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Reboot Pt. 01

By: Salish



Author's note:

This is a lesbian romance, with a lot going on besides just sex. It's rather long, and the sex doesn't happen until the end.

Sumita, the main character, appears in another story called Play Date, set about ten years before this one. Sarah, Meaghan, Jenna, and some other supporting characters appear in Evergreen Kiss. This story stands on its own - you don't need to read either of those to appreciate this one - but they are all connected.

~~~

"I'm really proud of you, Mom," Sangita said, pulling into an empty parking space in the visitor lot in front of building eighty-two on the west side of the huge corporate campus in Redmond.

"It's just a job, Gita," Sumita replied. "I don't even know if I'll be any good at it. It's been a long time since I've done any serious programming."

"It's not 'just a job,' Mom," Sangita said, perfectly mimicking her mother's mild Indian accent and dismissive tone. "You're going to work on software that like a billion people use every day. That's a big deal. And you literally wrote the book on systems programming. You're going to do great."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Gita," Sumita said, "but writing about it and doing it are two different things."

She gathered up her stuff, checking her phone once and her purse twice to make sure she had all the required documents.

"You wouldn't think there'd be a whole checklist just for the first day," she said, fidgeting in the passenger's seat and resisting the urge to check the list one more time.

"Just get out of the car already, Mom," Sangita said. "You have everything you need. Seriously."

Sumita sat up straight, put her phone back in her purse, and took a deep breath. "Here I go," she said, unbuckling her seatbelt. "Wish me luck."

"You're going to be fine," Sangita said. "No luck needed."

Sumita stepped out of the car and closed the door. "Thanks for driving me, Gita," she said through the open window.

"No prob," Sangita replied. "Just call when you're done and I'll come get you and take you somewhere fun for dinner. Now get in there!"

Sumita smiled at her daughter's exasperation and made her way to the visitors' entrance. This whole section of campus was just being built the last time Sumita had been there, researching a book, and she had a hard time orienting herself away from the familiar landmarks. Fortunately, they had sent her very detailed directions. It was a quarter after eight, fifteen minutes before she was supposed to be there. She really didn't want to be late on her first day.

Once inside, there were plenty of signs pointing the way to new employee orientation, and Sumita soon found herself putting on a nametag and sitting down in a large corporate meeting room, the kind she hadn't seen with any regularity in fifteen years. There were trays of fruit and breakfast pastries in the back of the room, but Sumita passed them by. She was too nervous to be hungry.

A Chinese girl not much older than Sangita sat down two seats away from Sumita. They exchanged hesitant smiles and sat quietly waiting for something to happen. At a quarter to nine, a woman in blue jeans and a white silk blouse walked to the podium. The room had filled by then; the few stragglers still drifting in rushed to find seats.

The presentations were equal parts administrative necessity and corporate pep rally, with a few bits of genuinely useful information thrown in from time to time. Sumita paid as much attention to the audience as to the presenters. A dozen of them were in suits, including the nervous Chinese girl, and almost all of them looked vaguely uncomfortable at being so overdressed. The one exception was a handsome middle-aged man sitting front row, center, who wore his custom-tailored suit like a second skin. Definitely not an engineer. Sales exec, probably.

The rest had followed the instructions in the introductory email and worn comfortable clothes, ranging from the vaguely inoffensive 'business casual' to the programmer-standard uniform of blue jeans and a humorous tee shirt. In her long cotton skirt and light summer sweater, Sumita looked like nobody else in the room. Of the forty-odd people at orientation, all but seven looked like they were straight out of college or grad school, and only nine were women. Sumita was not encouraged by those demographics.

The presentations ended and the new employees were turned loose at two o'clock. The HR people stayed in the room for another hour to answer questions, and everyone was encouraged to wander through the company museum down the hall. Sumita already knew plenty about the company's history, and she wasn't in a mood to linger, so she stopped to ask directions to building eleven and left.

Her nerves calmed outside in the sun. The sky was a brilliant early summer blue and completely clear save for a few clouds scudding across the horizon to the south. Perfect weather for cricket in the evening, she thought, and then immediately stopped herself. She redirected her mind by going over the insurance options from the afternoon benefits presentation in her head. Some thoughts were better left alone.

~~~

Sumita followed the sidewalk across the freeway overpass and around the traffic circle - more new construction since she'd last visited - and felt a sudden relief when she knew exactly where she was. Ten minutes later, she was across 156th Ave, past the old soccer fields, and crossing the street to the building where she'd be working. She'd never had an office in building eleven when she was at the company the first time, but she'd been there for plenty of meetings. On the outside, at least, it hadn't changed at all.

She pulled out her phone when she walked into the lobby, scrolled to find the email from Tamara, the team admin, and walked up to the reception desk.

"How can I help you?" asked the young man behind the desk.

"I'm here to see, um, Sarah Oda," Sumita replied, looking at her phone again to double check.

"Sure, I'll just give her a call," the receptionist replied. "What's your name?"

"Oh," Sumita said. "Ah, Sumita. Sumita Desai."

The young man made the call and Sumita wandered around the lobby while she waited. There were a few modern, uncomfortable-looking chairs in one corner and some strange artwork on the walls, but otherwise it was just an empty expanse of carpet. The ceiling was quite high, and an alcove off the second floor atrium was visible above the reception desk, stocked with foosball and ping pong tables. The lobby wasn't a very welcoming space, but Sumita didn't imagine the building got many visitors.

After about two minutes, a door opened behind Sumita, startling her, and a very small, very young woman came out. Sumita turned around.

"Are you Sumita?" she asked.

Sumita nodded.

"Hi, I'm Sarah," the woman said with a smile. "Come on up."

Sarah went back through the door, holding it open for Sumita, and then walked up the stairs to the second floor. Sumita followed, wondering who exactly this Sarah was. She looked vaguely Asian, with a fresh, pretty face and long, straight black hair. In her blue jeans and white polo shirt she seemed barely older than that the college grads at orientation. Was she Sumita's new lead? The thought of working for a girl who was barely old enough to drink brought all of Sumita's misgivings from earlier in the day flooding back.

"I was really excited when Bhavesh announced you were coming back to work," Sarah said. "Your web applications books got me through my senior project in college, and Modern API Design is required reading around here."

Sarah's voice was polite and cheerful, and if she sensed any of Sumita's apprehension, she didn't show it. Somehow, that just made Sumita feel worse. "Um, thanks," she mumbled, blushing.

"Bhavesh told me about your husband," Sarah added respectfully. "I'm so sorry."

Sumita just smiled the bland, empty smile she'd been practicing for the past ten months. That, at least, was something she was used to.

They turned a corner into a maze of hallways and offices and walked to Sarah's office. She had a window that faced into the courtyard between buildings eleven, twelve, and fourteen. Sumita found that odd - windows were usually a privilege of seniority.

"I'm really sorry, Sumita," Sarah said, "but I have this email I absolutely have to finish. Give me like five minutes, and then you'll have my full attention."

"Um, sure, okay," Sumita replied. "Whatever you need."

Sarah sat down at her desk and resumed work on the central screen of the five arrayed around her keyboard. The whole setup looked like some sort of underground command bunker. Sumita had never seen anything like it, even in her own days at the company.

Sarah was totally absorbed in the task at hand, sometimes cursing the stupidity of unseen colleagues under her breath, sometimes looking up code or reference documents on other screens. Sumita sat quietly in the guest chair next to Sarah's desk and took stock of the room.

The desk was wedged into one corner, leaving the rest of the office open. Most of the other offices had desks in the center, keeping visitors at a distance. Sarah's office invited them in. On the desk next to the far left monitor, Sarah kept two framed photos. One was an older Japanese woman with kind, lively eyes and long black hair shot through with white. The other was a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, with short red-brown hair and an expression of perfect happiness. Sumita wondered who she was. Definitely not a sister, unless she was adopted. Probably a best friend, like Julie had been for Sumita at that age.

On the windowsill right behind her, so that she had to twist in the chair to look, Sumita saw sixteen black marble cubes lined up in a row, which she knew from past experience represented patent applications, along with a pair of crystal spires. They looked like some other sort of corporate award, but she couldn't get a closer look without standing up, and she was doing her best to avoid drawing any attention.

A bookcase stood near the door, the lower shelves neatly stacked with tech books, the top shelf displaying random geeky doodads, including a stuffed Dogbert and a Lego X-Wing. Sumita recognized three of her own books on the shelf. All pretty normal office decoration.

The walls, though, were different. Four framed paintings hung around the room, each one beautiful in its own way, and none anything like what Sumita expected to see in a programmer's office. Above the bookcase, there was a print of a hypnotic fire scene, thick gray smoke and neon yellow and orange flames devouring a dense evergreen forest. A cartoony tanker plane with a determined look on its face flew in over everything to save the day. Next to that was a different scene in the same style: an adorable cartoon octopus squeezing through a shipwreck porthole in a dreamy underwater world. Sumita couldn't help smiling at them.

The painting over Sarah's desk was obviously the same artist but a very different form - an oil painting without a foreground figure at all; just light and dark and color. Sumita recognized it as the dying light of a winter sunset over Puget Sound, seen from somewhere high up the hillside in Seattle, with a storm coming in from the northwest.

The final painting, on the wall opposite the desk, was completely different from the rest. There was nothing at all realistic about it; at first it just looked to Sumita like a haphazard jumble of soft colors and shapes. She could make no sense of it, but she couldn't stop looking at it. She stood to get a better view, forgetting all about Sarah, and suddenly she saw it, clear as the sun in August. There was a somehow woman in the middle of that jumble of shapes, looking back over her shoulder as she ran away. Sumita found it to be the most sensuous thing she had ever seen, and one of the saddest, evoking the kind of raw, aching desire that she had forgotten was even possible.

A low growl from Sarah distracted Sumita from the painting, and she sat back down in the guest chair. Sarah angrily typed out a few more words, skimmed over her response, and hit send.

"There," she said, as much to herself as to Sumita. "I'm done. Idiots."

Sarah turned her chair to face Sumita, all the intense concentration and annoyance in her face washed away, and she gave Sumita her full attention.

"Okay," she said, "So I'm your peer mentor. I'll help get you set up, show you around, make sure you know how to get to the bathroom and the cafeteria - that sort of thing."

"You're not my lead?" Sumita asked. "I just assumed..."

"Nope," Sarah replied. "I prefer to spend my time on code, not email and meetings. Our lead's name is Dave, and he's out for six weeks for knee surgery, starting today. You picked the wrong Monday to start, I guess."

Sumita swallowed nervously. Her confidence was not improving.

"Or the right one," Sarah mumbled to herself, low enough that Sumita wasn't entirely sure of what she heard.

"Anyway, I'll help get you going over the next few weeks," Sarah said brightly. "We'll get your dev boxen set up, your source code enlistments synced and built, and we'll find something for you to work on."

"Um, okay," Sumita replied, not knowing what else to say.

"Don't worry, Sumita," Sarah said. "You'll be absolutely fine. I know it's been a long time, but you already know way more about programming than most of the people who work here today. It's intimidating at first, but you'll get used to it. I promise."

"If you say so," Sumita said, not at all convinced. "Do you really have sixteen patents? I only got five when I was here."

"Eighteen applications," Sarah said. "Two cubes are still on order. They're mostly not that important, though. I'm really proud of maybe four or five."

"Still," Sumita said. "And what are those crystal things? I haven't seen those before."

"Oh, those," Sarah replied. "They're service awards, five and ten years. I get the fifteen year one in the fall."

Sumita's eyes opened a mile wide. She'd been intimidated by Sarah's accomplishments and apparent youth, but fifteen years just didn't make sense. Sarah looked younger than some of the college grads in orientation.

"It's the Japanese genes," Sarah said in response to Sumita's unspoken question, warm laughter bubbling just beneath her voice. "No, I didn't start work here when I was ten, even though it might look that way. I'm actually thirty-seven."

"Oh, thank goodness," Sumita replied, and all of the worry and stress about the new job drained out of her. "Everyone here is just so young. I felt totally out of place at orientation, and then all the guys we walked past on the way to your office..."

"Don't get me started," Sarah said. "I work with children. Do you know, some of them were still going through puberty when Firefly was on TV?"

"Wow," Sumita said. "I never thought about it quite like that." Sumita knew right then that she had found a friend, somebody she could count on, and she felt much better about being back at work.

"I thought when I saw you that I was going to be working for some arrogant kid, and I felt like I was making a huge mistake coming back," Sumita said to Sarah. "I'm sorry I misjudged you."

"It's alright," Sarah said, smiling. "Happens all the time. And I meant what I said earlier - I really am looking forward to working with you."

Sumita smiled back.

"Come on," Sarah said, "let's go find your office. Bhavesh managed to get your previous time here counted for seniority, so you get the last window office, right next to Carl."

Sarah stood up, and Sumita followed.

"Being a famous tech author probably helped, too," Sarah added as they walked down the hallway.

"I'm not famous," Sumita said softly to no one in particular.

They turned the corner into a mostly empty office and Sarah gestured for Sumita to sit in the desk chair. "Yes, Sumita," she said, sitting down in the guest chair, "you are famous, at least around here." Sumita blushed.

Sarah had Sumita start up one of the computers on her desk and try out her new username and temporary password. Sumita logged in successfully and then spent a few minutes coming up with a secure password at the prompt. No 'password123' for her. Sarah laughed in sympathy.

"Before I forget," Sarah said. "You can change your email alias if you want. I didn't know that for months after I started, and by then I was stuck. Somebody had a good laugh when they figured out that my first initial plus last name equals 'soda'."

"Sorry," Sumita said with a giggle. "I'm perfectly happy with 'SumiDes' for my alias. You can call me Sumi if you want, by the way. Most of my friends do."

"Okay, Sumi," Sarah replied. "Let's get the rest of your stuff set up. Turn on that one and press F12 for network boot..."

An hour later, Sumita had her email set up, her dev box and test box up and running, and her first source code enlistment synced and building. At that point, there wasn't much to do but wait, and Sarah was content to wait with her.

"It's fine, Sumi, seriously," she said when Sumita protested. "Helping you is my only job for the rest of the day."

"Thanks," Sumita replied. "I really appreciate it."

Another couple minutes went by without any obvious problems, and Sumita sat back in her chair.

"Those paintings in your office are absolutely gorgeous," she said to Sarah. "Where did you get them?"

"Aren't they, though?" Sarah replied, with a kind of bliss in her voice Sumita hadn't heard before. "I do love them. Three are by my wife Meaghan, ..."

"Your wife?" Sumita blurted out before she could stop herself.

"Yeah," Sarah replied. "We're coming up on our two year anniversary in August." Her voice was just as friendly as it had been all day, but there was an implicit challenge behind it - if you don't like it, you can go stuff yourself.

"Sorry," Sumita said. "It just takes some getting used to, that's all. My friend Julie married her partner Amanda in San Francisco last summer, but it still sounds so strange to me. 'Her wife'."

"Oh, I know," Sarah replied. "Most of the time I'm okay, but then I get all self-conscious and weird about it every once in a while."

Sumita frowned in thought for a moment. "She used to work here," she said. "My friend, Julie. You might actually know her - she moved away seven years ago this November. Julie Spiro."

"Short brown hair, thin?" Sarah asked. "Worked on developer tools?"

"Yup," Sumita replied. "That's her."

"She spoke at a women's engineering thing a few years after I started," Sarah said. "Really useful presentation. I wish I'd known some of that stuff when I started - it would have made my early career so much easier."

Sumita smiled. She could picture Julie at the front of a big conference room giving that presentation. When she got going on something she was passionate about, Julie's enthusiasm was infectious, and Julie had always been passionate about getting women into tech jobs and helping them prosper.

Thinking about Julie brought up other memories, and Sumita felt a brief pang of regret for that moment nearly twenty years ago, just a short walk away in the building seven cafeteria, when her life could have gone a different direction from her traditional arranged marriage and motherhood. The moment that slipped away.

She'd thought of that moment a lot recently, especially over the past few months. Usually she couldn't get it out of her head for a while. This time, though, something else pushed its way into her mind - that mesmerizing painting in Sarah's office. She had to know more about it.

"What about the other one?" Sumita asked. "The other painting, I mean. It's amazing."

"Oh, yeah," Sarah replied. "That's Jenna's work, one of Meaghan's artist friends. She gave it to me for my birthday last year. I don't really get much about modern art, which is kind of sad being married to Meaghan, but even I can tell how talented Jenna is."


Reboot Pt. 01



"She really is," Sumita agreed, based solely on the one painting.

She wondered about this artist named Jenna who could stir up such feelings in her with nothing but oil on canvas. It made immediate sense that she was a woman. There was an indefinably feminine quality to the shapes and colors. Beyond that, Sumita felt the longing in the painting like a spear of fire. This artist, this Jenna, knew what it was to love a woman who couldn't quite love her back. Sumita knew absolutely nothing about her, but she felt like she understood Jenna, at least a piece of her. She decided that the rest must be fascinating.

One of the monitors on Sumita's desk flashed, pulling her out of her thoughts. The tools installer had just finished on the test box, so Sumita and Sarah went back to configuring Sumita's test environment. The process was mostly automated, but it required constant babysitting.

Sarah called it quits a little after six. "That's enough for today," she said. "We can pick up from here tomorrow morning."

"Okay," Sumita replied. "Thanks again for helping me."

~~~

Sangita sat across the table from her mother, who was looking indecisively at the menu.

"So many choices, and they all look good," Sumita said, and then flipped to the next page.

Sangita shook her head and smiled. She wanted to know how her mother's first day back at work went, but she knew better than to ask. Sumita would be useless for anything more than small talk until she'd made up her mind about what she wanted to eat.

"How'd you find this place?" Sangita asked. "I had no idea it was here."

The vegan Asian restaurant was a small, narrow space with about a dozen tables. It was situated in the middle of a nondescript strip mall that ran along a steep section of road a little ways south of Sumita's new office. There was a sign out front, but its purpose wasn't to advertise to passers-by. Nobody was looking. The sign was only there so that people who were going there intentionally knew they'd found the right place.

"Sarah told me about it," Sumita said. "She's my new coworker. She was really helpful today, and I think I'm going to be relying on her a lot over the next few weeks."

Sumita shut her menu with a decisive thunk and set it down on the table. Before Sangita could ask her mother anything about her day at work, a short, grumpy-looking Chinese woman showed up at the table to take their order: steamed dumplings, corn chowder, and fried noodles.

"So what did you do today, Gita?" Sumita asked when the waitress left.

"Dina and I climbed Cougar Mountain," Sangita replied. "The view was spectacular. Rainier's still completely covered in snow. After I got home and showered, I mostly just lazed around. One more week of freedom before I start at the hospital!"

Sumita smiled at her daughter. Sangita was really looking forward to her summer job, but she wasn't particularly excited about the hours.

"What about you?" Sangita asked. "How was your day?"

"Oh, you know," Sumita said. "Orientation was fine, and Sarah was very nice about helping me. I don't know, maybe I can actually do this. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal."

"Not that big of a deal?" Sangita asked, incredulous. "It's only the first time you've had a full-time office job since I was like three years old. I'd say that's a pretty big deal."

"I just don't want to let anybody down, that's all," Sumita said. "It was so good of Bhavesh to let me come back to work."

"Stop it, Mom," Sangita said, laughter bubbling up through her voice. "Just stop. They're lucky to have you, and the only one who can't see that is you. You're going to do great."

Sumita relented and described the little details of her day to Sangita until the food was ready: the nervous, over-dressed Chinese girl, the terrible photo they took for her new ID badge, the courtyard between buildings that she could see from her office window.

"... and no, there is no building thirteen," Sumita told her daughter just before the waitress arrived with the steamed dumplings. Sangita laughed.

The table got quiet while they savored the dumplings, and the soup showed up just as the last two dumplings disappeared. Sumita ladled out two cups of corn chowder.

"This is amazing," Sangita said after her first taste. "Dad would love this stuff."

Just like that, a black cloud descended over both mother and daughter, and the easy conversation turned to strained silence. Sumita and Sangita ate their soup, neither really tasting it.

"I'm really sorry, Mom," Sangita said after a while. "I just . . ."

"It's fine, Gita," Sumita replied. She sat up straighter in her seat and forced some warmth into her smile. "I know you miss him as much as I do. Just this afternoon, I thought about how happy he'd be about the weather for cricket, at least if it holds to the weekend."

"He really would," Sangita agreed, more wistful that sad. "He always did love the first match of the season."

They finished their dinner in relative quiet, and Sumita stayed quiet on the drive home. Winding up Lake Sammamish Drive, Sangita turned to her mother and asked, "Do you want to stop for ice cream?" 

When Sangita was a little girl, Sunday play dates with Julie and her son Ryan had always ended in ice cream, and both mother and daughter still had a soft spot for the ice cream shop where they used to go. Sangita had that same look in her eye, equal parts mischief and pleading, that had won over both her parents countless times growing up. Sumita couldn't resist indulging.

"Sure," Sumita replied, and then fell silent again, thinking some more about Julie. It had been on one of those play dates that Julie had come out to her while the kids were busy on the playground. Then, at the very same ice cream shop, years after the kids had outgrown Sunday play dates, Julie had told Sumita about her new job in the Bay Area, and her best friend had gone from being a living, breathing presence in her life to an electronic ghost, seen in person maybe once a year. Still, ice cream was ice cream, and it never failed to lift her spirits.

After they got home, Sumita put an old Bollywood movie in the DVD player, one of her husband Rajeev's favorites. Sangita rolled her eyes and retreated to her bedroom. The movie was exactly the distraction Sumita needed, three hours of silly melodrama punctuated by even sillier song and dance numbers. After it was over, she poked her head into Sangita's room to say goodnight and then walked to her own bedroom on the other side of the house.

That was the hard part. She could get through the days, but it all came back at night when she went into her bedroom and tried to sleep. One ordinary morning ten months ago, she woke up next to Rajeev, just like any other morning. That night, she went to bed alone, a widow.

Sumita tossed and turned, as usual, but that night it felt different somehow. There was something more to it, more than just grief. She wasn't sure if the job was a good idea or a colossal mistake, but it was something new, and something was better than nothing.

When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of the hallway in her new building, all those office doors, and she had to find someone, but she didn't have a name or an office number, and the hallway never ended.

