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Kia paced inside her RV, her laptop counting down to the minute Lillian clicked into their scheduled Zoom call.

Scheduling calls made sense with the nine-hour time difference, but it made Lillian feel farther away.

There was a time when they’d texted and called each other for no particular reason at any hour of the day.

Now Lillian was waking up next to Izzy. It wasn’t Lillian’s fault, but it made Kia feel lonely.

For years, Kia had wanted her life on the road more than an address and a committed relationship (unless Sullivan decided she was desperately in love with her, in which case Kia had been ready to settle down…

at least she could pretend that was true so she could enjoy her seeing-Sullivan-again fantasies).

She met so many wonderful people on the road.

It made up for not having a lot of close friends or a girlfriend.

But now she was spending most of her time promoting sponsored products at name-brand restaurants and corporate-sponsored fairs.

She wasn’t meeting lobster fishers in Maine or building community gardens in Detroit or watching grandmothers teaching their grandchildren how to make fry bread.

She was making a ton of money promoting American Spirit breakfast sausages.

She was the person every aspiring influencer wanted to be.

Then she went back to Old Girl alone. She could charm her way into any after-party.

No backstage bouncer was immune to the confident friendliness that said, Of course I belong here .

But when it came to flirting—as she’d painfully illustrated with Sullivan—she was hopeless.

(Probably hopeless in bed too, although she hadn’t had enough experience to know for sure.) And while thirty was very young , Aunt Eleanor had told her once when she was fretting about the approaching big three oh, she was almost thirty with one passionless relationship behind her.

And now she had to tell Lillian that she was marrying her culinary arts school rival and crush to secure a land deal.

She wasn’t ready for the lecture. Lillian might be all calm and happy in Paris with her lover, but she was still her mother’s daughter.

This is an unorthodox way to conduct business. Have you considered other options, Kia?

Kia climbed the steep steps to her bed loft.

Usually she loved being in Old Girl, which she had parked in an RV park outside the city.

She crawled into her loft, where she could sit up, although not stand.

(On a good day her Afro, Georgie, brushed the ceiling, but today it had deflated in the humid air.) Out of the back of Old Girl she could see snowcapped Mount Hood and airplanes crisscrossing the sky.

It was a pretty park compared to some of the places she’d stopped.

Old Girl was her sanctuary, filled with plants, mirrors, jewelry, and books.

Her kitchen and her bed loft vied for favorite space.

Old Girl was where she collected herself at the end of a busy day, the place where she could channel the peacefulness of clear skies and open highways.

But today, it felt like a vehicle, not a home.

Kia looked at Georgie in a little mirror that hung beside her bed.

Her hair was lopsided in an unflattering way.

She tried to pick it into shape, a pit growing in her stomach.

Breathe. She took out the old digital camera she kept in a cubby in the headboard.

Her favorite camera. With an actual memory card and no Bluetooth.

A safe space. She pressed the stiff on button and scrolled through the pictures.

They were all of her. Not selfies—she set the camera on a stand.

But not self-portraits either. Portrait implied art and planning.

They were just her . Often naked. Never posed.

No filter. Not trying to look sexy. She didn’t smile in the pictures unless it was a true smile.

She hadn’t been smiling that much recently.

“I am me,” she recited.

No matter what happened or how many Kia Gourmazing selfies she edited, deep inside, Kia Jackson was Kia Jackson.

She was a girl reading Sappho on the deck of her father’s yacht the Serendipity .

She was sixteen talking to Lillian on the phone in the middle of the night.

She was alone on a Montana highway towing Old Girl and blasting Beyoncé.

The pictures calmed her. Everything was happening so fast, and it felt like it was happening to her.

But deep inside there was part of her that none of this could touch.

“I am real.”

The Zoom chime sounded to tell her Lillian had logged on.

She opened her laptop on top of a pile of velvet pillows.

She willed her facial muscles into her signature Duchenne smile and turned on the camera.

Kia and her lopsided Afro had a job to do, a confession to make, a scolding to take.

