanket. You made sure I had it. Even when you’re not with me, you are.”

  Mom blinks back her tears as Dad tugs her close to him. He says, “You really are.”

  I tell them, “And maybe if studying at Auntie Ruth’s works out, Roz and I can drive to the boathouse together until March third. That’s when the sun will begin rising before 6:45 a.m., which doesn’t give me enough buffer time to get to Auntie Ruth’s with the UV Index and all.”

  “Yay, a chauffeur again!” says Roz gleefully.

  “No,” I tell her, “you’ll be driving us to the boathouse, then I’ll drive by myself to Auntie Ruth’s.”

  “You thought this through, didn’t you, honey?” Dad says.

  “I did,” I say, proving there are more than two crisis managers in our family. There’s also a diplomat.

  The full impact of Ruth’s Auto Repair hits me at once: The shop has been pinkified. Bright splashes of raspberry pink, the same shade as the racing stripes on my aunt’s Mini Cooper, tastefully accent the interior: the great, big welcome sign, the throw pillows on the tailored gray sofa, the new branded pens. The lobby could double for a boutique hotel except for the (pink) power tools and (pink) hydraulic system behind the (pink) garage doors.

  “Do you like my test concept?” Auntie Ruth asks uncertainly.

  “What’s not to like?” I ask. “I love it! But test concept for what?”

  Auntie Ruth pours so much almond milk in my (pink!) mug, it turns the chai tea a nutty beige. “All my friends kept calling me to double-check the quotes they were getting from repair shops—North Carolina, California, Virginia. And the panic when they’d break down on the side of the road! So I decided, why not make a repair shop more welcoming? Why not hold women-only workshops so we’d all know how a car works and how to do easy fixes ourselves, right?”

  “Right.” I suggest, “Maybe you could tie those workshops into fund-raisers for different causes, like breast cancer?”

  I wait for Auntie Ruth to nod politely, but she tilts her head to the side and mulls. “October: Check your boobies and your batteries. I love that.”

  “I can bake sugar cookie bras and ice them in different shades of pink.”

  While we brainstorm, a vintage Mini from the ’60s pulls up to the shop, which is thirty minutes away from opening. Automotive emergencies wait for no woman. Or silver-haired men. Getting out of the car is none other than Silver Fox from Souper Bowl Sunday and Snoqualmie Pass, wearing a sharply tailored gray suit. He looks crisp and polished and every bit the wrong man for Auntie Ruth. Yet she is blushing.

  “Well, look at what the Mini dragged in,” I mutter to Auntie Ruth.

  Her blush deepens. “I don’t notice anything but his car.”

  “Nice … engine.”

  “Viola.”

  “What?” I blink innocently at her.

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes. You okay on your own?”

  “I love being on my own.”

  Her hand pauses on the double lock on the front door. Then Auntie Ruth whips around to face me, searching my eyes with concern. “It’s okay to be with the right someone, too, you know.”

  “It really is, Auntie Ruth.” I smile at her gently and hear the double locks on her heart release even as she fumbles with the ones on the door.

  As soon as her door opens, Silver Fox says, “Ruth! My car’s been making a funny noise again.”

  Again? My mouth twitches with amusement. Anyone with a working knowledge of flirtation can see what’s been going on. Smiling to myself, I head for Auntie Ruth’s darkened office, where I remove my computer, the one that the Geeks for Good have rigged with a UV-protective screen. My hands rest on the cover. Fifteen minutes—it’ll be a test to see if I can tolerate that much screen time after days without my Ma
c. Before I lift the screen up, I plot my search in advance.

  Iceland. Determine what (if anything) there is to do.

  As it turns out: There’s quite a bit, and quite a few fans of visiting Iceland in the dead of winter with its four fleeting hours of daylight. The ones who rave about the otherworldly beauty of layers upon layers of natural white: snow, ice, sky. The ones who love having the ice-locked country to themselves, devoid of tourists. The ones who relish the idea of flying over snow-covered lava fields in mammoth superjeeps outfitted with oversize wheels.

  If Iceland and gastrodiplomacy were a few degrees away from my original plans, what else could I do? I pull my planner from my messenger bag, determined to find out.

