Stressed Spelled Backwards

by Ivanova, Svetlana

  This morning, I pretended to be asleep, but I had on eye on Karmen Kaverina. She rose furtively from her bed and tiptoed to the bathroom.

  "Occupied!" came Elise's voice.

  "What? Hurry up, Princess Peach!" Karmen yelled.

  "Go away!"

  "Girls! Shhh...You'll wake up the whole building." I hissed at them in a low voice.

  Splashing, yelling, banging on the door finally ended. Then they switched. Elise began to dress, and Karmen followed suit. They silently looked daggers at each other. At last, Elise broke the ice.

  "Where are you off to? You don't have a job anymore," she said.

  "Wouldn't you like to know?" Karmen said with a smirk. Elise narrowed her eyes, thinking. And when Karmen walked towards the door, Elise sprinted out of the apartment before her.

  "Hey! Don't beat me to her!"

  I knew right then and there that the two girls were going to race towards Clarice's house.

  It was a Saturday. I went to open the deli but then I found Clarice sitting on the doorsteps. I was surprised. If Karmen and Elise were going to find the model at her house, they were obviously barking up the wrong building. Or whatever that meant.

  "Hey, what are you doing here?" I asked.

  "I'm waiting to have my breakfast?" she said and smiled. The smile made my morning a lot fresher and brighter than usual. So I let her inside with me.

  "You're not working these days?" I asked since I had noticed that she had been around a lot lately.

  "I decided to take a break from modeling," she said with a casual shrug.

  "You know how many girls in the world would kill to get your job right now?" I said.

  "Not you though," she said and smiled again. Her emerald eyes lingered on my face until I had to distract myself.

  "So what would you like to eat?" I said.

  "You choose for me," she replied. "I'm sure whatever you do will taste delicious."

  I felt my cheeks burn hot. I swear if she was flirting with me, I would die. And if she wasn't, I would still die.

  I immediately went to make her some toasts with omelet and baked tomatoes drizzled with olive oil. I figured that she would want a healthy start for the day.

  It was still early that there was just the two of us in the deli. She sat on the counter, looking at me when I came back with her breakfast.

  "So are you still working tomorrow?" she asked after I put the meal in front of her.

  "Yeah, why?" I said.

  "Would you teach me how to bake?" she said. I blinked.

  "Why?"

  "I just want to learn something new," she said casually. As far as I remembered Clarice Kingsley was a certified hopeless in the art of culinary. She couldn't even crack an egg. But a part of me wanted to give her a chance.

  "Well, I take a break after lunch time," I said.

  "Great! I'll come at two," she said.

  ~*~

  The good thing about Clarice was her enthusiasm. I didn't expect her to have the patience of a donkey, but at least she had to show some willingness.

  She came in the afternoon during my break, and we started the first lesson, I taught her how to make dough. I showed her how to knead and roll. She could follow that just fine.

  "There's flour on your face," she said and smeared my nose with her powdered finger. She laughed as I yelped, but then I couldn't help giggling along.

  "Pay attention, young lady," I said and then paused. "Oh god, I sound just like my mother."

  Clarice barked a laugh again.

  "You're too cute for your own good, Azra," she said. I tried not to let that melted my heart and made it as gooey as the chocolate sauce I was preparing.

  "So after we finish, we'll have to freeze the dough for a while," I said and divided the dough into desired portions, wrapped loosely in plastic wrap, place into a freezer-safe container. Clarice followed me as I took the container to Celia's walking-freezer.

  After we entered, the frigid air gave me goosebumps, but I figured that it took only a few minutes so I didn't put on the coats. I shelved the dough away and brushed my hands together.

  "We must let it rest for two to three hours," I said then wound the timer on an old fashion clock. "Alright, let's have some lemonade."

  But when I went to push the handle of the door, it didn't budge open. I tried again and again, but nothing.

  "Uh-oh," I said.

  "What's wrong?" Clarice said.