Lillian appeared in her tiny apartment, sitting on the fire escape.

She held up her phone to show Kia the Eiffel Tower lit up behind her, visible between two buildings. Did it get any more romantic than that?

“Cuuuz! What’s up?” Feigning casualness was Kia’s bread and butter, but it felt impossible to slow the adrenaline coursing through her. She kept talking. “You look amazing. How’s the ballet school? Did you buy those Parisian tea towels you wanted?”

“Forget the towels. How was the meeting? Are you a land baron now?”

Kia nervously brushed her left hand through her Afro. Lillian froze. For a second, Kia thought the internet had stalled.

Then Lillian said, “Kiana Jackson, that’s not an engagement ring?”

“What?”

Kia was still wearing the ring.

“Did you get engaged ?”

“I…” Kia opened her mouth, but a desert’s worth of sand swallowed her voice. This was like lowering a tursnicken into hot oil. You had to move carefully and with confidence. “I am getting married.”

“You didn’t even tell me you were dating someone.” Lillian sounded hurt.

Kia could hit her with, When would I tell you? It takes a week to schedule a call with you. But that wasn’t fair.

“It’s not what you think.”

“How can marrying someone not be what I think?” Lillian asked.

“I would have told you if I was dating.”

“Oh my god, Kia!” The reproach softened to amusement. “Did you meet her three days ago? Aren’t you supposed to be in the middle of a land deal?”

Right. Hadn’t her aunt Eleanor always called Kia and her father colorful parrots ?

They were fanciful. They didn’t make sense, and they didn’t have to, because it wasn’t in their nature.

Lillian had to be perfect, but Kia just had to show up in her turquoise sunglasses and make everyone laugh.

She wasn’t going to get a lecture, because Lillian expected her to do crazy things like getting married to a woman she’d just met while in the middle of the biggest business transaction of her life.

But being a colorful parrot wouldn’t save her from letting Me’shell down.

Being fanciful and funny wouldn’t make Sullivan like her.

Kia felt Georgie droop.

“It’s all fucked up, Lillian.”

Even from across the world and through the screen, Kia saw concern fill Lillian’s face.

“I didn’t get the land deal, and now I might, but it’s not… it’s not how I wanted it.”

“And you got married.”

“Not for love.”

Lillian waited. Kia started with the meeting at the grange hall.

“Do you remember Alice Sullivan?” Kia asked. “The other woman at Jean Paul Molineux.”

“The kiss!” Lillian said. “Yeah, I remember her. That was rich. You’re not the grab-a-woman-and-kiss-her type. Wait. You’re marrying Alice Sullivan?”

Kia dropped her head into her hands, then remembered Georgie would cover up the camera. She sat back up again.

“Is that good?” Lillian asked. “You liked her, but have you talked to her since school?”

If only they were having this conversation because Kia and Sullivan had really fallen in love. If only Sullivan had swept Kia up in her arms. I always wanted you, Kia.

“I haven’t, and I had no idea she was going to be there.

You know how my dad is always going on about serendipity.

Serendipity is like karma. It’s not always good.

I must have bad karma too. Or maybe I just fucked up.

Obvs I put a bunch of stuff about the sale on my channels.

And Sullivan wasn’t the only one who showed up. ”

Lillian had never eaten at a Mega Eats, so Kia gave her some context for the next part.

“You remember that story about schoolchildren in Pennsylvania being fed pink slime passing for ground sirloin? That’s Mega Eats slime.

” Kia described the men from Mega Eats sweeping into the grange hall.

“They outbid me. And they knew about the sale because I live streamed it.” The thought made Kia want to empty the contents of her stomach into the RV’s incinerating toilet and never eat again. “I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re an influencer. It’s your job to live stream things.”

It didn’t make Kia feel better.

“Sullivan lives right next to the land, and she owns a restaurant, and she’s all into the environment and hates food trucks and hates Mega Eats even more.”

“Kia, I’m so sorry. Was she pissed?”

