Chapter 4
Victoria
Thankfully, Kevin and I never scheduled a time that I would be around to see the family or his girlfriend, so even though I was desperately curious about the latter, I avoided the whole subject of family long enough that Bridget and I managed to settle in a little bit together.
I started to get rather fond of Christmas over the next few days, keeping busy around the apartment, settling in with my things in places—I had a nice speaker system that I’d brought along, so I helped set it up, moving things around in her living room, and that was when I saw Bridget more scared than I’d ever seen her before.
“Bridget?” I said, calling her attention across the living room, where she was on her knees trying to run an extension cord behind the couch, and she looked up.
“What’s up?”
“Is this yours? It’s in the drawer I dumped all the components in, but I think it might have already been in there…” I held it up, the small device like an egg timer, and she looked like I’d shown her a murder weapon, all the color draining from her face.
“Oh—that is… mine,” she said, her voice ghostly, and she was on top of me in three milliseconds, plucking it out of my hand, shoving it into her pocket. “Oh, wow, I am so sorry. I thought I cleaned all my junk out of here. My bad.”
“It’s your home. You really don’t need to apologize. I just thought it was part of the system and couldn’t figure out where it slotted in…”
She cleared her throat hard. “Well, not in there. It’s a, um, it’s a… it’s a keepsake.”
“A keepsake? It didn’t look a lot like one.”
“It’s, er, well. It’s an… inside thing. An inside joke. I have weird friends. Oh, god, I’m really embarrassed. I’m gonna put this back. I will be… right back with you.”
Were her friends big on egg timers? I suppose it was on me for poking around in her living room cabinets… she had kept telling me to make myself at home.
But the speaker system got set up, and I made a point of staying out of her drawers over the following few days while we acclimated to each other’s schedules.
Hers wasn’t easy to figure out—I tried to stick to a nine-to-five, or more like a seven-to-seven, which was more of what I was used to, but she spent a lot of time in her room, and she seemed increasingly restless, usually coming out at weird hours.
I made a point of knocking on her door to invite her for dinner once I finished with my day of sending out job applications or prompting for freelance work, and she almost always did join me, but usually in a different mood.
I’d interrupted her exercise routine one day, when she came to the door flushed, breathless and sweaty, and she’d promised to join me after fifteen minutes and a shower.
Another time, I’d heard her making some kind of noises inside, like she was talking to somebody, and she panicked when I knocked and shouted through the door to tell me she was a little busy tonight, so that night, I had dinner with only myself and a few lingering curiosities that I tried to address when I caught her in the kitchen that night, tapping on the counter behind her.
She gasped, whirling back on me, and she went crimson.
“Hi—hello.”
“You look like I’ve caught you in the middle of a terrible crime,” I laughed. “When as best I can tell, you’re… getting chocolate?”
“Ch-chocolate. Yes, well, I really like… chocolate.” She laughed, a little too high-pitched, and she shifted from one foot to the other. I was starting to worry before she said, “Sometimes you just really need some chocolate, you know?”
“Ah.” She must have had some acute kind of menstrual pain, based on the way she was shifting from one foot to the other. “I’ve heard it said that you support hot chocolate and cookies on all days, so… don’t let me limit you.”
She swallowed, nodding, as she pulled the chocolate down from the cabinet and, holding the entire bar up to her mouth, nibbled on the corner like a hamster. I wasn’t one to judge.
“I apologize for interrupting you earlier,” I said. “Was that a work call?”
“Oh, um… s-sort of. Just a little chat with a few people who help keep me paid. Anyway, I have really really gotta get to the bathroom, um… I am so sorry.”
It wasn’t like I didn’t understand. I let her go, and the only thing I was surprised by was her taking the entire bar of chocolate to the bathroom with her, but… different people had to handle their periods in different ways.
But on most days, I was able to get dinner with her, whether that was cooking up a meal together or going out to some of the familiar locales. Money was tight for her at the moment, but I’d saved up enough—and meals were affordable enough here compared to Seattle—that I was happy to pay for them.
She was fun, easy to talk to, genuinely compassionate and always interested in what was happening in my life.
