Make Room for Love

Chapter 5

5

“Can we do this without video today?” Isabel said. “I need to make dinner.”

“Sure.” Cat’s new pink, shaggy haircut disappeared on Isabel’s phone screen.

Isabel set her phone aside and put on her apron. “Tell me more about this big DJ set you’re doing this weekend.”

“Oh, it’s one of those all-day parties at Volume, and I’m going on at eight a.m.”

“Congratulations. People really stay out until eight a.m.? I feel old.” Isabel took a package of instant ramen—chicken flavor today—out of the pantry.

“You are old. You don’t think it’s romantic to dance while the sun comes up?”

“I see the sunrise when I’m working in the winter all the time. I’m?—”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Cat said. Isabel didn’t need her to be on video to know she was rolling her eyes. “You have a job where you work regular hours and have health insurance. You don’t have to rub it in.”

“Hey, you know I’m proud of you. I know it’s a big deal. Can I come in the morning instead of being there all night?”

“Yes, they do let old people in. You’ll get a senior discount. Seriously, though, it’d be great to see you. I’m playing some of my own stuff, too.”

The joke was hitting too close to home. Soon, Isabel would be older than Alexa ever got to be. “That’s great,” she said, distracted. “Yeah, I’ll be there this time. Send me the ticket link.”

“I will. No pressure. I mean, if you need to rescue another damsel in distress, I’d understand.”

Isabel bristled more than she should have. “It’s not like that.”

“Not like what?”

Isabel checked the pot on the stove. The water was boiling. She dropped in the ramen and dumped in the contents of the flavor packet. “It’s not like that,” she said again.

“Okay. How is she, by the way? Mira, right?”

“How’s my roommate? I don’t know. I don’t see her much.” She was giving Mira some union organizing practice tomorrow. But that would take an hour at most, and she’d do it for anyone.

“Well, that’s good, right? You didn’t want a roommate in the first place.”

Isabel cracked an egg into the ramen broth, and then another. The egg whites turned opaque as they swirled.

A few weeks ago, she would have said yes to Cat’s question easily. But she was getting used to Mira being around. Mira had a smile for her whenever they saw each other, and sometimes Isabel was even moved to smile back. Mira cooked and worked on her laptop and occasionally took her calls, and she was doing something with the plants that made them less dead. She still left her books and hair clips scattered everywhere, which irritated Isabel less these days than it ought to.

If all those signs of life disappeared… The apartment might feel lonely. Maybe she had been lonely all along before Mira arrived.

Isabel pushed the idea aside. She was fine on her own. “I guess. It’s only for a few months.” A few months until she had to pack up everything she owned and leave the apartment she’d lived in for half of her adult life.

“Where’s Mira going to go?”

“Not my problem.” Isabel stirred the eggs and noodles with a pair of chopsticks. “How’s Grace?”

“She’s busy with wedding planning, obviously. Have you talked to her since the last time you asked me?”

“No.” Isabel stirred her ramen vehemently.

“Okay. So you’re still making me the go-between for the two of you. She’s fine, but kind of stressed.”

Isabel was stressing out Grace, and she was stressing out Cat, too, but there was nothing she could say to fix it. “Is her fiancé not helping her with the wedding planning?”

“Kevin is helping her plenty.” Cat sighed. “Isabel, I think you need to?—”

Isabel winced. “Okay, okay, you’re right. Don’t tell Grace I asked that. I’m glad Kevin is… I’m glad things are going well for them.” Alexa’s death had torn them all apart. Even talking to Cat, Alexa’s widower’s sister, was getting harder. Every subject was full of landmines.

“Okay, you don’t need to apologize to me ,” Cat said. A long silence followed. “What are you doing these days, now that you’re not working all the time?”

“Not much. Going to physical therapy. Walking around. Watching TV. Reading.” None of these things helped her relax. They gave her too much time to think and made her restless. She had the constant sense that she was supposed to be doing something else.

“You’re not going out anywhere or spending time with anyone?”

“I’m going out. How else would I hear your sets?”

“I mean other than that.” Cat paused. “I know you don’t want to hear this. But I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

Cat sighed again, dragging it out audibly. “How’s work going?”