“Really pissed. But there’s a clause in the land’s trust. It says if someone’s family has owned property in the neighborhood since it was incorporated, they get to buy the land at fair market value.

No one can bid against them. So the only way I can compete with the highest bidder is to be a legacy owner, and the only way to become a legacy owner is to—”

“—marry a legacy holder,” she and Lillian said at the same time.

They could still finish each other’s sentences, even if Lillian had a new life with Izzy.

Lillian frowned. “Sounds kind of like redlining.”

Kia hadn’t even thought of that uncomfortable part of the scenario. In the past, people wrote laws like that to keep Black people out of white neighborhoods.

“I guess this is revenge?” She winced. “Now we’re using the clause so a Black woman can buy the land and rent it to minority-owned businesses.”

“It’s bold.” Lillian bobbed her head side to side as if considering which way she wanted to go on the topic. “So you talked Sullivan into marrying you so that you could buy the land instead of Mega Eats.”

“Yep. And now Sullivan low-key hates me… more than low-key. But she hates Mega Eats more.”

“So you got married?”

“Tomorrow. In court.”

“How did you talk her into it? I mean, anyone should be happy to marry you. You’re a rock star, but did you just catch her outside the meeting and say, Want to get married? ”

“She ran off during the meeting. She was really upset. All through school I thought she was invincible. Nothing fazed her. She just floated through school dressing like some gorgeous nineteen twenties drag king. But she was crying outside the meeting. I made Alice Sullivan cry.”

This time Kia didn’t care that Georgie covered the screen as she rested her forehead on the keyboard, probably reprogramming the computer to do nothing but search the web for the life cycle of starfish.

She didn’t care. All she could think about was Sullivan’s face contorted with the effort not to sob, then the cold resignation that had filled her face in the forest. What do you think you were going to do to me?

“So then I didn’t know what to do. I came up with this ridiculous marriage idea.

I don’t have any contact info for Sullivan, and I couldn’t wait until her restaurant opens on Wednesday, so I walked to her house.

I’d seen where she went when we were in the woods.

It was raining. I showed up looking like someone had thrown me in a lake.

I did bring her my signature Rice Krispies treats. ”

“How could someone not marry you after having those?”

That was a huge compliment from a woman who’d spent most of her life declaring that carbs were the devil.

Kia described her conversation with Sullivan. She left out the part where Sullivan unbuttoned Kia’s jacket and she awkwardly flirted with Sullivan.

When she’d finished, Lillian said, “It’s weird, but I’m kind of happy for you. Maybe you and Sullivan can reconnect. You adored her in school.”

Kia nodded slowly.

It wasn’t fair. If she’d met Sullivan in any other way, Sullivan might have wanted to be her friend.

And just maybe Kia had seen a spark of interest as Sullivan glanced at her body.

The chance that that passing attraction was enough to light a fire were slim.

The chance that that passing attraction was enough to light a fire now was nonexistent.

“She did make me a coffee,” Kia said. “With a marshmallow, mint, and coriander syrup.”

“See?” Lillian said. “She can’t hate you if she made you that… creative drink.”

Kia said goodbye to Lillian and flopped down on her bed, staring up at the skylight.

It was close enough that she could almost touch it while she was lying down.

The stars, on the other hand, were a bazillion light-years away.

Kia rolled Lillian’s words around in her mind.

Was there any way Sullivan could forgive her?

Was it possible that remembering Kia’s favorite coffee and tasting the Rice Krispies treats could equal something like affection?

Tolerance? Nostalgia for the practice kitchen?

Something that wasn’t a strong dislike mixed with several cups of desperation and probably a tablespoonful of I can’t believe I kissed this woman back in the day?

Her father would say yes. Happiness could be right around the corner.

Newly in love Lillian would say yes. Kia’s heart and mind said no.

The whole reason she wanted to build Taste the Love Land was that she’d seen too many people struggle and suffer.

On-screen, she was bubbly Kia Gourmazing.

On her old digital camera, she was Kia Jackson, who had seen the world, knew how beautiful it could be, and knew how often sad things happened to good people.