~~~

Sarah spent some more time with Sumita the next morning, bookmarked a couple of wiki pages for Sumita to read later, and went back to her own office to work. Sumita went through the new hire checklist, filling out insurance forms and all the other administrative stuff that didn't happen at orientation. The next time she took a breath, it was almost lunchtime.

"Come on," Sarah said, appearing out of nowhere in Sumita's doorway. "I'll walk you around and introduce you to the team and then we can go down to lunch."

Sumita followed Sarah while they made a circuit of the team's hallway. The first office on the right was Carl, a guy nearly Sumita's age who looked like Thor in shorts and a tee shirt.

"You helped me out once," he said after Sarah introduced Sumita. "I was just a newbie, and I got assigned this load test bug that would only repro with like a thousand inbound connections. The data store just completely fell over."

"Yeah, I remember," Sumita replied. "I scrambled for a whole week to get the connections from the front end serialized and throttled."

"Well, we were doing some pretty stupid things back then," Carl said. "We ripped out that code in the next release and rebuilt the data access tier."

"No, it was actually good," Sumita said. "I mean, yeah, what you guys were doing was pretty terrible, but it made us handle that kind of load properly. It was something we'd never even thought about. You probably saved us from some horrible denial of service bug getting out into the wild."

"Glad I could be of use," Carl said with a smile and an ironic bow. "Seriously, though, it's good to have you here. I'll be down in the cafeteria in a few."

Sarah continued on, introducing Sumita to a whole bunch of new faces that all blended together in Sumita's mind. They were mostly very young and all male. "Are we the only women on the team?" Sumita asked Sarah.

"There's Kim," Sarah said with a shrug. "She's on vacation. So that's three out of forty two, I guess. Better than most teams."

Sumita had no good reply. In the twenty-plus years since she'd started at the company, the already male-dominated software industry had actually gotten worse.

The last office on the circuit was Bhavesh's corner. Bhavesh was the development manager for the team. He was also, despite the graying temples, still the exuberant kid that Sumita had mentored when he started at the company straight out of college. His face lit up when he saw Sumita, and they greeted each other with a heartfelt hug. It was a mildly unprofessional gesture given the office setting, but nobody seemed to mind.

"I'm so glad you came back to work," he said.

"Thanks for pushing for me with HR," Sumita said. "I didn't really expect you to."

"You were the easiest hire I've ever made," he said. "You'll get back into the swing of things in no time, and I expect great things once you do."

Turning to Sarah, he added, "I probably wouldn't have survived my first five years here without this woman."

Sumita looked away, blushing.

After five minutes of old war stories, which Sarah had the sense to only half-believe, Sarah and Sumita left to go to lunch. Bhavesh was invited but politely declined, as always.

"Meetings," he said. "I'm already late for the managers' meeting, then shiproom, then..."

"Fine," Sarah interrupted. "Go. You're making me really happy I don't have your job."

The cafeteria was a chaotic mess, not at all like the boring place Sumita remembered. There were ten different stations serving ten different things, all mixed up with seating areas and a lot of people milling around. Sarah went straight for the pizza ovens, and Sumita joined her. Pizza was usually a reliable vegetarian option. After about ten minutes, they picked up their fresh-baked individual pizzas, and Sumita followed Sarah out into the courtyard, where Carl and a few other devs had claimed two tables.

The rest of the group was already involved in a conversation about somebody or something Sumita didn't recognize. Sumita sat quietly waiting for her pizza to cool a little before starting in.

"Wow," she said after her first bite. "This is actually pretty good."

"Wait 'til you've been here a few months," a young, round-faced Indian guy said. "It gets old pretty quick, and it's way overpriced."

Sarah glared at him, eyebrow raised. "Seriously, Ravi," she said. "You're not in college anymore. I know they pay you enough that you can afford real food for lunch."

Everyone laughed, including Ravi.

"When I worked here," Sumita said, "the cafeteria food may have been cheap, but it was just awful. I mostly got stuff from the salad bar when I didn't bring my lunch from home."

Every face at the two tables turned toward her in unison, and Sumita was suddenly very aware that she was the oldest person there, and that she had first started work at the company when some of her new coworkers were in diapers. Even more disconcerting was the way they were looking at her, as if she possessed some secret knowledge from the company's legendary early days. 

"The burgers weren't bad," Carl said after a moment, when he noticed how uncomfortable Sumita was with all the attention. "At least if you like eating grease with your grease."

"Not really my thing," Sumita said with an appreciative smile for Carl, and then the conversation slowly wound back around to other things.

~~~

After lunch, Sarah walked Sumita upstairs to meet the PMs (Program Managers) and designers. The third floor was open space, a vast expanse of long tables separated into blocks by clusters of meeting rooms or lounge areas filled with couches and whiteboards. Sarah led Sumita back to one corner, where the team's PMs and designers all sat together, almost elbow to elbow. 

Sumita noticed that this group was at least somewhat better balanced - almost a third female. As earlier, the faces all blended together, except for one. The pretty girl from the photo on Sarah's desk was standing at a whiteboard, debating with a coworker over a few different sheets of paper. Her face brightened when she saw Sarah coming, and the coworker walked back to his chair.

"Hey, sweetie," she said to Sarah. "This must be Sumita."

Sumita extended her hand. "And you must be Meaghan," she said. "It's nice to meet you. Sarah told me you were an artist. She didn't tell me you work here too."

Meaghan brushed her hands to clear off the whiteboard marker dust and then extended her right hand to Sumita. She held her left hand lightly against her stomach. She was in baggy jeans and a loose white blouse, both a little too large for her frame.

"Art didn't really pay the bills," she said, "so I got an MFA in design and ended up here. It's pretty cool, actually, working on software that like a billion people use every day. That's a lot more than will ever see my paintings."

Sumita nodded her understanding. That was one of the exciting things about coming back to work for her as well.

Glancing toward Sarah, Meaghan added, "And if I hadn't come to work here, I never would have met Sarah."

Sumita blushed a little at the look Sarah and Meaghan exchanged.

"Um, anyway," Sumita said, "it's nice to meet you."

"You too," Meaghan replied.

Sarah introduced Sumita to the rest of the designers and PMs, and then they both went back downstairs to Sumita's office.

"So, ah, the open space," Sumita said to Sarah, closing the door. She got the feeling the subject was a little too sensitive for hallway conversation. "Are we going to be in something like that too?"

"Don't get me started," Sarah replied, and then took a deep breath. "The short answer is no - we'll still have individual offices, at least for the foreseeable future. Long term, who knows?"

Sumita breathed a sigh of relief. "I like being around people," she said, "but that was just way too much. How does Meaghan do it every day?"

"She copes," Sarah replied. "Some of the designers really like it, but Meaghan's more of an introvert, like me. It gets exhausting for her sometimes, being around so many people all day. That's one of the reasons she's thinking about not coming back after . . . never mind."

That was the hint Sumita needed. She didn't know exactly what to say, or even if she should ask at all, so she just blurted it out. "Is Meaghan, um . . .? Are you two . . .?"

Sarah's face twisted up with conflict, knowing what Sumita was asking, and then relaxed. "Yes," she said, smiling nervously. "Meaghan is pregnant. Carl knows, and Meaghan's boss, but we haven't told the rest of the team yet. It's just . . . it's kind of complicated and weird right now."

"Congratulations!" Sumita said. "I'm so happy for you. And I appreciate you trusting me. I certainly won't tell anyone."

"Thanks," Sarah said sheepishly. "I'm going to be a mom, but it doesn't feel real to me, not yet anyway. Meaghan gets the whole experience, the good and the bad, of a new life growing inside her. I just have to hang around and watch. I'm starting to understand what it's like for fathers."

"You'll be great," Sumita said.

Sarah snorted her disbelief and changed the subject. Sumita had been assigned three bugs, and Sarah showed her how to access the bug database, download the crash dumps, and find the symbols and source files. Everything about the setup had changed from what Sumita remembered, but once she got things loaded into the debugger, it all came back to her, like riding a bicycle. A bicycle that sometimes freezes or explodes for no reason, but still a bicycle.

~~~

Over the next few weeks, Sumita settled into her new job. She felt the Rajeev-sized hole in her life as acutely as ever. She didn't expect the hole would ever go away, and she didn't want it to. To make matters worse, Sangita had started her new job, and her schedule meant that Sumita only saw her on the weekends. Sumita's job gave her something that filled up her time, kept her brain occupied, and forced her to be around other people.

Some nights she went home close to tears with frustration because there was so much to learn and nothing ever worked the way it was supposed to. Some nights she went home in triumph after fixing a particularly tough bug. She was quite pleased to note that the ratio between the good nights and the bad shifted favorably after about four weeks, mostly thanks to Sarah's eternal patience.

The big surprise was in finding that, despite the age and cultural differences, she actually liked being around her coworkers, much more than she had in her earlier time at the company. Carl was as patient and friendly as Sarah whenever Sumita went to him for help, and he seemed to know everything about everything. The half dozen of the younger guys that she worked with regularly were all smart and eager to learn, and they were mostly nice people and pleasantly nerdy. The atmosphere reminded her a little of late nights in the lounge next to the computer lab in college.

And then there was Sarah. After just a few days, Sumita felt like she'd known Sarah forever, and Sarah and Meaghan welcomed Sumita into their circle like an old friend. Sarah always sat next to Sumita at lunch and afternoon coffee, and they often had their own side conversation when the guys went off on baseball or superhero movies.

Sarah and Meaghan had a longstanding Wednesday night tradition of take-out dinners out in Redmond, and Meaghan invited Sumita along after she'd been at work a couple of weeks. Sumita demurred at first, not wanting to intrude, but Sarah assured her it was fine. They'd go out, pick up teriyaki or burritos or something to go, bring it back to the office, and watch a TV show in a conference room while they ate. Sarah and Meaghan had just started working their way through Star Trek: The Next Generation, of which Meaghan had only seen a few episodes. Sumita was quite happy to sit through her favorite TV show from college again.

One of those Wednesday nights, Sarah mentioned that they were going to an opening at an art gallery in Seattle the next night, with a couple of Meaghan's friends in the show, and Meaghan asked if Sumita wanted to come along. Sumita hadn't any more interest in modern art than Sarah, and she wouldn't know anyone else there, but some instinct told her to go. At worst, she'd wind up spending the evening talking to Sarah and Meaghan, which was better than sitting at home alone.

~~~

Sumita lucked into a parking spot on Summit Avenue, less than a block from the gallery. She got out to feed the parking kiosk, which nearly swallowed her credit card, and then applied the parking sticker to the passenger window. She didn't really know what to wear to a Cap Hill art gallery, so she'd decided to go with the nicest of her standard work outfits, an indigo knit skirt and matching sweater. She kept her hair loose, a mass of frizzy brown curls cascading down her shoulders.




Reboot Pt. 01



Sarah climbed out of the back seat, smoothed the wrinkles out of her navy sundress, and helped Meaghan from the passenger seat. Meaghan, who didn't much care for western maternity clothes, wore a green shalwar kameez outfit - long cotton tunic over loose cotton trousers - that looked like it could have come out of Sumita's closet.

Meaghan led the way to the gallery, with Sarah on her arm, and Sumita followed. It was a few minutes after seven, and the showing was scheduled to start at seven thirty. Meaghan wanted to get there a little early to make sure she had time to talk to her friends before the crowds showed up.

As soon as they walked through the door, Meaghan got a wave and a hug from a short, round-faced, dimple-cheeked woman in a black dress and a black bob. After that, there was a tall, skinny guy in red skinny jeans, a white shirt, and an awful lot of mousse; and then an older guy with close-cropped gray hair and beard, in blue jeans and a casual charcoal blazer. After the initial greetings, Meaghan introduced everyone. Sumita learned that the woman and the younger guy were two of the three featured artists, Delia and Andy, and the older gentleman was Marco, who owned the gallery.

The L-shaped gallery was just bare wood floors and white walls, with moveable partitions for hanging space. The partitions were arranged to break the big empty space up into secluded areas where the paintings could stand out, individually or in groups of three or four. A scattering of small round bar tables by the front door held glasses of wine and plates of cheese and fruit.

Sarah and Sumita wandered together and looked at the art while Meaghan chatted with Delia and Andy. Delia's paintings were all abstract cityscapes, angular and brutal. There was a touch of color here and there, some warm cream in a stone wall or a hint of blue in an expanse of black metal, but the palette was mostly gray, and the jagged, crystalline cities were completely devoid of life. No people, not even a bird or a tree. No living chaos to disrupt their rigid order. They left Sumita feeling sad and cold. Sarah stopped to admire one. Sumita moved on.

Andy's work was multi-media, integrating pages of magazines, advertising posters, old street signs, and other random junk. It looked to Sumita like the collages her daughter used to make in the third grade. Judging by the price tags - about double Delia's - there was a market for that sort of thing. Sumita shook her head - she could at least appreciate the artistry of Delia's paintings, even if she didn't like them. Andy's work she didn't get at all. She moved on again.

When Sumita turned the corner, she saw a tall, thin man from the back, obscuring the painting on the opposite wall. He wore boot-cut blue jeans over worn cowboy boots, a black leather belt, and a white oxford shirt, with his light brown hair short, in a military officer's cut.

There was something familiar about the figure, like Sumita had met him before, but she had no idea where. She walked over to stand next to him, and when she did, her breath caught at two separate shocks.

First, the painting. The colors and the mood were different, but Sumita recognized the artist the instant she saw it. It had to have been painted by the same hand that created that wonderfully sad painting in Sarah's office.

Second, the man, who wasn't a man at all. In profile, Sumita could see that she was a woman, beautiful and intense, even with the androgynous attire and haircut. Her strong, angular face was set in an annoyed frown, and her pale, icy blue eyes were fixed on the painting. Sumita wondered who she was, and why she found the painting so annoying.

"What do you think?" Sumita asked the woman. "Of the painting, I mean."

"I think the lighting's wrong," she replied impatiently, without turning to look at Sumita. "It's those new LEDs. Too much blue. Makes the colors look all flat and dull. Marco promised me full-spectrum lights."

The next moment, Marco bustled around the corner, holding a box of bulbs. "Sorry, sorry," he said. "Just let me go get the ladder."

He disappeared behind another corner, the track lights on the ceiling went out, and he returned with his ladder. A few minutes later, he had replaced half a dozen bulbs, with the woman helping steady the ladder and passing new bulbs up to him.

When the lights went back on, the woman visibly relaxed. "Thanks, Marco," she said. "That makes a huge difference."

"Anything for you, love," he replied. "It was on my list, but there's always so much to do..."

And then he was gone, finding the next thing on his checklist, and Sumita and the woman were standing side by side again, looking at the painting.

"Do you see how the colors come alive now?" she asked, this time actually looking at Sumita. The mask of annoyance had melted, and her expression was all warmth and enthusiasm. "This is what it's supposed to look like."

Sumita really did see. The style was the same as the one in Sarah's office, abstract figures made of simple, almost random shapes, but the effect was quite different. There were two figures in this one, facing each other, and the colors were warm reds and oranges and yellows. This was a lovers' quarrel, full of anger and passion. After almost a year of feeling little beyond loss and grief, the raw energy on the canvas hit Sumita like a slap in the face.

"You must be Jenna," Sumita said. "I'm Sumita. I work with Sarah and Meaghan."

"Oh, yeah," Jenna said. "Sarah told me about you, the new superstar dev. She's really excited to get to work with you. I think she was getting a little bored with the rest of her team."

"Um, okay," Sumita said. "I just hope I don't disappoint . . ."

She turned back to the painting as her voice trailed off. Jenna turned back toward the painting as well, standing closer to Sumita than was really necessary. The two stood together in silence a while, looking at the painting through two very different pairs of eyes. Sumita found it unsettling standing next to this strange, intense artist while looking at her work hanging on the wall.

"So what do you think?" Jenna asked Sumita. "Of the painting, I mean?"

Sumita felt a nervous flutter in her stomach, and she frantically tried to think of something intelligent to say. Jenna's closeness became much more unsettling. Just when she was about to stammer something incoherent, Sumita saw Sarah and Meaghan walking around the corner, and her mouth opened of its own accord.

"I don't know what they're fighting about," she said to Jenna, "but the make-up sex is going to be amazing."

Jenna stood dumbfounded for a moment, and then Sarah and Meaghan were upon her, full of hugs and good wishes for the showing. Sumita slipped quietly behind Meaghan and politely added her own words of encouragement after Meaghan's and Sarah's.

Customers had started to wander in by then, so Jenna was kept busy talking about her work the whole evening. When two of Jenna's paintings sold in the first twenty minutes, Sumita sought out Marco and put her claim on the lovers' quarrel. Argument, it was called, and it was the biggest, boldest, and most expensive of Jenna's pieces in the gallery. Eight hundred dollars, plus another two hundred for framing and delivery. Sumita handed over her credit card without a second thought. She hadn't intended to buy anything, but the instant she saw that painting, she knew she wanted it. She needed that kind of passion in her life again, even if it was only a piece of canvas on her bedroom wall.

The crowd thinned out and then vanished after a couple of hours, and Sumita found herself standing behind one of those little bar tables, the wine glasses all empty and only a few sad little grapes remaining on the fruit and cheese plate. Meaghan was sitting on a bar stool that Marco had fetched from the back, with Sarah standing right next to her, massaging her back. Jenna finished up her chat with Marco and then walked over to join them.

"Hey, sweetie," Meaghan said to Jenna. "Looks like a good crowd tonight. I'm kind of annoyed nobody else turned up to support you, though. Not even Kate."

"It's fine. You two showed up, and that's what's important," Jenna replied. "Excuse me, you three," she said, nodding gravely to Sumita. Sumita returned the gesture.

"Anyway, I sold all seven, including Argument," Jenna said, looking quite pleased with herself. "I thought Marco was crazy when he priced it at eight hundred, but somebody bought it."

"Oh, sweetie, that's great!" Meaghan said, and then Sarah joined in with her own congratulations. The conversation flowed out naturally from there. Sumita didn't say much, and she did not mention that she was the one who bought Argument. The lights went off in the back of the gallery while they were chatting, and then Delia and Andy both walked out the front door, waving to Jenna as they left.

"So, Molly Moon's?" Jenna asked. That was the traditional after-showing spot for Meaghan and Jenna's mostly absent artist friends.

"I'd really love to," Meaghan replied, "but ice cream doesn't agree with baby this month, and I'm pretty much falling asleep here anyway. We should get home. Sorry, sweetie."

"It's fine," Jenna said. "I totally understand. You need to take care of little Sprout. I'm just happy you made it to the showing."

Sarah helped Meaghan down from the bar stool.

"What about you?" Jenna asked, turning toward Sumita. Her voice was warm, friendly, and casual, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes. "I really don't want to go for ice cream all by myself."

"I, um, I'm not sure," Sumita replied, flustered. "I drove Sarah and Meaghan here, so I should take them home."

"We're fine," Sarah said. "We can walk."

"Are you sure?" Sumita asked. "Meaghan looks pretty wiped out."

"It's not too far, and it's all downhill," Meaghan replied. "Walking will be good for me. Work some of the kinks out of my back and help me sleep."

"Oh, okay then," Sumita said to Meaghan. "If you're sure."

There was no reason for her to go out for ice cream with Jenna. She'd only just met this strange woman with the ice blue eyes. She didn't know anything about her, beyond the few paintings she'd seen. Sumita made up her mind to politely excuse herself and go home. She turned her head back to Jenna, and their eyes met.

"Yes," she said. "I'd love to go for ice cream."

"Great," Jenna said with a big, beaming smile, and slung her bag over her shoulder. The four of them walked out onto Summit Avenue, and Marco shut off the rest of the track lighting and locked the door behind them. When they got to Pine Street, they exchanged hugs, and Sarah and Meaghan turned right, toward home. Jenna and Sumita watched them walking down the hill while they waited for the light to change so they could cross the street. Halfway down the block, Sarah leaned up and planted a big, wet kiss on Meaghan's cheek.

"Looks like those two are in a good mood tonight," Jenna said with a sly grin. Sumita blushed at the public display of affection. In all the years she was married to Rajeev, she never kissed him like that in public.

When the light turned, Sumita and Jenna crossed the street, turned left, and walked up the hill, stopping under the sign of a dog licking an ice cream cone. The line snaked out the door.

"You should see it on the weekend," Jenna said, smiling at Sumita. "It can go all the way around the corner if it's not raining."

Sumita smiled back, and she felt a strange sensation in her chest, excited and happy and panicky all at the same time. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be a teenager going on a first date. She'd dated boys in high school and college, but that was never anything more than awkward. Boys had never really done much for her. Not that this was in any way a date.

She hadn't even felt like this at her first dinner with her husband, with the most important decision of her life in the balance. When they met, they were complete strangers, carefully selected by their families as a good match. By the time dinner was over, they were engaged. Sumita went into that dinner with some nerves, like a job interview, and she went home with a sense of accomplishment and maybe some mild, diffuse happiness, but that was all.

Whatever Jenna felt about Sumita, she didn't show it. She was still glowing with her success at the gallery.

They passed the time waiting in line people-watching, trying to guess whether the pairs around them were dating or just friends. On Cap Hill, the gayest neighborhood in Seattle, the game gets that much more interesting. Most of the male/female pairs were easy guesses one way or the other, but the same-sex pairs were harder, especially the women.

"Okay, they're probably together," Jenna said, pointing to two older men. They were standing right next to each other, much too close to be just friends, and they were wearing matching, color-coordinated outfits.

"I think you're right," Sumita said, leaning closer to Jenna. "They look like an old married couple. What about those two?" She pointed to two women walking up the sidewalk outside the shop, one with long black hair in a ponytail, the other a brown buzz cut.

"I don't know," Jenna replied. "I really can't tell, so I'll go with probably just friends."

"Seriously?" Sumita asked. "They were holding hands."

"Were they? I didn't see," Jenna replied. "My gaydar is absolutely horrible. It's kind of embarrassing. A girl pretty much has to walk up and plant a kiss on me before I know she's interested."

Sumita felt warmth rush into her cheeks, and she hoped Jenna wouldn't notice, but she didn't avert her gaze from Jenna's intense blue eyes. "I'll keep that in mind," she said.

They found themselves at the front of the line, and a pink-haired girl asked what they wanted.

"Single scoop of honey lavender in a waffle cone," Jenna said. Sumita realized that she hadn't even looked up at the menu board to see what flavors they had, and then she realized it didn't matter.

"Same thing for me," Sumita said. "That sounds delicious."

Jenna paid for both of them and they walked outside and across the street to Cal Anderson Park. Sumita took her first bite of ice cream right as they stepped into the park. It was shockingly floral, like a gust of wind on a calm spring day, but the flavor soon mellowed into a delicate sweetness. It was the best ice cream she'd had in years.

They spent the next half hour strolling around the park eating their ice cream, dodging the crowds of young people with way too much energy, avoiding the drug users and dealers, and chatting about nothing in particular. Sumita wasn't feeling very interesting, so she let Jenna do most of the talking. Jenna was only too happy to explain all the little details of her painting technique, and Sumita was surprised at how much she enjoyed hearing about it. After listening to Jenna for a while, she knew more about canvasses and brushes and paints than she ever expected to learn, and she had fantasies in her head about dragging Jenna through the Tate Gallery in London as her own personal tour guide. What she still didn't know, though, was how Jenna managed to draw so much feeling out of her with the simple, abstract shapes in her paintings. She was pleased that it remained a mystery.

Eventually, Sumita's ice cream was gone and Jenna's was down to the last inch-long stub of her waffle cone. Jenna took one more bite and the thing split in half, dripping ice cream all over her hands. Sumita reached into her purse, grabbed a couple of the napkins she stuffed into it at the shop, and wiped Jenna's hands clean.

"Thanks," Jenna said, a little embarrassed at making a mess of herself.

"No problem," Sumita said, smiling warmly at Jenna. She held onto Jenna's hands a moment longer, intensely conscious of the warmth of Jenna's skin and the blue of her eyes, and then let go.

"It's, um, getting late," she said. "Work tomorrow. I should get home."

"Yeah," Jenna said. "Me too."

They walked down the hill back to the gallery together in comfortable silence, neither wanting to say anything awkward and break the spell. Jenna's car was closer, a block from Sumita's. "Thanks for coming with me for ice cream," Jenna said. "A showing's not the same if I don't have anyone to go for ice cream with afterwards."

"Thanks for inviting me," Sumita replied. "I had a great time."

Jenna got into her old green Toyota compact, started it up, and drove off, waving at Sumita through the open window. Sumita waved back and waited until Jenna turned the corner before walking back to her own car.

In bed that night, Sumita wondered to herself what had really happened that evening, if anything had happened at all. She slept soundly, without remembering her dreams, for the first time in a very long time.

