2022-07-20 - Breakfast, Bread and Book

"I halfway miss the Doors," Della says over breakfast, over bacon. Her clothes from Alhambra have long ago been washed (carefully), hung up, dried, been peeked at less and less regularly when she goes through her wardrobe (not to be confused with the wardrobe in the spare room). The leftovers from the barbecue, even, were eaten a week or more ago.

"Do we need more parsley?" Since she's finalizing the list.

“I have no idea,” says Jules, who is still getting used to this cooking with fresh herbs thing. “I always thought it was a garnish you leave on the side of your plate.”

She’s munched her way through two strips of bacon and now reaches for a third. While she’s at it, Jules considers reaching for her phone, face-up on the table by her non-greasy hand, and then puts that hand back in her lap.

“Doors were kind of fun,” she agrees. “Except maybe not Pompeii. Where would you go?”

"Leave the curly, eat the flat," Della says, then pauses. "There's probably some in the backyard already, isn't there. I should check."

"Yes, no, not Pompeii. No, no bacon for you," this last for the cat who's sitting in Una's seat, even if he does have those big round eyes. "If we could choose? I don't know. That's harder. I could come up with something. What about you? Other than Auckland, of course."

Della gets a look for that last remark, an I am not amused look with arched eyebrows. “Maybe Africa,” Jules replies. Surreptitiously, she wiggles her fingers under the table. Come and lick the bacon fat off them, little cat. “Go on a safari. But you’re right—part of the fun was not knowing where you were going to end up.”

Of course Jules thinks Doors were fun. Of course.

Big. Round. Eyes.

Hephaestus jumps down, but even when he's mid-leap, there's another rough tongue going after Jules' fingers. (Athena's, by process of elimination.)

(Hopefully.)

"What, is it 'Suckland' today?" inquires Della with an arch of her brow, just one. Though she allows, "Safari could be interesting. If there weren't actual hunting going on. If we don't wind up as 'witnesses to the death of the last silver-horned rhino in existence' or something. -- Salsa, check. Nobody's said we're short on toilet paper."

“Hah, hah.”

Not to be goaded into griping (or worse, confessionals), Jules stays on topic. “I just want to see a cheetah chase down a gazelle or something. A herd of elephants fanning themselves with their ears. From a nice, safe distance.”

Fingers cleaned by the sandpaper tongue, Jules leans down to pick up Athena altogether to see if she’ll settle in her lap, or if that will just become a springboard to the table. “We’re low on bread. Did you get that?”

Apparently that, at least, is satisfactory. "Did you see the video of the cheetah purring?" Della asks, reaching for her phone -- her fingers are clean, if not so tasty for kittens -- with a half-smile for the kitten who's wiggly but deigns to let herself be picked up anyway. No, of course she's not going to use Jules as a springboard for jumping on the table; she's just going to sit there. And stretch out her suddenly long, long neck, and try to lick Jules' plate while, below the table, Hephaestus -- tantalized and then abandoned -- meows piteously.

But. Bread. "I like Una's better," says Della on much the same note.

“I don’t think so,” says Jules, who is after all trying to stay off her phone. “Show me?” Her hands corral the kitten in her lap as best she can. Fingers are one thing, plates another.

“Una’s is better, but we shouldn’t rely on her to fulfill all our bread needs. Put sliced turkey on there, while you’re at it.”

Athena is squirmy. Hephaestus is meowy. Della is trying to walk the tightrope between 'entertained' and 'nope, not seeing a thing,' and failing.

"Fine, fine." Both the turkey (and the bread) and the cheetah, for which she extends the phone now that she has it pulled up. "What a purr. And those ears!" While she's at it, on a more serious note, "I hope Dita's father's doing better."

Squirmy kittens eventually get dumped back into the floor. Jules is only so tolerant. She wants to hold Della’s phone now, after all, at the proper angle for her to behold the happy cheetah purring against a woman’s belly.

“Yeah.” In all honesty, it’s perfunctory agreement or well-wishing for someone Jules doesn’t know.

“Do you still get those sparks from stuff you touch?” she asks then, apropos of nothing. “I was wondering. Do you think you’re getting stronger? Or more controlled?”

More meowing. Della winces, as though she could close her ears to it; she does let her housemate take the phone, if only long enough to see the video through (and then maybe a time or two more because happy cheetah). Straightening back with it, letting her free hand fall -- to be excitedly sniffed, and then rejected, because no bacon -- "I do get them. And yes, even after the robes got washed. Stronger..."

She glances towards her phone, even if she doesn't seem to see it. "I don't know about stronger. Deeper, maybe. More layers. I've been trying to squish it down and here, at home, that works most of the time. But there are still surprises. That library." That library.

"What about you?" That could be directed to the cats, given how she pushes her not-quite-finished plate away and pushes back her chair, making more lap for them both. But it's not: "Seen any more ghost forest?"

Jules passes the phone back with a smile; the video cheetah is still purring away, purring on repeat. “I haven’t been back yet to check it out,” she admits. “Today’s tour is the Chehalis and the bay. Seems busy enough on the water that the man-eating mer-seals are staying away, at least closer in.”

Jules looks thoughtful as she considers her housemate across the breakfast table. “What does the library tell you?”

So of course Della tilts the phone so the kittens can sniff at that, too, mostly for the purring sounds but possibly also any residual bacon plus Athena-spit. Athena stares at it, at the video, as she sometimes does with other videos they watch; after a moment of hesitation, Della doesn't stop it.

"If you do, I'd love to hear about it. Or even go -- no, I should probably try beginner-level kayaking first, shouldn't I? It's been a long time. Skipping the mer-seals sounds grand."