She zeroed in on what others had called workaholic tendencies, and she didn’t criticize me on them, just centered the conversations around my work, around my job applications, around my work projects, and all the things I actually knew how to talk about, and for someone who didn’t know how to open up to people, I found myself opening up effortlessly to Bridget.
The only problem was that she never really went into details on what she did.
No matter what angle I tried to ask her, she always brushed it off with some kind of I just make things on the internet comment, and it wasn’t even a full week before I found myself “clocking out” early on Friday and looking up Bridget instead.
Nothing listed on her LinkedIn. She’d stopped updating it since she left our old employer, and it didn’t have any clues about her independent work. Same for all the social media accounts in her name: business activity only, up until the moment she left her job, and then radio silence.
It was enough that I overstepped my boundaries a little.
It was only four o’clock, and she probably knew by now that I tended to stay at my desk until seven, so when I walked out of my room, I let myself pay a little more attention to her room than I normally would, and I slowed down while passing it when I heard her voice from inside.
Not like when she was on her call, but quieter, cleaner?
Like a rehearsed reading. I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, and I stood there torn in two, knowing I was supposed to move on, but…
curiosity killed the cat. If she’d just have told me what she did, I wouldn’t be this desperately curious.
I was making excuses for something I knew I shouldn’t have been doing.
I still did it. I pressed my ear up to the door, my hand over my other ear, listening for what she was saying, horrendously guilty the whole time but not enough to stop.
She sounded like she was reading something, almost like an audiobook.
I caught words, bits and pieces, but mostly the intonation felt like a book reading.
Some kind of… workplace drama? I caught the word coworker, and this she that seemed to be the narrator character sounded like she was having complicated feelings about them.
Was she an audiobook narrator? It would explain the acoustic treatments she had on her room, why she’d had it as a separate studio before. But why keep that a secret?
I jumped when my phone lit up in my hand, a call coming in, and I almost fumbled it, elbowing Bridget’s door in the process.
I flushed with the mortified realization of what exactly I’d just been doing as I stepped away from her door like it was radioactive, but she’d heard—she’d stopped talking. Dammit. What had even gotten into me?
I knocked on the door, playing it like it was on purpose. “Hey,” I called, hoping my voice came out normal and steady. “I’m finishing up early for today. Are you going to want to do dinner again tonight?”
“Oh, uh…” I heard shifting around, fabric moving. “Yeah, let’s do that. Um… in a bit. I could go for noodles.”
“Noodles sounds great. Take your time, I’ll be in the kitchen.” I left before she could respond, getting into the kitchen and looking at my phone as the last ring went through.
Mother. I always called her Mom to her face, but she was always Mother to me. Anything less felt… insufficient, for the person she was.
I wasn’t ready to answer it, but I answered it, opening the window and leaning out to breathe in the cold, dusky air as I said, “Hi, sorry, you got me in the middle of something, but I’m here.”
“Are you here?” she said, her voice cool but something almost amused underneath it. “I would be surprised to learn you’re not. Kevin says he saw you almost a week ago now, but you haven’t made any effort to get in touch with any of us?”
I shuddered involuntarily, but she didn’t sound… angry, necessarily. Just searching for answers. What exactly were the questions? There was always something more under the surface. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve just been trying to hit the ground running, and I’ve been focusing on work all this week.”
“Apparently still busy with work even while you’re between jobs. Admirable.”
“Well, you know what I mean. Applying for jobs. I got a freelance gig. Nothing big, but it’s… symbolic, I would say. I feel better now that I’m on the other side of that. And settling in.”
“Has Bridget been helpful?”
“Very. I’m glad I’ve landed here. I feel like now I can be ready to see you and Grandpa properly. Maybe this weekend?” I decided to preempt her, try to take her by surprise, and it seemed to work.
“Oh, well… of course, if you’re able to peel away from your work long enough.
I have an event tomorrow afternoon, and of course I’ll be at church Sunday morning, but you’re welcome to come by anytime outside of that.
Do you want to tell me when you’ll be here so I can be ready to see my daughter for the first time in a year and a half, or are you just going to appear in my window and scare a few years off me? ”
“Will Kevin and Sam be there for Sunday dinner?”