~~~

Sarah walked into Sumita's office after lunch the next day and closed the door. Sumita stopped what she was doing and turned her chair to give Sarah her full attention. Sarah almost never closed the door, so whatever it was must be important.

"I'm glad you came last night," she said. "I hope you had fun."

"Yes," Sumita said. "I had a good time. Your friend Jenna is very sweet."

"She asked about you, you know," Sarah said. "I told her you were married for twenty something years and that you only recently lost your husband. Just to make sure she doesn't get the wrong idea. I hope that's okay."

"Oh," Sumita replied. "Ah, yeah. That's probably best."

Sarah gave Sumita a long, searching look, and then made a firm little nod, like the period at the end of a sentence. "I can send you her email address, if you want," she said. "To talk about her art, or whatever. She said you were interested."

"Um, sure," Sumita said.

Sarah leaned forward in her chair and fidgeted with the end of her braid. Sumita could tell she was nervous about whatever else she had come to talk about.

"So," Sarah finally said. "Monday is when Dave comes back to work."

"Yeah, that's what Bhavesh tells me," Sumita replied, relieved to be talking about something else.

"I probably shouldn't say anything," Sarah said, "but I do feel like I can trust you, and you deserve to know. Just please don't say anything to anybody else, okay?"

"Okay," Sumita replied, wondering what exactly Sarah was going to tell her. "I won't say anything."

"Dave is kind of a tool," Sarah said. "I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me, and I know for certain I don't like him. I don't know if it's because I'm Asian, or because I'm female, or because I'm gay, or just because I'm way smarter than he is, but I always get this hostile vibe from him, like he'd rather not have to deal with me. You have at least three of those things going for you, so you may have trouble with him too."

"That's just great," Sumita said angrily. "Do you know why I left this place the first time? I got stuck with a lead who was a complete ass, and he made coming to work so unpleasant I didn't want to do it anymore. And now it looks like that's going to happen all over again."

"It won't be so bad," Sarah replied. "As obnoxious as Dave is, he's always at least professional, and anyway you probably won't see him that much. He spends most of his time in meetings - that's why Bhavesh keeps him on the team. Most weeks, the only real contact I have with him is our weekly one-on-one. It's never pleasant, but it only lasts half an hour, tops. I just wanted to warn you what you were getting into, so you can be prepared for it."

"Thanks," Sumita said. "It's better to know, I guess."

"Feel free to come by my office and bitch to me whenever you want," Sarah said with a wicked smile. She knew Sumita would be taking up her offer soon enough.

Sumita quietly fumed to herself for a while after Sarah left, annoyed with Bhavesh for sticking her with a difficult lead, knowing full well about her previous experience. There was nothing she could do about it, so her annoyance slowly ebbed away, until her brain got stuck on something Sarah said.




Reboot Pt. 01



You have at least three of those things going for you. Asian, check. Female, check. Way smarter than Dave, also likely a check. At least three... 

And why had Sarah sent her Jenna's email address? Wondering kept her mind busy for the rest of the afternoon.

Sumita had leftover aloo gobi for dinner at home that night, alone. She fired up her laptop to read tech news while she ate, and she saw Sarah's email at the top of her inbox. The only content of the message was an email address, twenty three characters underlined in blue. All she had to do was click. She nudged her finger up the trackpad until the mouse cursor was hovering over the link.

She slammed her laptop shut, wondering what had gotten into her. Sarah was absolutely right - she had recently lost her husband, and she had no earthly reason to email this Jenna person, as nice as the night before had been.

~~~

Sumita's house was a box, solid beige clapboard on three sides, broken up only by the front door and two very small windows. From the outside, it was about the most boring structure in the world. It wasn't until you got inside that you saw the real point. The fourth wall was all glass, looking out over Lake Sammamish. It was right on the eastern shore, with a small, unused boat jetty, and the view was beautiful during the day and spectacular at sunset. Sumita never tired of it.

Sangita wandered into the living room a little after noon on Sunday, still drowsy. Noon was early for her. Sumita was sitting on the couch, fussing about whether to email Jenna for the third time that morning.

"Hey, Gita," Sumita said to her daughter, peeking over the lid of her laptop. "What are you up to today?"

"Don't really know," Sangita replied. "Dina is in California with her parents for the week, I'm not really speaking to Alan, and all my other friends are generally unavailable. I guess I'm spending the afternoon with you."

"A whole afternoon with your aged, decrepit mother," Sumita said. "However will you cope?"

"With great difficulty," Sangita replied, digging through the fridge in the kitchen for a yogurt. "Do you think you could drag your aged, decrepit body up Cougar Mountain? It's great hiking weather."

"I think so," Sumita said, and closed the lid on her laptop. "It's been a long time, but I can probably manage."

Sangita wandered back into the living room with a spoonful of yogurt in her mouth. Her mother was in better shape than most of her eighteen-year-old friends. Of course she could manage.

"I was thinking of making sambar tonight," Sumita said. "The Brussels sprouts looked really nice at the Trader Joe's."

Sangita flounced into a chair next to the couch with her yogurt in her hand and nodded her assent. Sambar was her favorite.

"And some rice pudding for dessert?" Sangita asked, giving her mother the look.

"Sure," Sumita replied, laughing, and Sangita gave her a big smile.

"We could put a movie on after dinner..." Sumita suggested. Sangita rolled her eyes. She had not inherited her parents' fondness for Bollywood spectacle.

"... you can pick," Sumita continued, and Sangita brightened.

"Sounds great," Sangita said.

"Just please don't make me watch Fast Cars 8 or Big Explosions 11, okay?" Sumita added.

Sangita giggled. "Don't worry, Mom," she said. "I'll find something good."

An hour and a half later, they were at the trailhead, ready to go. Sangita was encased in spandex, slim and athletic. Sumita wore a loose tee shirt over her heavy-duty sports bra and baggy sweats. Her full, curvy figure was not conducive to spandex.

Sumita had to suppress a smile at the memory Rajeev's reaction the first time he saw his daughter in her hiking outfit. He was intensely proud of the mature young woman Sangita had become, but some parts of daughters growing up are harder for fathers to accept than others. The black cloud surrounding Sangita's memories of her husband was still there, but it was farther off, less threatening. Maybe it would rain on somebody else's house for a change.

Sangita set a fast pace up the trail, so that the only people passing them were the guys crazy enough to run. Sumita was pleased that she could keep up, but there wasn't a lot of breath left over for conversation.

At the peak, they stood together silently for a while, catching their breath and stretching. On another day, they would have been tempted to sit, rest, talk, and enjoy the view. That day, the peak was as crowded with hikers as they had ever seen it, and a funky brown haze had settled in the air, the kind you don't notice until you climb up above it. They ate their energy bars, drank some water, and hiked back down.

"Not bad, Mom," Sangita said when they got back to the car. "Not bad at all."

"Thanks, Gita," Sumita replied. "That was fun."

Sangita laughed as she climbed into the passenger's seat. Cougar Mountain isn't Mount Rainier or anything, but 'fun' isn't the first word most people come up with to describe it.

~~~

Both showered and changed when they got home, and Sangita holed herself up in her room with her laptop while Sumita sat in the living room and read a book. Sangita emerged a few hours later, just as Sumita was pouring out a bowl of chapatti flour to start dinner.

They were a practiced team in the kitchen. Sangita had started cooking with her mother when she was six, and there were times during the awkward teenage years when the only happy words they exchanged all day were over a frying pan.

Sangita set a pot of lentils to simmering while her mother made the chapatti dough. When the dough was kneaded and resting, Sumita pulled out her immersion blender to puree the cooked lentils. Sangita measured out the spices for both dishes, ducking under her mother's arms to stir the rice.

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting at the kitchen counter watching the two pots simmering on the stove. The room smelled of cinnamon and cardamom, and both women felt their stomachs grumble in anticipation.

"So," Sumita said. "How's work going? It seems like we've barely seen each other since you started."

"It's good," Sangita replied. "I wasn't sure about the night shift at first, but I love it. Everything is so peaceful. Frank - he's the supervisor - anyway, he lets me do all the standard blood chemistry tests myself, and those are like ninety percent of our work on the late shift. It keeps me pretty busy. The machines do most of the work, so it's not super interesting, but it's good experience."

"It was really nice of Doctor Srinivasan to recommend me for the job," Sangita added after getting up to give the rice pudding a stir. "They don't hire too many students just for the summer."

"Vivek was happy to help," Sumita replied. "Neither of his boys went to medical school, so he's really excited that you want to follow in your father's footsteps."

"Yeah, I get that," Sangita replied, laughing. "And I do appreciate the encouragement. There's no way I'm going to be a dermatologist, though. I don't know exactly what I want to specialize in, but I know it's not that."

"Well, your father would be proud of you whatever you do," Sumita said, and it felt good to say it. Even through the fog of her grief, Sumita could feel Rajeev's love for his daughter.

"I know, Mom," Sangita said. "Thank you."

When the rice pudding was done, Sangita put the pot in the fridge to chill, grabbed the mixing bowl with the chapatti dough, and started pinching off chunks and rolling them into little balls. Sumita joined her.

"So," Sangita said to her mother while rolling a ball of dough out into a flat round. "How's your work, Mom? I heard all about your first week, and you haven't told me anything about it since."

"Well," Sumita replied, rolling out her own round, "there was a training class one week in the afternoons about a lot of the tools and processes. That was kind of helpful, I guess. Mostly I've just been fixing bugs."

"You're just fixing other people's bugs?" Sangita asked. "Doesn't sound very exciting."

"No," Sumita replied. "I suppose not. They kind of piled up, so last month was bug jail month for the whole team. It's actually been a good way to get back into coding. Anyway, this month Bhavesh has a project for me. He's been trying to get somebody to do it for a couple years now, and it always gets pushed back because it's too scary."

"Sounds interesting," Sangita said. "What is it?"

They'd finished rolling out half a dozen balls of chapatti dough into flat rounds, though none of them were more than approximations of a circle. Sumita's sister, mother, and mother all had the technique down, rolling out chapattis as round as a compass on paper every time, but Sumita had never quite gotten it. They tasted exactly the same, but every misshapen chapatti felt like a tiny failure as a wife and mother. Sumita tried to put it out of her mind. Her husband and daughter had never minded.

Sumita laid three chapattis on the griddle. "You know how web pages often have tables of stuff on them?" she asked. "Like airline ticket prices or weather forecasts or whatever?"

"Yeah," Sangita replied.

"Somebody has to write code to turn that data into formatted HTML that the browser can display," Sumita said.

"Okay," Sangita said. "Makes sense."

"So we have this feature in the web editing tools that will write the code for you," Sumita said, minding the quickly-cooking flatbread. "You do whatever you want to the sample data in the WYSIWYG editor, and we generate the script to apply your formatting to the live data on the web server. You don't have to know anything about JavaScript; it just works."

"Sounds really cool," Sangita said. "What are you doing with it?"

"It is cool," Sumita replied, flipping the chapattis over, "but it only works for really simple tables. Bhavesh wants me to make it work for the kind of tables people actually use. Those are much more complicated."

"I'll bet that's hard," Sangita said, "but I'm sure you'll figure it out."

"I'm not so sure, Gita," Sumita said. "If nobody else on the team has even been willing to try, I really doubt I'll be able to do anything special."

"Geez, Mom," Sangita said. "You're like the smartest person I know. Have some faith in yourself."

Sumita laughed, tousled her daughter's hair, pulled the chapattis off the griddle, and then cooked the other three. Sangita spooned out two bowls of sambar and carried them to the dining room table, along with the steaming bread basket. Sumita stopped at the fridge to pull out a pitcher of iced tea, poured out two glasses, and followed Sangita into the dining room. They sat down together to eat.

Sangita grabbed a chapatti, dipped it into the thick, silky lentil stew, and took a bite. She swooned. "Soooo good," she said.

"Glad you like it," Sumita replied, smiling. Sumita couldn't imagine a better compliment than that.

"I've been thinking," Sangita said after she'd eaten a few more bites. "Maybe it's time to break up with Alan."

Sumita sat up straight in her chair. "Oh," she said, trying very hard to sound casual. "What happened?" Sangita had started dating Alan just after Rajeev died, and Sumita had never liked him.

"Nothing really," Sangita replied. "I just don't see it going anywhere. He's kind of a slacker, and he gets all pissy at me when I have to work, like my job isn't important."

"Whatever you think is best, Gita," Sumita said.

"Yeah, right, Mom," Sangita said with a laugh. "I know you don't like him, and I understand why. He was fun for a while, though, and I needed some distraction."

"You're right," Sumita said. "I didn't like him at all, but I didn't want to pry. I just want you to be happy, Gita."

"Thanks for not pushing," Sangita said. "Anyway, I'm not the only one who needs some distraction. You need more friends in your life, especially since Aunt Julie moved away. I hope you're meeting people at work that you can do stuff with."

"Most of my coworkers are closer to your age than mine," Sumita replied, and Sangita gave her mother that you fuss too much about everything look that she had been using since she was a teenager.

"Sarah and Meaghan are really nice, though," Sumita said. "I have dinner with them on Wednesday nights sometimes, and I went with them to an art gallery thing on Cap Hill last week. I actually bought a painting - it should come next week sometime."

"Wow," Sangita said. "Cool. Can't wait to see it. I'm really glad you have some new friends."

"Yeah," Sumita replied. "Me too."

"You know," Sangita said. "I wouldn't mind at all if you met someone. Like, met someone..."

Sumita turned bright red. Talking about her love life with her eighteen-year-old daughter was the last thing in the world she expected to do when she got up that morning.

"It's been almost a year since Dad died," Sangita continued. "I still expect him to come home at night sometimes, before I remember. But I know he's not going to, and you shouldn't keep waiting for him. You deserve another chance at happiness. I just want you to know that I'm okay with it."

"Sangita, I . . ." Sumita replied, at a loss for anything else to say.

Sangita gulped down the last of her iced tea and then set the glass down on her placemat. She leaned forward against the table, looking at her mother with a bland little smile, as if she'd just suggested taking up knitting.

Sumita tried again. "I really don't think I'm ready, Gita," she said, very slowly. "I was married to your father for a long time, and the idea of being with anybody else, even just going out for dinner or something is . . . I don't know. It's going to take some getting used to."

"I know, Mom, and that's fine," Sangita said. "I'm not trying to push or anything. I just want you to know that it's okay, when you think you're ready."

Sumita noticed that her heart was beating a little faster than normal, and she wondered why. Then she knew. "Um," she said, "I think I might, maybe, have already met somebody. It's probably nothing."

"That's great!" Sangita said, bursting into a huge smile. "What's her name?"

"Sangita!" Sumita cried. What had possessed her daughter to ask such a thing? And how did she know?

"Oh, come on, Mom," Sangita said, cutting off any further protest. She was still smiling, but her voice was filled with exasperation at maternal cluelessness. "It's, like, totally obvious. It's actually kind of cute the way you sometimes get nervous and fidgety around Dina's mom, but then you don't even notice Erik's dad. Who is totally hot, by the way."

Sumita gave her daughter a sharp, motherly look at that last comment, but Sangita didn't flinch. "Just 'cause he's way too old for me, doesn't mean he doesn't look like Brad Pitt," she said. "Just sayin'."

Sumita laughed out loud. She hadn't really thought about it, but she supposed Mr. Nielsen was in very good shape, and much better looking than most of the men in her age bracket. Not that she was interested.

"Plus," Sangita continued, "I know you were crazy in love with Aunt Julie. I still remember that time on the playground in Marymoor Park, when Ryan pinched his finger in the climbing mesh, and you and Julie were having some big, serious talk. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but it stuck with me somehow. Then at Julie's wedding, when you were crying, I figured it out."

Sumita sat back in her chair, took a sip of her tea, and breathed out. "Julie and I were never more than friends," Sumita said firmly, so there could be no misunderstanding. "I loved her very much - I still do - but I was never in love with her. It's not the same thing."

Sangita arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

"I wasn't," Sumita insisted, "honestly."

Sangita started at her mother, eyebrow still raised. Sumita stared back, her I'm your mother stare, but Sangita didn't blink. Sumita folded.

"I wasn't in love with Julie ..." she repeated. Her voice was quiet and controlled, but then the dam broke. "... but I so easily could have been. There was a moment right before I met your father when we got close, but we were both too confused or too scared to act on it. And then I met Rajeev and we got married, and that was that."

