Chemistry Lessons

by Jae

  Regan put her hands on Ky’s and rubbed them as if sensing where her thoughts had gone. “Come on. Pizza’s waiting.” She picked up Ky’s jacket and tugged her past the French bakery to La Casa Nostra.

  The red chairs and the small, square tables on the patio were beaded with drops of water, and the temperature had fallen now that the sun was setting, so dining outside was not an option. Ky pulled open the door and let Regan enter ahead of her.

  The scent of tomato sauce and melting cheese wafted out even before Ky got one foot inside. Warmth from the wood-fire oven engulfed her…or maybe the warmth was from the rustic yet cozy atmosphere. The Romanos’ restaurant had always felt like home.

  They hadn’t even made it two steps in when Regan’s dad caught sight of them. He was behind the counter that formed a semi-circle around the beautiful, blue-tiled pizza oven that was his pride and joy. Without a second’s hesitation, he plopped down the dough he was kneading and rushed toward them.

  Several guests looked up from their dinner, but he paid them no attention as he engulfed both of them in a group hug.

  “Tammy!” he boomed. “They’re here!”

  His wife burst from the office in the back, from where she ran the business end of the restaurant.

  Within seconds, Ky found herself in the middle of a Romano family hug. Forget pizza. This was what she was really here for. She returned the embrace with equal enthusiasm, not caring if she got flour from Joe’s apron all over her clothes.

  “Come on. Let the girls get a table,” Joe finally said to his wife, as if she had been the only one refusing to let go of them. “I bet they’re starving.” He marched behind the counter and began calling out orders for a pizza margherita and a white pizza with garlic cream sauce.

  “Um, don’t we get a menu?” Regan brushed flour off her dress. “What if we wanted to order something else?”

  Her mother waved her hand. “When did you ever do that?”

  “I had the bucatini with meatballs once,” Ky said.

  Tammy ushered them to their favorite booth in the corner, where two wooden pizza peels decorated the wall. “When you had your wisdom teeth out and couldn’t chew the pizza crust.”

  Wow. She actually remembered that!

  Tammy squeezed into the booth next to her daughter and studied Ky across the table.

  Good thing their friends couldn’t see them. So much for their intimate dinner for two. But Ky didn’t mind…quite the opposite. Tammy’s presence made her forget about the dangerous direction her thoughts had strayed in earlier. Ky returned the appraisal.

  Tammy’s straight, blonde hair—so unlike her daughter’s dark curls—held a few more silver strands, and the laugh lines around her eyes had deepened, but otherwise, she was still the same woman who had built them the coolest tree house ever.

  Finally, Tammy finished her scrutiny and leaned back in the booth. “I was worried when you didn’t visit for spring break, but you look great. You both do. I think the last time I saw you two so dressed up was when Regan insisted on you going to prom with her. Is there some special occasion I’ve missed, or are you—? Wait!” She clutched her chest and looked as if she’d been surprised with the world’s biggest gift basket. “Oh my God! Are you two finally dating?”

  Regan let out a string of Neapolitan curses—pretty much the only Italian she spoke. “Not you too! For the last time, Mom, we are not dating!”

  The guests at the table next to theirs looked over.

  “Well, not really,” Regan added more quietly.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” her mother asked. “Call me old-fashioned, but isn’t dating like being pregnant—you either are or you aren’t?”

  “We aren’t,” Ky said, as much to remind herself as to clarify for Tammy.

  Tammy leaned forward, eyes twinkling. “Pregnant or dating?”

  “Both. Neither.” Ky’s head started buzzing. Sometimes, she felt as if she was too slow and could barely keep up with the way the Romano brains worked.

  “Our friends keep pointing out how great we’d be as a couple, so we finally agreed to go on one date to prove that there’s nothing there,” Regan said.

  Tammy gave them the same look she had directed at them when Regan, at nine, had begged her parents to buy her a set of walkie-talkies, insisting they needed them so they could chat with each other about homework. “Clearly. Nothing there at all.” She got up from the booth. “What can I get you to drink? We’ve got a case of Gran Passione Rosso that I think you’d like.”

