Chapter Text
Helen has had a LiveJournal since 2002, when one of her college friends got her an invite, but it's not until 2006—after writing several thousand entries and building up her own following—that she meets lunaeviridi72. She's written an absolutely scathing takedown of The Da Vinci Code, and gets a brief, appreciative comment from someone she hasn't noticed before.
When Helen navigates to the profile, very little shows up. There is one userpic (an oversaturated picture of an oldtimey ship's wheel with rigging and a sunset in the background) and only a handful of generic interests listed.
She's also short on mutual friends, and Helen can see why; she writes like she's stuck in the 1930s and sending her friendslocked entries to the new millennium via telegraph, and every single one of them is about something that she hates, something that has gone wrong, or something that is less than perfect.
"Roommate put spoons where the forks go. Homicide justified." "Windy. Hat blew off on hike. Ran out of water." "Hangover. Work impossible." "Parking ticket. Meter maid wouldn't take it back. Fuck city." "Listened to Despite Our Differences. Liked 'Lay My Head Down.' All That We Let In better by far." "Raymond Chandler is a pretentious hack."
Helen thinks all this is delightful, and friends her back immediately. She sends a PM inviting the curmudgeon to gchat, and to her surprise it's accepted.
📧
helenahandbasket: Hello, new friend!
lunaeviridi72: Hey.
helenahandbasket: I like your journal.
lunaeviridi72: Why?
helenahandbasket: You've got a unique perspective on life.
lunaeviridi72: Are you making fun of me?
helenahandbasket: A little.
helenahandbasket: What's something you like? No qualifications.
lunaeviridi72: What's something you *dis*like? No qualifications.
helenahandbasket: I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
lunaeviridi72: Fine.
lunaeviridi72: Your blog.
helenahandbasket: Flattering!
helenahandbasket: Why?
lunaeviridi72: No qualifications = no explanations.
helenahandbasket: Fair enough.
lunaeviridi72: Well?
helenahandbasket: I despise Dan Brown.
lunaeviridi72: I knew that already.
helenahandbasket: You should've specified that you wanted a secret. :P
helenahandbasket: Go another round?
lunaeviridi72: I have work.
helenahandbasket: What do you do?
lunaeviridi72: Secret.
helenahandbasket: Well, I'm specifying that *I* want a secret.
lunaeviridi72: No.
📧
helenahandbasket: Why would a moon be green?
lunaeviridi72: Minerals.
helenahandbasket: Minerals? Like copper?
lunaeviridi72: I don't know.
lunaeviridi72: Don't care.
lunaeviridi72: Is your name really Helen?
helenahandbasket: Yep!
lunaeviridi72: Why do you show it online?
helenahandbasket: Who cares? Nobody's going to find out who I am.
lunaeviridi72: You should be more careful.
helenahandbasket: Is that concern I hear?
lunaeviridi72: No.
📧
helenahandbasket: Do you have pets?
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: Do you want one?
lunaeviridi72: No.
lunaeviridi72: My roommate has a fish.
helenahandbasket: That's nice.
lunaeviridi72: He keeps killing it.
helenahandbasket: oh NO
lunaeviridi72: Then he gets a different fish.
lunaeviridi72: Once he got two and one ate the other.
helehandbasket: What's it like living with a serial killer?
lunaeviridi72: Fine.
lunaeviridi72: My point is he's better at pets than I would be.
helenahandbasket: Impossible1
lunaeviridi72: No.
📧
Helen is inspired to create a poll on her LiveJournal asking the important, hard-hitting question, "If you and I were both fish, which one of us would eat the other?"
"This is not funny—an actual fish died," writes lunaeviridi72. Nobody responds to it, possibly because they think it's a serious complaint, but Helen smiles. This person is an absolute treasure, and she's going to keep her.
She continues to initiate conversations and extract facts and elicit opinions, and by the time a month has gone by, the acquaintance has deepened into friendship.
