She wanted Steph to be at ease; she wanted Steph to look at her. Yet somehow Steph looked at her and a furrow appeared between her brows. She lifted a hand and tried to pat down her wild hair.
“Actually,” Edward said far too loudly, pointedly not looking at Erika, “Erika here hasn’t eaten anything yet either.”
She narrowed her eyes at her brother.
“Well, I haven’t,” Erika allowed after a moment of silent speaking between the two of them. She turned back to Steph. “Seriously, it’s not a problem this time. What are you going to want?”
“Oh, uh, the… special?” Steph said, turning to look at the price board in the back wall.
“Two specials, then,” Edward said, and started clicking buttons on the screen next to the register.
Well, Erika thought, she hadn’t wanted to go home yet, and she had wanted to talk to Stephanie, the beautiful out-of-towner. Her stupid brother had just given her a chance. She might as well go for it.
“If you don’t mind,” Erika started, hesitant, “we could eat together? I’m in no hurry to go anywhere, and it’d be nice to get to know you.”
Stephanie stared at her for a moment.
“Oh,” she said. “I—I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t want to bother you. I know you must have more important things—or other people—I wouldn’t want to keep you…”
It was awkward but it was still a yes, so Erika’s face broke out in a smile—and Stephanie smiled hesitantly back.
***
“—so, I don’t know, it was just instinct! I didn’t mean to do it, but I grabbed the back of his shirt—”
“Oh my God,” Steph wheezed, face red and smiling.
“I just grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked back as hard as I could,” Erika said, leaning forward where she sat, her eyes bright. “He fell back like a bag of potatoes, bike and all. Everyone around was frozen. So, I just… reached down for my purse, picked it up, and walked away.”
“I can’t believe you had the courage,” Steph said.
Erika laughed. “Honestly, I think my body just rejected the idea of getting robbed three times in a month.”
“The joys of the big city,” Steph said drily, looking down at her empty plate.
Erika’s plate was empty, too. It was much later than Erika had expected to stay at the restaurant, and they had finished eating a long time ago. The day was close to ending, the restaurant was empty aside from the two of them, and Stephanie had finished the dessert Erika insisted on buying for her, even though she’d balked so much at it in the beginning. She hadn’t wanted to impose.
Now that she was sitting in front of Erika like this, red-faced from smiling and not quite hesitant to look up at Erika, Erika thought that she wouldn’t mind Stephanie’s imposing at all.
Erika was glad to not have gone home to her stupid, empty house.
They hadn’t talked about much, just anecdotes like this, funny stories, though Erika had more of them than Stephanie. It was easy, talking to Steph.
Erika had been so used to her wife, so used to having someone beside her that knew her completely, to whom there was no mystery, that finding someone who didn’t chafe against her edges had been hard. Life after their divorce had been hard, in general. Erika didn’t know how to get to know someone anymore.
But Stephanie was so beautiful and blushed so much around her, it made her want to try.
“I’ve never been robbed by a guy on a bike,” Steph said instead, glancing up at Erika.
“Well, plenty of guys on bikes in this town,” Erika said, grinning at her. “There’s a first time for everything.”
At once Steph’s shoulders drew in defensively, though she still gave Erika a smile. “Nah, this town’s too safe for that kind of stuff. Right?” she said. “I mean, I looked at the statistics before I moved here.”
“…you did?” Erika asked, one eyebrow raised.
Steph sent her a humorless smile. “Why do you think I moved here in the first place?”
“Oh,” Erika said. “I mean, I joke about big cities, but I got pickpocketed more than not, nothing really dangerous. We were lucky enough to afford a place in a good part of town, and even after I had to move out I still managed a good apartment. So, I never really…”
“Yeah, but it’s all fine here,” Steph said, finger tapping at the handle of her fork. “I joked with my friend—there’s been resurrections instead of murders, that’s how it is.”
