Reboot Pt. 02

"But something," Rose said, "I know you."

And then she saw it in her sister's face. "You're falling in love with her, aren't you?" Rose asked. "You're falling in love, and you're terrified. And don't you lie to me, Jenna Ibsen. You can't bullshit your baby sister."

"I'm not falling in love with her," Jenna replied with a sad little smile. "I'm pretty sure I've already fallen, hard."

"So what's the problem?" Rose asked.

"What's the problem?" Jenna squeaked, her voice rising half an octave from its usual pitch. "The problem is that she's sweet, she's brilliant, she's gorgeous, and she has more money than I will ever make in my life. Plus, she was married to a doctor for like twenty years, and she has a grown daughter who's going to be a doctor herself. How the fuck can I ever be enough for somebody like that?"

"Breathe, sweetie," Rose said, and wrapped Jenna in a hug. "Just breathe. It's going to be okay. I know why you're afraid, but it's not going to blow up on you like it did with Tess."

"You don't know that!" Jenna cried, pulling away to look Rose in the face.

"Yes, I do," Rose replied, radiating calm into the storm of Jenna's panic. "I'm not saying it will work out - there are all kinds of ways it could go wrong - but I do know for certain it won't be like it was with you and Tess. You're not the same person you were then, and Sumita is not Tess."

Jenna took a deep breath, wiped the corner of her eye with her sleeve, and put her arm back around her sister. "Thank you, Rose," she said. "I don't really believe you, but it's nice to hear you say it anyway."

Rose gave Jenna another reassuring squeeze and then let her go.