📧
helenahandbasket: What are you doing for Halloween?
lunaeviridi72: Nothing.
helenahandbasket: That's no fun.
lunaeviridi72: It's for kids.
helenahandbasket: So are you giving out candy?
lunaeviridi72: I live in an apartment.
helenahandbasket: So? There are kids in apartments. Don't you want to see them all dressed up?
lunaeviridi72: Yeah, that's just how I want to spend my evening. Getting mobbed by princesses and spider-men.
helenahandbasket: Come on, it's worth it for the nostalgia.
lunaeviridi72: I never did any of that as a kid.
helenahandbasket: Whaaaaaaaaaaaat????
lunaeviridi72: My parents thought the devil was behind it all.
helenahandbasket: Ludicrous!
lunaeviridi72: Yeah.
helenahandbasket: All the more reason you should get some candy to pass out. Or dress up yourself and go out. Have some fun for once.
lunaeviridi72: I have fun.
helenahandbasket: Do you? Do you really? Look me in the eyes, 72 green moons, and try to tell me that you are a fun-having, fun-loving individual who lives life to the funnest.
lunaeviridi72: Shut up.
📧
lunaeviridi72: No kids came by.
lunaeviridi72: Waste of money.
lunaeviridi72: I don't even like Snickers.
helenahandbasket: Sorry you didn't have any kids. ;.;
lunaeviridi72: Knew I shouldn't have listened to you.
helenahandbasket: That is *not* the moral of this story.
lunaeviridi72: Oh? Enlightrn me.
lunaeviridi72: *Enlightrn
helenahandbasket: enlightrn
lunaeviridi72: *Enlight-e-n
helenahandbasket: More like enlantern LMAO
lunaeviridi72: Nobody asked you. Answer hte question.
helenahandbasket: hte hehehehehe
lunaeviridi72: I'm leaving.
helenahandbasket: No come back I have real advice.
helenahandbasket: Go out on Halloween like an adult.
lunaeviridi72: I go out like an adult. I just don't dress like a slutty banana while I do it.
helenahandbasket: And why did you get a kind of candy you didn't like? Half the point is eating the leftovers.
lunaeviridi72: How was I supposed to know that?
helenahandbasket: How did you not figure it out?
lunaeviridi72: What did you do for Hallowe'en then?
helenahandbasket: I went to a party.
lunaeviridi72: Dressed as a slutty… what?
helenahandbasket: Mailman. Standard issue, not slutty.
helenahandbasket: Still remarkably sexy, if I do say so myself. I got drunk and kissed someone.
lunaeviridi72: Who?
helenahandbasket: Just a random who was there. It's not a party if you don't confuse at least one straight girl for life, I always say.
lunaeviridi72: I'm going to bed.
📧
True to her word, lunaeviridi72 logs off, and Helen wonders what that's about. It's only eleven-thirty, and they usually chat until one, when Helen goes to bed.
She'd once asked about the nocturnal schedule, and had gotten something vague about work being flexible. This prompted Helen to ask what she did for a living again, and she was rebuffed again. Her curiosity hasn't abated; she desperately wants to know how someone like her functions in the real world, and knowing what job she holds down would answer a lot of questions.
But Helen is still drunk and it is a Tuesday, so she shrugs it off and decides to sleep early herself.
📧
lunaeviridi72: Do you have roommates? Do you want to kill them?
helenahandbasket: Not since I got a grown up job. What happened?
lunaeviridi72: Roommate ordered Hawai'ian pizza. Paid with my money.
lunaeviridi72: Last time I trust him.
helenahandbasket: What's wrong with Hawaiian pizza?
lunaeviridi72: Pineapple.
helenahandbasket: I like pineapple on pizza…
lunaeviridi72: We aren't friends now.
lunaeviridi72: Kidding.
lunaeviridi72: Seriously. What is wrong with you.
helenahandbasket: Nothing, pizza snob.
lunaeviridi72: I'm not a snob. I just have a palate.
helenahandbasket: And what toppings meet your elevated standards?
lunaeviridi72: Green chilis.
helenahandbasket: Oh, I like having something sweet instead of painful on my pizza and there's something wrong with ME??
lunaeviridi72: Wuss.
lunaeviridi72: Kidding.
lunaeviridi72: Sort of.
📧
helenahandbasket: What's your problem with Raymond Chandler?
lunaeviridi72: Prick.
helenahandbasket: Your journaling style reminds me a little of his books.
lunaeviridi72: :|
helenahandbasket: I like it. It's almost poetic.
lunaeviridi72: No it isn't.
helenahandbasket: Poetry can be spare.
lunaeviridi72: I've written poetry before.
lunaeviridi72: A little.
lunaevirid72: It wasn't anything like journaling.
helenahandbasket: Can I see?
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: Can you tell me what it's about?
