Interns One, Two, and Three hovered in a tight cluster around it, their wide eyes telling me that the small appliance had defeated them.
Their whispering stopped the moment I walked in. All three stared at me with the same expression patrons used when they realized the restricted section existed: reverence mixed with fear.
Which was a ridiculous way to look at someone.
Fantastic. I had accidentally become a cryptid.
I had not consented to this social role and did not want it. Attention came with rules, ones I’d learned but never made sense to me the way they seemed to make sense to otherpeople. I had learned them young. Step one was always smile when someone was paying attention to you. Step two was wait for your turn to speak. Though I’d learned these rules, I rarely employed them.
Intern One raised a shaky hand. “Ms. Ripley. The machine made a noise.”
Intern Two nodded with grave seriousness. “A loud one.”
Intern Three swallowed. “We don’t want to break it.”
I approached them with the composure of someone defusing a minor diplomatic incident.
Calm was always safer than exposing my true feelings. Calm never invited commentary or judgment.
“It’s fine. It’s not broken. I’ll show you how to use it.”
Intern One leaned toward the others and whispered, “She sounds confident.”
Intern Two whispered back, “She always does. It’s terrifying.”
I suppressed a shiver. My mother used to say I was too confident for a girl with nothing to be confident about. Which was a ridiculous assessment, considering I had two degrees and could read three dead languages before coffee. And yet, her malice still affected me on a cellular level. Even without contact.
I pressed the correct combination of buttons. Hot water cycled through the chamber. The machine released a steady stream of matcha into the cup I placed beneath it.
The interns inhaled sharply.
Intern Three said, reverently, “She did it.”
Intern One said, “I knew it.”
Intern Two stared at me like I had just performed a minor exorcism. “She commands the machine.”
I had once presented at a conference on marginal corrections in fourteenth-century liturgical texts and made three tenured men visibly sweat. But yes, let’s focus on my beverage skills.
Jesus Christ. Please, universe, now would be agreattime for a fire alarm to go off. Divert the attention. Create a getaway.
They weren’t mocking me. Not yet. Historically speaking, that would most likely change eventually.
I took my cup and stepped away before my dignity suffered irreversible damage.
They continued to stare at me. I wasn’t sure if I was meant to reassure them or congratulate them for surviving the incident.
Intern One leaned forward. “Do you use it every day?”
“Yes,” I said.
Because routine was the only thing holding me together, but I left that part out.
Intern Two blinked. “Do you… live here?”
“I have a home.”
And I did. I even had one person who checked whether I had eaten. I was winning at life.