Sumita was surprised to feel a tear sliding down her cheek, and Sangita reached across the table and took her hand. "I'm really sorry, Mom," she said.

"It's okay, Gita," Sumita replied. "I wouldn't change a thing about my life, even if I could. And I really did love your father, even though he was a man. Besides, if things had turned out differently, you wouldn't be here."

"Fair point," Sangita said with a giggle. "But you still haven't told me her name. This mysterious person you might, maybe, possibly have met."

"Oh," Sumita replied. "Her name is Jenna. I met her at the gallery thing with Sarah and Meaghan. She's the one whose painting I bought, although she doesn't know that. We went to Molly Moon's for ice cream afterwards. Really good by the way - we'll have to go there sometime. Maybe there's one on the east side."

"Sounds nice," Sangita said. "I really am happy for you, Mom."

"Thank you, sweetie," Sumita replied, "but I don't think it was anything, really. It was just an ice cream cone. I'm not really ready for any of this anyway."

Sangita rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Mom," she said, and got up to clear the table.

They did the dishes together, Sangita washing and Sumita drying. Sumita was lost in a tangle of conflicting, confusing thoughts and feelings, not paying much attention to the task at hand. Sangita jolted her back to reality.

"I kissed Dina once," Sangita said, and then handed Sumita the last pan to dry.

"What?" Sumita asked, not quite processing what Sangita had said. When she put the words together in her head and the meaning became clear, she tensed up and nearly dropped the pan. She would love her daughter no matter what, but she didn't want her life to be any harder than it needed to be. Losing her father was bad enough. Sumita set the pan down on the counter.

"I kissed Dina," Sangita repeated. "It was after Aunt Julie married Amanda. I think maybe we both just wanted to see what it was like. I don't know."

"And what was it like?" Sumita asked.

"It was nice, I guess," Sangita replied, smiling at the memory. "She's a really good kisser. Whoever she winds up with is going to be really lucky."

"So does that mean you're . . .?" Sumita asked, not quite able to finish the question.

"Nah," Sangita replied. "At least I don't think so. I like girls, but they don't really get my heart racing, you know? I wouldn't mind at all if the perfect girl came along someday, but I don't expect that to happen. I'm pretty sure it'll be a boy, or a man, or whatever. Somebody better for me than Alan."

Sumita relaxed. A mother never stops worrying about her child, but Sumita had faith that things would turn out well for Sangita. She picked up the pan to dry. "You've got a good head on your shoulders, Gita," she said. "You'll know when you've found the right person."

"Hope so," Sangita replied, and walked out to the living room.

Sumita followed a few minutes later with two bowls of rice pudding. Sangita had already turned on the TV and queued up the movie.

"Ready?" she asked.

"I guess," Sumita replied.

"Here goes," Sangita said.

Sumita could see that it was set in India from the opening shot, and she was surprised at her daughter's choice. Sangita had never shown any interest in Indian movies. This one was from a moderately famous director, but Sumita had never even heard of it.

"It doesn't look Big Explosions 11," she said to Sangita, "even if it is called Fire."

"Just watch, Mom," Sangita replied. "I think you'll like it."

It started out as a dysfunctional family drama, something no culture lacks, even if the details differ. Radha was an unhappy woman in a loveless marriage, almost the same age as Sumita. Sita, young and beautiful, moved into the house after an arranged marriage to Radha's brother, who was no better a husband than Radha's own.




Reboot Pt. 01



It was uncomfortable watching - although Sumita's arranged marriage to Rajeev turned out well, she had friends and relatives in both India and America for whom things did not turn out so well. Nothing as bad as the movie, but still.

It's always the women who suffer most, and Radha and Sita were no exception. They weren't really abused, but they were alone, married to men who didn't want them. As the movie went on, it became clear they would find comfort in each other, and the only question was whether they would have a happy ending together. Sumita was in tears from the climactic scene when Radha's sari caught fire until after the credits.

"Night, Mom," Sangita said, gave her mother a hug, and got up to go to her room. She wouldn't be in bed for hours, but she knew Sumita had work in the morning.

"Night, Gita," Sumita replied, and then sat on the couch for five full minutes, collecting herself after the movie. She lay awake a long time after she went to bed, but it wasn't grief that kept her up, or work. She couldn't get the movie out of her head, and when she did sleep, her dreams were not at all restful.

She was all alone in a dark place, wearing her wedding outfit of pumpkin-colored silk, and she had to find Rajeev, but he was gone. The only light was fire. Fire in a stone pit gaping before her, fire crawling across the sky, fire erupting in great gouts from the ground around her. One of those gouts caught in her clothes, first the embroidered sari, and then the long, crystal-studded skirt and cropped blouse. Sumita panicked and ran, which only fanned the flames. They consumed her clothes, but they didn't burn her skin, leaving her naked. And then the fire was gone, and all Sumita could see was Jenna's ice blue eyes, staring back at her wherever she looked.

~~~

Sumita rolled into work around nine forty the next morning, late and grumpy from not sleeping well. Late for her, anyway - many of the other devs got in between ten and eleven. She spent the first hour of her day cleaning up her email inbox, responding to whatever needed answering and filing everything away to keep her inbox down to one screenful. The messages she kept in her inbox were the ones that needed some further action, something she couldn't or didn't know how to deal with first thing on a Monday morning. Sarah's email with Jenna's contact information was at the top of the list.

At eleven, Sumita's calendar showed a new twice-weekly status meeting with Dave, her newly returned lead, the eight other devs who reported to him, and the PMs they worked with. Sumita showed up at the conference room right on time, which meant she was the first one there. Everyone else filed in by five after, and then a small, scrawny guy in khaki Dockers and a blue shirt limped in, with a cane and a full-length brace on his left leg. Dave, obviously. Whatever had happened to his knee must have been pretty serious if he was still limping that badly six weeks after surgery.

The meeting involved going around the table and everyone talking about what they were working on. It seemed like a waste of time to Sumita, but whatever. If a silly status meeting twice a week kept people happy, it wasn't that big of a deal. She didn't get to form much of an impression of Dave - that would come on Friday, in her weekly one-on-one meeting. She wasn't really looking forward to it.

It turned out to be a disaster. Dave started the meeting by informing Sumita that he thought her feature was a bad idea and that he was recommending to Bhavesh that it be cut from the schedule. In the meantime, he suggested Sumita would be better off doing something, anything, else. That rant - it wasn't really an argument, since Sumita didn't get many chances to speak - consumed the first twenty minutes of the half hour, which left very little time for Sumita and Dave to get to know each other. That was fine with Sumita - she had already made up her mind that he was an officious little twit, and that, if anything, Sarah had understated his obnoxiousness.

Aside from her blessedly few meetings, Sumita spent most of her week fighting with her new data table feature. Her boss may have hated it, but it was still her job, and she was looking forward to doing it. Nobody else on the team knew much about it. A completely different team owned the editor; Sumita's team just owned the plug-in library that provided the data table editing stuff. The code she was building on top of was undeniably brilliant, but it was also more than a little idiosyncratic, and it was Thursday before Sumita even felt confident about where to add her new code, let alone how to write it.

Every afternoon around five thirty, Sumita opened Sarah's message with Jenna's email address, determined to do something with it, either email Jenna, file it away in her personal folder, or just delete the damn thing. Every afternoon, she hovered her mouse cursor over the link and almost clicked, but didn't, closing the message instead. The rational part of her brain told her she wasn't over her husband's death, that she wasn't ready to go out with anyone, let alone a woman she barely knew. Another part of her brain couldn't stop thinking about Jenna's ice blue eyes, or about the magic she painted onto her canvasses. The fight between the two always ended in a draw.

~~~

Jenna's painting arrived on Friday night, and it affected Sumita just as strongly as the first time she saw it. She hung it on the wall opposite her bed, where it would get plenty of natural light but never be directly in the sun. She didn't want the bright colors to fade.

She showed her daughter the painting Saturday afternoon. Sangita liked it well enough, but the emotion didn't jump out at her the way it did for Sumita.

"It's really pretty," she said, "but how can you tell they're fighting? I can barely tell they're people."

"I don't know," Sumita replied. "I think it's the way they're facing each other. There's just so much energy between them. Plus, the red and orange and yellow. They look angry and jealous to me."

"Whatever, Mom," Sangita said. "How do you know they're not getting married? Those are wedding colors in India, you know."

"Sangita," Sumita said, getting annoyed with her daughter. "The artist isn't Indian, and anyway, the painting is called Argument. They're definitely fighting."

"I know, Mom," Sangita said, breaking into a goofy smile. "I was just teasing you. I can kind of tell that they're arguing, and I do like it. I can see why you're so interested in this Jenna person. You should call her."

"Gita, I . . ." Sumita said, not really knowing how to finish. She wasn't sure herself what she was going to do about Jenna, and her daughter bringing up the subject left her flustered and tongue-tied.

"Gotta go," Sangita said. "I'm shopping with Dina this afternoon. A bunch of us are getting dinner later, so don't wait for me."

"Okay, Gita," Sumita replied. "Have fun."

Sangita gave her mother a quick hug and dashed out the door.

~~~

The next few weeks went by much like the last. Sumita made some good progress on her feature at work. It wasn't on any of the official schedule reports since nobody understood it well enough to even estimate it, but she did talk to Bhavesh about it a few times a week, and he was happy with her progress. She found out through office gossip that she had landed in the middle of a very long disagreement between Bhavesh and Dave. Knowing Dave's hostility wasn't really about her made Sumita feel better, but it didn't make those weekly meetings any more pleasant.

Afternoon coffee was usually a pretty big group, so Sumita kept her conversation topics uncontroversial. Once or twice, there was cricket on the TV in the corner of the cafeteria, and Sumita sat down with Ravi and a couple other Indian guys to watch, while Sarah and the other non-Indians went outside to enjoy the sun.

At least once a week, though, it was just Sumita and Sarah, along with maybe Meaghan or Carl. On those days, Sumita felt free to gripe about Dave, and Sarah joined in enthusiastically.

"I swear," Sarah said one day, "if he says, 'Now let's all just sharpen our pencils,' one more time, I'm going to scream." Her voice was a pretty good impression of Dave's prissy, condescending tone, and her face was a perfect mockery of his overly serious expression. Sumita burst out laughing.

"Wow," Sumita said. "It's scary how good you are at that. Are you practicing to take his job or something?"

"Oh, god no," Sarah replied, looking horrified. "Even if I do become a lead someday, I will never want Dave's job. He actually likes all the meetings and spreadsheets and crap that Bhavesh and the other leads have to do. Volunteers to do more of it. It's scary how fixated he can get on bug counts and RI calendars."

"It's a good deal for Bhavesh, I guess," Sumita said. "He can dump all that stuff on Dave and keep the other leads happy. It's not such a good deal for us, though."

"Yeah, well," Sarah replied. "What can you do? At least he doesn't get in my way."

"Mine either," Sumita said, "at least so far."

After that, the conversation moved on to happier topics. Project Sprout, Sarah and Meaghan's nickname for Meaghan's pregnancy, was going very well, no problems at all. It was starting to feel real for Sarah, the whole becoming a mom thing, and she was nervous and happy and excited about all of it. She invited Sumita to the baby shower, two Sunday afternoons away. Sumita happily accepted.

Sumita filed away Sarah's message with Jenna's email address so she wouldn't have to see it every day. She was still intrigued, especially after seeing that painting on her wall first thing every morning, but she decided she wasn't going do anything about it. She was still getting used to being a widow and being back at work. Soon enough, she'd have to adjust to Sangita moving into a dorm room at the university. Now wasn't the time to for big changes in her life. That's what she told herself, anyway, and she almost believed it.

~~~

Sarah's baby shower invitation said casual, and Sumita knew she meant it. Neither the tech folks nor the artists were likely to be dress-up types, even for high tea. Sumita wore a knee-length denim skirt and a sleeveless white cotton blouse. Casual and comfy but still festive and feminine. The invitation also said two thirty, and Sumita cursed herself when she walked up to the door at two forty two. She hated being late, even for casual social occasions, where times can be elastic. She had accounted for traffic, but she had to hunt forever for a parking spot near Sarah and Meaghan's building downtown, and she felt like an idiot for not thinking about that beforehand.

She also felt a little edgy, on top of being late, and she had no idea why. She decided it was that she'd only known Sarah and Meaghan for a few months, and she worried about feeling like an outsider among their family and friends. That worry disappeared as soon as walked through the door.

"Sumi!" Sarah said, wrapping her in a brief hug, "I'm so glad you're here. Come on in - Meaghan's in the living room. Can I get you something to drink? We have water, soda, iced tea..."

Before Sarah could finish, the door opened again and a tall, thin blonde in a short yellow sundress walked in. Sarah greeted the woman, named Kate, equally enthusiastically, and Kate bubbled and smiled back and sort-of-but-not-really apologized for being late. Sumita had heard about Kate from both Sarah and Jenna, and the reality matched her mental picture perfectly.

"Not a problem," Sarah replied. "Tea won't be ready until three, and not everyone's here yet anyway. We're just glad you made it."

"A party at Sarah and Meaghan's, and all women," Kate said with a big grin. "How could I resist such a target-rich environment?"

Sarah laughed. "You're terrible," she said. "And anyway, most of these women are happily married. You know, to men."

"You can't blame a girl for trying," Kate replied, and wandered off to find Meaghan. Sarah and Sumita followed, both smiling at Kate's silliness.

When Sumita turned toward the living room, her breath caught at the view. The living room wall was all glass, like her own, but instead of looking out low over a smallish, pretty lake, Sarah and Meaghan's place was high in the air, looking down on Elliott Bay and Puget Sound, and it was majestic. In the bay, Sumita could see two ferries passing, one coming in from Bainbridge Island, the other going out to Bremerton, as well as the water taxi, a container ship heading into the port, and at least a dozen sailboats. The bluff of West Seattle, skirted by Alki Beach, bounded the bay opposite the downtown waterfront, and across the sound to the north, Bainbridge Island and the Kitsap Peninsula rose out of the water, with the Olympic Mountains towering behind them. The sun shone through a break in the light, wispy clouds, painting the water a shimmering silver, too bright to look at for long.

The kitchen was to the left of the front door, separated by a wall from the entryway but open toward the windows. Sumita heard somebody working away in there, but she couldn't see who it was. A narrow table stood by the kitchen door stocked with ice, glasses, and all manner of beverages. Another of Meaghan's illustrations hung over the drinks table, a morning scene on the Seattle waterfront featuring a ferry. Sumita smiled at it, just as she had at the ones in Sarah's office. Meaghan's art could brighten up any spot.

The open living room had obviously been rearranged for the shower, with every available couch and comfy chair brought in for seating, and two round tables supplementing the dining room table. Opposite the kitchen, a cello and a bamboo music stand stood in the corner, and a few plants had been relocated into a semi-circle in front of them.

The music playlist in the background was perfectly chosen, long classical pieces interspersed with more modern instrumental music, from folk to jazz, all of it beautiful and none of it distracting. "This is pretty much the same music I played for Meaghan on our first date," Sarah explained when someone asked about it. "Mozart never goes out of style."

Sumita found herself sitting, mimosa in hand, on one of the sofas between Dianne, Meaghan's lead at work, and Sarah's grandmother Nanami, whom she recognized from the picture on Sarah's desk. In person, the relationship was immediately apparent. Nana was older and full Japanese, but she and her granddaughter had the same easy kindness and humor in their eyes.

Meaghan was on the next couch over, the one that looked like it was there all the time. She was the serene center of all the activity swirling around her. Everyone took a moment to say hello to her - it was her party, after all - and Meaghan greeted them all with the perfect happiness of a cat curled up by the fire.

Two or three more women showed up, and Sarah made introductions. There wasn't any family present beyond Nana and Cheryl, Meaghan's sister, but Sarah and Meaghan had lots of friends, from work, the art scene, their birthing class, and elsewhere. In all, there were almost two dozen women at the shower, cheerfully crammed into the too-small space. When everyone else was settled, Sarah plopped herself down next to Meaghan on the couch, who was already in the middle of one of the inevitable baby shower conversations.

"Little Rachel couldn't wait to be born," said Kara, Carl's wife, beaming. "There wasn't even time for an epidural - under an hour from when I got to the hospital until I was holding my baby in my arms. It was absolutely wonderful! I hope it goes oaky for you, Meaghan."

Cheryl piped up after that. "My daughter Grace was bad enough," she said, giving Kara a mildly hostile look, "but her brother Sam was just awful. Three different trips to the hospital with Braxton Hicks contractions, just to turn around and go home again, and then when he finally came, I was in labor for twenty three hours."

The stories went on after that. At home or in the hospital. C-sections. Drugs and no drugs (mostly drugs). Doctors and midwives and doulas. Even Nana jumped in, telling everyone that Sarah's grandfather didn't know he had a daughter until the next morning. That got a laugh. The stories all ended the same way, though, with a distant, glazed look from remembering that wonderful moment when a mother first sees her new baby.

Meaghan smiled through all the stories, unshakeable in her calm, like she knew all of the painful things that would happen to her, and some of the terrible things that could, but she knew somehow it would all turn out right in the end. Sarah, on the other hand, visibly flinched every time she imagined some new disaster happening to her wife or their baby. She looked ill by the time everyone had had her turn.

"What about you, Sumita?" Dianne asked. "You have a daughter, right?"

"Yeah," Sumita replied. "C-section. I was unconscious for most of it, so I don't remember much." She didn't think anyone, especially Sarah, would particularly appreciate hearing about how she almost died having Sangita. How she didn't have a memory of that special moment because of the pain meds. How her first baby would be the only baby she could ever have.

The pair working in the kitchen emerged a minute later, wearing battle-stained aprons over their party clothes. The shorter one was in a green dress, while the taller one wore blue jeans and a white shirt. They were obviously sisters, though the one in the green dress was rounder and softer, and her hair was longer and blonde. They had the same straight nose and the same eyes. Ice blue. Jenna.

Sumita froze in her seat and her nerves flooded back a hundredfold. She had expected to see Jenna at the shower, and she was surprised, relieved, and disappointed all at the same time when she hadn't earlier. Now there she was. Sumita's heart beat faster, and she tried to make herself small, disappear into the couch cushions.

"Tea's ready," Jenna's sister said. "The food's on the counter, and the teapots are in the kitchen."

Meaghan was first, of course. Her party. She filled a plate with yumminess while Sarah got a pot of tea for each of them from the kitchen and a plate of her own. They sat back down on the big sofa, with plates and cups on the coffee table.

Everyone else queued behind the counter after Meaghan and Sarah. Sumita was in the middle of the bunch, next to Dianne, and she was very impressed with the spread. The china was white and delicate, the silver was silver, and the food looked amazing. There were at least a dozen different kinds of tea sandwiches, and they were perfect. Perfect little squares of bread, no crusts, with fillings in ideal proportion. Even ignoring the meats - ham, turkey, smoked salmon - there were too many choices. Sumita settled on egg salad; hummus and olive tapenade; and cucumber, cream cheese, and sprouts. Beyond the tea sandwiches, there were baby quiches, roasted vegetables, and other assorted savory things, and beyond that, the desserts. Cookies, scones, sweet breads, cakes, tarts, and cupcakes, all in bite-sized pieces. Sumita chose four without even looking at the labels, and then added a pile of fresh cherries to round out her plate.

"Did you really make all this, Rose?" Sumita heard someone behind her ask. One of the art people, she thought, though she couldn't be sure.

"Everything," Jenna's sister replied with a confident smile.

"Well, it all looks amazing," the art person said, and everyone around her added their agreement.

Sumita set her plate down on one of the round tables next to Dianne, and then went into the kitchen for a teapot. Jenna was there, standing guard. Her expressions was pleasant and bland, the perfect hostess, but the smile lines around her eyes crinkled when she saw Sumita.