  "It appears to me that we just voluntarily locked ourselves in here," I said. "Don't be afraid. By law, every walking-freezer must have a safety release button."

  Clarice helped me find it, but when we pressed it, it didn't seem to work.

  "Oh no," I said, realizing that this wasn't the only thing in Celia's kitchen that needed fixing. I began to feel the panic bubbling in my stomach but tried to remain calm. Clarice didn't seem at all panicky. If anything, she was just curious about what sticky situation we had gotten ourselves into. Or freezing situation to be exact.

  "We didn't bring our phones, did we?" Clarice said. Clearly, our life-saving devices were on the counters of the kitchen while we were making dough.

  The temperature in here was somewhere between the North Pole and the South Pole. I had no idea. All I knew was we would freeze to death if we didn't find help soon enough. I looked around the place. The ceiling, walls, and door are four to six inches thick and made of some kind of insulating foam like urethane covered in sheets of galvanized steel, stainless steel or aluminum

  The floor was also covered in stainless steel. There were stainless steel shelves loaded with plastic bags filled with meat, poultry, fish and other frozen foodstuffs. A single vapor-proof fixture provides dim lighting. A row of thick plastic curtains hung in the doorway. Basically, we were trapped inside a tightly sealed, extremely cold, giant metal box.

  I looked at Clarice whose clothes were lesser than mine. I untied my apron and wrapped it around her.

  "What are you doing?" she said.

  "You need to preserve body heat," I said. "At least, it might help a little. I'll find something we can use to open the door, or we cry out for help. Someone might be in the deli."

  "You can't be heard from here," she said matter-of-factly. "Do you have anything made of metal?"

  "I have the apartment key, why?" I said and fished it out from my pocket.

  "I'll keep knocking on the door every few second while you look," she said, which was a very smart. I let her do the work while I went to look around for anything that might help.

  But I still didn't think I could count on fifty drumsticks and three wheels of cheese as our survival tools. It got colder by the minutes. I started rubbing my arms and legs.

  "Can you hear anyone outside?" I asked when I came back to Clarice. She turned around and flew into my arms.

  "It's cold," she said softly. "Hold me, Azra."

  I froze, not literally, but still. Her breathing was hot against my neck. To survive Celia's walk-in freezer, I realized we must have to stick together, literally. It would take at least another two hours for anyone to come into the deli. I prayed that Karmen and Elise would be home by then.

  But for now, all I was thinking about Clarice Kingsley and her strong arms wrapped around me. After a long silence, she looked at my face. Our eyes bore into each other. We all knew what would come next if only one of us leaned forward. I stared into those green pools, mesmerized by how deep and calming they were.

  "Are you scared?" I whispered.

  She shook her head, "If I wasn’t with you, I would be."

  Her hold on me didn't slacken. I rubbed my hands over her shoulders, pretending that we were just saving each other's heat. But then Clarice grabbed my face and mashed our lips together. My eyes widened.

  The coldness suddenly faded away. My heart jumped to my throat then fell back to my ankle. For a split second, I thought I might pass out. Then my body melted into her. Clarice's lips were soft marshmallows pressing against mine, and she tasted li
ke something you could devour all day and night. I felt the craving rose from my stomach. I had never felt such an intense hunger before.

  Her tongue brushed against my teeth. I could have opened my mouth and let Clarice claim whatever left of my sanity, but I put my hands on her shoulders and pulled away from her with a smacking sound. Clarice's mouth formed an O. She opened her eyes again, and they sparkled like bright jewelry.

  "Well, that's one way to preserve the heat," I said, feigning a laugh. Clarice looked away and stared down at her shoes awkwardly. I felt stupid for having said that. My mind still tried to wrap itself around what had just happened.

  Then we heard a faint sound outside the kitchen. The Jogging Grandma’s voice was calling my name.

  "Azra, can I have one of your chocolate fudge cakes, please?" she said.

