Before either of us is brave enough to break the silence, the microwave does it for us with three loud beeps. I pull the bowl out, confirming that the peanut butter and chocolate are sufficiently nuked. “Wanna stay on scraping duty?”
Ellie bows a little. “It would be my honor.”
The churning in my stomach subsides with her smile, and I hand the bowl off to her and watch as she scrapes it onto the cereal with expert precision, leaving only a few skinny streaks of glossy chocolate and peanut butter behind. When I rinse the bowl, the water runs just about clear.
“Are you this much of a perfectionist about everything?” I ask.
“I prefer detail oriented,” Ellie corrects me. “It’s what makes me a good painter.”
“So painting is your main…thing? Art form?” This seems like the sort of thing a convincing girlfriend should know.
“Medium,” Ellies corrects me. “It’s my primary medium. You can get a generalized art degree, or you can get a concentration in your medium, so I’m an art major with a concentration in painting. And I picked up a psychology minor to help with grad school apps.”
“You didn’t mention the psych minor last night,” I point out.
She smiles, a tiny, tight-lipped smile that holds back a laugh. “And you didn’t mention that you were failing accounting with Professor Meyers,” she says. “So I guess we both left things out.”
I flip the faucet off and dry my hands on my jeans. There’s no arguing against that.
“That’s a good thing to know going into today though,” Ellie goes on. “That I have a painting concentration. Mary would’ve known that, obviously.”
“Right. And what are we telling your parents about the fact that my name isn’t Mary?”
“That they’re getting old and they must’ve misheard me when I said Murphy,” Ellie says.
“Okay, so gaslight your parents,” I say. “Got it.”
Ellie goes on without acknowledging my joke. “And like I said earlier, I think we should stick with the story that you’re opening a small business consulting firm after you graduate.” My hand instinctively hovers over my phone, ready to google the details of what that entails, but Ellie does the work for me. “Essentially, you would be doing all the stuff you do for Sip now, but for lots of businesses instead of just one.”
“Got it.” I stamp the air with my chin with one firm nod.
“Out of curiosity, though, what do you actually want to do after you graduate?”
“U of I, remember?”
Ellie rolls her eyes. “Afterthat.”
I plant my forearms on the counter, leaning my weight against the quartz. “Move to Chicago. Same as everyone around here.”
“Not everyone,” Ellie says. She wiggles her fingers in a wave. Right. I’m in the presence of the great midwestern exception.
“What exactly is it about New York that makes you want to move?” I ask. “It just seems like a bigger, more overwhelming Chicago.”
“It’s less about the city and more about the schools,” she explains. “I’d move to the middle of nowhere if that’s where the best master’s programs were. I’m glad I don’t have to, though. Especially after four years at U of I, which is essentially in the middle of a cornfield.”
I snort a laugh. “One girl’s cornfield is another girl’s dream school, but I guess anything beats staying here.”
Ellie pinches a stray piece of cereal off the counter and adds it to the bowl. “I promise you’ll think Geneva is cute once you leave it.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Like I said. All relationships need a little space.”
Ellie and I take turns mixing, switching off whenever our wrists get tired and only crushing some of the Chex along the way. When the cereal is sufficiently coated, she watches me rearrange the freezer drawer like a bad game of Tetris, maneuvering ice packs and bags of frozen vegetables to createenough space for the mixing bowl. It won’t quite fit, so in true midwestern form, we set the bowl out on the back patio, letting Mother Nature’s freezer do the job. Once the rest of the dishes are stacked in the sink, I grab Ellie a LaCroix (avoiding the lemon for her sake), then glance at the time. Three o’clock. Could be better, could be worse.
“What time are we eating?” I ask.
“Around five thirty or six.”
“Perfect.” I tip my head toward the staircase. “Cool if I go get ready real quick?”
