She nods, satisfied, and reaches for a brownie from the plate I made this morning, because baking has become a stress response, and I have been significantly stressed in recent months, so we have not been short of brownies. “These are good.”
“I’ve had time to perfect the recipe.”
“You’ve been stress-baking again.”
“Extensively.”
“How stressed are we talking?”
“I made four batches last Tuesday. The security team was very happy about it.”
She grins, and it’s the grin I have known since we were eight years old, and it hasn’t changed at all, the wide, generous thing that takes over her whole face and makes everyone in its vicinity feel warm.
We’re in the middle of the third brownie—hers, I’m being more restrained because the twins are already running out of real estate, and I don’t need to assist them—when Igor comes through the kitchen on his way from somewhere to somewhere else. He nods at me with the brief precision that is his version of good morning and registers Carrie Ann with the same complete, rapid assessment he applies to everything in his environment.
“Miss Kohler, welcome back.”
“Thank you,” Carrie Ann says, and her voice has developed a quality I haven’t heard in it before, which is a careful, deliberate evenness that a person produces when they are working to sound normal and are not entirely succeeding. “And, um, you can call me Carrie Ann.”
“Carrie Ann.” Igor nods, then moves through and out of the kitchen with the efficiency of a man who has places to be, and as his footsteps recede down the corridor, Carrie Ann continues looking at the doorway he exited through for approximately three seconds longer than is required to confirm his departure.
I pick up my coffee. I say nothing.
Carrie Ann becomes aware of the nothing I am saying and transfers her gaze from the doorway to my face with theslight over-correction of someone who has been caught doing something and is compensating with directness. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you don’t say anything and your face says everything.” She points at my face. “That thing.”
“I’m just drinking my coffee,” I say.
“Molly.”
“He’s my husband’s sovetnik. Eleven years of service. Very reliable. Excellent judgment. Handsome.”
“That’s not—I wasn’t?—”
I add, “He’s not married.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m just mentioning it. In case it ever becomes relevant.”
Carrie Ann puts her brownie down with the precision of a woman assembling her dignity. “I came here to visit my best friend, not to be interrogated about?—”
“Igor.” I say the name the way you say a word you are simply identifying, neutrally and without intention.
She looks at me. Her face is doing something that is not a blush but is the close neighbor of one, which, on Carrie Ann with her light complexion, is not subtle. “He’s very—he has a very—” She gestures vaguely. “Presence.”
“He does.”
“That’s all.”
“That’s all you needed to say.” I pick up my coffee with the serene composure of a woman who has won this exchange and is gracious about it. “Tell me about Kansas. I feel like we didn’t really get to talk at the wedding, what with the gun and the ceremony and everything.”
