Chapter One: Constant Surprises

A mound under a disheveled bedspread remained still as the first rays of dawn brushed against drawn curtains. Motes of dust held steady in the air as the sound of a gentle flute danced around them. Time passed as clarinets, bassoons and an oboe took turns tapping in from the lit-up phone on a dark, wooden desk. 

Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.

The medley steadily expanded with a trumpet, a saxophone, and horns, gently vibrating in an attempt to awaken the deep slumber of a woman determined to remain unconscious for as long as possible. The soft approach of the first two alarms knew this pas de deux as well as they knew its owner. Minutes rolled by as the music continued to grow, weary from too many years of doing this shit.

BUH BUHHHHH. BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUHBUHBUHHHH.

An explosion of sound erupted from the tiny speakers, the phone skittering across the nightstand like a frenzied conductor. In a burst, the duvet flew off the harried woman, who threw herself at her facetious phone trying to scurry out of reach.

“That’s it, that boy is getting grapefruit for lunch today!”

Finally managing to shut off her alarms, Ren grumbled as she swung her legs off the mattress, digging her toes into the plush plum rug beneath her, groaning as she folded  herself over in half.

It was another long night at the office after days of overtime, and it could not be 6AM already, how was it always 6AM? Didn’t she just go to sleep? Ren dragged herself to the bathroom down the hall trying to finger comb through last night’s tangles hiding in her mid-length black hair.

Ren looked through an ajar bedroom door, the zombied fifteen year old Zain still conked out, letting the apartment remain quiet for a few extra minutes.

Ren flipped the bathroom light on, hissing at its overbright glare, and regarded her reflection in the mirror. Her deep brown almond eyes stared right back, the corner of her medium set, slightly plump lips quirking subtly as she rubbed the end of her round-tipped nose. Barely decipherable laugh lines tugged her cheeks as she droned through her morning routine.

Brush teeth. Contemplate the meaning of life. Take a shower. Go through the morning 7-step skincare ritual. 

She put on her dressing gown and steamed her dark navy blue suit, taking care to ease out any stubborn wrinkles before padding out of the bathroom to head into the kitchen to make breakfast and assemble their lunch boxes for the day. 

At 35, Ren Mizukoshi had her routine down pat. There was little room for deviation between her job, wrangling her rambunctious son, and embarrassing attempts at some semblance of a social life. At this point in her life, the naysayers who said there was no way she could maintain a career and co-parent with her ex-husband, were firmly relegated to the void.

Moving to Maple Grove—a quiet neighborhood in the otherwise bustling City—changed everything for Ren. Sure, some of the buildings were a little faded and the residents skewed towards the, ahem, enlightened age-range, but the community here fiercely loved and supported each other no matter what stressors they faced. And as younger people steadily moved in—craving a slowed-down pace of life and space to breathe—the neighborhood was far removed from any sense of imminent dilapidation. 

When she and baby Zain—okay, he was seven at the time—got off at the wrong station looking for Zain’s new elementary school, she instead found a red brick road leading her to The Square. Zain tugged Ren’s hand and dragged her down the road so he could gape at the gothic clock tower in the center of the neighborhood. As he pointed at it, alternating between awe and mild trepidation of ghosts and spirits only children could see, Ren pulled him out of his reverie, hunting for his school and found herself walking down Rosebud Boulevard, towards the building that would soon become their new home. 

There wasn’t much Ren looked for in an apartment when she sought out a place for her and Zain—two bedrooms, a medium-ish bathroom, close to public transit, a well-stocked grocery store, some nature if possible—but what brought her to 638 Rosebud Boulevard was the absolute beaut of a kitchen. She saw many places over the course of months, and while 638 Rosebud was a narrow, worker’s cottage inspired layout with smaller bedrooms and an even-smaller-but-newly-renovated bathroom, the unit was clearly centered around the kitchen.

