Oh God. What if I break it? What if I turn the wrong knob and blow up the apartment or set something on fire or—
“Is something wrong?” Leo’s voice comes from the living room, and I can hear the concern in it, the barely suppressed need to intervene.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Everything’s fine.”
Think, Annie. Think. You can figure this out.
It’s just eggs. People make eggs every single day without incident. Millions of people. Probably billions. It’s not rocket science.
But I’m staring at this stove with its five knobs—why are there so many knobs?—and I have absolutely no idea which one does what or how to make it work. I can feel Leo’s eyes on me from the living room, burning a hole between my shoulder blades, and the weight of his attention is making this worse because now I can’t be incompetent when it comes to fucking scrambled eggs. That’s like failing at the most basic adult task imaginable.
My eyes are starting to sting just a little but I refuse to cry. I will not cry over scrambled eggs. That’s absurd. That’s the most ridiculous thing I could possibly cry about.
But it’s not really about the eggs, is it?
It’s about the fact that I grew up in a house with a full staff where everything was done for me and I never learned how to do anything practical or useful. I can discuss the symbolism inThe Great Gatsbyand I know how to walk in heels on a red carpet and I can make small talk with entertainment executives at dinner parties, but I can’t make breakfast. I can’t cook anything. The only reason I can do my own laundry is because some kind lady at the laundromat taught me how, at twenty-five. I don’t know how to iron or sew on a button or change a tire or any ofthe things that normal people just know how to do because they learned them growing up.
And if I can’t even make some scrambled eggs for a four-year-old, how am I supposed to take care of her? How am I supposed to do this job? How am I supposed to prove to myself that I can make it on my own when I don’t even know how to work a stove?
I reach out and turn one of the knobs. Nothing happens.
I turn another one. Still nothing.
I try a third, and there’s this clicking sound that makes me jump back like I’ve been electrocuted, even though nothing actually happened.
“Do you need help with the stove?” Leo’s voice is closer now, and when I glance over my shoulder he’s standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, his red pen still in his hand.
I want to say no. I want to tell him I’ve got it under control, that I’m perfectly capable of figuring this out on my own.
Pride wars with pragmatism. Pride loses.
“Yes,” I admit, the word small in the bright kitchen. “I would.”
He moves past me, and I catch his scent—cedar, clean cotton, something expensive and unsettling. He reaches out, turns the front-left knob and holds it. A soft click-whoosh, and a perfect blue corona of flame springs to life under the burner.
“Gas stove,” he says, like that explains everything. “You have to turn the knob and hold it for a second until the ignition catches. Sometimes it takes a few tries.”
“Right.” I stare at the obedient flame, a symbol of my profound domestic incompetence. “Thank you.”
He’s still standing close to me, close enough that I could count the flecks of gold in his brown eyes if I were the type of person who noticed things like that, which I’m definitely not. Hesmells good and he looks so, so good and he just watched me fail at the most basic possible task. I want to disappear into the floorboards.
“Thank you,” I manage.
“You’re welcome.” He clears his throat again and steps back, giving me space. “Do you need help with anything else?”
“No,” I say quickly, maybe too quickly. “No, I’ve got it from here.”
He nods once and walks back toward the living room, and I turn my attention to the eggs, determined to at least get this right even if I don’t know what I’m doing.
How hard can it be, really?
I find a small mixing bowl in one of the cabinets—glass, with a blue rim around the edge—and set it on the counter. Then I pick up an egg and crack it against the side of the bowl the way I’ve seen people do in movies. Except it doesn’t split. It shatters. A web of fractures, and shell fragments cascade into the bowl along with the viscous yolk and slimy white. The sensation of cold, raw egg on my fingers is viscerally revolting.
Shit.
I try again with another egg, more carefully this time, but the same thing happens. I’m fishing them out with my fingers now, and the feeling of the raw egg is absolutely disgusting—slippery and cold and slimy in a way that makes my stomach turn. I pull out another piece of shell, then another, trying not to gag.
“Can I help?”