  ADVENTURES: THE BLACK LIST V1.0

  Viewing the aurora borealis in Iceland. The country is a six-and-a-half-hour direct flight from Seattle. Not only has Iceland been named one of the safest places to travel on earth, but it is one of the safest for me with its lack of sunlight in winter. (Plan B: We go to the Methow Valley, a six-hour drive from Seattle in the winter.)

  Kayaking in Puerto Mosquito, the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world. This trip will take a little forethought since we need to time it for the New Moon, when the night is at its absolute darkest, which coincidentally will be the safest time for me. (Plan B: We drive two hours north of Seattle to Bellingham to see its bioluminescent bay.)

  Visiting the glowworms in New Zealand. Imagine boating the underground river in the Waitomo Caves with its thousands upon thousands of glowworms. (Plan B: Caverns of Sonora, in Texas, which are sans glowworms, but the caves look like they’re straight out of the Lord of the Rings.)

  Stargazing in the Atacama Desert. Chile has the clearest night skies on the planet, and we can join other astro-tourists at the ALMA Observatory. (Plan B: We could return to Snoqualmie Pass in August for the Perseids, and this time I will wear every possible UPF-protective garment known to girlkind.)

  Night snorkeling with manta rays off the Big Island of Hawaii. You can swim with the rays at night when they feed, no diving experience necessary. (Plan B: the Night Zoo in Tasmania, featuring creatures that come alive in the dark.)

  “Hey, honey! More trick-or-treaters!” Dad bellows down the stairs a few hours after I return home from Auntie Ruth’s. “Can I send them down?”

  Before I can answer, Aminta floats and Caresse clomps down the basement steps, both of them wearing cowboy hats and carrying orange pumpkin buckets.

  “This is way more hygge than I remember!” Aminta says, grinning at me, as my Halloween candles burn around the basement. Then, she frowns. “Except that music. You’re not still listening to that mixtape, are you? That’s, like, the opposite of hygge.”

  “That’s the word!” I tell her, embarrassed because I have been listening to Josh’s mixtape out of habit. “I’d been trying to remember it. Warm and cozy, right?”

  “Like this?” Caresse holds up a black turtleneck silkscreened in silver with the word wynnter, the same as on theirs. “We’re going as a K-pop band.”

  “Wynnter isn’t a bad band name,” I say.

  “It’s an even better brand name,” Caresse answers.

  I check the shirt more closely. The tag inside reads: WYNNTER. I grin at them. “You’re so official.”

  “Well, it’s a start, anyway,” says Caresse. “In senior spring, we’ll ramp up.”

  “We can do a bake sale to launch your line! Maybe raise awareness for—”

  Caresse says, “We sold out of the Rice Krispies. The s’mores went first.”

  “Awesome, I’ll give some thought to the Wynnter bake—”

  “I can’t stand this anymore!” Aminta cries. “My ears are bleeding.”

  Caresse and I look at her, worried. For a girl whose normal stride is a glide, Aminta now stomps over to the tape recorder. The song “Night Time” chokes off. My room goes silent. “You need a new playlist for your life.”

  I laugh. “You’re right. I do.”

  Caresse says, “So hurry up and change.”

  “My parents—”

  “Are giving you your fifteen minutes of streetlights,” says Aminta.

  “We can get into a lot of trouble in fifteen minutes.” Caresse grins naughtily. “So, yeah, hurry up and get your hygge on. I tailored the turtleneck extra super tight …”

  Surprise, surprise, when I slip into my Wynnter wear, I feel like an exceptionally hygge version of me.

  The truth is: You cannot control anyone—not their feelings, not their inexplicable silence, not their wackadoo decisions. Sometimes all you can do is cobble together your own peace process.

  —Viola Wynne Li

  The Gastrodiplomat’s Guide to the Galaxy

  Okay, Viola girl.

  It’s seven at night and dark outside. Time to slap on your Astral Projection Hat and get thyself to a kitchen.

  There is comfort in finding the perfect recipe and collecting the ingredients: flour, sugar, vanilla extract. There is comfort in peeling and chopping apple after apple. The best culinary fix for a broken heart is Caramel Apple Cobbler, a salute to the end of a season.

  Even more than the peace I feel from cooking, I thrill at the mysterious transformation that happens in the heat, turning flour and sugar and apples into comfort food. Even so, while the cobbler bakes, I measure the flour for the backup just in case the first comes out a disappointing, gooey mess.