An industrial Thermador gas range-top stood center in the oak wood floor kitchen, boasting six (six!) burners and a non-stick griddle set between expansive blue and gray Bahia granite countertops, which also surrounded the entire back wall. Ocean foam blue cabinets hung on the walls and below the counters against sun-hued sand walls, outlets in every spot one could ever want an outlet, with a deep, double industrial sink operated by a foot pedal, and a large window over it looking out to the building next door.

Only three short feet separated Ren’s kitchen window with the one in her neighbor’s kitchen.

Ren couldn’t believe the apartment was even on the market with that enchantress staring her right in the face. The Realtor showing her the property said that prospective renters loved the kitchen until they opened the louvered shutters and were instantly hit with walls of another home, which happened to belong to the owner and landlord of her two flat walk-up.

“‘Not enough sunlight and terrible view’ were the usual comments, and many don’t like the idea of not having privacy with such close proximity to the owner’s place right next door. They’re rarely around, but tenants want ample living space, a backyard, and more than just a kitchen,” the Realtor informed her, already resigned to move on to the next spot on the list.

Just a kitchen? Ren didn’t give a single fuck about a lack of backyard and she could work with smaller bedrooms since it was just the two of them. When she asked why the rent was so low, the Realtor sighed, saying the owner didn’t want to contribute to inequitable housing prices nor did they want to make it an investment property. Ren was floored by their ethos and signed the lease right then and there.

In the eight years that she and Zain lived at 638 Rosebud, she never once saw anyone live in the building next door. Early on Thursday mornings, she’d observe through her kitchen window the cleaning crew hired to clean the house. From her vantage point, the kitchen appeared to mirror hers, and when the lights were on, she could see further into an expansive, Mediterranean coastal style living area with pale walls, warmed with modern and eccentric art, and a corner with shelves packed full of records. 

Ren ground some coffee beans, filled the coffeemaker with water and glanced at the shared calendar hung on the cork board next to the fridge.

It’s Thursday already? Ren looked back to her neighbor’s window as she turned the coffeemaker on and was surprised to see no one had arrived to clean yet. Must have a day off or something, Ren thought to herself.

Shaking herself out of rumination station, Ren moved to the leftmost wall to preheat the matching double Thermador convection before walking to the fridge to take out the chilled chocolate chip cookie dough made the night before. Staggering dough balls across two parchment lined sheets, she nodded to herself in satisfaction before readying a simple breakfast of eggs, toast, sliced fruit, and avocado. Just as she finished plating the sliced avocado, the oven beeped, preheated and hungry for cookies.

Doing the polite thing, she placed the prepped sheets into the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes. She sat at the counter, too tired to pretend to set the table, and methodically devoured eggs-toast-avocado-coffee-more coffee-fruit as the scent of chocolate, sugar, and butter filled the air, which heralded the tell-tale thump and groan of dragged feet from down the hallway.

“Izzatcookiebreakfast?”

“Words, please.”

Muttering, Zain scratched his loose curls with his left hand while using his right hand to scratch his left armpit.

“Are we having cookies this morning or are we dining on a well balanced nutritional breakfast for the growing young man that I am?” before taking an exaggerated bow in front of the coffee maker. Ren rolled her eyes, but let out a huff of amusement at their daily Victorian court bit.

“My good sir, today we partake in French scrambled eggs with a touch of cream and chives, toasted wheat bread with butter and raspberry jam, sliced a-voh-cah-do, and seasonal fruit,” Ren replied, raising her coffee mug in greeting.

“Why fine madam—”

“What did I say about calling me madam—”

“I misspoke, my esteemed liege, I look forward to this most nutritious way of breaking fast so that I may fill my skull with more brain juice.”

“To your health.”

“Hear hear!”

Zain slumped into the seat next to her and inhaled the plate in under three minutes. 

Teenagers. 

As he sat and considered an extra helping of eggs and toast, the oven chimed it was done digesting and she placed the cookies on cooling racks. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was ten to seven.

“You better get moving or you’ll be late for school.”

Zain groaned, piling eggs on another slice of toast before eating half of it in a single bite.