  “Just water for me,” Regan said. “I’m driving.”

  “For me too, please.”

  Regan cocked her head at her. “I don’t mind if you have a glass.”

  “Nah, that’s fine.” Ky already felt a little light-headed any time she looked at Regan in that dress for too long; she didn’t need red wine to add to that—especially not a wine called great passion.

  Tammy got them their water, then pulled a lighter from her pocket and lit the candle on the table between them before walking away with a promise to talk later.

  Candlelight. Great. Thanks, Tammy. Just what we needed. Ky took a sip of water and watched Joe toss the pizza dough in the air to stretch it as their conversation echoed through her mind. “For the last time,” she repeated.

  “Hmm?” Regan had watched her father too. Now she looked at Ky. The glow of the candle flickered across her face, making her big, brown eyes appear even darker.

  “You said, ‘For the last time, we’re not dating.’ Like you had to tell her that before.”

  Regan’s lips quirked into a smile. “Did I ever tell you what my parents said when I came out to them?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  There wasn’t much they hadn’t told each other over the years. Ky had been the first person Regan had come out to as bisexual when she’d been a sophomore at UO, and she’d been the first person Regan had called after telling her parents.

  “They told you they’ll always love you, just the way you are.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Yeah, that’s what they said, but the first words out of Mom’s mouth were actually, ‘We know.’”

  Ky clutched the edge of the table. “They knew? But…how? Even I had no clue! You could have knocked me over with a feather when you confessed your crush on what’s-her-name.”

  “Her name’s Melissa; you know that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Can we focus on what’s important here? How the hell did your parents find out before me?” Ky had always thought she knew Regan better than anyone else did, including her own family.

  “To quote what my dad said back then: ‘Are we supposed to pretend we didn’t know you and Kylie are a couple?’”

  Despite her white-knuckled grip on the table, Ky nearly slid down the booth. “They did not say that!”

  Regan laughed. “I swear.”

  Ky pried her fingers from the table and took a gulp of water, now half wishing she’d accepted Tammy’s offer to get her a glass of wine. “They really thought we…?” Her head was spinning. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Tammy and Joe had thought was going on behind Regan’s closed bedroom door. Christ. It was a wonder they had even allowed them to close the door!

  “Don’t worry. I set them straight. So to speak.” Regan reached across the table and patted her arm.

  Ky stared at the hand lingering on her forearm. It was probably things like this that made everyone assume they were together. She leaned heavily against the back of the booth. So much for knowing everything there was to know about Regan. Why had Regan never told her? She opened her mouth to ask.

  * * *

  Two steaming pizzas being slid onto the table interrupted whatever Ky had been about to say.

  When Regan looked up, her dad stood next to them, beaming as if he were single-handedly saving them from sure starvation. Knowing him, he was probably about to remind them that his ancestors had invented pizza. She made eye contact with
Ky above the flickering candle, and they mouthed together, “Three, two, one…”

  “Did I ever tell you that pizza was invented in Napule?” Her father nodded gravely. “Right where your grandparents grew up.”

  “Only about a million times, Dad.”

  “The espresso machine too,” Ky said. “At least that’s what I read somewhere.”

  “Suck-up,” Regan mouthed across the table, but Ky just flashed her a grin.

  Her father gave Ky’s shoulder a hearty pat. “At least someone appreciates our rich cultural heritage.”

  Regan pretended to roll her eyes, but truth be told, the way her parents treated Ky—as if she was truly part of the family—melted her heart. Ky deserved it. She also needed it, even if she would never admit it.

  Her father lingered next to the table, watching them dig in.

  Regan barely waited for the fresh-from-the-oven pizza to cool down a little before taking a huge bite. The garlic cream sauce, the ricotta, and the mozzarella blended together into melt-in-your-mouth perfection, while the pesto, the soppressata, and the chili flakes added a kick to make it more interesting.