Erika nodded. “It’s really safe here. The statistics don’t lie. Sometimes things happen—shops are robbed, kids do drugs, the town has its worst parts. But… it doesn’t compare, right?”
“No,” Stephanie said, voice low. “It doesn’t.”
Erika swallowed nothing. “So!” she said brightly, as if Steph’s quiet fear were something she could brush off if she were loud enough. “I don’t know if you noticed the house immediately to our right here? It’s closed right now, but,” Erika reached into her back pocket and got a pamphlet, “I’m opening a café.”
“Oh. I didn’t notice,” Steph said, trying to peer at the paper Erika had in her hands.
Erika handed it to her, feeling a bit anxious. It was the only change of subject she’d thought of—but it was kind of awkward to bring up her new business during their lunch date like this. Right?
…was it a lunch date? Probably not. Erika had to ask her out properly if she wanted a date.
“It opens a few days from now,” she continued, and felt herself loosen when Steph just looked up at her, curious. “It’s going to have good food, power outlets, Wi-Fi. You could pass by sometime, get a croissant or something at noon so you won’t go so long without eating.”
“I don’t lunch at three in the afternoon every day,” Steph complained, but her mouth was crooked in a smile same as Erika’s was.
Erika was perhaps unduly distracted by the way she bit her lips.
She looked up at Erika. “I’ll visit,” she promised.
Chapter Three
Steph’s last memories of a farmer’s market were from when she was twelve or so, over a decade ago, when she used to go with her mom to feast on free samples. She didn’t remember it much, mostly how mom used to speak to the sellers as if they were friends, how the egg lady always gave her a few free eggs.
Steph strolled easily down her street and thought about getting some chicken.
The farmer’s market here was very different than what she remembered: there was no patchy concrete, no furious cars, no huge trucks parked around the market like a fence. In this blue-skied, sunny summer day, this farmer’s market seemed to have been copy-pasted directly from a little children’s book. There were people chatting at the booths, one woman was selling home-made preserves, some selling houseplants, one guy was selling his own honey.
Her vision tunneled when her eyes caught sight of a big, beautiful, perfectly ripe bunch of bananas. She was speed-walking toward that booth before she realized she’d started moving, and when he saw her the seller laughed with amusement.
“Hello,” he said, grinning at her. “You want bananas? They are very good. You’re the girl who is in John’s house, yes?”
Steph blinked at him in surprise, then felt her face flush in embarrassment at her own surprise. The man had an accent she couldn’t parse, and she definitely hadn’t expected a foreigner to live in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, USA.
“Sorry,” she said, even though she hadn’t really done anything. “I’m, yes, living in John’s house, the old Sheriff? I do… uh, want some bananas. A dozen?”
He hummed as he grabbed them for her, looking at her over his small sunglasses. His skin was tanned, darker than hers, and his eyes were very dark. They actually reminded her of her own eyes, that she’d gotten from her mom, from her grandparents, who were from—
“Oh,” Steph said, eyes widening. A smile tugged at her lips. “Are you Latino?”
“Latino?” he asked. “From Latin America, yes! I’m Brazilia
n.” He peered at her. “Are you?”
“My grandparents were,” she told him. “Though, um, they were from Argentina, instead.”
“Ah,” he said, then laughed. “Our hermanos, hah. Here, I’ll give you some more bananas.”
He picked what appeared to be another dozen bananas and wrapped them in newspaper as well, put everything in a bag and handed it to her.
“You don’t have your bag,” he said, pointing at her empty arms. “I can give this for now. Bring it back later, yes?”
“Yes,” she said, reaching out for it, feeling very warm. “Thank you, I’ll bring it later.”
He looked at her. His smile dimmed, but didn’t disappear.
“It’s hard sometimes,” he said. He reached out to grab her hand. “Even for you, who is really American. I see with my sons. America can be hard sometimes. And you’re alone here. So, we stick together, okay?”