Later that evening, Brendan emerged from his room and they watched something vaguely amusing on TV together. After Rose clicked off the remote, Jenna could not have said what it was they watched. She trudged up the stairs to her room, brushed her teeth, and climbed into bed. The last thing in her mind before she fell asleep was Sumita kneading chapatti dough.

~~~

Jenna woke at four forty the next morning, Monday. Running a catering company meant the day started very early. After a quick shower, she slipped into her standard outfit - blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a white button-down shirt, this one embroidered with the grinning crocodile Ballard Bites logo - and joined Rose in the kitchen for a very strong cup of coffee. By a quarter after five, they were stumbling out the door. Rose drove her car and Jenna drove the delivery van behind her, south across the Ballard Bridge over the ship canal, down Fifteenth Avenue, and up a minor maze of narrow back streets to their destination.

State law doesn't prohibit catering companies operating out of residential homes, but any actual cooking has to be done in a kitchen that meets commercial standards. Rose's kitchen was about fifteen thousand dollars short of those standards, so instead of using the big, bright, airy kitchen at the house, they rented a share of a commercial kitchen in lower Queen Anne, a dark, dingy space behind a restaurant supply store. It wasn't a nice place to work, but the price and location were right. They were one of only three current tenants, and the other two worked almost entirely on the weekends, so they had the place to themselves most of the time.

Jenna opened the door, flicked on the light switch, and immediately shaded her eyes with her hand. The overhead fluorescents were obscenely bright, lighting the whole place up like a hospital operating room. They kept it scrubbed antiseptically clean, as required by law, but there was little they could do to make it homey or pleasant. Jenna let out a snort of displeasure, as she did every morning, while she lugged in the day's supplies and got organized. Upgrading Rose's home kitchen was priority two, after a second delivery van, and Jenna couldn't wait until they'd saved enough.

The order of the day was sandwiches, lots of them. When Rose formalized the company and went full-time, box lunches, mostly sandwiches, were her first regular business. Rose differentiated herself by going for quality, using fresh, local, organic ingredients, but keeping prices in line with their up-market competitors. They had enough regular customers that their delivery schedule was full most weekdays, and they had to limit their delivery area to manage their workload. Jenna coming aboard roughly doubled their capacity, and they were able to fill it pretty regularly within her first few weeks. Margins were low, but with no employees and minimal overhead, the company provided Rose and then Jenna a reliable, steady income.

For the next three hours, Jenna and Rose assembled hundreds of sandwiches, wraps, and salads, and then packaged them into boxes with compostable utensils; handmade pasta salad, chips, or the like; and a piece of fruit or a freshly baked cookie.

When the lunch boxes were all ready to go, Jenna loaded up the van and Rose's car while Rose double-checked the order list and printed out the delivery schedule. Jenna covered the larger, more lucrative area, extending from the ship canal and Lake Union south through downtown and into Pioneer Square. Rose took the northern areas, from Ballard through the University district and up into Ravenna.

Jenna heard Rose locking up behind her, walked over to give her a brief hug, and then climbed into the van and got moving. Her first delivery was scheduled for nine, and the schedule had her going until noon. There was plenty of padding, just in case, but things could still go wrong. Every extra minute helped.

Jenna made it through most her delivery run on mental autopilot. Things perked up occasionally, like when Boyd, the androgynous receptionist at a South Lake Union tech startup, flirted with her, or when an overzealous security guard at a downtown high-rise stopped her and insisted on calling up to the law firm where she was delivering two dozen lunch boxes, despite the fact that she'd made the same delivery without a problem three days the previous week.

By eleven thirty, she was done, and she didn't need to be back at the kitchen until a quarter to one. Her last stop was near the waterfront, so she took her lunch - a caprese sandwich and pasta salad, one of their more popular orders - down to pier sixty two and sat in the sun, watching the low, wispy clouds drifting across the horizon and the ferries crossing the Sound. After she finished, she still had nearly an hour to kill. Just enough time to go visit Meaghan.

Meaghan was Jenna's best friend, aside from Rose, and her first art critic. Meaghan was married to Sarah, and they both worked on the east side with Sumita, though Meaghan was home with a new baby at present. A phone call and a five minute drive later, Jenna's van was wedged into one of the guest parking spaces in the garage of Meaghan and Sarah's building, and Jenna was on her way up the elevator. The front door was cracked open when she got there, so she walked in and shut it behind her.

"Back here, in the baby's room," she heard Meaghan call after the front door shut.

Jenna followed Meaghan's voice down the hall and turned into the small bedroom that served as the baby's room, Sarah's office, library, and occasional guest room. As soon as she stepped through the doorway, she spun around and faced back into the hallway, her face burning.

Meaghan giggled. She was sitting back in her favorite chair, nursing the baby, and her shirt was hanging over the back of the chair. "Oh, come on, Jenna," she said, "it's not like you've never seen boobs before."

"I haven't seen yours," Jenna replied.

"Baby's gotta eat," Meaghan said. "Seriously, sweetie, it's fine. I'll cover up if it bothers you. Sit down for a bit so we can chat. She's almost finished nursing - it'll only be another few minutes."

Jenna turned around, still not looking directly at Meaghan, and sat down in the chair across from her. Meaghan had pulled a blanket over herself, covering her right breast. The left one, where baby Jennifer was nursing, was still exposed. Jenna still felt rather uncomfortable about it, but Meaghan just smiled at her, without a care in the world, and then looked down and cooed at her child.

"She really is cute," Jenna said, making an effort to act normal.

"Isn't she, though?" Meaghan replied, beaming, and then said to the baby, "You're such a little cutie. Yes you are."

"How was your cooking session with Sumita?" Meaghan asked when Jenna didn't pick up the conversation. "That was this weekend, right?"

"It was good," she replied, blushing and looking down at her knees.

"Good how?" Meaghan asked. "Good like 'I learned how to cook Indian food', or good like 'I kinda maybe like her'?"

"Both, I guess," Jenna replied. After a long pause, she opened her mouth to elaborate, but the baby saved her.

Little Jennifer had decided she'd had enough, and she wiggled and squirmed in Meaghan's arms. Meaghan held the baby to her chest, rocking her and patting her back. When she settled down, Meaghan stood up and handed her to Jenna, saying, "Hold her while I get a shirt on."

Jenna took the baby while Meaghan dressed herself and then handed her back. Jennifer wasn't very happy, but she didn't scream or cry while Jenna held her, and Jenna considered that a success. She wasn't good with babies.

A little more fussing and the baby was ready for a post-meal nap. Meaghan put her down, and then she dragged Jenna to the den. "I want to show you something," she said.

"I was supposed to be working my next Octavia book," Meaghan said, "but I wasn't feeling it, so I decided to do a painting. Something city-ish, since I've been cooped up around here so much lately."

She pulled a canvas out of a pile against the wall and set it on her easel. It was a street scene, done in Meaghan's usual quasi-impressionist style. Jenna frowned - it was not good. The technique was fine, but the scene itself was boring, and the colors were muted and dull. The whole thing felt limp, lifeless.

Jenna and Meaghan had always been brutally honest with each other about their art. It was one of the cornerstones of their friendship. Jenna swallowed hard and braced herself to give Meaghan her opinion. "It's ... not your best work," she said.

"I thought it was pretty good when I finished it last week," Meaghan said, pouting a little, and Jenna's heart sank. Meaghan really should have known better. But then, after a short pause while Jenna tried to think of a constructive way to tell Meaghan how she terribly wrong was, Meaghan's pout turned into a wide smile. Jenna smiled back, realizing she had been teased.

"Of course, I was very sleep-deprived at the time," Meaghan said. "When I saw it the next day, I realized it was crap."

Jenna breathed a sigh of relief.

"It got me thinking, though," Meaghan said. "I felt like there was something there, some kernel of truth hiding under all that muddy gray."

"Okay," Jenna replied. "I can maybe see that."

Meaghan reached into the pile for another canvas. It was the same scene, but the result was vastly different. The buildings, just big static blocks in the original, seemed alive, and they leaned slightly inward, giving the piece a menacing, claustrophobic feel. The colors were darker and angrier, with vibrant splotches for contrast. A slash of lurid red neon cut through the center of the painting, and upper-story windows oozed light in bright primary colors. The sky, a dull blue-gray in the original, was a swirling purple.

"Wow," Jenna said. "How the hell did you come up with that?"

"Even more sleep deprivation," Meaghan replied, only half-joking. "When your baby won't stop crying for what seems like two days, you see things from a new perspective."

"Was she okay?" Jenna asked. "That doesn't sound normal."

"She was fine," Meaghan replied. "Just had a bad time for a while. It sucked, but at least I got a painting out of it."

"It's really good," Jenna said. "I think it may be the best thing you've done yet."

"Thanks," Meaghan replied, smiling. "That means a lot, coming from you."

Jenna looked at her watch. "I should get going," she said. "Still on for dinner on Thursday?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Meaghan replied. She walked Jenna to the door, with a friendly hug on the way out. "I'm really glad you stopped by, sweetie. It can get lonely sometimes with Sarah at work all day."

Jenna hugged Meaghan a little tighter and let her go.

"I do hope it works out for you with Sumita," Meaghan said as Jenna opened the door to leave. "She's great, and you deserve to find someone who can make you happy."

Jenna froze for a moment. "Thanks," she said, hoping Meaghan hadn't noticed her hesitation. "I hope so too."