“It should be illegal for teenagers to go to school before noon, let alone 8AM,” he said with his mouth full. “Do they seriously think we remember anything this early in the morning? Half the kids are passed out in their own drool while we’re supposed to solve equations and analyze Fitzgerald’s obsession with ambient light metaphors!”

“I don’t remember needing to solve equations in The Great Gatsby.”

“MOOOooom, you’re missing the point,” Zain lamented, shoveling the rest of his eggs-on-toast into his mouth. 

Ren ignored him as she loaded dishes into the dishwasher. She walked out of the kitchen, Zain ranting distantly about his delicate disposition and “why won’t anyone think of the children?,” re-entering the bathroom to brush her teeth for the second time, no coffee stains for me, bucko, quickly doing her makeup to make it look like she wasn’t wearing any, brushed her hair into a high ponytail, and buttoned up a light gray shirt adorned with twining ivy, tucked it into her pre-steamed pants, and shrugged on her blazer. 

Zain crashed into the bathroom right as she walked out of it, a miniature disaster likely waiting for her when she got home that evening, and set the semi-cooled cookies into a container for work. She pulled out last evening’s leftovers of herbed grilled chicken and lemon couscous into two boxes, adding a mixed green salad, tiny tubes of dressing, cheese wedges, rolls, and a hefty amount of grapefruit into Zain’s for their lunches.

“ZAIN it’s 7:15, we HAVE TO GO,” Ren bellowed from the kitchen. More crashing followed before Zain slid out of his room shrugging on his black jean jacket over a white hoodie, black jeans, backpack on one shoulder and skate bag on the other.

“Jeez mom, how do you manage to yell louder than grandma?” Zain said, exaggeratedly unclogging his ear as he walked to the front door to slide on black Converse high tops.

Ren brushed her ponytail off her shoulder and pulled on her square-toe heeled ankle boots.

“It’s part of our family ancestry, one day you too will inherit its power,” she replied, elbowing him in his side.

Grabbing her goldenrod trench coat hanging from the coat hooks on the wall, she and Zain left the apartment, walking down the brick steps to make their way to the train station.

Maple Grove was quiet in the mornings. Walking down the boulevard, Ren took in the breeze brushing the leaves of its namesake’s trees hanging over the sidewalks. Walk-ups lined the brick-laid street, the homes keeping to the architectural history of Maple Grove. Houses were grouped closely together, and many of the building renovations over the years brought small backyards and carefully placed view-blocking foliage.

An alderman passed a resolution a couple of decades before Ren and Zain’s arrival, prohibiting corporate ownership from demolishing homes just to erect ugly, unstable structures charging exorbitant rent. The measure also ensured that anyone renovating the facades of their homes were able to make necessary repairs, but weren’t allowed to upend any of the historical structures and elements of the buildings. It kept the neighborhood from becoming completely gentrified, so residents instead altered the interiors, a few going as far as turning their multi-unit buildings into massive single residence homes.

Ren’s upstairs neighbor, Jean, was a gentleman in his early 50s who had lived there for nearly twenty years. He owned an apothecary in town, which Zain insisted was full of witchy provisions like potions (skincare products), herbs to call forth the dead (incense and candles), tinctures (teas), and beguiling oils (perfume). 

Their landlord ostensibly lived in the two-flat that Ren saw through her kitchen window, but no one rented the unit above it. According to Jean, the upstairs was a guest house with its own separate entrance, but could also be accessed from inside the downstairs unit. An outdoor staircase along the back of the building snaked its way past the second floor and nearly to the rooftop.

Two buildings existing in harmony with one another. Poetry or some shit.

Turning into The Square, Ren waved to the shop owners pulling open their shutters to ready themselves for the day. The fishmonger set out ice and his daily catch as the scent of fresh baguettes and croissants floated from the bakery. The Square also boasted a colorful fruit stand across from an equally vivacious vegetable stand, a vintage store whose owners were always tweaking their mannequins, furniture, lighting and signs with their latest acquisitions to entice wanderers. Ren’s favorite shop, the minimalistic yet stunning stationery shop full of beautiful objects, had yet to open as its owner was painting an ethereal desert sunrise in the corner.