“Yep,” Steph said, choked up by about three thousand memories of her own grandmother’s too-tight grips on her hands, her weariness, her kindness, all the times people had mocked her accent and whispered about Steph’s skin and this damn Brazilian banana man was just… being so kind.
“I’m Stephanie,” she told him.
“I’m João,” he said, giving her a narrow-eyed smile that said she shouldn’t try to pronounce it. “Jay is fine, though. And you, hm. You were with Erika the other day, yes?”
Erika? He’d seen her with Erika? Why was he interested in that?
“Yes?”
He nodded slowly, thoughtfully.
“You look like a good girl,” he said at last. “You be good to her. Erika, poor girl, was not good since her divorce. That ex-wife of her…” He shook his head. “I never saw someone so destroyed after a divorce and they didn’t even have children. But she seemed happy with you.”
“Oh,” Steph said, and didn’t know what else to say.
Erika seemed happy with her?
Erika had had a wife? Steph barely had a dog, much less a life partner.
But… they’d divorced. Not a long time ago at all, it seemed. So, Erika probably wasn’t looking for someone else.
Not that Stephanie wanted Erika to be looking for someone. It wasn’t like she’d be interested in Steph out of everyone.
Right?
***
When she found the two cats in a box close to the light post on her way home, she froze in sheer bafflement. She was feeling so warm and well; Jay had been kind and the egg lady had given her extra eggs while they’d talked about chicken, and she’d spoken to the bee man who had been hanging around his booth—and it was just incongruous.
She stared at the two kittens, arms loaded with fruit and vegetables. Were they just really realistic toys? Was she hallucinating them? It was impossible that in this little piece of heaven small town someone would abandon those two small little kittens like this.
Steph’s hands tightened around her many bags. She felt angry. How dare someone do this? How dare someone do something so cruel in the place that was supposed to be perfect and beautiful and safe and kind? She thought about Jay reaching out and holding on to her hand too tightly, talking about how people could be cruel sometimes, so we stick together.
Sometimes people are garbage, so you have to be the kind one.
She passed some bags to the other hand and bent down to pick up the box.
***
“—leave them like this! I mean, it’d be one thing to find kittens around the yard or something, maybe a cat had kittens somewhere around, but in a box? It makes it really obvious that someone left them— “
“So you took them in?” her mother asked, an edge of apprehension in her voice.
Steph froze in the middle of her too-empty living room, the box cradled in her arms like a baby. The kittens were identical, two little black and white things, yellow eyes, and they were staring up at her and mewing in hunger.
“Should I not have?” Steph asked carefully, daring her mother to tell her no.
“Of course, you should!” her mother said. “But do you even know how to take care of them? Kittens are very fragile.”
“I’ll figure it out,” Steph said. A kitten pawed at her shirt, its little claws snagging against the fabric. “If abuelo can hand-raise a newborn kitten on soup and cow’s milk and have him turn out all right, I can hand-raise these with actual proper cat food and stuff.”
Her mother laughed.
“You give your grandfather too much credit,” she said. “I don’t think a nuclear bomb could have killed Felix. But Steph, these cats are not Felix, and you’re—I mean, you’re going to get attached, and it would really be better if you found someone else to take them in.”
Since she couldn’t glare at her mother, Steph glared at her wall. The problem with Steph getting attached, her mother thought, was that Steph would come back home soon, and would be sad to leave the cats behind.
“You know, Mom,” Steph said. “Actually, they’re begging for food right now, and I have to figure out what to give them. I’ll talk to you later.”
“All right, all right,” her mother said with a sigh. “See if the town vet can’t take them in. Maybe—”
“Bye!”
She hung up.
***
Steph peered at cat food brands and tried to decide which one to buy. One for kittens, obviously. But were they too big for normal food? What did one feed kittens that should still be drinking their mama’s milk? Steph hugged the semi-closed box to her chest. She didn’t want to do something wrong. Kittens were so fragile.