Beneath their words, the cheetah purrs and purrs and purrs. There's a little blip where the video repeats, but just-- happy cat.

And it puts off the library a little longer. Not much, Della doesn't let it, but a little. "It's just so sad," she says at last. "Some parts more than others. Like the little group of children's books. It's hard to believe sometimes that I didn't notice when I first got here. Which makes me wonder..."

She eyes Jules, consideringly.

“I wouldn’t call the Copalis advanced kayaking,” Jules remarks. “No reason you couldn’t come with me.” She can’t quite see the cats with the big cat on a small screen, but she knows enough about what’s happening to smile.

But then: the library. “Millie,” Jules immediately guesses. “Hold on,” she says with tense excitement, getting out of her chair. “Una found a book she dedicated to me—I have it upstairs. I’ll be right back.”

Without waiting for acknowledgment, Jules scampers out of the kitchen and up the stairs to go find the picture book in question. She’s back a moment later, with the aged, yellowing book in her hands. “Do you think you could read it?” Read it.

Della nods; her smile is brief, bright. And -- she's still there for Jules' return, as though the other woman had never left, except that the cats have switched sides. They're on her shoulders, now.

"Dedicated to you? Tell me more! And... I can try. Especially if," another little pause, "you refill my coffee?" Athena turns her head to look up at Jules. Meow.

“Yeah. Look at the first page.” Jules puts the book down instead of offering it into Della’s hands. The other woman can touch it, read it, when she’s ready.

Jules clears the plates along with the mugs, leaving the former on the counter for now. While refilling the coffee, she steals glances at Della all the while.

"Not for kittens," Della tells the cats quietly. Not for kittens.

"Thank you," is for Jules. Jules, who took the bacon smells away, and don't think the two aren't paying attention to where she puts it all.

Meanwhile, Della wipes her hands on her napkin with great deliberation: to not disrupt the cats, yes, but also in the sense of putting on a pair of gloves, of pushing up her sleeves. She's careful when she picks up the book -- she blinks quickly, three times -- and even more so as she opens it. And blinks again, filtering intangible light.

"I'm going slowly," she murmurs, her affect barely there, as though documenting for a recording. "I want it to come to me slowly, not jump," not leap, not bite. In a slightly different tone, more humor-tinged, "I feel like a tarot reader at the fair." She doesn't look up.

Jules leans back against the counter instead of returning to her seat. Guarding the bacon drippings, maybe, or just too wound up to sit down again while she waits.

"Take your time," she says, but her voice communicates the exact opposite.

"You will meet a dark-haired person," intones Della, "one in tune with the spirit world. With a tattoo... with a tattoo on her chin." Only the very corners of her mouth turn up, and just a little. "Change is near."

And then she turns the page.

Her mouth rounds without sound.

"She really is sorry." Della's gone all gravelly; Hephaestus is hurriedly licking his paw, Athena pushed up against her ear. "And it really is Millie. I can feel her, writing it. She has a plaster on her thumb."

"But it's not just then."

From where she's stationed, Jules gives Della the finger. Ha, ha, very funny indeed.

The change in tone draws her upright with alertness. "I wish --" But no, that will have to wait. "What do you mean, it's not just then?"

Della waves her hand inconclusively; the kittens hang on, all claws. "It's not just then. Or it's not just right then, when she's writing. She goes back to it." She fidgets, fingernail against thumb. "Over and over again. She's sad, she's wistful, and she's wishful; she wishes she could tell you -- Ow!"

That's on Athena, who puts her whiskers back and clutches tighter before jumping off. Hephaestus, naturally, follows her. "No, I don't know what to tell you," says Della to Jules. She's staring after them. Her thumb's rubbing over the edge of the pages, now, as though she could soothe the book.

Jules winces. It's not for the kittens with their sharp, tiny claws. They've all gotten bitten by those claws at this point. Now she goes back to what she'd begun to say. "I wish there was a way to reach her. To tell her it's okay. Poor kid. I hope I didn't scar her for life."

"I don't think it's like that," but Della sounds a trifle uncertain.

"I wish we'd been able to find a... diary or something like that. Some hidden compartment with all the answers. I don't know how she would have been, but I have to think you helped, Indian lady. And maybe," maybe she's reaching here, "maybe she helped someone else."

"Maybe we should start looking for one," Jules muses. The beginning of an idea is there, sparking in her eyes.

But then an alarm sounds on her phone, turning her attention away. "Shit. Time to go to work," she says, stepping forward to pick up her phone and silence the reminder. "Let's come back to this." Jules pulls the old picture book away from Della, closing it gently to protect the binding.

Della reaches for the book, putting her hand on that just-closed cover -- then withdraws both hands abruptly, looking paler.

"Sorry. I don't know what came over me." Except she's looking at the book. "Could you... could you just leave the book out while you're doing your -- well, not homework, not in summer, but whatever you do?" Her dark eyes have switched to Jules. "She's just -- lonely."

And since Jules needs something else to do at night, if nothing else, "And we can check with Una about looking. It's been awhile since we nosed around; maybe she's kept track."

But later. After work, and more work, and that coffee.

"Oh," says Jules, startled by Della's reaction and then her request. "Of course." She holds the book out once more, delivering it into Della's safe care.

Who will keep it safe from kittens who might try to gnaw on a corner.

"Oh, no. With you." Della's all but keeping her hands behind her back. "In your room, though I suppose the living room could work, when you do what you do. Obviously not kayaking."

They have cats. Jules has... a book?

With more understanding, "Oh." Now she gets it. Jules can only smile for that. "Certainly. She'll have pride of place on my desk."

Along with what Jules refers to as her possession stick (safely tucked inside its box). Maybe they'll talk to each other.

Maybe they'll tell stories.