I look up, curious. Her smile stretches.
“A girls’ day in,” she supplies.
“What does a girls’ day entail?” I ask, stirring my tea.
Kaye’s eyes seem to sparkle. “A foot spa! Back massages! An indoor sauna! All at home, of course, because my feet are freaking killing me.”
I take a cautious sip. The tea I made is not like how Idris makes it for me.
When I look at Kaye, she’s looking at me expectantly, still smiling.
So I say after some thought, “I’ve never done any of those.”
“That’s perfect! It’ll be fun for your first time,” she says. “They’re incredible. Great for circulation, stress relief, muscle recovery, and whatever toxin release is.”
“Toxin release is a rather vague category,” I say automatically.
She waves a hand dismissively. “I don’t care what it releases as long as it releasessomething. You’ve been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, Em. Let’s have some fun!”
I don’t respond. My mind drifts, unhelpfully, to the ship. To the monitors. To the two bodies lost. To the experiment I thought I understood and the damage I didn’t anticipate.
“Em…” Kaye snaps me out of it. “You don’t have to fix anything today, and there’s no point having a pity party of one. How about a spa party of three?” She beams by the end of it.
I consider the idea, or rather her offer. This present unexpected day. The absence of droning equipment, of any difficult decisions. “I don’t know if I’ll be good at it,” I admit.
Kaye snorts. “There’s no performance metric for this, Em. You just…exist.”
That sounds rather challenging but not impossible.
She bats her lashes. “Come on, Em. If you hate it, I’ll never bring it up again. But if you like it, we can also call girls’ day preventative care.”
I take another sip of tea. “Alright,” I say, after a brief internal calculation. There’s no risk in trying out this indoor girls’ day idea.
Her smile is immediate and victorious. “Yay! I’ll grab Elle and call some people. You just keep doing whatever you’re doing.”
She gestures at my mug. “I’m hydrating,” I explain. “With sweet ginger tea.”
“And you’re doing tea-rrific, sugar!” Kaye laughs, backing toward the hall. “I’ll send someone to fetch you when girls’ day is ready!”
Her footsteps disappear down the hall, her energy lingering in the kitchen long after she’s gone.
I lift my mug and take another sip of tea. The ginger bites pleasantly at the back of my throat, with the tea’s sweetness helping me swallow it down.
Without thinking about it, I find myself smiling. Even a little. Though, oddly, it feels like a lot.
***
I find myself wandering down the halls afterwards. My mug’s half-full when I hear footsteps coming from the double doors behind me.
Turning toward the sound, I spot Nil coming in from the back gardens. He smiles when he sees me, then lengthens his stride to reach me.
“Thought I smelled ginger,” he says. “Having a good morning, Em?”
“So far, yes.” I sip my tea, then ask, “And yourself?”
He shrugs. “Not used to the space yet, so I couldn’t sleep much.” Then he adds, laughing lightly, “And Stan was snoring. Hope you didn’t hear it on your end.”
I blush, remembering different, more pleasant sounds from yesterday. I shake my head, saying, “No, I must’ve been heavily asleep.”