“Oh my god, how cute,” Erika said, a hand reaching out to poke a kitten’s paw.
Stephanie didn’t yelp in alarm through sheer power of will. She couldn’t help her wince, though, and felt her face redden in embarrassment. Erika took a wounded step back.
“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Erika said, putting her hands on her pockets.
“No, it’s fine!” Steph tried. Oh, God, the last thing she wanted was to make Erika feel bad about something so stupid. “It’s—sorry, I startle easy. Um. They really are cute. You want to see them?”
Erika gave her a hesitant grin.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Are these kittens yours?”
Steph balanced the box in one arm and a hip and opened the lid of the box. One kitten immediately reached up and started trying to climb up her shirt. The other one stared at her.
“I just found them,” Steph said,. She stared at the melting expression on Erika’s face. “In this box.”
Erika frowned and reached for the kitten that had gotten itself on Steph’s shoulder. It clung. Steph felt Erika’s knuckles graze the skin of her neck as she took it and her skin rose in goosebumps.
“Summer is kitten season,” the woman said, “so you’re likely to find a lot of these around. People around here seem to think spaying their cats isn’t necessary.”
Erika brought the kitten close to her chest and petted it very lightly. She was so tall—the thing was tiny in her hands, and Stephanie’s heart skipped a beat at the sight. God. She wanted to take a picture. She hoped her blush wasn’t too obvious.
“People abandon these a lot around here?” Steph asked, looking down at the little one staring up at her. It had very yellow eyes and was meowing quite loudly. It quieted down when she pet its head, then the space above its nose.
“Yeah, it’s not uncommon. There’s a lot of feral cats around here, too. The shelters are so full during kitten season it’s useless to take more kittens there. They won’t have space.”
“I’m keeping them,” Steph quickly reassured. “I mean—I don’t really know what to do—”
“I could help,” Erika said. She looked at Steph from under her eyelashes and Stephanie suddenly realized how close they were standing, how Erika’s loose hair fell like a curtain between them and the rest of the store, the other people. They’d stepped closer to each other.
Suddenly Jay’s words were in her
ear: You be good to her. She seemed happy with you.
Maybe the blush on Erika’s fair cheeks was make up. But despite what the terrible, nervous weight in Steph’s chest was telling her… maybe it wasn’t.
“I mean, we had cats,” Erika continued, looking down at the kitten again. “Lu—” She grimaced. “We—I had a newborn kitten in the house once. I bet I could help with some things.”
Steph grimaced at the reminder of Erika’s wife. Erika wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, Steph reminded herself. Gorgeous, successful Erika wasn’t being anything other than just polite to stupid Stephanie.
But she was still asking Steph if she could help. That… could mean something, right?
“Please,” Steph said, leaning toward Erika, heart beating too fast, “I could really use some help.”
Chapter Four
Weeks passed and Stephanie didn’t pass by the café—not only when Erika was there, but at all, if the staff was to be believed. Not that Erika had asked them to keep an eye out on Stephanie and just maybe call her when Steph passed by so they could talk—
She hadn’t. She hadn’t needed to; Edward did it for her. Erika would feel like a creepy stalker, but she reasoned with herself that she didn’t have Steph’s phone number, how was she supposed to talk to her? They’d only see each other if they happened to bump into each other.
Erika walked home and looked up at the darkening sky. She didn’t want to go back home, but she had run out of excuses to linger at work. Her mind wandered to her family, her brother, her ex-wife—and she shook her head free of all that and turned back to Stephanie.
She didn’t know Stephanie, but she wanted to. She was short and shy and beautiful, and Erika wanted to see her again. It felt like—it felt like a sunrise, whenever she thought about Stephanie, the possibility of a relationship, of a new beginning; not love, not yet, nothing close to it yet, but—but it could be.
She just needed her damn phone number—
“No! Come back here! I did not open the door for—Argh!”
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