  “Did your mother tell you about the teaching job?”

  Not about to interrupt the pizza-gasm going on in her mouth, Regan only shook her head.

  “Lake Grove Elementary is looking for a new third-grade teacher.”

  Regan sighed. Their attempts to talk her into teaching in Lake Oswego were as old as her father’s claims that pretty much every culinary feat of importance had been invented in Naples.

  “You know we’ve got the best schools in Oregon, and only the best is good enough for my daughter,” he added when Regan didn’t say anything.

  “Dad, I teach high school, not elementary, and I don’t want to change that. I love working with teenagers.”

  Her father shook his head and pointed at the gray parts in his salt-and-pepper hair. “God knows why. I barely survived your teenage years.”

  Regan tsked. “Teenagers are fun. Their emotions…everything is bigger than life. Things never get boring. I love that.”

  Her dad sighed. “All right. We’ll keep an eye out for any positions opening up at a high school. I think your old chemistry teacher is approaching retirement age.”

  The thought of moving back to her hometown, closer to her family, was more appealing than Regan would have thought possible a few years ago. But there were things—and, more importantly, people—she wasn’t ready to leave behind. She popped a piece of soppressata into her mouth and peeked over at Ky while she chewed. “It’s not just that. My life is in Portland, Dad.”

  “What about you?” Her father focused on Ky now. That, too, was the same procedure as every visit. He was like a German shepherd who tried to keep his flock close to home. “When will you finally come work for us? Now that we’ll open a second location in Vancouver next month, we could use someone to run things here.”

  Ky’s water glass wobbled precariously as she set it down with a shaky hand. “R-run things?”

  That part of the offer was new. Usually, Regan’s father just tried to talk her into working at the restaurant.

  Regan wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, she knew her parents could use the extra help. Her sister, Mackenzie, would be the manager at the new place, while their cousin Vanessa would run the kitchen, but with both of them being new at their jobs, her parents spent a lot of time making the half-hour trip to Vancouver, Washington, to offer guidance. She could easily imagine Ky stepping in for them, running La Casa Nostra.

  On the other hand, if Ky moved to Lake Oswego, that would probably make hanging out on weeknights a thing of the past, and Regan wasn’t ready to give up Netflix night, book club meetings, and spontaneous walks up Mount Tabor.

  “Why not? Since Robbie and this one”—her father nudged Regan’s shoulder—“want nothing to do with the food service industry; Mackenzie is only interested in the business side of it, and their cousin will be the head chef of the new location, we need someone to run the kitchen here. So, what do you say?”

  Ky stared at her pizza instead of looking at him. “I don’t know, Joe. I’m honored, but it’s not like I’m a real chef.”

  “Not a real chef?” Regan’s dad repeated. “You cook for hundreds of kids every day!”

  “Cafeteria food isn’t exactly fine dining.” Ky still hadn’t looked up from her plate.

  “And this is? It’s pizza, Ky, nothing fancy.” With a glance at her father, Regan quickly added, “Even if it’s the best pizza in the world.”

  “Still,” Ky said. “I don’t have the skills for a place like this. Making one simple dish in bulk is very different from cooking a dozen individual dishes from scratch.”

  What was this all about? Regan tried to read the emotions on Ky’s lowered face. Ky had helped to cook most of the dishes on the menu before she’d been able to spell them. Did she really think she lacked the skills, or was this an attempt to let him down easy? Maybe she was as reluctant to leave Portland and their life together as Regan was.

  Her father opened his mouth, no doubt to convince Ky otherwise.

  Since this was clearly making Ky uncomfortable, Regan decided to come to her rescue. “Maybe Ky likes working with teenagers too and isn’t ready to give up her job. Besides, she was just offered a—”

  Ky kicked her foot beneath the table.

  Pain flared through her toes. “Ouch! What the hell, Ky?”

  Ky quietly shook her head.