  Half-baked has been known to happen.

  I tell myself, Viola girl, you can’t force him to text or email. With a deliberately light hand, I whisk the flour with sugar and milk and vanilla: You may never know what he was thinking. I rap the whisk sharply on the rim of the mixing bowl. Ever.

  Here’s the thing: You can stay second fiddle to your fears for the rest of your life. The apples, tucked nice and snug in the baking dish, await the batter topping. You can stay stuck in a tent. After I slide the second dish into the oven, I set the timer. A full three weeks have tick-tocked by, and (his) life is continuing without you.

  As I clean up my mess in the kitchen, warm apple cobbler heavily scents the air. You, girl, are scared to say your peace. But if you don’t, you’re going to be afraid to risk your heart, like Auntie Ruth for five whole years.

  Out of habit, I creep down to the basement. Halfway there, my muscles boycott. I am paralyzed on the stairs. Moving out of the basement is part of my plan. It’s not just my parents who’ve been reluctant for me to make progress on that plan; I’ve been clinging to my basement. There’s no possibility of burning down here. But no matter how comfortable my safe room is with its decal affirmations and plump throw pillows and soft sheepskin rug, it is still a bunker.

  Reinforced, underground bunkers are meant for surviving, not for living.

  What do you say, Ultragirl? Princess or Persephone?

  With my Astral Projection Hat and my sunscreen, my lava pendant and outfit by Wynnter, I reemerge. The living room flickers with firelight. Up there, I put pen to paper. As it turns out, I have a lot to say.

  The Resolution Phase marks the end of your crisis. Sometimes, even the bitterest of stories deserve the sweetest of endings.

  —Viola Wynne Li

  The Gastrodiplomat’s Guide to the Galaxy

  “I’m heading out,” I tell my parents as if they’ve approved my Best-Case Scenario Plan, as if this is life as usual—except I’m wearing a sunhat at night, every inch of my body is hidden in sun-defensive fibers, and I’m carrying a still-hot baking dish of Caramel Apple Cobbler.

  A mix of silent calls-and-responses pass between my parents while they try to formulate a solution to this small but unexpected crisis.

  “I’ll be gone for forty-five minutes,” I say, sticking closely to the script I’ve prepared. I nod to Josh’s address already on the kitchen table. “I’m driving just three miles away.”

  Mom doesn’t look at the piece of paper but at the apple cobbler, and she knows where I’m going. “Honey, are you sure about this?”

/>   “This is how I’m saying good-bye. I’ll call the moment I think I need you. Plus, I’ll bring Roz.”

  Knowing that her eavesdropping skills are even keener than mine, I counted on Roz to chime in from her bedroom, “Can we go to Molly Moon’s after?”

  Together, as one voice, my parents and I say, “No.”

  Though she grumbles, Roz rushes out to our Subaru. I’m glad for our sister time, too, not just because I need this first semi-solo test run into the outside world to go flawlessly. Not even because this is the exact moment my parents have been picturing since Roz’s birth: sisters in blood and spirit. The truth is: I need my sister. I’m scared to go by myself.

  “You’ve thought this through,” Mom says slowly.

  “It’s a good plan,” Dad agrees.

  With that endorsement, I leave my Necromanteion for the dark outside.

  “You look like you’re going to have a heart attack,” Roz says, ignoring her phone for the first time on our drive to Josh’s home. “Are you?”

  “I wish. It’d be better than this,” I tell her truthfully. Vulnerability is so overrated. My hands are taut on the steering wheel, my mind taut on the letter in my back pocket, mentally reviewing every word, every admission, every good-bye.

  “For the record, I think this is really stupid. He’s ghosted you. The last thing you should do is chase him. All the power is his now.”

  “I’m not sure it works that way.”

  “Says the girl who’s never had a real boyfriend.”

  “I had one.”

  “Darren? The guy who could only be monogamous with himself?”

  “That’s so true!” My laugh twines with my sister’s.

  Josh’s home is located on a dead end street, not where I’d imagined him living. On the far edge of the driveway is a portable moving pod. A FOR SALE sign glows white in the dark near the curb. If it weren’t for the rhythmic bouncing of the basketball, I would have missed Josh entirely on the driveway.