The shop owners of The Square were overseen by 74 year-old Ethel, who owned the convenience store which sold almost anything one could need, but she mainly dealt in gossip along with her motley crew.

Ethel, Tom, Chuck, and Bernice were the unofficial elders of Maple Grove, who somehow saw and heard everything despite their inability to see or hear all that well. Nothing escaped their notice and they held court daily sitting in their usual half circle outside of Ethyl’s Metals, which was confusing given that it was a general store and not an armory. When Ren first moved into the neighborhood, she asked Ethel if the name of the store meant she descended from a family of blacksmiths.

Ethel stared at Ren with her ever-present cigarette in hand, unblinking for an hour, or maybe it was thirty seconds, Ren couldn’t tell. Ethel must’ve approved whatever she saw in Ren’s soul and replied, “I’m metal, obviously,” as she sucked her cigarette down to the filter.

Obviously.

As Zain and Ren passed the shop, the four were in more of a buzz than usual.

“I know what I saw! There was a white van there last night!”

“Tom, you can’t see shit out of those cataracts, it was probably a horse,” Bernice sighed out for what must’ve been the dozenth time. Ethel pulled out a fresh pack of cigarettes, trying to catch the lighter on the film.

“Dammit, Bernie, what would a horse be doing in the middle of the street at night?,” Tom yelled in reply.

“Horse? You rode a horse? I wish I could still ride one. They’re such majestic creatures,” Chuck wistfully supplied, waving to Zain and trying to hand him a piece of candy. Zain took the candy, popped it in his mouth and gave Chuck a fist bump, much to his delight.

“Chuck, you have to charge your hearing aids every night, not just when you feel like it,” Bernice replied.

Ethel finally managed to light her cigarette and took an enormous drag before billowing out the smoke to her left. “He’s right,” she said, finally deciding to join the conversation. “I saw it too. That long, unoccupied house had a van pull up in the night. I think the owner is finally back.”

“SEE!” Tom shouted in vindication. Bernice shook her head, turned to Ren and beckoned her over.

“Honey, this involves you.”

“I don’t see how,” Ren said, surprised to suddenly be included in this argument, or is it a resolution now?, taking a step closer.

“The building next door! Your landlord? They’re back,” Tom said, in his best approximation of an outdoor voice. Bernice nodded, pivoting to agree after her bickering session with Tom, Ethel taking another draw of her cigarette while Chuck asked Zain to help him with his phone.

“It’s been … what? Ten years since they left? Haven’t seen ‘em around in forever. Never thought they would come back, just assumed after rumors of an apocalyptic family blow-up that they were all gone for good, parked in Europe full-time or whatever. Seems like things are changing around here. Shocked it’s not snowing right now.”

Bernice nodded solemnly, and Ethel turned to address Ren. “Have you seen any movement?”

Ren looked over. She’d heard similar rumors of her mysterious landlord's empty house next door, but any time she had even the slightest issue with any part of her unit, she corresponded with a third party manager who always fixed things quickly, efficiently, and oftentimes upgraded appliances, window treatments, faucets, anything she even mentioned in passing that was awry. She even got to change any wall color she wanted, making the apartment distinctively hers.

“I haven’t noticed anything. As of this morning, the furniture is still covered and there hasn’t been anyone living inside from what I can tell. Still lights off,” Ren replied.

Ethel shrugged and Tom huffed loudly before coughing on Ethel’s cigarette smoke. Bernice slapped him on the back, and Chuck clapped in excitement once Zain taught him how to open his camera app. Ren shook her head and glanced over to the giant clock looming over The Square’s center. The second hand moved to 7:30.

Shit. Train was due in five minutes.

Ren waved to the foursome and Zain hurried along beside her to the station, the two of them rushing down the stairs, moving to take their places upon opposite platforms; one, towards downtown where Ren’s office was and the other line which took Zain to school. Before he could jump through the doors, Ren shoved his lunch box in hand as she waved him goodbye. He saluted, opening the box to check the contents before groaning and yelling as the doors were closing.

