Chapter Seven #2
“Hardest first. Can’t say I’m surprised.” She climbed onto a stool at the breakfast bar dividing the kitchen from the living room. “Feels like that’s your personality. Always doing things the hard way.”
Blake smiled. “That’s not me. I always like doing things the right way.”
“Sure. The right way, the hard way; seems like semantics to me.” She pulled out her phone when it dinged again.
Blake stirred the rice before returning to the cheese. “Have you been to this thing before? The food truck festival?”
“No, first time, but Cora went last year without me and said I’d like it.” Maggie sounded distracted since she was texting while she spoke. “I like food, so it’s not a big stretch.”
Blake dumped the cheese into a measuring cup. He was shy of a full cup, so back to grating. “Sounds fun. Maybe I’ll go. I bet Andrew would enjoy it.”
“Food trucks are an easy sell. Everybody can find something they like.” Maggie paused. “I do hate the crowds.”
Blake dumped the next pile of cheese into the measuring cup, where it mounded over the top and spilled onto the paper towel below.
Too much cheese was always the right amount.
“Crowds can be good, though. Like, if it’s large enough that you can feel anonymous, everybody ignores you, and it’s kind of the same thing as being alone.
” He liked to take the T to Faneuil Hall sometimes, sit outside Quincy Market surrounded by the press of tourists and shopkeepers and buskers; so many people that there might as well be none at all.
When he looked over at Maggie, she was eyeing him like he’d grown another head. “We’re gonna have to agree to disagree on that one.”
Blake smiled and stirred the rice again. It was ready for another serving of stock, and he ladled it in. “If you hate crowds, why do you live in the city?”
“I like being alone as much as the next person, I guess.” Maggie tapped her fingers on the bar.
“But only for a limited time. My folks used to take us camping, Cora and me, when we were little. You don’t get solitude when there’s four of you at a KOA campground, but I would take these hiking trails out into the woods and find a stump or something and sit for hours, listening to the forest. Then come back and my dad would be grilling burgers. ”
“KOA campground, huh? I thought your parents were rich.” He thought only solidly middle-class families like his were the KOA campground type.
Maggie gave a shrug. “They lived modestly. Said they liked to keep us humble. I think they were saving it all for retirement, but that never happened.” She stared off into the distance for a moment, then brought herself back to the present with a jolt.
“Anyway, yeah, alone time, then return to civilization and food. That level of solitude, that’s what I like. ”
“Solitude with a time limit,” Blake clarified.
“Right. Not solitude like I’m alone in the space station.”
“No, that’s a horror film.”
Maggie laughed. “Exactly. In the city, I can be with people when I want and be alone when I want.”
“Except when we’re both working from home.”
She tipped her head. “It’s not bad. Your energy is nice to be around. Not like other roommates I’ve had.”
“Hmm.” The rice bubbled under its layer of stock. He smoothed it out with the back of the wooden spoon. “Got any roommate war stories?”
Maggie snorted. “So many.” She looked off to the side while thinking. “There was my freshman roommate who snuck her boyfriend into the dorm every night so they could have sex, that was a real winner.”
“I had one of those.” Blake raised the wooden spoon. “Not fun.”
“If I’m going to listen to people have sex, I at least want them to be good at it.”
Blake focused his attention down into the pan. He wasn’t going to think about Maggie getting off listening to people have sex. “I know, right?” His voice sounded too loud in his ears. “Amateurs.”
She laughed again. “Then there was the time my two other roommates became a couple, then broke up, but neither of them wanted to move out, leading to a nightmare of passive-aggressive bullshit.” She drew lines on the bar with her finger, absent-mindedly tracing the grain of wood.
“It was all, ‘Maggie, would you please tell Johann to wash his dishes?’ And then Johann would be like, ‘Maggie, would you please tell Riley to go fuck herself?’”
“Yikes.” Blake stirred in another cup of stock.
“I know. I got out of there literally as soon as I could find an empty room. Which led to me living with a girl who had night terrors and didn’t know it. She’d wake up screaming but have no memory of it the next day.”
Blake started laughing. “That’s quite a streak.”
