The question from those phantom lips surprised me so much that I almost closed the silverware drawer without pulling out the dull butter knife I was reaching for.“It’s dinner,” I said.
Dinner?He sounded like he didn’t understand the word, and that confused me.How could someone so well versed in everything else not understand what a simple meal was?
I gave him the most sensible reaction I could.“Food, you know,” I said.“I’m hungry.I haven’t eaten anything since you first came here this morning.I kept thinking that maybe we’d break from oggling each other and start working, and then I’d grab lunch in between, but it hasn’t happened, and my stomach is running on empty.”
He blinked, still wincing at the term “oggling.”This isn’t enough for dinner.What about fruit?Wine?
I opened my mouth and realized that for the first time, my muse had inspired me.He had given me an idea I hadn’t thought of before.“Aster,” I said with a smile.“I like that.We should go out and buy some.”
He rubbed his chin.You don’t have any?
“I didn’t think of it until you gave me the idea just now,” I said.
It surprises me that a girl who claims to know what she wants out of life doesn’t even know what she wants for dinner.
“A girl like me hasn’t thought about dinner at all today,” I said.“I think about writing.And about my future.”And about you, my muse.“Little things like dinner don’t matter.”
You have a remarkably narrow mind, Stella, he said as he opened the wrapper of the bread and pulled out the baguette.
“I’m focused,” I said.“I have to be.I’m barely getting by as a writer as it is.I got through my bachelor’s degree.Got this place for the summer.But I don’t even know where I’m going from here.I might have to get a job teaching or editing if I don’t make another masterpiece.”
Aster sniffed the loaf, focusing on it more than on me.Why do you do it?he asked, not looking up.
“Do what?Writing, or… focusing?”
Your craft.It seems to drain a lot of color from your life.No fruit with your food.No berries, no fragrance infiltrating the air around your table.Do you even know what the evening meal is supposed to be?
I hardly noticed as Aster took a bite from the heel.Dinner—a medieval term that came from a French term for breaking a fast, returning to the concept of food and eating after a period of abstinence.An image that evoked nuns in a convent preparing a meal for themselves after receiving communion in the morning.
I flinched in embarrassment.My muse was supposed to encourage my writing, not criticize it—not criticize me.Even worse, I had no idea what he wanted me to say.I had never expected to justify myself before him.“I only want to make something that matters.Something that people appreciate and that changes their worlds.”
There are many occupations that could do that with a lot less stress.
“I’m not afraid of stress,” I said.
You should be.Stress is a killer.His eyes twinkled, and I realized he was teasing me.
“There’s nothing I’d rather do, besides,” I added, relaxing.“I’m stressed out when I’m not writing.”
Aster tilted his head and studied the bread before him for a moment.Have you considered baking baguettes?That might be what you need to fill in that awful gap in your life and get your… creative juices flowing, or however they put it.He took another bite from the loaf and nodded with full approval.
I felt hot.“No… not like that.I mean… anybody could bake a loaf of bread.But I don’t want to be anybody.I want to rise to the top.I want to be different from everybody else.To matter.”
At first Aster said nothing.He shrugged and pinched at the bread in his hands, admiring its spongy texture.
You want to be different, you say?Your eyes are unique.He took a chunk of baguette in his hand and gave it to me.No two people on Earth have the same eyes.Did you know that?
“But my eyes don’t matter.”
Without your eyes, you would have no vision.I think they matter significantly.Your eyes are especially melancholy.Did you know that?
“Can you just tell me what you think in plain English?”
Aster set down the rest of the loaf and started walking to the door.
“Where are you going?”I asked, calling after him as I hurried to keep up.I imagined that he was already searching for a store where we could buy something he considered more proper.
To the cellar,he said.There’s something I wish to fetch.