“GRAPEFRUIT?! It was an inspired alarm choice! YOU SAID last night you felt like you were losing your mind!”^^

Ren smirked through the window, pulling a face before stepping onto her train, watching Zain mournfully grab the handrail as his window whizzed past her.

“Oh my fucking god, you didn’t!”

Ren had barely stepped off the elevator onto the S&S Design floor before Aya barreled into her, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. Waggling her eyebrows, Ren opened the box of cookies, waving it slowly in front of Aya’s face, the faint aroma of freshly baked cookies wafting in the air. Aya collapsed to her knees, arms open to the heavens like Andy Dufresne.

“You, my most beautiful, wonderful, delicious cooker friend, are my one true love and savior.” Ren smiled, handing her the container. Aya pulled herself up and used her right hand to dust off her knees, the left one already holding a cookie. She took a huge bite and moaned.

Loudly.

“Stop sexually harassing the food,” Eric said as he walked over to them. He grabbed his own cookie from the container before Aya had time to snap the box shut, ignored her glaring and grumbling and grinned at Ren. 

“Hey, Ren, you hear the big news?”

Ren made an inquisitive noise gesturing to her office while the three walked through the Y2K-era neon orange office floor. Aya and Eric followed her inside, Aya already on her second cookie.

“Did you change this? It tastes nuttier but I’m not getting any of that nut crunch,” Aya asked as Eric hummed in agreement.

“Oh, yeah, I tweaked the recipe again and added tahini. You like?” Ren asked, rummaging through her bag as she looked for her notes for the weekly Senior Designer meeting. Aya gave a chocolately thumbs up while Eric walked over to boil water in the electric kettle and pull mugs out that Ren kept in her office for snacks and spilling tea.

When Ren first came to the famous S&S Design, she was fresh out of college looking to make her name in the world of interior design with big determined eyes and even bigger ideas. The company owner, Simon Simmons, was a veteran in the industry who boasted a prestigous client list, ostentatious glasses, and an ego to match the size of his grandiose office. A young Ren tried to set herself apart from the other hopefuls, worked 15 hour days, answered calls at any and every hour, and even worked through her rare days off. It was a full year of traversing the Inferno, and after pulling a third all-nighter in a single week trying to correct Zain’s regressive sleep patterns, Ren could barely hold her head up in a meeting.

And in her exhausted stupor, she forgot the deck for a client Simon had tried to bring in for years.

Simon exploded. She sat and took his tirade without being able to get a word in edgewise, tears threatening to fall. This is it, Ren thought, I’m toast. Burnt toast. Burnt toast crumbs.

Just then, a knock on the door sounded, and Aya Herman, an employee from the branding division walked in, placed the deck on Simon’s desk, and bodily blocked Simon’s red, fuming face out of Ren’s view. With a contrite smile and calm voice, Aya lied through her teeth saying the branding department wanted to change the paper it was printed on because the client was fond of bespoke stationery. Simon, placated with Aya’s effusive apologies and flattery, said it was fine and waved her off. He said nothing to Ren, but she couldn’t even register him as she looked to Aya who turned around, winked, and mouthed it's gonna be okay.

Harmonic harps twined in the air, making Aya glow in Ren’s eyes. Or maybe that was the sleep deprivation mixing with the suffused light from the giant arc lamp in the corner of Simon’s office hanging over his desk, but in that moment, Aya was her fairy godmother. The next day, Ren brought thank-you caramel walnut brownies, Aya raised a single eyebrow, took one bite and dropped to the ground moaning, which got the both of them sent to HR for disrupting the workplace with sexually explicit noises.

They were bonded forevermore.

After spending eleven years toiling their way up the firm’s ladder, Aya became a Senior Branding Manager and Ren—who Simon had to grudgingly offer the promotion after she relentlessly pursued it in every annual review with the results to match—became a Senior Designer. They were the youngest in the firm’s history to attain the positions, and a few years after brownie-gate, Eric Fortescue, seven years Ren’s junior, joined them as a Senior Relations Officer. He managed to sidle his way into their cohort so smoothly they forgot he wasn’t there from the jump, and thus S&S Design’s most formidable team was born. Often given the most difficult of assignments (read: clients no other team wanted), they had a reputation of being able to pull off the impossible, bringing in new business and maintaining relationships with their clientele to exacting standards.