  “She was just offered…what?” Regan’s father asked.

  “Dessert,” Regan said, still studying Ky. “Mom offered her a plate of cannoli.”

  The exhale from across the table was audible.

  What on earth was going on with Ky? Why didn’t she want Regan’s dad to know about the promotion? When they’d been kids, she had always rushed over to share her accomplishments with Regan and her family because Ky’s parents had been too self-involved to ooh and aah over them.

  “Of course there’ll be dessert,” her father said. “But you’ll have to finish your pizza first.”

  “We would, but someone keeps talking to us.” Regan gave him a pointed look.

  Laughing, he held up both hands. “All right. I’m going back to work. Buon appetito.”

  As soon as he walked away, Ky dug into her pizza as if she hadn’t eaten all week, but Regan had a feeling she wanted to avoid having to talk.

  Nope. Not happening, Kylie Wells. “What’s going on?”

  “Hmm?” Ky gave her an I-have-no-clue-what-you-mean look.

  “Come on, Ky. That look might work on someone who hasn’t been your best friend since puking on you the first day of kindergarten, after I ate that family-size pack of M&Ms. This is me. What’s up?”

  Sighing, Ky put down a piece of pizza crust. “I haven’t accepted the promotion yet, and I’m not sure I’m going to.”

  Regan stared, for a second sure she had misheard. “What? Why not? Why didn’t you tell me? We tell each other everything!”

  “We do. I do…usually. But…” Ky pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “But what? Jesus, Ky, I threw you a surprise party to celebrate your promotion!”

  Ky hung her head. “I know. I’m sorry. You seemed so happy when I told you, and I didn’t want to spoil that before I’d made up my mind.”

  “I was happy because you seemed happy!”

  “I was,” Ky said. “I swear I wasn’t lying or consciously trying to keep this from you. At first, I really thought I’d say yes. I was pretty flattered Fran thought I could do it. And making more money would be nice.”

  “Then why are you hesitating now?”

  “The more I think about it, the less sure I am. The promotion wouldn’t just mean more money. It would also mean more paperwork. As Fran’s assistant, I would spend more time filling out lunch count and order forms than doing food prep, and you know I’ve always been shit at math.”

  “So use a calculator,” Regan s
hot back.

  “It’s not that easy.” Ky painted circles in the condensation on the outside of her water glass.

  Regan pushed her shock and anger aside, along with her plate and the candle between them. She reached across the table and put her hand over Ky’s. Her stomach knotted. How had she not known something was going on with her best friend? “Talk to me. Please.”

  Finally, Ky looked up. “I’m good at what I do right now—being a lunch lady. Lil and the rest of the team are great, and even the kids seem to like me.”

  “Are you kidding?” Regan blurted out before she could stop herself. “They love you. Especially on pizza day. Which is why I think Dad is right. You’d be great at this too.” She waved her hand, indicating the restaurant. “Or at being the assistant cafeteria manager. Whatever you choose to do.”

  Ky shrugged. It was the kind of awkward, insecure shrug Regan hadn’t seen from her since she had convinced her not to drop out of high school. “Maybe. But this is the first time I’ve ever had it all. A job I’m good at. A team I like and that likes me back. A roommate who doesn’t drive me up the wall.”

  “I get that.” Regan had witnessed her jump from one minimum-wage job to the next, from waitressing at a kids’ restaurant to working the grill at greasy burger joints. She had actually outlasted most of the other employees, so making friends had never been an option.

  “I think I’m better off appreciating the job I have instead of risking it all if it turns out I’m not good enough,” Ky said quietly.

  The last piece of the puzzle fell into place, completing the picture. Of course! Keeping her job, as lousy as it paid, was the safe bet, and Ky hated gambling. Her father had gambled on being able to pull off his clever embezzlement scheme, and he had lost it all. Ky had lost it all—her father and later her mother, her classmates’ respect, the house she’d grown up in. No wonder she wasn’t willing to risk losing anything else and would rather settle for what she had.