  I quickly rushed to the door and banged it.

  "Help! We're stuck in here!"

  Clarice knocked the steel door with my key, making sharper noises that reached the elderly's hearing aid faster. And before we knew it, we were saved by our oldest tenant.

  Chapter fifteen

  Clarice's kiss haunted me all night. I had the same questions orbited around my head. Did it mean she liked me? And since when?

  So if she, indeed, liked me, then what? What about Karmen and Elise? Was she going to add my name to her long list of girlfriends?

  The thought sent a rush of anger through me like a hot wind from the Sahara desert. She couldn't just go around kissing and dating people as she pleased. Who does she think she is?

  Clarice didn't love me. She just wanted to play me like those two dummies I called my best friends. I was the smartest one who didn't fall right into her trap.

  But what if she genuinely felt something for me? I had to think of the other complicated things that would blow up in my face if one of my roomies found out.

  No, I couldn't let them know. What happened in the walk-in freezer stays in the walk-in freezer.

  Case closed.

  As the week progressed, I continued my own career as the new Celia. It had kept me pretty busy.

  On Monday morning, the man from the paper goods company just stared at me when I handed over the money for our napkin shipment.

  "You mean that's it?" he said with a raised bushy brow.

  I shrugged. "What else is there?"

  "Celia usually screams and cries and calls me a criminal, and tries to get out of paying the tax. Then she counts all the napkins and pulls out the ones that are creased. I used to hate stopping here."

  "Oh," I breathed, feeling sorry for the man. "Well, I don't have the energy to verbally abuse anyone."

  The meat man put it more succinctly. "I hope Celia never comes back."

  The popularity of my Azra's Secrets continued to grow, and I was now going through a dozen boxes of cake mix and ice cream per day. My regulars ordered it all the time, and I was getting patrons from different buildings. A few customers just came to try my new dessert, the flavor everyone could remember but no one could identify.

  This inspired me to develop a new variety of taste with new inventions and creative decoration. I loved every minute doing it. I became so Zen with the work that it made me forget about the kiss.

  The blonde model hadn't shown up again since the locked-in incident. I didn't know what I would say if we met. So I was grateful for that.

  I was making the famous Russian Napoleon cake. The recipe was a national dessert. It had to be made with up to twelve layers of dough filled with a creamy custard crème. Imagine folding your twelve shirts on top of each other. A bit time-consuming to make but, oh, the rewards of a soul-satisfying dessert was so worth it.

  The cake came out soft like clouds and moist and delicious-looking. I forgot something I needed for the final production and had to run up to our apartment to get. But when I got down again, I found the blonde model in the deli.

  Except she wasn't alone. Karmen and Elise were with her, but they weren't my normal best friends anymore. They were two furious Amazon warriors, squaring off each other, pointing spoons and forks as their choice of weapons.

  Clarice was running in circles around them, trying to make peace between the two girls. I had no idea why she didn't just pacify each one with a Karate chop. I mean, she was secretly a UFC fighter after all.

  Not before I put my cake away from all dangers and tied my pink apron on securely that I jumped in to separate them.

  "Stop! Stop!" I said. "You'll put someone's eye out!"

  Another one of my mother's special speech around the house. Suddenly, both spoons and forks were aimed at me.

  "Whose side are you on?" Elise and Karmen chorused.

  Clarice saved the day by putting on her firm expression and scowled at them.

  "Put those down, or I'll never hang out with either of you again as long as I live!"

  They dropped the utensil to the table. She sent them both to clean up the deli on the opposite sides.

  "So what with the bloodbath earlier?" I asked.

  "They came to my house to hang out, and I told them we should just all hang out together," she said, "but they didn't want to and asked me to choose one among the two."

  "And don't you think that's a pretty sensible thing to do?" I said.

  Clarice sort of looked at me. There was a special glint in her eyes, but before she could speak a word, the kitchen phone rang. I knew without a doubt it was from Celia and went to pick it up.