“Work is good. I’m still working at that MTA facility. The new apprentices are here.” This was safer territory. She told Cat about the apprentice who was testing her patience. And she heard all about Cat’s day job as a spa receptionist, and the new people in her life: cute mechanic from the bike shop, hot tattoo artist who was bad at texting back.

When they said goodbye, the air between them was more or less cleared. Isabel carried her ramen to the table. There was an abandoned mug with three tea bags in it next to the pile of student papers that now lived on the table permanently. Mira had marked up some of them in her elegant cursive with a purple pen. Isabel smiled, then caught herself.

She might go out of her way to help Mira find a new place. But after that…

She hadn’t been lying to Cat. Mira wasn’t awful to talk to. And of course Isabel supported the grad students as a matter of principle. But whatever Mira did after that wasn’t Isabel’s problem, even if she occasionally had a hard time remembering it.

When Isabel opened the door, the apartment smelled good. Mira was cooking something full of aromatics and spices. She was standing at the stove, and she greeted Isabel, looking flustered. “Sorry, this is taking longer than I expected.”

“That’s fine. I need to shower and eat.” It was true, but Isabel lingered by the kitchen. She’d gone straight from work to taking her aunt to the doctor, and she was tired and starving. Coming in from the cold and finding Mira making dinner was stirring something up inside her.

She looked away. No point in dwelling on some domestic fantasy. She was just hungry, was all. She needed to get some food in her.

“Actually,” Mira said, “I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner together, so I can thank you for helping me.”

Isabel opened her mouth to say no. But there was a bright-looking stew on the stove, and the rice cooker on the counter was full of warm rice. She didn’t have the willpower to refuse.

She’d have to do something for Mira later to make it up to her. “Uh, thanks. I appreciate it. Can I help?”

Mira dipped a spoon into her pot of stew. “That’s okay.” She blew on her spoonful, tasted it, and smiled. “Almost done.”

Isabel’s heart beat faster. Seeing Mira in her kitchen, licking the spoon and giving her that smile…after months and months of returning to a dark, empty apartment, it was too much. She nodded and hurried to her room. She needed to clear her head.

When Isabel came back out, showered and dressed, Mira set two big, wide bowls on the table. Rice topped with a scoop of fiery-red vegetable stew, cabbage flecked with coconut and mustard seeds, a generous dollop of yogurt. An open store-bought jar of mango pickle sat in the middle of the table.

They sat down. Isabel couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a home-cooked meal other than instant ramen, fried rice, or boxed mac and cheese, and some of those were stretching the definition. She took a bite. It was delicious—bright and sunny from tamarind and mango pickle, perfect for the gray October evening. She had a few more big bites, then remembered her manners. “It’s good. Thanks. I like the cabbage.”

Mira smiled. Yearning tugged at Isabel. She wanted to keep seeing that smile lighting up Mira’s face.

There wasn’t anything wrong with that. Mira was going through a tough time, and it was good to see her happy about something, even something as small as Isabel complimenting her cooking. Mira always seemed surprised by the simplest things, like she didn’t expect much out of other people.

“I’m glad you like it,” Mira said. She scooped out more mango pickle from the jar. “It’s such a relief to be cooking for myself again and making whatever I want to eat. And in such a nice kitchen, too. I didn’t even know how much I missed it.”

“You used to cook for your ex?” The idea of it rankled Isabel.

Mira’s smile turned sardonic. “He wanted to eat what his mom used to make for him, but he wasn’t willing to make it himself. Let’s just say that.”

Isabel snorted. It was still a mystery why this smart, funny, beautiful woman had ever dated someone like that. Then again, her own little sister… But now wasn’t the time to think about Grace and her lackluster fiancé. “If he didn’t like this,” Isabel said, gesturing to her food, “that’s his problem.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Mira said. Isabel’s face turned hot. People called her plenty of things. Sweet wasn’t one of them. “I had rice and sambar for dinner a lot when I was growing up, so this is comfort food for me. I know other South Asian kids complained about not having pizza or hamburgers, or what have you, but I never felt that way.”