~~~

After lunch, Jenna drove back to the kitchen to pick up the goods for her second delivery run - afternoon cookie platters. Rose had baked the brownies the night before and the cookies that morning after her deliveries were done. Jenna headed back out while Rose cleaned up the kitchen. The afternoon run was shorter and easier - everybody's nice to you when you're bringing dessert. Margins were also better, and knowing that made the time go by faster.

She got home a little after three, played FIFA on the Xbox with Brendan for half an hour, and then went down to her improvised studio to work until dinner. Her latest piece was challenging, larger and more complex than anything she'd done before. She had finished the lush green forest background, and she was sketching variations on angry, vengeful tree spirits to refine her ideas before committing the four figures to the canvas. Like all her paintings, the style was abstract, using primitive shapes and colors to hint at form and mood rather than rendering them explicitly.

She put on the angry music playlist she'd been using for this piece, full of eighties punk, nineties grunge, and early hip-hop, and she dove into her sketch pad, but nothing was working for her. After skipping a dozen songs and throwing away as many partial sketches, she gave up and went back upstairs to hang out with Rose and Brendan.

Dinner was the rest of the leftover Indian food Jenna had made with Sumita over the weekend. It was Brendan's turn to cook, and he didn't mind one bit. Jenna had picked up a bag of Indian whole wheat flour on the way home, and she showed Rose and Brendan how to make chapattis to go with dinner.

She went back down to her studio after dinner, and she didn't even try to work on the forest piece. Instead, she found a Bollywood music channel on her phone and thought of Sumita. In her mind, she visualized each detail of her body, as she would a model for a painting.