“That’s not even the worst of it! The last guy I roomed with started itemizing the rent. And then, at the end of the month, he handed me a bill, like a hotel bill, with all these surcharges.”
“What were the surcharges?”
She started ticking things off on her fingers. “Using an extra shelf in the fridge, failing to use all available natural light, showers longer than three minutes …”
“You’re kidding.”
“No joke, hand to god.” She raised her hand. “He even charged me for sitting on what he called ‘his’ living room furniture.”
Blake shook his head. “I wish I knew the bar was this low. I could have been acting way worse these last months.”
Maggie rested her chin on her hand. “No, you couldn’t. It’s not in you. You’re a kind guy.”
“Hey, don’t underestimate me. I could still be a serial killer.” He stirred the risotto again.
“I explicitly asked you about that and you said no, so it can’t be true.” Maggie flashed him another winning smile. “It’s not all bad. I put them anonymously into articles about red flags in roommates and made some money off it.”
“Always the entrepreneur.”
“Gotta be, in this day and age.” She gave a mock salute. “Respect the hustle. Everything’s content.”
Unfortunately, that’s what worried him. Better change the subject. “I’m surprised you don’t live with your sister.”
“Cora and I only get along because we don’t live together.
When we were younger, we could have killed each other.
” She paused, her expression softening. “We tried living together as adults after our parents died, but it wasn’t good for either of us.
I thought she needed me, but she needed space.
And I needed to give her space.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I still struggle with that.”
“It’s normal to want to take care of your siblings.” He added the last of the stock. “I’m sure she’s grateful.”
“Yeah, I know she is, even if she doesn’t say it.” Maggie eyed him. “What about you? Siblings?”
“There are three of us in total. I have two sisters: one older, one younger.” He gave the risotto another stir. A long stretch of silence followed. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to say. “We’re not close,” he finally added.
“I wanted a little brother. I used to ask my parents for one every Christmas.” Maggie smiled, expression wistful. “I guess it’s normal to want whatever you don’t have.”
“That’s the truth.” Blake watched the simmering rice.
He’d spent so much time wanting what he didn’t have.
Wanting a career he loved, wanting meaningful relationships, wanting a girlfriend who shared his passions.
He had the career and he had some close friendships, and that should be enough.
“I’m trying to learn to be content with my life as is. ”
“I think I’ll always be chasing something. Always restless.” Maggie got up, the stool scraping along the floor. She leaned past him to peer at the risotto, her chest pressed to his back. Maybe he was being foolish, ignoring whatever attraction sparked between them.
And maybe he would unwittingly end up featured in one of her articles. Everything’s content.
“You don’t seem restless to me,” he said, his voice quiet.
She stayed too close to him, and even without looking, he could feel the intensity of her gaze. “Give it some time. Eventually, I get back to wondering if this is all there is.”
Blake avoided eye contact by focusing on the risotto. “Are we talking about life after death here? Or midlife crisis stuff?”
“The day-to-day minutiae. Work, eat, sleep, repeat.”
“I try not to think about it.” He was successful about not thinking about it, most of the time.
Blake wasn’t much of a philosopher, even if you counted the ethics course he’d taken in college.
Plants were immediate, requiring air and water and food and sunlight, and humans weren’t much different if you got through all the other messiness.
He comforted himself with that idea when he got too much in the weeds about romantic relationships and love and how his life lacked both.
“It doesn’t really matter if life doesn’t mean anything.
Do what you want. Find simple joys. Et cetera. ”
Maggie took a small step back. “I guess that’s comforting.”
“Cheerful nihilism, Andrew calls it. Nothing means anything! It’s freeing.”
“I don’t know if I agree,” she began, a long pause at the end of her words like she was going to make a case for a different point, but he interrupted.
“You don’t have to.” Blake stirred most of the grated cheese into the rice and smiled placidly in her direction. He uncapped the bottle of white wine he’d used in the risotto, which only had a few mouthfuls left anyway, and swigged some straight from the bottle before offering it to her.
Maggie laughed. “I guess I don’t.” She took the bottle and finished it with a long gulp. “How about I set the table and get the rosé, and we don’t talk about the meaning of life?”
Blake took the pan off the heat. “Sounds perfect.”