Aya hummed as she finished her second cookie, wiping her fingers off on the napkin Eric handed her with a freshly steeped mug of green tea, and as he placed Ren’s Not Blood mug on her desk, he finally shared The Big News.

“Word on the street is that Ahlgren is building new, high concept modern cabins and is looking for an interior design firm to collaborate with,” he said, blowing gently on his matching Okay, yeah, it’s blood mug as he perched on her desk.

Ren, intending to push him off the desk, instead took a giant gulp of the still hot tea, scalding her tongue in her haste.

Hugo Ahlgren was an architect who came into prominence in the late 90s with his work in Sweden building the Naturhaus. The Naturhaus, or Nature House, was a series of stunning cabins, each surrounded by a glass greenhouse, that created tranquil Mediterranean climates even in the bleakest of winters. They were completely self-sustainable and, most importantly, affordable to more than just the one percent. It was a revelation in the architecture world, not because of its design or creation which had already existed, but in its execution. He built homes to not simply be Eco-friendly and affordable to middle-class homeowners, but actually helped reinvigorate communities beset by increasingly harsher repercussions due to climate change. His designs not only respected his clients needs and the environment the homes were built on, but he also made sure to work with local contractors and artisans as often as possible.

He was a certified badass, and studying Ahlgren’s work inspired Ren to such a degree that she found her passion for interior design, dreaming of collaborating with him one day.

“Do you mean he’s bringing the Naturhaus across the Atlantic?” Aya asked.

Eric grinned.

“He’s bringing a brand new version of cabins, ones that are built right in the forest, mountains, wherever the plot may be. They’re still completely self-sustainable, which he tested around more remote areas in Europe, and he’s decided to bring it here.”

Ren set her mug down calmly, looked up at Eric and with the utmost restraint responded with:

“Are you for real? Are you for fucking real?!”

Hugo Ahlgren was coming. Here. He was coming here and he was looking for a designer. 

Here.

Eric laughed at the wide-eyed excitement on Ren’s face, both of them snapping out of it when Aya clapped her hands once loudly, focusing their attention on her.

“It is of the utmost import that we hold a strategy session, and you know what day it is, which means…”

The three of them looked at each other, Cheshire grins blooming across their faces and in unison exclaimed:

“It’s the best day of the week!”

It was after 7PM by the time Ren was able to kick off her shoes and slide into sweats and a loose knit sweater. She, Eric, and Aya hit up happy hour at their go-to spot: A wine bar called The Shoppe, which served the best fried chicken in the entire damn city and was lovingly kept secret by locals refusing to allow hordes of influencers from infesting their haunt. Their best deal came on Thursdays, when all food and beverage was half-off, which Ren, Eric, and Aya made regular use of and dubbed affectionately Chicken Nugget & Wine Thursdays.

On this most auspicious thunder day, they spent hours contemplating which firm would be tapped for interior design. While S&S Design could be a contender, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the list of potentials was at least yard long. Firms across the country would vie for a chance to work with Ahlgren, and S&S Design was firmly in that mix. Aya, growing more tipsy by the minute even as Eric topped up their  rounds of nuggets and salad, declared no one was better suited than them because of their powerful hands and finger design dexterity—“phrasing, Aya, also what does that even mean?”—which made Ren descend into giggle fits as Aya drew sketches of rooms heavily featuring garden gnomes.

Eric wisely got the bill soon after and took Aya and her beloved gnome sketches home in a cab as Ren, pleasantly buzzed herself, made her way back to the train station. She grabbed a seat and gazed out the window as daydreams of sunlit wooden floors, glass walls, and a forest nestled cabin filled her mind. 