Reboot Pt. 02



Author's note:

 Thanks to everyone who read and commented on part 1. This is the second and final chapter of Sumita and Jenna's story. As usual, it's quite long, though for once the sexy bits start near the beginning.

 ~~~

 Jenna woke slowly. She felt warm and light, drifting down a wide, lazy river into consciousness. When she opened her eyes, the room was swimming in morning sunshine reflected off the lake outside the window. She had not been so content in a very, very long time.

 There was a painting on the wall opposite the bed, a large canvas of angry reds and oranges. It was one of her own, called Argument, but she was almost as surprised to see it in the morning light as she had been last night. Marco's gallery sold it two months ago, and she didn't know who bought it until stumbling into the bedroom, hands and lips locked together with her new lover. Even in the grip of her desire, it caught her off guard. Of the many delights of the evening, seeing her own painting on the wall was the biggest surprise.

 Behind her, Jenna felt Sumita stirring. An arm was slung possessively over her side, the hand lost in a tangle of bed linen. Large, soft breasts pressed against her back, exhaled breath warmed her neck, and the long leg entangled with hers twitched ever so slightly. Sumita mumbled something, nuzzled closer into Jenna, and became still again.

 Jenna hadn't expected to stay the night. She had come over in the afternoon to cook with Sumita, to learn how to make a traditional Indian meal, and to get to know her a little better. She was planning to go slow, let Sumita get used to the idea of being with a woman, if that was even what she really wanted. Sumita was a widow, after all, married to a man for something like twenty years. Just a simple, casual afternoon together. No pressure and no expectation. That was the plan, anyway.

 Sumita blew Jenna's carefully considered plan to smithereens. Instead of a simple Indian meal, Sumita put together a feast, made entirely from scratch. The whole experience of cooking and eating was amazing, sensual and intimate in a way Jenna had never imagined possible. Afterward, they talked about nothing and everything late into the night, and when Sumita asked her to stay, there was only one answer Jenna could make. When Jenna thought about what they did in bed together, the mellow warmth in her body turned to moist heat, and she tingled all over.

 Jenna felt Sumita's body jerk, heard a sharp intake of breath, and suddenly Sumita was awake. Jenna rolled over to face her.

 "Good morning," Jenna said, grinning like a kid opening her big birthday present.

 Sumita blinked a few times, trying to focus her eyes, and then returned Jenna's big grin. She kissed Jenna on the forehead, got up out of bed, and walked toward the bathroom. Her full, round ass jiggled as she walked, and the way her hips swayed back and forth told Jenna she knew she was being watched, and she didn't mind at all.

 When Sumita finished in the bathroom, Jenna took her turn. Sumita had assembled the electric toothbrush for her, with the brand new brush head Jenna had used last night. In the morning light, Jenna noticed the little blue identifying band around the base. The other brush head, sitting in its place on the stand, had a pink band. Jenna chuckled to herself.

 "You're such a girl," she said to Sumita when she emerged from the bathroom, in a voice that made it clear that wasn't a complaint. "Pink toothbrush, pink outfit, pink hairband."

 "Well you, dear Jenna," Sumita replied, "are all woman."

 Jenna fell back into bed next to Sumita, and Sumita pounced, kissing Jenna fiercely on the mouth and pulling her in close. Jenna's body responded instinctively, and Jenna was soon arching her back, pushing her tits into Sumita's willing mouth. One hand was on that wonderfully full, round ass, and the other was gripping a handful of bed linen, an anchor in the storm that was Sumita Desai.

 Jenna closed her eyes and let herself feel, just feel. Sumita was new at this - her very first time with a woman had been last night, with Jenna - but what she lacked in finesse, she made up for in pure, raw, burning desire. Sumita wanted Jenna, and Jenna wanted Sumita to want her.

 Sumita's hands were everywhere, trying to stroke and to hold and to possess every inch of Jenna's long athletic frame. Her mouth followed, gently nibbling Jenna's ear and nuzzling her neck, and then it was making a line of kisses down her arm, or across her belly, or up the inside of her thigh. Jenna laid her head back on the pillow that still smelled of Sumita and let it happen, all of it. She couldn't stop it, and she didn't want to.

 It had been a long time, much too long, since Jenna had felt anything like this. She'd had a few other lovers in recent years, but none of them made her feel like Sumita did.

 Jenna felt hands caressing her tits, fingers pinching her nipples. The movement was deliberate and confident, never tentative or hesitant. Jenna cried out when one hand pinched too hard, but the brief flash of pain only made the pleasure that much more intense.

 "Sorry," Sumita said, but she didn't stop.

 Wet lips replaced fingers around the throbbing nipple, and Jenna moaned. She spread her legs, aching to feel a hand or a tongue between them, but Sumita made no move to satisfy her. Sumita was intent on exploring Jenna's body slowly, by the hidden overland routes that other lovers had neglected, and she discovered sensitive spots that Jenna didn't even know she had: the crook of her elbow, the crest of her ear, the bottom edge her ribcage. Whether this was a deliberate plan or simple inexperience, the effect was the same - it drove Jenna mad with desire.

 When Sumita's hand (accidentally?) brushed up against Jenna's pussy lips, already slick with arousal, Jenna actually screamed. Nobody had ever made her scream before during sex. Nobody had even come close. There was something about Sumita, something beyond simple physical desire, that connected her to Jenna in a way she hadn't experienced in years, or perhaps ever.

 After Jenna screamed, Sumita finally got the message, and her open mouth landed right between Jenna's legs, licking and sucking and slurping. Jenna closed her eyes and willed her body still, so that she could take in every swipe of Sumita's tongue, every caress of Sumita's fingers inside her. After what could have been twenty seconds or twenty minutes, she heard herself screaming again, her back arched, and the most amazing orgasm crashed over her.

 The physical sensation, centered in her clit, wasn't sharp and intense, like she was used to. It was bigger and heavier; it spread throughout her whole body, making her scalp tingle and her toes curl. It seemed to last forever, and Sumita just kept feeding it with her strong fingers and gentle tongue. After the long, tantalizing buildup, this was the release she desperately needed.

 "Oh, wow," Jenna finally said when the tremors stopped. "Where did you learn to do that?"

 "I don't know," Sumita replied. "Years and years of fantasizing, I guess. I still don't really know what I'm doing, and everything is so wet and slippery..."

 "That's a good thing, you know," Jenna said, smiling down at Sumita.

 Sumita didn't reply. Instead, she snuggled in next to Jenna and kissed her soundly. Jenna could taste herself on Sumita's lips. Her smile grew wider, and she laughed in spite of herself, breaking the kiss.

 "What?" Sumita asked, laughing herself.

 "You don't really know how amazing you are, do you?" Jenna said, looking into her lover's dark brown eyes. "You've been a lesbian for like ten hours, and you're totally shameless. You went down on me like it was the most natural thing in the world."

 "I've been a lesbian my whole life," Sumita replied. "I just didn't know what to about it until last night." 

 "Fair point," Jenna agreed. "Still..."

 "I really did okay?" Sumita asked, sounding a little insecure for the first time since they'd woken up together. "I do want to make you feel good."

 "Yes, Sumi, you did better than okay," Jenna replied. "You definitely made me feel good. We can work on your technique a little, but you've got all the right instincts."

 "Well, if there's something I can improve," Sumita said, "I think you should demonstrate for me."

 Just in case Jenna didn't get the message, she grabbed Jenna's ass and added, "Or, rather, on me."

 "See what I mean?" Jenna asked, shaking her head and laughing. "Totally shameless."

 Sumita nodded her head up and down, with a big, excited smile on her face and mischief in her eyes. Jenna nuzzled her nose into Sumita's throat, kissing and nibbling, and Sumita's smile vanished. Her mouth opened, her eyes closed, and she let out a soft little moan.

 "I think I can find some things to show you," Jenna said. This was going to be fun.

 "Uh-huh," Sumita replied, in a voice that told Jenna to stop talking.

 Jenna began with gentle caresses up and down Sumita's body, as far as her long arms could reach, but those didn't last long. Sumita was already warmed up and very wet, and she needed to feel Jenna's hand between her legs. Jenna gave her what she needed.

 Her fingers slid easily over the warm, silky flesh around Sumita's opening, and Sumita responded to her touch with a gasp.

 "Oh, Sumi," Jenna whispered into her ear, "you are so fucking sexy."

 Sumita's hips bucked, grinding against Jenna's open hand. Jenna slipped a finger inside, and Sumita squealed with delight. It was almost too easy, as if Sumita were a hormone-addled teenager rather than a full-grown woman. I guess years of pent-up desire can do that to a person, Jenna thought.

 Jenna moved the finger in and out, enveloped in the warm softness of Sumita's pussy, and then ... right there. She found it. Sumita's back arched, and her moans became louder. Jenna rubbed her finger against that particular spot inside Sumita that drove her wild.

 Jenna's other hand slid down Sumita's belly, over her silky black bush, and eased into the gap between her lips. When the tip of Jenna's finger slid over Sumita's clit, her body thrashed about, entirely out of her control. Jenna pushed Sumita to the very limit of what she could endure, and then pulled back just enough to keep her from coming.

 She held Sumita right on the edge for a while, and then she leaned over and took a very hard nipple into her mouth, sucking, teasing with her tongue, and even nibbling lightly. Sumita thrashed again, wordlessly begging for release, but Jenna denied her, pulling her back from the brink once, then twice, and finally letting her go.

 Sumita came in a great shudder, and Jenna laid back in bed next to her to hold her as the wave crashed over her. Jenna's finger was still inside Sumita, though now only stroking gently, and Sumita clenched around it and relaxed again as the tremors came and went. Jenna fixed her eyes to Sumita's face as it melted from raw desire into serene bliss. She had never seen anything so beautiful.

 Sumita lay there a while panting, eyes closed, and Jenna held her.

 "Learn anything?" Jenna asked when Sumita opened her eyes.

 "Oh, yeah," Sumita replied. "You know exactly what to do with my nipples, and that thing you do with your fingers..."

 Jenna soon found herself on her back, with Sumita ready for another round.

 ~~~

 "If we keep this up, I'm not going to be able to move," Jenna said as she sat up in bed.

 "I know what you mean," Sumita replied, stretching her arms and arching her back, causing her tits to bounce and sway. "I'm not as young as I used to be. How about we go out for a hike to work out the kinks?"

 "That sounds great," Jenna said, "but I have to eat something first. I'm starving."

 "I think we can manage that," Sumita said, smiling happily. "Why don't you get cleaned up while I start a fresh batch of chapattis."

 Jenna climbed out of bed and searched the room for her clothes and her boots, discarded last night in the heat of passion. Most of her stuff was in a pile by the foot of the bed, but she had to hunt for her sports bra and left boot. The bra turned out to be hanging from a drawer pull on Sumita's dresser, and the boot was far enough under the bed that she had to lie on the floor to reach it. Sumita watched the hunt with an indulgent grin, and she gently slapped Jenna's ass when Jenna bent down to retrieve her boot.

 Sumita's bathroom, like the rest of her house, seemed to Jenna more like a glossy magazine spread than a place someone actually lived. The walls were papered with a muted forest pattern, the floor was creamy stone, and the countertops were mirror-polished gray granite, set out with a tidy, precise array of bathroom stuff. Jenna took a long, hot shower and wrapped herself in a plush oversized towel.

 She wandered out into the kitchen to find Sumita finishing the chapatti dough and setting the bowl on the top of the fridge to rest. Sumita was wearing an oversized men's pajama top, with nothing underneath. Jenna slid in behind her, pulled her close, and buried her nose in the mess of curly hair that floated around Sumita's head like a cloud.

 "Was this his?" she asked, running her hand down Sumita's side over the pajama top.

 "Yeah," Sumita replied. "After Rajeev died, I wore this because it still smelled like him, and I needed something to hold onto. Now it's just habit, I guess."

 Sumita sighed. Rajeev's memory was heavy enough in the house that even Jenna could feel it. It wasn't anything or anywhere in particular; it was just there, as real as they air they were breathing. She couldn't even imagine how Sumita felt, still living in the home she used to share with her husband. Especially after what they'd done together last night...

 "I can get lunch started while you take a shower," Jenna said, changing the subject. "... if you want."

 Sumita shook her head no. "Just relax, unless you're really hungry," she said, smiling and cheerful. "Come talk to me while I take a bath."

 Jenna didn't need any convincing. She followed Sumita back to the bathroom. Sumita took her nightshirt off, hung it from a hook in the bathroom closet, and ran a bath. Jenna unwrapped herself and hung her towel on the bar next to the shower.

 "You could join me," Sumita said with a grin as she climbed into the bath.

 "Tempting," Jenna said, "but no. I'm already a prune from the shower." With a glint in her eye, she added, "Besides, I really like the view..."

 Jenna sat naked on the corner of the bathtub, leaning back against the tiled wall, while Sumita had a relaxing soak. Jenna dipped a foot or a hand into the water from time to time for skin-to-skin contact, and they talked about random things until Sumita decided to wash her hair. Jenna held out a towel for Sumita after she climbed out of the tub and rubbed her dry, and then Sumita sat down and Jenna towel-dried her long, wet mass of brown curls.

 "I do love long hair," Jenna told Sumita, running her fingers through Sumita's hair and fetching a hairbrush from the countertop. When Sumita didn't object, she started to brush.

 "Oh, that feels lovely," Sumita said, melting into a puddle. "I haven't had anybody brush my hair like that since I was a teenager."

 Jenna smiled, kissed the top of Sumita's head, and kept brushing. After a while, Sumita asked, "If you like long hair so much...?"

 "I like long hair on other women," Jenna replied, letting out a low, throaty laugh. "On me, not so much."

 Sumita returned the laugh and closed her eyes.

 Once Sumita's hair was dry and brushed, she reluctantly hauled herself to her feet and dressed. Jenna put on the clothes she wore yesterday. She hadn't brought anything to change into.

 They made chapattis together in the kitchen, a sensual echo of last night, and nuked a selection of leftovers. Instead of the elegant thali trays and the lakeside table, they spooned their food onto one big ceramic platter and sat together on the couch, scooping up bites for each other with the warm chapatti flatbread. When the platter was clean, they had just enough room in their bellies for a small bowl of rice pudding.

 They washed up together, put the leftovers back in the fridge, along with a few fresh chapattis, and walked out to Sumita's car in the garage.

 "We'll have to drive before we can walk," Sumita said. "The lake shore is beautiful, but it's all private property around here. Marymoor Park is reasonably close, though, and there are some nice walks there."

 "That's fine," Jenna replied, "just as long as I get outside for a while. I need some air and some sun."

 "Me too," Sumita agreed, and they were on their way. The walk was pleasant, warm, and uneventful until the end, around the off-leash dog area, where half a dozen excited dogs yipped, pranced, and jumped at Jenna, who stopped to pet each one.

 Sumita drove home, still smiling at Jenna's way with the dogs. When she pulled into the garage, there was a small gray Audi parked behind Jenna's car. Her daughter Sangita was home early.

 ~~~

 "Hey, Gita," Sumita called out as she and Jenna walked in the front door.

 For a moment there was no reply, and then the clink of silverware against a plate, the sound of a mouth full of food attempting to speak, and more silence. "Hi, Mom," Sangita finally called. "I'm in the kitchen."

 Jenna followed Sumita into the kitchen, where a pretty young woman was sitting at the counter with a plate of food from the fridge, mostly already eaten. Gita had her mother's voice and eyes, though her build was thin and her hair was straight.

 "Gita!" her mother scolded, "I was saving those leftovers for Jenna to take home."

 "Mmmmf," Gita replied, swallowing. "Sorry. I didn't know."

 "It's fine," Jenna said, smiling at Gita. "I'm sure there's plenty. We made enough last night to feed a small army."

 Gita beamed back at Jenna, unrepentant. It wasn't like the containers were labeled or anything.

 Sumita opened the fridge and took stock of what remained. "You should still have about three meals left, if you share with your sister," Sumita said to Jenna.

 "There's also Brendan," Jenna replied, reminding Sumita of her twelve-year-old nephew.

 "Probably just one large meal, then, or two small ones," Sumita said, glaring at Gita. "I know how much kids eat, especially when they're still growing." 

 The stern, motherly look lasted about two more seconds, and then dissolved into an indulgent smile. Jenna didn't know what to make of the exchange. She was very familiar with the stare of maternal disapproval, but she hadn't seen a smile like that on her mother's face since she was six.

 "You must be the painter," Gita said to Jenna. "Mom really loves the new painting hanging in her bedroom. I think it's ... I don't know. Cool. Not pretty, exactly, but cool."

 "Cool is good," Jenna replied. "I can live with cool."

 "So you spent the night?" Gita asked, leaving both Sumita and Jenna sputtering.

 "You said, 'we made enough last night...'," Gita explained.

 Sumita took a deep breath to recover her composure. "Jenna came over yesterday afternoon to cook with me," she said to her daughter, slowly and deliberately, "and it was very late when we finished dinner, so she stayed over."

 "Whatever, Mom," Gita said, rolling her eyes. "I'm totally fine with whatever you two did last night, or didn't do. It's none of my business..." She let the words hang there a while, looking straight at her mother, who couldn't quite return her gaze. Jenna tried to make herself small.

 "Anyway," Gita continued, scooping up the last bite of food on her plate with the remains of a chapatti, "I'm going to go hang out in my room and let you two have some alone time. I had two days without a good cell signal, so I've got a lot to catch up on." She popped the bread in her hand into her mouth, and then she rinsed her dishes in the sink, put them in the dishwasher, refilled her iced tea glass, and disappeared.




Reboot Pt. 02



Sumita and Jenna were still for a while, trying to absorb what had just happened.

 "Huh," Jenna finally said. "That was ... weird."

 Sumita let out a long sigh that might have also been a laugh. "I've known that girl literally her whole life," she said, "and I still never know what's going to come out of her mouth."

 "I should probably get going," Jenna said. "Work tomorrow morning and all."

 "Stay a while," Sumita replied, moving in close, "at least until dinner."

 Jenna opened her mouth to decline, but the words stuck in her throat.

 Sumita wrapped her arms around Jenna's waist, looked into her eyes, and added, "Please."

 It was less than a demand, more than a request. Jenna hesitated for a moment, feeling guilty about Rose having to do all the weekend cooking by herself, but not guilty enough to say no. "Sure," she said. "I just have to text my sister to tell her I'll be late."

 Jenna did just that and then followed Sumita into the living room. She wondered vaguely about what they would do for the next few hours, but Sumita had it covered. Jenna was buried under a small avalanche of Indian cookbooks when she sat down next to Sumita on the couch.

 "You said you wanted to learn Indian cooking," Sumita said, "and one day isn't nearly enough. We could try a biryani next time, and..."

 "Next time...?" Jenna asked, cutting Sumita off. "Are you inviting me back?"

 Sumita got flustered and looked down at her knees. "Yeah, I think so," she said. "Last night was definitely worth doing again."

 Jenna leaned in and kissed Sumita on the lips, and they fell into a discussion of what to cook next, which broadened to include childhood memories of food and holidays and lazy summer weekends. Before they knew it, it was five o'clock.

 "How about pizza for dinner?" Sumita asked. "I've done enough cooking for a while, and I know you have an early morning."

 "Sounds good to me," Jenna said.

 "Do you mind if Gita comes along?" Sumita asked. "It's okay if you want it to be just the two of us."

 "It's fine," Jenna replied, though she was not at all sure that was true. She found Sumita's daughter intimidating.

 Sumita knocked on her daughter's bedroom door, and Gita emerged ready to go. She was never one to turn down free food.

 ~~~

 Jenna followed Sumita to dinner in her own car since she planned to drive straight home afterwards. They went south, skirting the eastern edge of Lake Sammamish, and then across I-90 into Issaquah, where the pizza place was right off the main drag.

 It wasn't quite dinnertime when they arrived, so the dining room was almost empty. They were seated at a corner table, with the afternoon sun brightening up the dark wood of the walls and floor. A pretty redhead about Gita's age showed up to take their order - an iced tea and a salad each, and a dinner-sized pizza to split - and then disappeared. Gita sat back in her chair, stretching legs stiff from a weekend of camping and hiking.

 "Good trip?" Sumita asked.

 "Yeah, mostly," Gita replied, laughing at some memory or other. "Dina and I had all our stuff ready to go, but the guys were pretty disorganized. Rex wound up borrowing Dina's sleeping bag, and we did all the cooking on my stove, since it was the only one that worked."

 "Boys," Sumita said, shaking her head.

 Jenna snorted.

 "I know, right?" Gita said. "It was warm out, so I unzipped my bag out flat and Dina and I shared. If it had been cold, I would have told Rex to go crawl into Sridhar's sleeping bag."

 Gita giggled to herself over the scene that would have created. Sumita raised an eyebrow at her daughter.

 "What?" Gita asked. "So if two girls share a bed, that's completely fine, but if it's two dudes, even if absolutely nothing happens, they're suddenly the gayest gay guys who ever walked the planet. It's all so stupid. People should just be who they are."

 If only it everything were that simple, Jenna thought.

 The redheaded waitress appeared with their salads - a basic garden salad for Sumita, Mediterranean with fennel and orange for Jenna and Gita - along with refills for their iced tea. The table got quiet while they ate.

 After the salads were down to remnants, Sumita said to Gita, "I'm surprised you can eat anything after you made such a dent in Jenna's leftovers."

 Gita shrugged, completely unapologetic. "I was hungry," she said. "We didn't have that much to eat since Sridhar also forgot like half of the food he was supposed to bring."

 "It's fine," Jenna said. "I really don't mind."

 Gita flashed Jenna a grateful smile. She didn't enjoy being on her mother's bad side, even for something trivial. "You guys must have gone all out," she said. "All the stuff you made was amazing."

 Sumita smiled. "Well," she said, "Jenna wanted to learn how to do traditional Indian cooking, so I showed her everything I could fit into one day, starting with the basics."

 "You made homemade ghee, didn't you?" Gita asked Jenna. "And paneer too, probably. Mom can get really ... intense sometimes."

 "Yup," Jenna replied. "Everything was from scratch."

 A memory popped into her head, and her face scrunched up involuntarily. "... except that mango pickle," she added. "That came out of a jar, and it was really sour."

 "Yeah," Gita replied with a giggle. "I don't like those either."

 Gita picked up her glass of iced tea from the table and took a sip, smiling innocently over the rim. "You know," she said, looking straight at Jenna, "Baa would be shocked..."

 Sumita went rigid. Jenna wondered what was going on.