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: Then what was the point of telling me you wrote it? Tease.
lunaeviridi72: Desert at night. One of them.
lunaeviridi72: I got rid of it.
helenahandbasket: Why?
lunaeviridi72: No good.
helenahandbasket: Have you written anything that is good?
lunaeviridi72: Not poetry.
lunaeviridi72: Maybe not anything.
helenahandbasket: I assume you're not an essayist.
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: Fiction?
lunaeviridi72: Yes.
helenahandbasket: What kind?
lunaeviridi72: The kind that's a secret.
lunaeviridi72: ;)
📧
Sometimes Helen logs into her personal email at work just to see if lunaeviridi72's on. Sometimes she goes and rereads old entries to mine grist for the conversational mill. Sometimes she thinks she might be falling into something other than friendship. Sometimes she admits she already has.
📧
helenahandbasket: Do you have hobbies? Aside from complaining on the internet.
lunaeviridi72: Are you going to accuse me of not having fun again?
helenahandbasket: Depends on what your answer is.
lunaeviridi72: I work.
helenahandbasket: You're just setting yourself up at this point.
lunaeviridi72: I go out.
helenahandbasket: Do you? Where?
lunaeviridi72: Why the third degree?
helenahandbasket: I'm just trying to imagine you as anything other than a shadowy form hunched over a keyboard in the dark.
lunaeviridi72: I don't hunch.
lunaeviridi72: My hobby turned into work.
helenahandbasket: That's the dream, isn't it?
lunaeviridi72: It's just work.
helenahandbasket: Do you like it?
lunaeviridi72: I don't like the people.
helenahandbasket: Okay, but is there anyone you actually do like?
lunaeviridi72: I like my roommate.
helenahandbasket: I've never seen you mention him except to complain about him.
lunaeviridi72: He puts the toilet paper on wrong.
helenahandbasket: There's a wrong way to do that?
lunaeviridi72: Obviously.
📧
helenahandbasket: Have you been reading anything lately?
lunaeviridi72: Yeah.
helenahandbasket: Well……???
lunaeviridi72: Mistborn.
helenahandbook: And?
lunaeviridi72: Trash.
lunaeviridi72: Stinky trash.
helenahandbasket: I don't really read fantasy for fun.
lunaeviridi72: I do.
helenahandbasket: What's your favorite book?
lunaeviridi72: Don't laugh.
helenahandbasket: No promises.
lunaeviridi72: Romeo and Juliet.
helenahandbasket: For real? Nothing derogatory to say about at all?
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: It seems like such low-hanging fruit for a smartass cynic such as yourself.
lunaeviridi72: No.
lunaeviridi72: What's *your* favorite book, then. All you post is the ones that you think are bad.
helenahandbasket: Too many… My MA is in English.
lunaeviridi72: Copout.
helenahandbasket: Give me a time period and geographical location.
lunaeviridi72: Fiji, 1200.
helenahandbasket: Fuck you.
lunaeviridi72: Fine. Match my Shakespeare.
helenahandbasket: Measure for Measure.
lunaeviridi72: REallly??
helenahandbasket: Yep
helenahandbasket: Wrote my master's thesis on it.
lunaeviridi72: …why
helenahandbasket: Contrasted it with All's Well That Ends Well.
lunaeviridi72: You got a thing for worthless men?
helenahandbasket: And elaborate tricks that make them heel, sure.
lunaeviridi72: Uunbelievable.
helenahandbasket: Haha typo
📧
Work featured Helen's most difficult author, a middle-aged gentleman who was under the impression that his moderate success with his first book (a scifi story about cocky, improbably sexy space pilots wearing robot suits to beat the shit out of each other) entitled him to ignore her. Soothing his ego and persuading him to take her comments on the badly handled climax seriously took all day, and she is going to be behind when she gets back on Monday.
She wants a drink, but she has to drive seven hours north so she can be present and cheery tomorrow for Thanksgiving. She'll help her mom cook and she'll argue with her sister as they watch her nephew and she'll have an opinion on how Jay Cutler uses his tight ends and she'll not say what she thinks when her aunt asks her if she's grown out of her phase yet.
As it's wont to, her mind wanders to lunaeviridi72, and Helen realizes she's never mentioned her family, either in her journal or chat. She decides to take a break from packing.
📧
helenahandbasket: Do you have Thanksgiving plans?
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: What? No cross-country trips to see family on the agenda? No food coma planned? Not even football?
