The Sea of Tranquility(47)
Author: Katja Millay

“Sounds like Drew.”

Sounds like you, too, Sunshine.

“Little league?” she asks, smirking.

“Didn’t last,” I say. “Once I realized that I was more interested in figuring out how to make a bat than how to swing one, I quit.”

She’s watching me chop vegetables, but I know she won’t offer to help with anything involving hands and sharp knives.

“I messed up everything I baked in the beginning, too,” she tells me, switching back to our last conversation. I find that hard to believe. I imagine she came out of the birth canal holding a cupcake and a spatula.

“When did you start?”

“When I was fifteen.” She looks down at her left hand, turning it over and staring. I assume she’s done talking, because I’m used to being answered with a bare minimum of information from her. Intentionally vague is about as good as it usually gets, but she surprises me and keeps going. “My hand got messed up and I had to do a lot of physical therapy. They suggested that I knead bread dough to build strength back. At some point, I figured that if I was going to spend so much time kneading the dough, I might as well bake the bread.” She coughs out a laugh.

“Easier said than done, I take it.”

“Understatement.” She smiles unguardedly, and it’s at war with everything I’m used to from her. “The first time, I don’t think it rose at all. It was just this flat, hard, disk-shaped thing. My dad ate it anyway and said it wasn’t that bad. You should have seen his face trying to chew it. I don’t know how he did it.” She hasn’t stopped smiling while she tells me this. I’m watching the memory play across her face and I realize that I’ve completely stopped chopping the vegetables and I’m just staring at her. I force myself to start chopping again before she notices. “I tried again and again and again. It was always one issue or another. I just couldn’t get it right. It pissed the crap out of me.”

“Did you finally give up?” I ask, and she looks at me as if the thought is outrageous.

“There was no way I was being brought down by a stupid loaf of bread. I went through so much flour. My mom had to start buying yeast in bulk. Once, I got so pissed, I threw the dough at the ceiling. I thought my mom was going to ban me from the kitchen when she found me on a step ladder, trying to clean it off with a bench scraper. But I finally did it. It took months, but I eventually ended up with a decent loaf of bread.” She shrugs, looking back down at her palm and folding her fingers over. “Hand got stronger, too.”

“Do you still bake it? Bread?”

“Hell no.” She snorts as if this is the most absurd question I could ever ask. “It’s a pain in the ass. Takes too much time and it’s a bitch to get it to work with the humidity here. I just had to know that if I wanted to, I could. I like the stuff that’s full of sugar better anyway.”

She tilts her chin toward the cutting board in front of me. “I think you chopped those into submission.”

I glance down at the red peppers I’ve annihilated while listening to her talk.

“Not my fault that you’re distractingly pretty.” I have to take a minute to confirm to the pissed off part of my brain that still works that, yes, in fact, I did just say that. And I don’t know if distractingly is even a word. If it is, it’s a stupid one. Like me. Ignoring it and pretending it never happened seems like the best possible plan at the moment and I’m hoping she’ll go with it, but she does the next best thing.

“Drew says I’m sexy as f**k,” she shrugs blandly and lets me off the hook.

“That, too,” I smile, not meeting her eyes as I scrape together what’s left of the red peppers. I pour oil into the bottom of a sauté pan and line up the vegetables on the counter. “Turn the front burner on to 8.” I point at the stove and she reaches over to do it just as the front door opens, which shuts us both up.

“Hey, what’s go‌—‌” Drew stops mid-sentence when he sees Nastya. I don’t know if the shock registering on his face is from the fact that she’s here, sitting on the counter like she owns the place, or the fact that she’s almost unrecognizable to him. She’s wearing white denim shorts and a pink t-shirt and the make-up is long gone from her face, which you can actually see because her hair is pulled back and braided. She looks younger, like she always does like this, and running along her hairline, you can see the jagged scar that she’s constantly trying to cover up. I’m used to this Nastya, but I know Drew’s never seen her looking even remotely like a real girl, and I’ve never once mentioned it to him.

I don’t know if not telling him was a betrayal. If it was, I should feel guilty and there’s a part of me that does. But I feel justified, too. Even if it is selfish. He can be pissed if he wants. It would still be worth it.

Nastya slides down from the counter and I think she’s going to leave me to deal with explanations, but she doesn’t. She steps across the kitchen, opens the upper cabinet where I keep the dishes, and pulls out another dinner plate. Then she grabs an extra set of silverware from the drawer and places them on the table. Drew walks to the table, pulls out a chair and lowers himself into it. He hasn’t taken his eyes off her yet. Like he’s trying to work out the truth of her. It’s the optical illusion again. My eyes have adjusted to it, but he’s still trying to find the focus.

“So, want to introduce me to your girlfriend?” he asks, looking directly at me now. There’s more curiosity than malice in the question. He might also be just a little bit impressed.

“Not my girlfriend.” I hand Nastya the trivets to put on the table with one hand and keep stirring with the other. I don’t look at her face on purpose.

“Well, in that case,” he reaches out and pulls Nastya onto his lap as she places the trivets on the table, “what’s for dinner?”

CHAPTER 26

Josh

“How do you know there’s not a God?” Tierney Lowell spits out at Drew, twenty minutes in to a debate that’s been raging since the fifth period bell rang. It started with a discussion about a short story we’d read last week and somehow devolved into a full-scale back and forth on the existence of God.

“How do you know there is one?” Drew retorts. He isn’t even trying. This is laziness, or just apathy. I’ve seen him practicing for debate, and this is nothing for him. He’s just baiting Tierney for fun.