 "... you finally learned how to make round chapattis," Gita continued, turning to face her mother. "She's been giving you hard time about them ever since I can remember. Me, too, when I go to visit, but I don't pay any attention." She sucked iced tea through her straw until it gurgled and set her glass down on the table.

 "Um," Sumita said, and her mouth kept moving, but nothing else came out.

 "I know it's a big deal for her, some sort of Indian ideal of womanhood," Gita said, "but they don't taste any different if they're a little uneven. It's just weird that's what she gets so hung up on." 

 Sumita took a deep breath. "Your grandmother, both your grandmothers, have some very ... traditional ideas about marriage and motherhood," she said. "They just wanted me to be the best I could be at taking care of you and your father."

 "Oh, I know," Gita replied. "I heard all about it on my summer trips. I think I'm going to be a bit of a disappointment in that department. But you've been an absolutely perfect wife and mother. I don't see why they have to criticize you."

 "They don't always agree with your assessment," Sumita said drily. "Your aunt Simran was always the perfect one. It was worse when I first got married, but after you turned out okay, I think they both finally decided I wasn't a total disaster."

 Gita broke into a big, beaming smile, and Jenna felt like she'd fallen into one of those private family moments, the kind you can't understand if you're not part of it. She was also aware of something under the surface, something dark and threatening that both mother and daughter were aware of but neither would acknowledge. Jenna's presence would eventually upend the quiet truce Sumita had with her family.

 Jenna felt like she needed to say something, but she had no idea what that should be. She was saved by the waitress, who came by to collect their salad bowls and drop off the pizza. Gita pulled a slice onto a plate for Jenna, another one for her mother, and then grabbed one for herself and took a bite.

 "Yum," she said. "I love those little peppers."

 Jenna took a bite of her own, almost burning her mouth. The crust was the perfect balance of crispy and chewy, and the sweetness and vinegar of the peppers cut through the thick, salty mozzarella. After a few seconds, the heat of the peppers kicked in, spreading a pleasantly numbing fire over her tongue. "Mmmm," she sighed.

 Sumita and Jenna each had two pieces, and Gita polished off the other half of the pizza. When the waitress suggested dessert, Gita was tempted, but they passed. The dining room was still fairly empty, so they sat a while longer, drinking iced tea and talking. Gita caught her mother up on everything going on with her friends, mostly getting ready for college or already gone; Sumita talked about her coworkers, especially Sarah, who was also one of Jenna's close friends; and Jenna talked a bit about her day job at the catering company she ran with her sister Rose. After a while, the conversation came around to Jenna's art.

 "Is everything you do so ... I don't know ... abstract?" Gita asked.

 "I do have a certain style," Jenna replied. "I try to push myself, not let myself get stuck in a rut, but yeah, all my paintings do look a lot like the one your mom bought. All the good ones, anyway. I've done some other, more representational stuff, but it's mostly crap."

 Gita and Sumita both giggled.

 "How do you do it?" Gita asked. "Make the figures work, I mean? It's like, you're just staring at a bunch of random stuff, and then suddenly it's a person, and you can tell exactly what they're feeling."

 "Honestly, I don't know," Jenna said. "I just see people a certain way in my head. I try to break them down to their elements, and then reassemble them on the canvas. Not always specific people, necessarily, sometimes just characteristics or archetypes."

 "And they're mostly women?" Gita asked.

 "Mostly," Jenna said. "I did one based on my nephew Brendan when he was a little kid, and a couple of grown men."

 "Mom showed me the one in Sarah's office," Gita said. "Was she real? It seemed like you were totally in love with her."

 "Yes, she was real," Jenna said, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "And I did love her, very much."

 Sumita took Jenna's hand under the table, and she glared at her daughter.

 "Sorry," Gita said, averting her gaze, "I didn't mean to ... you know. I'm sorry."

 "It's alright," Jenna said, making sure to breathe. "It was a long time ago. I wouldn't put stuff out there if I didn't want people to see it."

 Jenna got quiet after that, and it seemed to everyone like it was a good time to leave. Sumita paid the bill, and the three of them walked out to the parking lot together. Gita climbed into her mother's car to give Sumita and Jenna a moment to themselves.

 "Thank you," Jenna said. "For the cooking lesson yesterday, and for everything else. I had a really nice weekend."

 "Me too," Sumita replied. "You've made me happier than I could have imagined a few months ago."

 Jenna didn't know how to respond to that. She tried to get something out, even if it sounded dumb, but Sumita caught her off guard. She leaned in, wrapped her arms around Jenna's neck, and kissed her full on the lips, right there in the parking lot. Jenna reacted automatically, closing her eyes, wrapping her arms around Sumita's waist, and returning the kiss with as much passion as she felt from Sumita.

 When they broke apart and Jenna opened her eyes, she had a fleeting glimpse of Gita sitting in Sumita's car with a big grin on her face. It was gone in an instant, and Jenna worried that she might have imagined it.

 "Can I call you tomorrow evening?" Sumita asked, and there was no mistaking her smile.

 "Um, yeah, sure," Jenna replied, trying to regain her bearings. "I get done pretty early, so whenever you have time is fine."

 "Okay," Sumita said, and gave Jenna a peck on the cheek. "Talk to you tomorrow."

 "Okay," Jenna replied. "Talk to you tomorrow."

 Sumita got into her car and drove off, waving at Jenna on the way out of the parking lot. Jenna walked over to her car, got in, and sat unmoving in the driver's seat while Sumita drove off.

 ~~~

 "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Jenna cried, pounding her steering wheel, when Sumita's car was out of sight. "I am completely and totally screwed."

 For the past seven years, Jenna had played it safe. She had only dated women like her - tough, short-haired, out-and-proud dykes who'd sooner walk naked through the snow than wear a dress. The relationships were comfortable, predictable, and boring, and that was okay. It was better than all the drama and the tears that inevitably came with falling deeply in love. And the sex was always above average - when you've fully accepted your sexuality, it's easier to lean into it and enjoy it, without all the hang-ups and guilt. Jenna was rapidly approaching forty, and settling down with comfortable, predictable, and boring was starting to look a lot better than ending up alone.

 The one exception, three years ago, was Mandy, but she didn't really count. She was a pretty thirtyish dental hygienist who was questioning herself after a bad breakup. Three months later, Mandy finally realized what Jenna had known all along - even though she liked playing around with girls, she really needed a man. Jenna was a bridesmaid when Mandy married a chef named Ibrahim last year.

 Sumita, though. Sumita was the opposite of safe. She was the kind to fall in love, deeply and completely, and, even worse, she was the kind to make Jenna fall in love with her, just as deeply and just as completely. Sumita was successful, brilliant, and beautiful, and way out of Jenna's league. There would be tears with Sumita, lots of them. And when it ended, as it inevitably would, it would hurt like hell. It would hurt just as much as the last time Jenna let herself really fall in love.

 Everything was just like it was with Tess. The year they were together was the best of her life. The year after they broke up was the worst, even worse than when Jenna turned eighteen and her parents disowned her.

 The only question for Jenna was whether to run away now, before Sumita got her tendrils in so deep there would be no escape. And then Jenna realized that it was already too late. Sumita had only been gone five minutes, and Jenna was already thinking about that phone call tomorrow like a kid waiting for Christmas. Jenna knew she would ride the tiger as long as she could, waiting the whole time to be thrown off, knowing that when she was, she'd be torn to ribbons.

 "What am I going to do?" she asked herself. She did not have an answer.

 She sat up in her seat, shook her head sharply to reorient herself, and turned the key in the ignition. Forty minutes later, she was pulling into her driveway, with no memory of the drive home.

 "Well," she told herself with a rueful smile, "at least I didn't crash on the way."

 ~~~

 Jenna lived with her sister Rose and nephew Brendan in a split-level nineteen thirties house in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, a few blocks from the locks on the ship canal.

 Fourteen years ago, Rose married a talented, handsome architect named Sean O'Connor, and a little under two years later, they brought a healthy, happy baby boy into the world together. Sean made enough money that Rose didn't need to work, and she wanted nothing more than to take care of her husband and child. Things were great.

 After a while, though, things were not so great. They tried for another baby, but after three years of fertility treatments and a miscarriage, they gave up. Sean was a good provider and a good father, but he seemed less and less interested in being a good husband, and when his career took off, he spent more and more time at work. Rose started baking and cooking for friends and neighbors, mostly just to fill the time while Brendan was at school, and after a while it turned into an informal business, providing Rose with some spending money and some independence.

 It was no surprise to anyone when, two years ago, they split up. Sean was offered a big promotion - more exciting, innovative work and a lot more money. The catch was that it was in LA. Rose didn't want to move herself and her son to a new city, but she also didn't want to keep Sean from his dream job. They talked it out and realized that Brendan was the only thing keeping them together, so they got a divorce. No cheating, no fights, no drama, no tears; just a long, sad sigh.

 Rose and Brendan got the house, free and clear, along with most of the limited savings. Sean got Brendan for a month every summer, plus the occasional holiday, and a fresh start.

 When Sean left, Rose's hobby became her lifeline. She plowed a big chunk of her money into a used van and a collection of professional kitchen equipment, and she rented a share of a commercial kitchen to keep everything legal with the health department.

 Jenna and Rose had always been close, especially after their parents disowned Jenna when she turned eighteen. It was Rose's wedding that finally got them talking again - Rose wouldn't allow any of them to attend without making peace.

 When Sean moved out, Jenna moved in, turning Sean's cramped attic office into her bedroom and claiming a corner of the basement for her painting studio. Much better to use her rent money to support her family than to flush it into the black hole of her increasingly unaffordable dive on Cap Hill.

 And then a month ago, Jenna got laid off from her job and Rose's lifeline became hers as well. She joined the catering company, now called Ballard Bites, and knit her life even more tightly into her sister's. So when Jenna got out of her car and walked through the back door into the kitchen, she really was coming home, in a way she hadn't since she was eighteen.

 "Hey, sis," Rose called out. She and Brendan were at the kitchen table eating dinner. Lasagna, judging by the wonderful aroma.

 "Hey," Jenna replied, and walked around the table to tousle Brendan's strawberry blonde hair. Jenna sat down at the table. "You guys have a good weekend?"

 "Yeah," Brendan replied. "Mom and I went to the library this afternoon, and then to the Aquarium and the Market."

 "Cool," Jenna said, smiling at her nephew, and then the table got quiet while Rose and Brendan finished eating. Brendan had one week left before school started back up, and Rose was obviously making a big effort to cheer him up. A trip downtown wasn't cheap, though the free Aquarium passes at the library helped a lot.

 Brendan stood, cleared the table, and washed the dishes, all without being asked. "I'm going to go read for a while, Mom," he said. TV was limited on school nights, even in the summer, and anyway there wouldn't be anything good on until later.

 "Okay," Rose replied. "Have fun."

 Brendan disappeared into his room and closed the door. Jenna unloaded the canvas bag she had hauled in from the car, hanging her apron in the pantry and packing half a dozen glass containers of leftover Indian food into the fridge, the remains of the feast she and Sumita had cooked the night before.

 "I take it your cooking lesson went well," Rose said, noting all the stuff going into the fridge.

 "Yeah," Jenna replied. "It wasn't anything elaborate or weird - mostly just basic stuff from Classic Indian Cooking - but it was all from scratch, and there's something powerful about learning from somebody who grew up in the culture. You get more out of one afternoon than you would from a week of practice on your own."

 "I'm glad you learned a lot," Rose said, "but that's not what I was talking about, and you know it."

 Jenna sighed. "I know, Rose," she said. "It was ..." She let her voice drift off, not knowing how she wanted to finish that sentence.

 "It was ...?" Rose echoed, fixing a stare on Jenna that made it clear she wouldn't let it drop.

 "It was amazing, okay," Jenna said. "She's sweet, she's brilliant, and she's gorgeous, and when she got me into bed, forty five years of repressed desire poured out of her. My head's still spinning."

 "But ...?" Rose asked.

 "But what?" Jenna replied.




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.




Reboot Pt. 02



In order to make sure things went flawlessly for the actual event, they planned a trial run that week. Rose started work on Wednesday afternoon, and Jenna joined her after her delivery run. Dinner that night was pizza at home, something Rose tried hard to avoid, but sometimes you just have to. 

 Thursday was easier, since most of the hard work was already done. After she finished her deliveries, Jenna stopped at their favorite fish market for a salmon filet, and Rose picked up the fresh produce. Another hour in the kitchen and they were ready to go. Jenna loaded the equipment into the van while Rose packed up the food. A few things, like the poached salmon, had to be done in the client's kitchen. For the trial run, the clients/guinea pigs would be Sarah and Meaghan.

 Jenna pulled into the garage, parked in one of the guest spaces, and opened the rear hatch to unload the van. Rose appeared beside her, wearing a faint smirk, and grabbed the big freezer bag that held the food.

 "What?" Jenna asked.

 "What what?" Rose replied, her face suddenly the picture of innocence.

 "You had a look," Jenna said. "Don't pretend you didn't."

 "I don't know what you're talking about," Rose said. "And I wouldn't tell you even if I did."

 Jenna rolled her eyes. She knew Rose would never give up her secret, and there was no point pushing it any further. They made their way to the elevator and from there into Meaghan and Sarah's place. Outside the living room window, the sun was low in the sky over the Olympic mountains across the Sound. In an hour or so, it would burn like molten gold on the horizon and paint the clouds in brilliant oranges and pinks.

 "Thank you so much for doing this," Rose said to Meaghan as soon as they were through the door. "We really appreciate it."

 "Thank you?" Meaghan asked. "You're coming to my house and feeding me a gourmet dinner. I should be thanking you, sweetie."

 "Fair enough," Rose replied. "Just promise you'll be honest about everything. This job is really important, and we want to make sure everything's perfect."

 "I promise," Meaghan replied. Jenna knew from experience that Meaghan's critiques could cut to the bone when they needed to.

 Jenna and Rose went into the kitchen to set up while Meaghan changed the baby and put her into a clean onesie. About ten minutes before everything was ready, the front door opened, and Jenna walked over to the kitchen door to see who it was. Sarah appeared, laptop bag over her shoulder, along with an unexpected guest. Jenna's jaw dropped open when she saw the person who accompanied Sarah - it was Sumita.

 "Hey, Jenna," Sarah said, not noticing Jenna's expression. "I wanted to be home a little earlier, but traffic..."

 Sarah's head tilted to the side, her eyes narrowed, and her brow knit itself into a confused frown. "Wait," she said. "Rose didn't tell you, did she? I called her this morning and asked if I could bring Sumita along. I thought you might appreciate another taster, and everything's supposed to be vegetarian except the fish. I hope that's okay."

 "Um, yeah," Jenna managed to stammer. "It's great."

 And why the fuck didn't I think of that myself? she wanted to add, but kept it to herself.

 "Cool," Sarah said. "I'll just drop my stuff and check on Jennifer. I'm on mommy duty for a while after I get home since Meaghan's been at it all day."

 Sarah disappeared into the living room, but Sumita stayed. She set her purse down on the table next to the kitchen door, walked slowly into the kitchen, wrapped her arms around Jenna's shoulders, and kissed her on the mouth. Jenna kissed her back, forgetting everything for a moment except Sumita's lips.

 "I'm glad you came," Jenna said, her mouth spreading into a broad grin.

 "Me too," Sumita replied. Turning to Rose, she added, "thanks for letting me tag along at the last minute."

 "When Sarah called, I was thrilled," Rose replied. "The client's husband is Indian and vegetarian, so I thought your perspective would be helpful."

 Rose blushed suddenly, realizing her mistake. "Sorry," she said. "I don't mean that all Indians are the same. I mean, I didn't ask you here just because you're Indian. I'm going to stop talking now."

 "It's fine," Sumita replied, smiling reassuringly at Rose. "It's totally fine. I'm happy to be here."

 "You two go out into the living room," Rose told Jenna and Sumita, trying to recover her composure. "The rest of the work is a one-person job. I'll be ready in like five minutes."

 Sarah and Meaghan were sitting on the couch when Jenna and Sumita emerged, and Jennifer was rocking back and forth on the coffee table in her car seat, which was her favorite place, even when she wasn't in the car. Her little arms were flailing about, not quite able to reach the bright plastic animals hanging above her.

 "This is usually her favorite time of day," Meaghan said. "She'll be nice and mellow through dinner if we're lucky."

 Sumita leaned down and made funny faces and baby talk to Jennifer, who giggled and cooed in response. Jenna stayed away, sitting at the far end of the couch.

 "You know," Jenna said to Meaghan, "we actually got this job because of you. The client's sister was at your baby shower. She must have been impressed."

 After thinking a second, she added, "Lisa, I think her name was."

 "Is this Lisa pregnant, by any chance, and about ready to pop?" Sumita asked. Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

 "Yeah, I think so," Jenna replied. "Why?"

 "We sat at the same table at the shower," Sumita replied. "Along with Kate. I thought poor Lisa was going to run away when Kate got going."

 Jenna's eyes went wide. Kate was one of her oldest friends, but she was an acquired taste. She would flirt compulsively with any pretty woman she ran across, even obviously straight, married, pregnant women. All four women dissolved into giggles.

 They only recovered when Rose appeared a few minutes later carrying two plates of hors d'oeuvres. Jenna wiped her eyes and went into the kitchen to fetch the other two. Sumita, Meaghan, and Sarah sampled one each of the six varieties of little bites they had prepared. They planned to cut the final list down to five, so they needed input on what worked well and what didn't.

 "This is the best, definitely," Sarah said of the mini pitas spread with hummus and olive tapenade. "I really like that the bread is still kinda soft."

 "Thanks," Jenna replied. Getting the texture right, so they didn't collapse in people's fingers, was tricky.

 "You should cross off the bruschetta," Meaghan said. "The tomatoes are too ... I don't know. Acidic?"

 Sumita nodded her agreement. "Yup," she said. "Plus, they can fall off and make a mess."

 Next up was the soup, a chilled cucumber and honeydew gazpacho. They moved to the dining room table, and all three tasters agreed that it was a hit. The salad followed, a fairly boring plate of mixed greens, summer vegetables, and blue cheese crumbles dressed in a simple vinaigrette.

 "It's missing ... something," Sarah said. "I don't know."

 "I know it's not very exciting, but that's what she said she wanted," Rose replied. "It needs some crunch, I think, but I don't know what. Normally I'd add walnuts or pecans, but one of the guests is allergic. Croutons are just blah."

 "What about pumpkin seeds?" Sumita suggested. "They should be safe for any nut allergy."

 "Oh, yeah," Jenna said. "I think we can work with that. Just need to tweak the dressing. Maybe use pumpkin seed oil to complement the ..."

 "Focus, Jenna," Rose said, cutting her sister off. "We can figure it out later."

 Jenna shook her head. "Okay, sorry," she said. "Sometimes when I get an idea into my head ..."

 Rose disappeared into the kitchen to finish the entrees, and Jenna followed her. They were ready three minutes later, within ten seconds of each other. Jenna and Rose high-fived. Rose emerged from the kitchen carrying a poached salmon filet topped with a bright green stripe of herb butter, and Jenna followed with a roasted vegetable napoleon, thinly shaved summer vegetables wrapped in phyllo and covered in mozzarella.

 This was the moment of truth. If the clients liked these two dishes, they'd recommend Ballard Bites to their friends. If not, then nothing else would matter. Sarah and Meaghan each took a bite of the salmon. Sumita did not.

 "Mmmmmm," Meaghan said. "The salmon is perfect."

 It was good to know, but not the main point. Anybody could poach a salmon filet. Sarah took another bite, making sure to get a generous slather of the herb butter.

 "Oh, wow. This is just right," she said, pointing her fork at the wide stripe across the middle of the filet. "It's really bright and green. Not, like, overpowering or anything, but it tastes just like summer, and it complements the fish really well."

 Jenna let out a breath, but held the next one back. Sumita cut off a corner of the napoleon and raised the fork to her mouth. Her eyes closed, her nostrils flared, and she closed her lips around the fork. Her teeth moved inside her cheeks, and she let out a happy little sigh. Jenna had to sit on her hands to keep from doing anything inappropriate. Even in the simple act of eating, Sumita was the most sensuous creature she had ever seen.

 "It tastes amazing," Sumita said. Jenna basked in the positive verdict, and at that moment it wasn't because she was particularly interested in making Lisa's sister happy. Sumita really liked what she had cooked, and that was the most important thing.

 "However," Sumita continued, and the word hit Jenna like a splash of cold water, "you really should consider cutting down on the cheese. You're going for elegant, and a string of mozzarella dangling from somebody's mouth kind of ruins the mood."

 Rose nudged Jenna in the ribs to bring her back to Earth. "Yeah," she said. "I think you're right. I don't want lose too much, but you do have a point. We can reduce the overall amount a little, and spread it out over more layers."

 Sarah and Meaghan took their turn, and the verdict was the same. The clients were going to be very happy. Dessert was a mini lemon ginger cheesecake, one of Rose's standards. She didn't need to bake it at all - Sarah and Meaghan had both had it before and loved it, and Sumita loved it too - but the trial run felt incomplete without it.

 Sumita followed Rose and Jenna into the kitchen to help wash up.

 "You really don't have to," Rose said.