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: Do you like football?
lunaeviridi72: No.
helenahandbasket: What sports do you like?
lunaeviridi72: I used to golf.
helenahandbasket: Used to?
lunaeviridi72: Yeah.
helenahandbasket: What happened?
lunaeviridi72: Left my parents. Got poor.
lunaeviridi72: I might start again. If work is still okay in the spring.
helenahandbasket: Left your parents?
lunaeviridi72: Yeah.
helenahandbasket: Sorry, is this a sore subject?
lunaeviridi72: No.
lunaeviridi72: Yes.
helenahandbasket: OK, sorry again.
lunaeviridi72: Okay.
helenahandbasket: I've never golfed.
lunaeviridi72: It's fun.
helenahandbasket: Really? Looks boring on TV.
lunaeviridi72: It's relaxing. And you get to hit things.
helenahandbasket: You said "and" but did you mean "because"?
lunaeviridi72: lol. Yes.
📧
Back to back entries appear in lunaeviridi72's journal, one on the night of December 3 and one on the early morning of December 4. "Date. Music too loud. French fries soggy." "Mistake."
Helen considers this and decides to poke at it. It'll be the closest she gets to an opening outside of directly asking if she and Helen bat for the same team. She suspects—the Indigo Girls review is rather a giveaway—but doesn't know. And if she doesn't know…
📧
helenahandbasket: Sorry the date didn't work out.
lunaeviridi72: It did.
helenahandbasket: Oh, sorry. Thought you said it was a mistake.
lunaeviridi72: Yeah.
helenahandbasket: Well, now I'm confused.
lunaeviridi72: Okay.
lunaeviridi72: Do you date? Or do you just make out at parties?
helenahandbasket: I'm single and too busy to mingle. Things are always hectic at work.
lunaeviridi72: What do you do?
helenahandbasket: That information is available only on a reciprocal basis.
lunaeviridi72: Never mind.
helenahandbasket: What's the worst job you've ever had?
lunaeviridi72: Waitress. About three hours.
helenahandbasket: That good, huh?
lunaeviridi72: Guy grabbed my ass. Dumped food on him.
helenahandbasket: Well done.
lunaeviridi72: Grilled cheese and tomato soup. He was wearing a white shirt.
helenahandbasket: ROFLMAO
lunaeviridi72: Got fired. Had to borrow money for rent.
helenahandbasket: Worth it?
lunaeviridi72: Yeah.
📧
Helen spends a few days puzzling over what a date that worked out but was a mistake might look like. A regrettable one night stand, maybe? Hopefully? Hopefully not more than a one night stand, though even the thought of that pricks her to jealousy.
Every time her mind wanders down this rabbit hole, she catches herself too late. Things are getting dire; she's either got to snap out of it or act.
After the new year. If it's 2007 and she still finds herself structuring her days around IM conversations, if she still delights in provoking no after no from her correspondent, if she's still jealous of whoever this "mistake" was, she'll say something.
📧
lunaeviridi72: If you had enough money to do anything you wanted, what would it be?
helenahandbasket: Travel. 100%.
lunaeviridi72: Where?
helenahandbasket: Beautiful places.
lunaeviridi72: Vague.
helenahandbasket: You asked, that's my answer!
helenahandbasket: What would you do?
lunaeviridi72: I don't know.
lunaeviridi72: I've had some money lately and all I've done is buy decent booze and freak out about taxes.
helenahandbasket: It's a nice problem to have.
lunaeviridi72: I guess.
helenahandbasket: Do you want to travel?
lunaeviridi72: Maybe.
lunaeviridi72: Yeah.
lunaeviridi72: I just
lunaeviridi72: I just thought I'd be happier, you know?
📧
"You ever despair of the modern mind?" asks her coworker one day midway through December.
"Frequently," Helen says.
"This," he says, hefting a fantasy doorstopper called Winds of Wycaro onto Helen's desk, "is our best-selling title this year. I defy you to get through one paragraph without groaning."
Helen picks it up. She's heard of the book because she takes care to track everything her employer releases, but she hasn't actually checked it out.
She really should have the second it was published. She's smiling at page one; by page five, she's giggling uncontrollably.
"Can you believe it's on its second run?"
"Of course I can," Helen says.
When she leaves for the day, she takes the copy without permission. Instead of going to bed on time that night, she settles down at her computer in her comfiest pajamas and cracks it open.