“Who is Sam?” she said, bewildered, and I froze. I’d assumed Kevin had already told her. But he had been coy about her, so… how new was this development, anyway?
“Pam,” I said, as much as it pained me. Pamela Bone was possibly the most annoying of the family friends, and the last one I wanted to insinuate I was invested in, but her name was convenient. “Will Pam be there? I, ah… I guess I don’t know if she still visits for dinners.”
“Pamela? I didn’t think you were invested in her presence.”
“She’s related to someone I used to work with…”
“Ah. I should have figured it was about work. Shall I invite her?”
I winced. “Probably it’s better to just have the family there. I’m too tired for much more than that. Will Kevin be there?”
“Yes, he will. Especially if you’re there. Is Bridget coming?”
I stopped altogether, staring at the road below the complex. That was a deeply strange question. Mother had never cared about my friends. Did she have a change of heart? Wanted to know all the people in my life?
Of course, she was probably just making fun of me for how much I’d been focusing on Bridget this past week instead of the family.
“Bridget won’t be coming,” I laughed. “Unless you want me to invite her.”
“May as well,” she said. “I understand she’s been hospitable to you, so it’s fair.”
Had… had Mother had a stroke? Or had I? Was I having a stroke right now? “Er… well, I suppose I could invite her.”
“Well, don’t make it sound like a chore.”
“Okay. I’ll… ask if she wants to come. I just don’t want to impose with too many people, is all.”
She sighed. “Do what you like, Victoria. I’ll see you on Sunday for dinner. It’ll be good to see you again. Whether Miss Bridget is there or not.”
I was still deeply confused when I hung up, and I was definitely not ready to face Bridget and decide whether to ask her if she wanted to see my family, so I pulled on my coat and scarf, and I went outside, taking my car and autopiloting to the store, grabbing everything for a hearty ramen soup, and autopilot was still running strong, because I checked the mail for our unit when I got back, even though I hadn’t really cleared mail policy for the household with Bridget.
Nothing for me. But there was a package addressed simply for peachykeen, nothing on the box marking what it might have been.
I felt nervous holding it, like I was seeing something I wasn’t supposed to see, so I slid it back, locked the mailbox back, and I took the elevator up to our floor, finding Bridget fresh from a shower, her hair damp and a big smile my way.
“You went and got ingredients for dinner?” she said, her hands on her hips. “I swear, if you’re not buying me dinner, you’re buying me deconstructed dinner. What do I have to do to get you to stop giving me gifts?”
“You’ll have to restrain me,” I said, taking my shoes off at the door. “Have you considered tying me to a chair?”
She blinked, staring at me, her lips parted, before she huffed, looking away. “I feel like you’d get out of it somehow anyway.”
“I have been told I’m very persistent.” I set the groceries on the counter, and I busied myself with emptying it, uncharacteristically embarrassed as I asked, “This is random, but I don’t suppose you want to come to my family’s Sunday dinner?
I’ve apparently mentioned you enough that Mother told me I could invite you. ”
“Of course I’ll come,” she said, and I stopped, giving her an odd look. She frowned. “I mean, if that’s okay.”
“You don’t need to…” I set down the noodles I was holding. “Is this because you want to help keep my family from hurting me, or something?”
She folded her arms. “If you want to get me to stop doing things like that, you’ll have to tie me to a chair.”
I laughed. I’d been laughing a lot since moving in here…
I don’t think I really realized how lonely I’d been, living in that one-bed apartment in Fremont where the only thing I did was commute to work.
“Well, maybe later, because it would probably help for you to come along. Thank you… I really appreciate it. My family can be overbearing around the holidays.”
“Uh-huh, yeah… tying me to a chair can wait for later,” she said, busying herself with a pot of water on the stove. “I’ll be on my best behavior. And I won’t attack your family this time.”
I laughed again, and I squeezed her arm. I wasn’t sure what had compelled me to do it, but I’d moved without thinking, and the soft, surprised look she gave me that turned into a small, flushed smile felt like it said I’d done the right thing. “Unless they deserve it.”
“Oh, if they deserve it, they’d better watch out. I’ll go absolutely feral on them.”