 "It's fine," Sumita replied. "Sarah is fussing over the baby, and Meaghan is kind of zoned out, so I'd rather be in here. Plus, it reminds me of the second time we met."

 Jenna blushed. Sumita had helped wash up after Meaghan's baby shower, and Jenna had walked Sumita to her car, where Sumita had asked Jenna to dinner. Their date did not go especially well - it was the day Jenna got laid off from her job - but they did agree to see each other again, and that turned into the weekend cooking lesson.

 "I'll wash, you dry," Jenna said. "Just like last time."

 When everything was clean and dry, Jenna and Sumita went out into the living room to find Rose rocking a smiling, giggling Jennifer in her arms. Rose passed the baby off to Sumita after a while, who rocked her and sang to her until she drifted off to sleep. Sumita motioned to Jenna to take the baby, but Jenna shook her head no.

 "Jenna hates babies," Rose said, gently mocking, and Sumita handed Jennifer to Sarah instead.

 "I do not," Jenna replied, indignant. "I just don't know what to do with them."

 Sumita leaned over to kiss Jenna's rather warm cheek.

 Soon after, it was time to go home. The Friday schedule was the busiest of the week, as usual, which meant getting up twenty minutes earlier. Jenna was not looking forward to that. She and Rose gathered up the equipment and left after saying goodbye to Sarah and Meaghan.

 Sumita rode the elevator down to the garage with Rose and Jenna, and she laced her fingers into Jenna's free hand. Rose smiled but did not say anything. Down at the van, Rose and Jenna loaded their stuff into the back, and then Rose climbed into the passenger seat to give Jenna a moment alone with Sumita.

 "So, tomorrow night?" Sumita asked.

 "Yeah," Jenna replied. "Where should I meet you? I don't even know what we're doing."

 "We have a dinner reservation for seven thirty," Sumita replied. "I'll pick you up at your house at seven. Rose gave me directions. Does that work for you?"

 "Um, yeah, I guess," Jenna said, trying to sound enthusiastic and not confused. "Where are we going?"

 "You'll find out tomorrow," Sumita replied with a wicked smile. She leaned in to kiss Jenna on the forehead, and then walked off and got into her car. Jenna stood there a while, and then climbed into the van.

 ~~~

 Jenna got home Friday afternoon with barely enough time to shower and change. She rushed like a madwoman to be ready by seven and almost made it. At three minutes after, she poked her head out the front door, hair still damp, to see if Sumita was waiting outside. When she wasn't, she sat on the couch in the living room to wait.

 Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen, and Jenna's stomach twisted itself into a pretzel. Had she got the time wrong? Had something happened to Sumita? Had Sumita wised up and realized she didn't want to date Jenna after all?

 The doorbell rang, shocking her out of her worries. She was up and at the door in an instant, and she opened it to find Sumita waiting. She was wearing an indigo sweater and matching knit skirt, the same outfit she wore when they first met. She looked exhausted.

 "Traffic," Sumita said, sounding both apologetic and frustrated. "The five twenty is awful."

 "You okay?" Jenna asked.

 "I am now that I'm with you," Sumita replied, making an effort to smile. "If we leave right away, we can still make our dinner reservation. It's not far."

 "I'm ready whenever," Jenna said, and then stepped out the front door and closed it behind her. "You sure you still want to go out?"

 "The worst part's behind me," Sumita said. "Come on - I've been looking forward to this all week."

 Sumita spun around and walked back to her car, and Jenna followed. Sumita opened the passenger door for Jenna, waited until she got in, and closed it for her, which left Jenna speechless, and then she walked around the car and climbed into the driver's seat.

 A short drive later, they were pulling into the parking lot at Ray's Boathouse. Jenna knew the place - anyone who lived in Seattle had heard of it - but she'd never been there. The upstairs café was not really in her price range, and the downstairs dining room was the kind of restaurant she couldn't even think about.

 "Are you sure about this?" she asked Sumita.

 "Don't worry about it," Sumita replied. "It's my treat. The view is amazing, and I know you like seafood."

 "But you're a vegetarian," Jenna said.

 "Yes," Sumita agreed, "and I'll be fine. They have a salad and a pasta that sound good."

 Jenna took a breath and decided to stop talking. Sumita was being sweet to her, very sweet, and she decided to simply accept it and enjoy it. Sumita was taking her on a genuine, old-fashioned date, which was not a typical move in Jenna's relationship playbook.

 Jenna followed Sumita up the stairs to the host stand, and a chirpy blonde girl led them both through the restaurant and out to the deck, where they had a table in the corner. The boathouse was on the shore of Shilshole Bay in Ballard, right on the water, at the mouth of the ship canal that connects Lake Washington to Puget Sound. The sun was descending in the September sky toward the Olympic Mountains across the Sound, and the cool breeze coming off the water was delightful in the warm evening air.

 Jenna's nerves melted away in the beautiful setting, and she listened to Sumita tell her stories from work. There was one about how tiny Sarah cut a burly Indian guy down to size in a design review meeting. Another was about the absolutely ridiculous three-day process of moving a simple bug fix from one place in the build system to another. A third was about how Sumita turned the power of Dave the Evil Software Development Lead around to her own use, by convincing him to direct his yelling at another team. "As soon as they saw him coming down the hall, they agreed to make the change I had been bugging them about all week," she said, laughing to herself.

 Jenna ordered crab cakes and clam chowder for dinner. She felt vaguely guilty about it, but Sumita insisted. Sumita ordered the vegetable pasta and a salad without even opening the menu. "I have to plan in advance, since my options are limited," she explained.

 The wine and the food loosened Jenna up a little further, and she told Sumita about her latest painting project after the appetizers and into the entrees. She described the sketches she'd done, and the feeling she was trying to create with each of the four figures.

 "Do you, um, want to come to the house after dinner and see it?" she asked, and her nerves flooded back. What was it about Sumita that could drive her so crazy for no reason?

 "I'd love to," Sumita replied. "I think you're amazing, and I'd love to see what one of your paintings looks like while you're still working on it."

 Jenna felt her face getting hot. She had friends and colleagues in the art world who admired her work, people like Meaghan whose opinions she really trusted, and people bought her work, at prices that surprised her, so she knew she was a pretty good painter. Sumita's opinion, though, was something else entirely. She wasn't part of the insular, ironic art crowd; she was just a woman who saw a painting and got it, instantly and completely. It was as if Sumita had torn through her canvases and found a window into her soul.

 Sumita took Jenna's hand in hers and smiled a big, radiant smile. Jenna didn't know how to respond. Her head was awash in a flood of intense emotions, mostly very good ones. Fortunately, the waiter showed up and broke the spell before Jenna felt like a complete idiot. Sumita ordered a rich, dense chocolate cake for dessert, and they ate it together as the sun disappeared over the horizon.

 Jenna felt another little twinge of guilt when Sumita paid the bill, but she tried to put it out of her mind. Sumita just smiled at her and kissed her on the cheek, and then they left. Sumita drove back to the house and pulled into the driveway behind the Ballard Bites van, and Jenna led Sumita into the house through the garage.

 Rose and Brendan were both in the living room reading when Jenna and Sumita arrived, and Jenna introduced Brendan to Sumita. Brendan's eyes got very big when Sumita shook his hand. Rose gave him a stern maternal it's-not-polite-to-stare look and an 'ahem'.

 "What?" he asked, blushing, and Rose raised an eyebrow.

 "I'm sorry," he said to Sumita, his blush deepening. "Jenna doesn't usually date people like ... I mean ... it's just ... you're very pretty."

 Jenna let out a hearty laugh, and then she tousled Brendan's hair. "My nephew," she said in a deeply serious voice, "does not usually approve of the women I date. 'Pretty' isn't the typical style." Brendan's face went from red to crimson.

 "Well, thank you, Brendan," Sumita said. "That was nice of you to say."

 Brendan rolled his eyes and flounced back down on the couch, burying his nose in his book.

 "We're going downstairs," Jenna said to Rose, and then took Sumita by the hand and led her to the door to the basement. When Jenna flicked the light switch on, Sumita's breath caught. The studio wasn't large - just enough space for a couple of easels and a stool, carved out from the accumulated boxes and bins - but it was sufficient for Jenna's needs. The canvas of Jenna's current project - a full six feet wide, perched on both easels and covered for protection from dust and drips - took up most of one wall, and sketches hung from every available space.




Reboot Pt. 02



Jenna talked Sumita through each sketch, explaining her thoughts and her goals. Sumita said nothing beyond the polite 'okays' and 'uh-huhs' that told Jenna she was listening. After the sketches, Jenna pulled the cover off the canvas, and Sumita took a step back to take the whole thing in. Jenna described her technique to Sumita, how she layered the different colors and textures to produce the dreamlike forest scene. Sumita stared at the canvas well after Jenna stopped speaking, delighting in every little detail she noticed.

 "You know," Jenna said when the silence got uncomfortable, "tonight was very nice. You really didn't have to do that for me."

 "I wanted to," Sumita replied. "And don't tell me you didn't have a good time."

 "I did," Jenna agreed. "It's just ... lesbians don't usually do the old-fashioned courtship thing, at least not the ones I know. It's a little too rooted in traditional gender roles, which we're not big on."

 "Sarah did, with Meaghan," Sumita replied, "I've heard the whole story a few times, and I think it's beautiful. Though I guess Sarah was new at this whole lesbian thing, just like I am with you. Anyway, I'm not interested what lesbians usually do. I'm interested in what works for us. Did you like it when I took you out for a nice dinner?"

 "Yes," Jenna admitted.

 "And would you like me to do it again, when I have a mind to?" Sumita asked.

 "Yes," Jenna said.

 "Good," Sumita replied. "Then I don't see the problem."

 "No problem," Jenna said, feeling like a six-year-old child. "Do you want to go back upstairs and see the rest of the house?"

 "Sure," Sumita said, and they climbed back upstairs. Jenna gave Sumita a tour of the main floor of the house, and then they walked up to Jenna's attic bedroom. It was neat and tidy, especially compared to the chaos of the basement studio, with just one sketch and two small paintings on the walls, none of them by Jenna.

 Sumita wrapped her arms around Jenna's waist, pulled her in close, and kissed her deeply. Jenna let out a deep sigh and fell into the kiss. She had spent the whole week wanting Sumita, wanting to hold her and taste her and make love to her. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to happen.

 "I'd really like to ask you to stay over," she said, "but my bedroom is right above Brendan's, so ..."

 Sumita giggled. "No, it's okay," she said. "I get it. I'd ask you to stay at my place, but I'm not sure I could handle facing Gita in the morning. Again."

 It was Jenna's turn to giggle. "I thought you told me she worked the night shift at the hospital," she said.

 "She did," Sumita replied, "until this week. Now she's back on a regular day schedule until she starts at UW. Talk about bad timing."

 The two collapsed onto Jenna's bed and lay there together a while, periodically erupting back into giggles. After a while, Sumita took a deep breath and sat up.

 "It's getting late," she said. "Since I'm not staying, I should probably go."

 Jenna breathed an exaggerated sigh of disappointment, and then sat up next to Sumita. "I'll walk you out," she said, and then leaned in for a kiss. Twenty minutes later, they finally made it downstairs, and Jenna walked Sumita to her car in the driveway.

 "Can we do something tomorrow?" Jenna asked. "Go for a hike, see a movie?"

 "Sure," Sumita replied. "Maybe meet for lunch tomorrow, and then go for a walk by the bay, in that park you took me to."

 "Sounds good. Call me in the morning," Jenna said. "I'll be up early. Occupational hazard."

 Sumita smiled a big, happy smile at Jenna, kissed her soundly, and then got into her car.

 "Okay, I'll call you," she said, and then drove off.

 When Jenna walked back into the house, she found Rose waiting for her by the door with a curious look on her face.

 "What?" Jenna asked. Rose just smiled.

 Jenna punched her sister in the arm, said, "Shut up," and went upstairs to bed.

 ~~~

 Jenna spent Saturday with Sumita, and then Sunday and the next weekend. They cooked together and they hiked together. They went to the Seattle Art Museum, where Jenna showed Sumita her favorite pieces and went on about why she loved them. Not for the first time, Sumita had a fantasy of dragging Jenna to London, to take her to the Tate Gallery as her own personal tour guide.

 Jenna and Rose did have to work on the big dinner party job, Wednesday of the next week, which kept Jenna busy Monday and Tuesday as well. The result was a smashing success, which would mean repeat business and, hopefully, referrals as well. Sumita took Jenna out for another expensive, romantic, date-night sort of dinner the next night to celebrate, at an Indian-American fusion restaurant on Capitol Hill, not far from Jenna's old apartment. The rest of the time, they squeezed in casual weeknight dinners around their busy, divergent schedules whenever they could, which wasn't often.

 What they didn't do was spend the night together. Jenna's bedroom was obviously out, and both Jenna and Sumita felt a little too weird about having Gita in the house if Jenna stayed over with Sumita. After two weeks of kissing and hugging and holding hands, and nothing else, they were both ready to burst. Jenna had to masturbate in her bedroom at night more in those two weeks than she had in the previous two months. She could only imagine what Sumita did when she got home at night, but then imagining it only got her own engine going again.

 It was a great relief to them both when Gita moved into her dorm room at UW on the last Sunday in September.

 ~~~

 Gita drove her little gray Audi, and Sumita and Jenna followed in Sumita's larger sedan. Gita wasn't taking much with her to school - there's not a lot of space in a dorm room - but, even so, her stuff didn't all fit in her car. The Audi had been Rajeev's, and practicality wasn't exactly his goal when he bought it. He just wanted something fun to drive. At the time, Sumita had called it his mid-life crisis, minus the crisis. That it also turned out to be far from mid-life was something she tried to ignore.

 After Gita registered at the dorm and picked up her key, the three of them hauled Gita's stuff up to the room, managing everything but the Ikea floor lamp and the large computer monitor on the first trip. Gita's roommate Dina was already there, unpacking her clothes. Dina and Gita had been friends since the seventh grade, and Sumita knew her well.

 "You two look out for each other," Sumita told the girls once they'd gotten settled, gave them each a quick hug, and then walked out of the building, holding onto Jenna's hand like a life preserver in a storm.

 "Wow," Jenna told Sumita when they got back to the car. "You handled that amazingly well. I know it must have been tough for you - the blood hasn't flowed back into my hand yet." She put her other hand to Sumita's cheek.

 "I didn't want it to be a big deal, and I didn't want to cry, you know?" Sumita said. "So I left before I could."

 With that, the dam burst and the tears flowed freely. "My baby's all grown up," Sumita said.

 "I know, babe," Jenna said, "and you've done an amazing job raising her. She's a remarkable young woman."

 Jenna pulled Sumita to her and wrapped her arms around Sumita's shoulders. Sumita buried her face in Jenna's chest, letting the tears flow until they ran dry. "It's okay, Sumi," Jenna whispered. "You're a wonderful mom, and your daughter still needs you. She's going to for a while yet."

 Eventually, Sumita pulled back and looked Jenna in the face, wiping her cheek with the back of her wrist. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was stuffy, but her face cracked into a smile. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for being here for me today." Jenna kissed her forehead.

 I called her 'babe', Jenna thought to herself in the car on the way back to Sumita's house. I've never called anybody 'babe' before.

 ~~~

 Alone at last.

 "So, um, what do you want to do?" Jenna asked after they got back to Sumita's house. Her heart was racing and her legs were a little wobbly. The thought of going to bed with Sumita was making her crazy. She hadn't felt so ... naughty since the last time she spent the night at Susie Parker's house in high school, when her parents were away for the weekend.

 But was she getting ahead of herself? She'd only slept with Sumita the one time, or maybe twice if you counted the next morning. Maybe Sumita wasn't interested. "We could, you know, go for a walk or something," she said.

 "I want to spend the afternoon in bed with you," Sumita replied, "and I don't want to leave the house until you have to go home. It's been two weeks, and I've been dying to make love to you."

 "Oh, good," Jenna replied, letting a little of her lust creep into her voice. "I thought maybe it was just me."

 "Nope," Sumita replied, and then she pulled Jenna into an embrace and kissed her on the lips. Jenna soon found her shirt untucked from her jeans and Sumita's hands running up her sides.

 Jenna broke their kiss long enough to lift Sumita's UW sweatshirt up over her head. This time she managed to unhook Sumita's bra, and Sumita's grin got wider as it slid off and dropped to the floor. She felt Sumita's fingers fumbling with the buttons on her shirt, and then it was off, flung over the back of the couch, and Sumita hardening nipples were pressing into Jenna's chest, just above the bottom of her sports bra. That came off soon too, and they were holding each other, skin to skin.

 "Bedroom?" Jenna asked.

 "Yeah, that's probably better," Sumita replied. "I'd let you take me right here, on the living room couch, but I'm not feeling much control right now, and I don't want to fall off."

 Jenna giggled, burying her nose in Sumita's hair and kissing the top of her ear. "Bedroom," she whispered, and took Sumita by the hand and led her to the bedroom door.

 Once inside, they both took the time to pull off their shoes/boots and then peel down their jeans and panties. Jenna knew better than to repeat the mistake she made their first night together, when she got her jeans tangled up in her boots and Sumita had to undress her. Not that being undressed by Sumita was in any way a bad thing...

 A firm kiss on the lips brought Jenna out of her momentary distraction, and then Sumita pulled her into bed. They landed side by side, lips still locked together. Hands and bodies were everywhere, each trying to both gain and allow the best access to the other. Jenna's left hand ended up right between Sumita's legs, sliding against slick, wet skin. Sumita had somehow managed to reach around her lover, and Jenna felt two long, strong fingers stroking her pussy from behind.

 It was an awkward position, not the most comfortable, but it worked. Jenna rubbed and stroked as best she could, and when the tip of her finger found Sumita's clit, she heard a cry. Sumita's position allowed for a little more control, and Jenna felt a finger or two slide inside her from time to time. After what must have been only a few minutes, Jenna felt Sumita's body tensing, and her own orgasm was not far behind. They came one after the other, in short, sharp spasms of pleasure that overlapped each other. Jenna's first simultaneous orgasm, or close enough.

 They untangled themselves and lay side by side for a while to catch their breath, holding hands but not otherwise touching. Both bodies were coated with a thin layer of sweat.

 "Wow," Sumita said. "You must have needed that just as much as I did."

 "Yeah, I guess I did," Jenna replied. "I didn't realize how wound up I was until we got to the house and my knees were shaking."

 "I've been desperate for this ever since our cooking weekend together," Sumita said. "I keep having these thoughts about you at the most inappropriate times, like in my stupid status meeting at work. I get all flustered and I feel like everybody's staring at me, but of course they aren't."

 "You've never had sexy daydreams before?" Jenna asked.

 "Never," Sumita replied. "I guess having the first real, natural sex of your life changes something in you."

 "Oh, Sumi," Jenna said, and she felt an ache in her chest for all the years Sumita missed out on.

 "It's okay, Jenna," Sumita said. "Really. I made a choice, and I don't regret it at all. But I don't want to talk about the past. I want to focus on those sexy thoughts you put in my head."

 "And what do you do with those thoughts?" Jenna asked, happy to change the subject.

 "During the day, nothing," Sumita said, her voice growing husky, "but in bed at night..."

 "What do you do in bed at night, Sumi?" Jenna asked. She was looking straight at Sumita, ice blue eyes locked to dark brown, and her voice was a low purr.

 "I think about you," Sumita replied, "and I touch myself."

 Jenna nearly exploded. She had never heard anything so hot in her life. She didn't know what was more amazing, that Sumita was openly telling her about masturbating, or that she was the object of Sumita's fantasy.

 "And what, exactly, do you think about?" Jenna asked, her face burning. "Be very specific."

 "Well," Sumita said, closing her eyes and swallowing nervously, "it usually starts with you kissing my fingers, or tickling my ear, or nuzzling my neck."

 Jenna did all those things, slowly and sensuously. Sumita responded with happy little sighs, and when Jenna kissed the hollow of her throat, the sighs turned into moans.

 "What next?" Jenna asked.

 "My nipple," Sumita replied, her voice almost a whisper. "I love what you do to my breasts."

 Jenna obliged, using every trick of mouth and tongue on Sumita's hard, sensitive nipples, first right then left then right again. Sumita wiggled and whimpered under Jenna's touch, and Jenna felt herself getting wetter between her legs. She was enjoying this game at least as much as Sumita, and Sumita was nearly delirious with pleasure.

 "And then?" Jenna purred into Sumita's ear.

 Sumita didn't answer, Jenna pulled back, leaving just one hand on Sumita's body.

 "Tell me what you think of when you're about to come," Jenna said.

 Sumita's eyes opened with a brief look of panic. "Your mouth," she said, barely able to speak coherently, "I need your mouth, and your fingers."

 A broad grin spread across Jenna's face. "You're amazing, Sumi," she whispered. "So sexy."

 Then she scooted down in the bed and planted her face right between Sumita's legs, licking and kissing and sucking. Her fingers followed, sliding in and out while her tongue flicked across Sumita's very sensitive clit.