Sumita's fingers and toes were painted a red so dark it was almost black. Her skin was dark and smooth, the color caramel just before it burns. Her legs were solid and strong, topped by wide, round hips and the silky black triangle of her bush. Jenna had to pause for a moment to catch her breath when she thought about that. Her belly was slightly rounded and her waist unreasonably narrow. Her tits were spectacular, large and round and wonderful, even with the sag and stretch marks that came with motherhood and age.

When she visualized Sumita's face, Jenna smiled to herself, and her objective artist's eye failed her. She could see every smile line around Sumita's eyes and mouth, every minor imperfection in her skin, but somehow they all combined into a timeless beauty, surrounded by a riotous cloud of dark brown curls, streaked here and there with a strand of gray.

Jenna picked up her sketchbook and started drawing, more by instinct than any conscious design. Two hours later, she had five decent rough sketches, each capturing a different aspect of Sumita. It would be a long time, if ever, before she felt ready to paint Sumita. The sketches were mostly about needing to get something out of herself and onto paper.

When she fell out of the flow of the sketches, she was suddenly exhausted. She grabbed her phone, stopped the music, and pushed the power button, but the display didn't go dark. Instead, Sumita's number popped up. Jenna's heart fluttered in her chest, and she tapped the answer button.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey to you," Sumita replied.

"It's good to hear your voice again," Jenna said. "How was your day? Work okay?"

"It was fine," Sumita said. "Nothing exciting. I finished up a big project last week, so this week it's back to clearing out the backlog of bugs. At least my stupid boss hates me a little less now that I'm doing something to make the numbers on his stupid charts better."

Jenna laughed. She had heard the whole story of Dave the Evil Lead Software Engineer from both Sarah and Sumita, and she could imagine him cackling with glee over declining bug counts. "As long as you like it, I guess," Jenna said. "My day wasn't any more exciting. I did stop by to see Meaghan, though, so that was good."

"Nice," Sumita replied. "I know she and Sarah really appreciate when you can do that. I remember going stark raving mad during my maternity leave a zillion years ago, so any kind of distraction is good."

Jenna smiled into the phone, even though she knew Sumita wouldn't see it.

"... especially from somebody like you," Sumita added, and Jenna blushed.

"Um, thanks," Jenna stammered, and then tried and failed to think of something else to say.

"When can I see you again?" Sumita asked, her voice suddenly warmer and lower.

Jenna had to take a breath. "Let me think," she said, trying to make her brain work. "How about dinner tomorrow?"

"Can't," Sumita replied. "I promised Gita I'd have dinner with her and some friends. I'm free the rest of the week, though."

"Ugh," Jenna said. "Rose and I have a really big job coming up in a couple of weeks, and we're busy preparing Wednesday and Thursday. I guess it'll have to be Friday."

"Friday it is, then," Sumita replied. "I can't wait."

"Me either," Jenna said, and she meant it far more than she was willing to admit.

"Sumita," she said, "thanks again for this weekend. I really did have a great time."

"Good," Sumita replied, "because I had a great time too, and I want to have more weekends with you."

For a long while, Jenna didn't say anything; she just held the phone to her ear, her heart thudding in her chest, and listened to Sumita breathe on the other end of the line. Finally, she said, "I would like that."

"See you Friday, Jenna," Sumita said.

"See you Friday, Sumita," Jenna replied, and hung up the phone.

Jenna went to bed soon after that. Sketching had worn her out, and she had another obscenely early morning. The scent of Sumita's hair filled her memory as she fell asleep.

~~~

Sumita didn't call again for the rest of the week, and Jenna didn't call her. There was never time during the day, and one or the other was always busy in the evenings. They did email and text back and forth, a "thinking of you" at lunchtime or a "can't wait to see you" before bed. Jenna even used a few emoji, something she had never done before.

Work kept her distracted, and she had plenty to do. In addition to the regular daily grind, they had a job coming up in a couple of weeks that could really make a difference for Ballard Bites. Rose had catered a few events in the past, mostly for close friends, but they were usually more work than she could handle, even with Jenna pitching in here and there to help. Now that Jenna was full-time, they could manage the load, and they wanted to go after new business. The work would be irregular and demanding, but the money would be much better, and it would be a lot more fun.

So when a wealthy Seattle power couple called to cater a Wednesday night dinner party for twelve, Rose immediately said yes. Her bid would only cover their costs, but that was fine. Success with this client could open up as much new business as they could possibly want.