  "Are you still alive?" the landlady said. "Why don't you just drive a knife through my heart and twist it, Miss. Kononovich? I've been calling a whole day yesterday and the day after yesterday too! Did you burn down my deli already?"

  "No! It's still intact," I said. "I was just busy."

  "The deli had been busy? Well, that's a pleasant surprise to hear," she said.

  "Don't underestimate me, Ms. Celia," I said. "When you come back, you might be on your way to a Michelin star, and you'll be thanking me."

  "Ha! I don't think I should hold my breath for that, and you still have to pay the rent," she said and then hung up.

  Great motivational speaker, our landlady.

  Combining my work in the deli and my dessert sale along with the non-existent salary from Karmen, we could cover only half the payment. I was hoping that Elise would get another gig involving a unicorn again, so we could earn big bucks like the other night.

  If I asked for my parent to front us the money, they would look at it as an excuse to drag me home. No, I wouldn't let that happen.

  I had to step up my pastry game.

  I watched Clarice went to boss my two volatile friends around. She cheered them on and told them, they were doing a wonderful job. I glared at the back of the blonde's head. This was why my friends were at each other's throat every day. Clarice was like the Circe in Greek myth who turned young men into pigs, except she used her charms on young stupid Russian girls.

  I set out to work, stabbing and stuffing. Then I heard an ear-piercing sound of glass broken to a million pieces, it would have sent Celia to the hospital with a stroke if she wasn't already in the hospital.

  "What is that?" I cried from the kitchen.

  "Karmen broke Celia's best crystal glass," Elise said. "Azra, you should report it to her."

  "Oh geez, if I did that, the poor woman would come rushing in with all her traction and strangle us one at a time!" I yelled. "Clean up all the evidence!"

  But I bet Celia would still notice every missing piece when she got back.

  And after the broken glass came the argument between the two Amazonians again.

  "Stop blaming me, Peach!" roared Karmen. "Why'd you have to make me look like an idiot all the times?"

  "I just said that the way you clean the tiny shards off the floor isn't very creative," Elise said expertly. "You should use soft bread to pick them up. It's easy and safe."

  "Sorry I didn't graduate from Life-Hack University," Karmen said. "If you're so good at everything, then you pick it!
"

  "Why? Nothing I touched has been broken yet," came Elise's response. Then the two began to raise their weapons at each other again.

  And — perfect timing — my mother called.

  "Azra, what's that noise?" she said. "It sounds like an argument!"

  "Uh...no, Mom. We're watching a war movie on TV."

  "How are Karmen and Elise?"

  "Totally fine," I said, stepping in between them again. "They both send their regards."

  "Hi, Mrs. Kononovich," they called into the phone and resumed their bickering.

  "So, are you going someplace fun today?" Mom asked.

  "Oh sure, I've been to a very fun place," I said. A fun place with all Celia's cooking appliances and crazy girls.

  "That's lovely, dear. Your father wants to say hello."

  My dad came on. "Hi, sweetpie! Flat broke yet, ha ha?"

  "No way, Dad," I said. At least, not till the first of the month.

  "I ran into Demitri Novikov at the bowling alley last night with Boris Kaverin, and we talked about how proud we are of our darling girls. Look at you, making it in America! We had our doubts, but you're sure proving us wrong. Keep it up, honey!"

  Karmen and Elise's fathers were best friends, but they didn't know their daughters were trying to kill each other in front of me.

  "Okay, Dad, thanks!" I hang up and groaned.

  This was the worst day ever.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I had only a week to gather up the cash before the end of the month, or I could guarantee that the three of us would be homeless for real. I was hoping for Elise's modeling money to save the day, but she came at four in the morning and was greeted by two very light sleepers. One was ready to start another round of bickering while the other just waited to prevent it.

  Elise was carrying a big box of the Orion Sky Quest Classic Telescope. It looked expensive. It looked like the April rent. I was too frazzled for tact.