I still don't tell her.
10
THE MISREAD
Iwake up with the taste of smoke still behind my teeth.
Not real smoke — the alarm went off hours ago, the fan cleared the air, the pizza buzzer went and I answered it because Ethan was still on the floor. We ate from the box between us, and afterward getting him back up turned into its own terrible little operation: crutches dragged close, his hand locked on the cabinet edge, my hand braced between his shoulder blades because there was nowhere else to put it that didn't feel like too much. He made a joke about emergency exits. I pretended to laugh. Then I scrubbed the pan until my knuckles ached, scrubbing right through the non-stick coating until I could see my distorted reflection in the bare metal underneath. I scrubbed it twice more after that and then threw it out anyway. But the taste is still there. Going nowhere.
My first thought is:don't go into the kitchen.
My second thought is:you live here. Temporarily. You have to go into the kitchen.
My third thought is what I look like right now — Ethan's old Canadiens shirt, my hair a wreck, yesterday's mascara undoubtedly smudged under my eyes in that way that only looksgood on women in French movies and never, ever on me. I grab my phone. 6:43 AM. The apartment is still dark. From the bedroom, through the half-open door, I can hear Ethan — long, even, steady, sleeping like a person with a clear conscience.
I get up. I go to the bathroom. I turn on the light and look at the mirror and the woman looking back is exactly the disaster I expected: swollen eyes, pillow crease across one cheek, the ghost of flour still in her hairline.
You cried on his kitchen floor.
I step into the shower. The water is as hot as I can stand. I scrub the flour out of my hair. I scrub the smell of burnt oil off my skin. I try to scrub the kitchen floor out of my head. It doesn't work.
I step out. I towel off. I open my makeup bag.
Foundation first. Then concealer — under both eyes, blended until the edges disappear. Then brows. Then mascara, two coats, the waterproof kind that takes a geological event to remove. Blush. Lip. I line my lips today, which I don't usually do, which is probably fine and definitely not a symptom of anything.
By the time I'm done, the woman in the mirror is assembled. Competent. The kind of person who handles things.
I walk to the kitchen.
The element is still there, and the counter, and the spot on the floor where I sat, and the specific angle of light from the window above the sink that hits the cabinet exactly where my back was pressed against it when I fell apart. My stomach drops. Not a metaphor — a physical sensation, like missing a step, except I'm standing still.
I open the fridge. I close the fridge. I fill the kettle. I make coffee. I make it correctly. I make it like a person who knows how to operate a kitchen without triggering a biohazard response.
Bagel appears. He rubs against my ankle and looks up with the expression of a creature who witnessed last night's full emotional collapse and has already forgotten. I envy him.
"Morning," I say. My voice is steady. Good.
Derek's emailcomes at 8:17 AM while I'm trying to figure out how to make scrambled eggs without making scrambled eggs look like I'm trying to prove something.
Hey Nora — so the wife changed her mind about the headings. She wants Playfair Display now, but still wants the whole thing to feel "rustic." Can you mock up 3 options by end of day? Also sending over revision 7 of the full menu suite. Sorry. — D
Revision 7. I close my eyes. I count to three. I open them.
Derek Ouellette runs a bistro in Griffintown that's been "two months from opening" for the past five months. I'm doing his entire visual identity — menus, signage, website, social media kit, the works. A project that pays well enough to justify the headaches, and Derek's headaches are legendary. His wife has opinions. His business partner has different opinions. Derek has the opinions of whoever spoke to him last.
"Everything okay?" Ethan's voice from the living room. I heard the slow, heavy thumps of his crutches making their way from the bedroom twenty minutes ago, but neither of us had said a word. He's on the couch, propped up with the two pillows I arranged yesterday, his crutches leaned against the arm rest.
"Work thing," I say. I smile. The smile is flawless. I know this because I've been rehearsing it for most of my adult life.
I set up my laptop on the small kitchen table and start working. This is fine. I can handle Derek and Playfair Display and revision 7 and the faint ghost-smell of burnt oil that I'mprobably imagining. I'm a professional. I'm a functioning adult. I did not cry on anyone's floor.
Then the buzzer goes. A short, sharp burst. Before I can stand up, there's the sound of a key in the lock.
Camille arrives like weather.
Not a storm — nothing that dramatic. More like a pressure change. She comes through the door with a reusable bag in each hand and her coat already half-off, calling something in French to Ethan that I catch the shape but not the content of, and she's in the kitchen before I've finished processing that she just let herself in.
"Salut, Nora!" She smiles at me — genuine, bright, a smile that comes from someone who has never had to practice it. "T'as déjeuné?"