“Where’s your family from?” On second thought, maybe Isabel shouldn’t have asked. Mira was probably sick of being asked where she was from, and what she was, and things of that ilk. Or maybe she didn’t want to talk about her family. It was just a little too easy to talk to Mira, and sometimes things slipped out of Isabel’s mouth. “If you want to say.”

“I don’t mind you asking.” There was a mild emphasis on you . “My dad is Indian and originally from Chennai, and my mom is white and Jewish and grew up here, in New York, although she and my dad settled in Chicago. This was in the eighties, when it was a lot harder to get good Indian food, especially South Indian, so my dad had to figure out how to cook. My mom told him she’d only marry him if they only had one child and she didn’t have to do any of the cooking.”

Maybe that was what Mira wanted in a relationship, too. Someone who would support her while she lived her own life, someone she could rely on for the everyday things. She deserved it after what that man had put her through. “You learned how to cook from your dad?”

“A little. I mostly learned from food blogs and YouTube videos.” Mira paused. “We get along, more or less. It’s just that my dad is the most pedantic person I’ve ever known. Which, given that I’ve spent five years in grad school, is saying something.”

Isabel smiled. “I’ve done that too. I’m too proud to ask my mom to teach me to cook, after I refused when I was a teenager.” She sighed. “Although I should. She’s getting older. She’s not going to be here forever.”

It always came back to the wound at the center of her family, the one that would never heal. The silence settled over them. She’d gotten too comfortable with Mira, and it left an opening for Mira to pity her. She’d told Mira about losing Alexa just to get it over with. Maybe that had been a mistake.

Mira nodded. Maybe she was pitying Isabel, or maybe not. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything trite for the sake of it, like a lot of other people would have done.

They finished eating in a comfortable enough silence. It was time for Isabel to wash the dishes. She reached for Mira’s bowl, and her fingers closed over Mira’s.

Isabel jerked away as though she’d been shocked. Mira’s hand was warm, and it had been months since Isabel had touched another person and felt the heat of their body. No, that wasn’t true. She’d grabbed Mira’s arm outside of Volume that night, and feeling her bare skin had been like touching a live wire. Mira had tensed up at first, and that tension had gradually given way…

She reached out again and yanked the bowl out of Mira’s hands. “I’ll wash up. You cooked.”

Mira looked startled. “Well, I wanted to thank you for helping.”

“I’ll do it.” Isabel grabbed her own bowl and carried both to the sink, putting Mira firmly out of sight.

She had a role to play. She was helping Mira with her union organizing, and that was that. Once she was done with the dishes, they sat back down at the table.

Now Isabel was on firmer footing. This was like training apprentices at work. Never mind that no apprentice had ever knocked her so off-balance. “I’m a grad student and a worker, and you see me in the…”

“Computer science building.”

“That’s where you’re going?”

Mira grimaced. “I was late in signing up, and this was the only slot left. Normally I’d be in my own department.”

“Okay, in the computer science building. And I look tired from working all the time.”

Mira laughed. Then she sobered up and looked at her lap. A ringlet that had come loose from her hair clip fell into her face. Isabel itched to tuck it behind her ear.

“Well… I guess I would approach you,” Mira said. “And I would introduce myself?—”

“Say it to me like it’s real.”

Mira looked up and blinked, her long lashes fluttering. She had such gorgeous deep brown eyes. “Hi, I’m Mira Levin, and I’m with the Graduate Workers’ Union. Do you, um— Do you have some time to talk with me about your experiences as a graduate worker?”

“Sure. Make it quick.”

Mira dropped her gaze before making eye contact again. She was startlingly sexy when trying to project confidence. “I’m interested in hearing about the problems you’re facing as a grad worker right now, whether it’s in teaching, or your research, or housing, or something else.”

The low-burning fire in Mira, flickering under all her self-doubt, was intriguing. Isabel wanted to see more. She settled back in her chair and eyed Mira skeptically. Anxiety flashed across Mira’s face, but she held Isabel’s gaze. She looked like the shy, determined academic she was, in her prim cardigan with a single button undone.

“I can’t afford to live less than an hour away from campus on my stipend,” Isabel said. “And my advisor harasses me and my coworkers. And the university won’t help me with my student visa.”

“Wow, you really paid attention during the rally.”

Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you’d say to me?”

She hadn’t been fully honest with herself. She wasn’t just helping Mira because she believed in lifting up all working people. She did believe in that, of course. But, more than that, she hated the thought of Mira running out of money and having no one to turn to for help.

She wanted to protect Mira. The instinct that had kicked in that night at the club had never gone away.

And the truth was, she’d been looking at Mira’s mouth, at the one undone button of her cardigan under her collarbones. Knowing that if they were in any other situation at all—if they weren’t roommates, if Isabel weren’t a mess—Isabel would be imagining undoing the rest of those buttons, one by one, all the way down.

She forced herself to look at Mira’s eyes. Those dark eyes that were so easy to get lost in. Isabel was in trouble.

“No.” Mira smiled and glanced down. Then her serious demeanor returned. Isabel was in deep, deep trouble. Or she would be, if she didn’t control herself. “First of all, I’m sorry to hear that,” Mira said, to the downtrodden grad student Isabel was role-playing. “That’s terrible and unfair to you. You shouldn’t have to deal with that by yourself. Have you been able to get any help or support for any of these issues?”

Mira’s sympathy was so convincing that Isabel was caught off-guard. She was mesmerized, tempted to open up about her nonexistent advisor. “No,” she said curtly, pushing her emotions down.“I can’t just ask the grad student office if they’ll pay me more.”

“Well, no, I suppose you can’t.” Mira’s spine straightened. “But all of us can, if we do it together.”

Isabel needed to get a grip. Mira had an election to win, and if all her coworkers were as determined as she was, they were going to pull it off. She gave Mira a look of suspicion and took in the way Mira stiffened, first from nervousness, then from resolve. Isabel asked, “Why should I believe you?”

After an hour of practice, Mira had loosened up. She still tended to look at Isabel like she was being graded on a test. But it was a start, and Mira would be learning by doing the real thing soon enough.

“You did good,” Isabel said. A playful tension had built up in their back-and-forth exchanges, and Isabel had tried to not get distracted. Though maybe she hadn’t tried her best.

Mira beamed. “Thank you. I’m really grateful.”

“You’ll get better as you do it more. But you’re better at listening to people than I ever was.” At that, Mira scoffed and looked down. “I mean it. You’re…” What was the right word? Mira was sincere and kind and determined, and Isabel ached to protect her and see her grow. None of that would come out right if Isabel said it. “You’re sympathetic.”

“Is that your way of telling me I’m too soft?”

Mira’s tone was teasing, but there was real insecurity under those words. Isabel’s anger flared at whoever had planted the idea in Mira’s head. “No, it’s a good thing. I’m not bullshitting you. I want you to win.”

“I know. Thanks again for all your help. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

That was Mira again, so thankful for the simplest things. “Hey, you know…” Isabel wasn’t the world’s most inspirational journeywoman, but the occasional pep talk was good for people, especially for the younger women she worked with. And that speech she’d given hadn’t been too bad. “Just remember you have a right to be talking to people and asking these questions and building these relationships. These are your coworkers, even if you don’t know them yet. If people give you shit for it at first, so be it.”

“I guess so.” Mira seemed unconvinced.

Isabel pressed on. “It’s harder for women to be out there doing these things. But the labor movement wouldn’t be what it is without us. Especially us queer women.”

“Thanks.” Mira hesitated. “I don’t generally call myself queer, since I only date men, even though I know other people use the word that way. But I take your point.”

A full-body shudder of embarrassment went through Isabel. She’d assumed all this time that Mira was bi. They’d met outside of Volume—but of course straight trans women went there.

There had never been any reason to assume that Mira liked women. Isabel was such an idiot. It served her right for spouting unsolicited inspirational talk.

That wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that there was no reason to take this so personally. Unless her mistake had just been wishful thinking, which was far worse. All her tender thoughts and feelings about Mira, ones she hadn’t wanted to think about too carefully, were even more humiliating in this light.

Almost nothing fazed her this badly, but right now, Isabel wanted to crawl into a hole. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Mira didn’t seem bothered. “Anyway, thank you again. I hope I can make you proud.”

Isabel forced a smile. “Don’t worry about me. Do it for you.”