An expansive driftwood base coffee table overlaid with glass in the center of the living space, deep lounge chairs with soft, linen upholstered cushions and a thick rug. An offset fireplace with a sleek, black chimney stretching through to the sky high ceiling with a tumbling pile of wood nearby. A winding staircase that followed the lines of the curved, floor to ceiling windows, making its way to the upper floor living space. She sighed, imagining the foliage she would bring inside to harmonize with the panoramic view, sculptures and vessels she could commission from her ex-husband and thought of her name alongside Ahlgren’s.

As if she would even be chosen, let alone have her name on a list of potential collaborators Simon drew up. He only gave her challenging clients but rarely the ones she actively pursued. 

But that was the beauty of daydreams. They last for as long as it takes for reality to wash over one again, or once the same train one takes every day to go to the same places to see the same people and live the same unchanging life reaches the station. 

It was a life, at least.

Still peckish but running on fumes from the week, Ren ordered her and Zain’s mainstay Thai staples—Panang curry, chicken Pad Kra Pao, papaya salad, and curry fried rice—which Zain promptly Kirby-inhaled after blasting in the door from his evening at the skatepark. She sat at the counter, picking through salad and curry, and once Zain grabbed a second, more reasonable human sized portion of fried rice to eat while doing his homework for the night, she pulled out her laptop.

Between bites, Ren opened to a draft of her latest blog post she started over the weekend about the tahini chocolate chip cookies she made for Aya.

Ren’s Fare was her baby, maybe even her favorite child after Zain rolled his eyes at her “totally corny mom name for a blog, what are you, 50? You don’t even go to renaissance faires, you’re lying to THE WORLD.”

Fucking teenagers.

She sporadically updated Ren’s Fare with recipes she tinkered with after spending too long digitally exploring far flung regions: Cerulean blue waters lapping on the snow white sand of the Seychelles; the dramatic, sharp drop of the Patagonian mountain range; densely packed spice houses of Delhi practically on top of one another; the stark harshness of barren deserts leading to ancient, architectural wonders. Okay, so her recipes were of simpler construction, but she always tried to incorporate something—an ingredient, the dish itself, a theme—that broke the unceasing sameness of her life.

And with the kitchen she had, well, it would be a disservice to humanity to not use it for culinary experiments, right?

Right.

Rolling her neck after editing the post and uploading a few photos, she published it and pinched the bridge of her nose. The exhaustion from the week caused her hands to shake, and the daydreams she lost herself in on the train threatened to cloud over. 

It’s fine. You’re fine.

Choosing to ignore her traitorous brain from being That Depressing, she flopped onto the couch in the family room, deciding to re-watch Taste the Nation for the umpteenth time and dozed off to Padma slurping noodles. Zain’s heavy-footed thumping leaked through his closed door, startling her awake. She let herself fall into a sleepy lull before ambling to the bathroom to begin her nightly 12-step skincare ritual.

As Ren used a jade roller to set her moisturizer, she went to turn the lights off in the hallway and stopped to glance into the kitchen, her gaze settled on the other building's still darkened window.

It was the same as it ever was on a Thursday night.

Ren blinked and flipped off the lights. She walked down the shadowed halls into her bedroom and shut the door.

“Good thing you had cleaners come in every week, otherwise this place would reek of neglect. Open the window to let some fresh air in, it’s stale as shit in here.”

Lights turned on in a beautiful, modern kitchen as a glamorous woman with long, inky black hair yelled across the room to a person standing at the kitchen sink, as she tinkered with a record player. Their back was turned to the window, a sleek, chin-length bob pushed out of the way by a wary hand. Grumbling, they opened the window, looking across the way to a kitchen they once knew intimately. The woman who shouted ripped the white fabric covering the furniture off as she moved around, waking the space up after years of slumber, and demanded a beer.

Half turning, they rolled their eyes and opened the window before moving out of its frame on their way to the refrigerator.

Music drifted through the night air.

Author's Notes

^^Zain woke Ren up with Ravel's "Bolero." He made sure to carefully time the climax of the song to terrify Ren into consciousness after sneaking into her room to change her alarms once she fell asleep. "Bolero," for those who may not know, was written by Ravel as he was suffering from mental decline.

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