 Sumita came in a sudden, unexpected rush. Jenna didn't even feel it building; she just felt her head trapped between Sumita's thighs while Sumita's body went rigid. She waited it out, not touching anywhere sensitive until Sumita relaxed and let her go. Once free, Jenna snuggled up beside Sumita.

 "You okay?" Sumita asked after a while. "Did I hurt you?"

 "No, I'm fine," Jenna replied. "What about you? You look wiped out."

 "I'll be okay in a minute," Sumita said, with some mischief slipping into her voice, "and then it's my turn."

 "Oh, no," Jenna said, laughing. "That was my game. Get your own."

 "Okay, then," Sumita said, and then laid back in the bed for a while gathering her strength. "I don't just have fantasies about me, you know. Sometimes I think about what I can do for you, or to you. There's this one where I walk up behind you and put my arms around you, and then..."

 Sumita continued to narrate the story, detail by little detail, and she demonstrated each and every one on Jenna's willing body. Jenna came twice before Sumita even finished her narration.

 ~~~

 The month of October flew by in a happy blur of fallen leaves and receding dawns. Jenna and Sumita were in that place where everything is still new and exciting, and the heavy decisions of the future still look far away.

 During the week, they lived their separate lives, meeting for dinner in the evenings when they could. Sumita always paid, whether it was Taco Time or fancy and expensive. Jenna felt bad about it for a while, letting it nag at her until she said something one night.

 "You can pay, if it bothers you," Sumita replied with a shrug. "I make enough money that I can take my girlfriend out to dinner whenever I want without having to think about it. That makes me happy. I don't think you can say the same thing."

 "No, I guess not," Jenna said, and then she forgot all about it. "Did you just call me your girlfriend?"

 Sumita blushed. "Yes," she said, leaning in to kiss Jenna's cheek. "Yes, I believe I did."

 The weekends, though, were spent together. Jenna stayed over at Sumita's house every Friday and Saturday except Halloween, when she and Rose catered three different parties. They found plenty of things to do together - more hiking, more cooking (followed by more eating), the occasional trip to a museum or a movie - and they also spent plenty of time at home, reading or talking or just being. Thursdays at work were long and painful for Jenna, and Fridays were excruciating.

 Also, they had sex. Lots and lots of sex. They dove naked into bed at night and fucked each other until they got tired and fell asleep; they explored each other's bodies when they woke up together in the morning; they made love on the living room couch in the middle of a lazy afternoon just because they could. It was wild, joyful, unrestrained, sexy, silly, sloppy, and generally wonderful. Jenna was making up for eight years of infrequent, uninspiring sex, and Sumita was making up for a lifetime of suppressing who she really was.

 After their first weekend together, which ran entirely on raw passion, Sumita made a great effort to understand Jenna's body and to improve her own technique. She approached the project like an engineer, even doing A/B testing. "Do you like this better?" she would ask, "or this?" Jenna's response was usually measured by the volume of her moan.

 Even more than the effort, Jenna appreciated Sumita's willingness to try anything. Sumita had no hang-ups. She had likes and dislikes, same as anybody, but no shame. "Being a lesbian married to a man," Sumita explained, "you kind of have to learn to be okay with your body and your desires, or you'll go mad."

 The one thing Sumita would not do was let Jenna fuck her with a strap-on.

 "No, unh-huh, no-way," she said when Jenna suggested it. "I lived with Rajeev for almost twenty years, and every time he put his ... thing inside me, I had to make it okay. I could do that, enjoy it even, because I loved him, but it always felt wrong unless I worked at it, convinced myself it was right. I don't want to work at it with you, not when everything else is so natural."

 "That's okay, babe," Jenna replied, with only a trace of disappointment. "There are plenty of other things we can do together..." She wanted to say something else, but she never got the chance. Sumita's lips closed around her nipple, and they were lying back in bed again, harness and fake cock forgotten on the floor.

 The weekends always ended, though, and Jenna went back home, to spend her weeknights in her tiny attic bedroom.

 ~~~

 Brrrrrrzzzzzaaaattttt!

 Jenna woke in the middle of the night to a loud wail.

 Brrrrrrzzzzzaaaattttt!

 As a joke, her friend Kate had set her ringtone to a ship's claxon. Usually, Jenna found it amusing. Now, she just wanted it to go away.

 Brrrrrrzzzzzaaaattttt!

 Jenna picked up the offending device and focused her eyes just enough make out the screen. Just a number, so not on her contact list. 425, maybe, although it was blurry. East side. Whoever this was, it had to be important to call at this hour.

 Brrrrrrzzzzzaaaattttt!

 Jenna pressed the answer button and held the phone to her face.

 "Hello?" she said, her voice hoarse with sleep.




Reboot Pt. 02



"Jenna?" the voice asked. It sounded distressed. "Oh, thank you so much for picking up. It's Gita."

 "Rita who?" Jenna asked before fully processing what the voice had said.

 "It's Sangita Desai," the voice said, making an obvious effort to speak slowly and clearly. "You're, um, dating my mom."

 "Yeah, sorry, Gita," Jenna said. "Still waking up. What's wrong?"

 "I just ... I need your help," Gita said. "Can you come get me?"

 "Okay," Jenna replied. "Where are you?"

 "I'm at a house in the U district," Gita said. "I'll text you the address."

 "Okay," Jenna said. "I'm on my way."

 Jenna pulled on the blue jeans and white shirt sitting on the chair next to her bed. She wore slippers instead of boots, and she didn't bother to tuck in her shirt or put on a bra. She was down the stairs and in the garage in two minutes, when Gita's text popped onto her screen. The house was a ways north and west of campus, in a very nice neighborhood. She tapped her screen for directions, just in case. The drive was under ten minutes.

 Gita was standing in front of the house when Jenna pulled up. The lights, the music, and the general disarray visible from the street all indicated a party going on inside. Jenna was a little surprised nobody had yet called the cops.

 Jenna got out of her car, and Gita rushed over to her. "It's this guy, Mike," she said in a panic. She looked a little strange, but Jenna wasn't really paying attention. "He's inside."

 "Slow down," Jenna said. "What's wrong?"

 "He puked, and then he had a seizure," Gita replied, trying to take deep breaths. "We need to get him to a hospital."

 Jenna strode purposefully toward the house. "You should have called the paramedics," she told Gita.

 "I tried, but..." Gita replied, unwilling to finish the sentence.

 "You can tell me later," Jenna said.

 Once inside the house, the crowd parted for Jenna, with Gita trailing behind her. Jenna found Mike half-sitting, half-lying on the couch. She looked him over quickly, grabbed an arm, and hauled him to his feet. Gita grabbed the other arm. Together they dragged him out the front door and into Jenna's car, where he fell into a heap in the back seat. Jenna and Sumita got in the car and drove off.

 "If he pukes again," Jenna said to Gita, "you are cleaning it up." Gita nodded.

 Ten minutes later, Jenna pulled up in front of the emergency room door at University Medical Center, and Jenna ran inside to find somebody to get Mike out of her car. She came back out with big, burly nurse named Jesus pushing a gurney.

 "His airway's clear and his pulse is okay," Jenna told Jesus as they hefted the kid onto the gurney, "but he's totally nonresponsive. Vomited earlier and had a seizure."

 "Do you know what he took?" Jesus asked.

 "Alcohol, definitely," Jenna replied. "Probably something else. I wasn't there."

 "Molly, maybe," Gita said. She was standing by the car, trying to stay out of the way. "I didn't see him take any, but I know other people at the party did."

 "Got it," Jesus said. "We'll check it out."

 Turning to Jenna, he asked, "You a medic or something?"

 "Nope," Jenna replied. "Just know a lot of first aid. I tended bar in Belltown in the nineties, and the owner preferred that his patrons not die."

 Jesus laughed, a big bellow of sound, and clapped Jenna on the shoulder. "You did good tonight," he said. "Maybe even saved his life. We can take it from here."

 Jesus rolled the gurney inside, and Jenna and Gita got back in the car.

 "Do you want to tell me about it?" Jenna asked Gita.

 "Fucking Halloween," Gita said, and Jenna finally noticed why Gita looked so odd. She was all in black, with a pair of cat ears poking out of her hair and the smudged remains of a feline design painted on her face.

 "And..." Jenna prompted when Gita didn't say anything more.

 "I wasn't even going to go to the stupid party," Gita said, "but Dina was going, and all my other friends, and I didn't want to spend the evening alone in my room like a loser."

 Jenna chuckled. "Did you have anything to drink?" she asked.

 "No," Gita replied. "Well, I did have a diet Coke, but I stayed away from the alcohol. It's not that I didn't want to, I just didn't feel ..." Her voice trailed off.

 "It's okay, Gita. You can tell me," Jenna said.

 Gita shifted in her seat, turning toward Jenna so she could look her in the face without craning her neck. "I've never had more than like half a glass of wine," she said, "and I didn't want to wake up in some strange guy's bed with no memory and no underwear."

 "Smart girl," Jenna said. "What happened with Mike?"

 "I don't know," Gita replied. "One minute he was fine, and the next he was lying in his own vomit, thrashing around on the floor. It scared the crap out of me."

 "I can imagine," Jenna said.

 "I got my phone out and punched in 911," Gita said, "but this big guy stopped me before I could dial. He told me no cops and no ambulance. Something about parents not finding out. I was going to call anyway, but he was so mean-looking. I honestly thought he was going to hit me, like really hurt me."

 Jenna let out a low growl. "Stupid over-privileged fuck," she said, her voice thick with venom. "He's going to let a kid die just to get out of a month of being grounded or whatever?"

 "I don't know," Gita said. "I never saw him before tonight. Anyway, when he calmed down a little, I asked him if I could call a friend. No cops and no ambulance, just somebody I knew who was nearby. I thought you'd know what to do."

 "Quick thinking, I guess," Jenna said with a sigh. "Probably the best you could have done, under the circumstances."

 Gita smiled, a weary, sad expression that looked strangely lopsided on her painted cat-face. "Look, Jenna," she said, "please don't tell my mom about this, okay? I don't want her to worry about me."

 Jenna took Gita's hand in hers and looked her straight in the eye. "I promise I won't tell your mother," she said, making sure Gita understood. "But you need to tell her yourself. She may never find out if you don't, but what if she does? Do you want to take that chance?"

 Gita swallowed hard.

 "There were, what, fifty people at that party?" Jenna asked. "And some of them probably have parents who know your mom." 

 "Oh, wow," Gita said. "I hadn't really thought about that. I guess I'll tell her, eventually. It's going to take me a little while to work up the courage."

 "You didn't really do anything wrong," Jenna said. "Except maybe going to the party in the first place. And if you hadn't been there, who knows what would have happened to Mike?"

 "Well ..." Gita said. "I don't know."

 "Come on," Jenna said, buckling her seat belt. "Let's get you home. You'll want a shower before bed."

 "Yeah," Gita agreed, wrinkling her nose. "My skirt still smells a little like puke."

 Jenna drove to campus, parked in front of the residence hall, and walked Gita upstairs to her room. Just as Jenna was turning to leave, Gita put a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you, Jenna," she said. "Thank you for tonight, and, well, ... everything."

 "You're welcome, Gita," Jenna replied. The corners of her mouth turned up into the faintest smile as she walked away.

 The next morning, Jenna was supposed to meet Sumita around ten. They were planning to go for a hike somewhere east, off I-90, and then have lunch at a place near Snoqualmie Falls. Instead, Jenna called Sumita and told her she wasn't feeling well. It wasn't a lie, though it wasn't the whole truth. She would keep Gita's secret as long as she had to, but she wasn't quite up to facing Sumita with it that day.

 ~~~

 Jenna met Sumita Monday night for dinner on the east side, near her office, at a vegan Asian restaurant that Sumita liked. Jenna felt a bit awkward, but Sumita didn't seem to notice, though she did ask Jenna if she was feeling better at least four times. The warmth of Sumita's concern eased the knot in Jenna's stomach, but the secret she was keeping meant it didn't go away entirely.

 Sumita suggested an ice cream place in a nearby mall after dinner, and Jenna immediately agreed. She was fine with any excuse to spend more time with Sumita, and who doesn't like ice cream? They ordered a waffle bowl to share and found a quiet corner of the mall where they could sit and enjoy it.

 "Well, it's not Molly Moon's," Sumita said, "but it's not too bad."

 Jenna laughed at the reminder of their first sort-of-but-not-really date. "Yeah," she agreed. "This doesn't suck at all."

 Sumita giggled.

 After they finished their ice cream, they sat for a while people-watching. The mall was called Crossroads, for good reason. The clientele was a mix of well-off and barely-getting-by; of immigrants and locals; of high-powered tech workers and people with ordinary, everyday jobs. That was Jenna's take, anyway. She didn't know if Sumita saw the same divisions, and she didn't ask.

 "So," Sumita said after a while. "Diwali is coming up on the eleventh. I always do a big dinner at the house, and I'd really like you to come."

 "Diwali..." Jenna replied, testing the weight of it on her tongue. "That's the big Hindu festival of light, right? I didn't think you were religious."

 "I'm not, really," Sumita replied, "but we celebrate it anyway. It's kind of like Indian Christmas. Not the spiritual story, of course, but it's an excuse to get everyone together for a big meal and indulge a little. Plus, there will be firecrackers."

 "Sounds nice," Jenna said. "Who all are you inviting?"

 "There's you, of course," Sumita said, kissing the tip of Jenna's nose. "You should bring Rose and Brendan too, if that's okay."

 Jenna felt her chest tighten, but it was a good tightness. Sumita was starting to think of her sister and nephew as family. "I'll ask," Jenna said. "As long as it's not too late, I think Rose will be okay with it."

 "Wonderful," Sumita said, beaming at Jenna. "Apu will be there, with his wife Sapna, and Vivek, his wife Dee, and their two boys. Apu was one of Rajeev's oldest friends, and Vivek was a partner in his practice. They were both really good to Gita and me after Rajeev died."

 "Wow," Jenna said. "That's a pretty big group."

 "I'm also inviting Sarah and Meaghan," Sumita said. "I don't think I would have survived going back to work without Sarah."

 Jenna smiled.

 "Plus," Sumita added, getting a dreamy look on her face, "it's because of Meaghan that I met you."

 "Is there anything I can do?" Jenna asked, blushing. "Maybe help you cook, or bring something?"

 "Nope," Sumita replied. "Gita's coming over in the afternoon, and we've got it covered. Just bring yourself. I'd tell you to dress nicely, but I don't think I've ever seen you wear anything other than your blue jeans and white shirt, and I can't imagine you any other way."

 "Clothes aren't really my thing, I guess," Jenna said, laughing to herself. "I found one outfit that worked for me, and I stuck with it because I don't like anything else. When I have to do something formal, I have a pantsuit that I wear, but I really don't like it. I look like Hillary fucking Clinton."

 Sumita burst out laughing. She threw her arm around Jenna's shoulders, buried her face in Jenna's chest, and held onto her until the giggles stopped. When she sat back up, Jenna saw tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

 "You, my dear Jenna," Sumita said, trying desperately to contain another attack of the giggles, "could never look like Hillary Clinton, no matter what you wear."

 "That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Jenna said to Sumita, and she broke into a broad smile. Sumita's delight was contagious.

 ~~~

 Rose was excited for Diwali. She had only met Sumita a few times, and this was an opportunity to get to know her big sister's girlfriend a little better. If she got to tell Sumita some embarrassing stories about Jenna, so much the better. She wore her Sunday best, and she made sure Brendan did as well. Brendan was indifferent to the idea, happy to be out on a school night but mildly offended at being relegated to the kids' table.

 Jenna, Rose, and Brendan arrived at Sumita's house early in the evening, before the worst of the rush hour traffic across the I-90 floating bridge. Meaghan was already there, sitting in the kitchen chatting with Sumita, and Gita and Dina were watching Jennifer in the living room, completely enthralled by the baby girl.

 Sumita greeted Rose with a hug, Brendan with a handshake, and Jenna with a kiss. She showed Rose and Brendan around the house, and she took them out to the boat jetty on the lake when Brendan asked. Vivek, Dee, and their twin boys Bill and Ed arrived just as Sumita came back inside. Jenna thought the twins looked familiar, though she couldn't say why. Perhaps it was their curious expression when they saw her, or perhaps it was just her imagination. Apu and Sapna showed up a few minutes later, and then Sarah finally appeared.

 When all the guests had settled in, hung up their coats, and deposited their bottles of wine and the like on the kitchen counter, Sumita made the introductions, with plenty of shaking of hands and polite exchanges of 'hello' and 'nice to meet you'. She introduced Jenna last, saying, "... and this is my girlfriend, Jenna," and then kissed her on the lips to underline the point.

 Jenna felt a rush of red heat in her cheeks, and she looked at the unfamiliar faces for reactions. Bill and Ed didn't react at all - they were nineteen, and for them, a person being gay had never really been a thing. Apu, a big, dark teddy bear of a man, looked mildly uncomfortable with the public display, but unsurprised. Sapna and Dee both smiled warmly, welcoming Jenna into their little community. Vivek looked like somebody had hit him over the head.

 "Your girlfriend," he said after a long, awkward silence. "Okay..."

 Dee took Vivek by the hand, whispered something into his ear, and led him into the living room. He followed, still looking confused. Sumita shooed everyone else into the living room as well while she and Gita finished up with the cooking. By the time the samosas came out of the oven, any lingering awkwardness was gone. Brendan was a little in awe of the twins - they were smart, they were tall, and they were in college. That automatically made them cool, and sitting at the kids table with them suddenly didn't seem bad at all. Plus, there were Gita and Dina, who were all those things, and also pretty girls.

 Before the meal, Jenna took Brendan, the twins, Dina, and Gita out to the lakeshore to shoot off fireworks into the Autumn darkness. The rest of the adults wandered out a few minutes later, except Sarah, who stayed behind to watch the baby. When everyone came back inside, Jennifer was asleep in her car seat, unbothered by the pops that had gone off outside. Sarah was gently rocking the car seat in the middle of the coffee table. Jennifer stayed asleep for almost the whole meal, which was unusual for her and lucky for everyone else.

 Dinner itself was lovely, a vegetarian feast of tastes and textures and colors, mostly traditional Indian with highlights ranging from Mexican and Chinese to minimalist and modern. All five of the kids went into the kitchen for second helpings, and so did half the adults.

 "Sumita tells me you're a painter," Vivek said to Jenna over dinner. "She made a point of showing us the new painting hanging on her bedroom wall before the fireworks. It reminds me of a sunset."

 Before Jenna could respond, Dee jumped in. "It's two people fighting, dear," she said to her husband. "Did you not see them?"

 "Oh, those were people?" Vivek asked. "I just figured they were clouds or something. Anyway, I like it. I could see something like that hanging up in the waiting room at the office - much better than the washed-out gray stuff my office manager Darlene picks out."

 "Thank you," Jenna said, smiling her winning professional smile at both of them. "I'm glad you like it. I can give you my card if you're interested in any of my other work."

 She reached into a pocket for a business card and held it out across the table. Dee took it, said, "Thank you," and slipped it into her purse. Jenna got the feeling she would actually do something with it.

 The conversation level rose gradually as people finished eating, and then dropped again suddenly when three trays of homemade Indian sweets appeared from the kitchen. Things got loud again when Jennifer woke with an indignant wail. Meaghan scooped her up and disappeared into Sumita's bedroom to feed her and calm her down. When she emerged, everyone had finished eating and returned to the living room. Meaghan handed the baby to Jenna, at Rose's suggestion. "It'll be good for you," Rose said.

 Jenna wasn't so sure about that, but she played along, standing little Jennifer up in her lap and making baby talk and funny faces to her. Jennifer responded with smiles and giggles, and Jenna decided that maybe this whole baby thing was okay, as long as the baby was in a good mood, and she could give it back when it inevitably started crying.

 Meanwhile, Dee went into the kitchen to help Sumita clean up. She was basically incapable of not helping.

 "Don't mind Vivek, Sumi," she told Sumita. "He was just a little surprised, that's all. Jenna seems great, and we're both very happy you've found someone. I know it wasn't all roses with Rajeev when you were married, but I also know how hard it was for you after he passed away."

 "Thanks, Dee," Sumita replied. "It was really gracious of you to be so accepting."

 "Honey," Dee said, "it's hard enough in this world find anybody at all you can live with. As long as you're happy, I think it's great."

 Jennifer's happy mood lasted about ten more minutes, and after that she got cranky enough that Sarah and Meaghan went home. A car ride was one of the most reliable ways to calm her down. Vivek's family drifted out a while later, followed by Apu and Sapna.

 "Really nice to meet you," Apu said to Jenna, shaking her hand as he left. Sapna surprised Jenna with a hug.

 "You take good care of her," Apu added, glancing at Sumita with a big goofy grin on his face. "She can be pain in the ass, but Rajeev always thought she was worth it. Most of time, anyway." Sumita rolled her eyes at Apu's teasing.

 Sumita waved with her right hand as Vivek and then Sapna drove off. Her left hand held Jenna's.

 "That went well," she said to Jenna as they walked back inside. "Apu seems to like you. I was a little worried about that - he's a really nice guy, but he took Rajeev's death pretty hard. They'd known each other since they were teenagers."

 Jenna kissed Sumita on the lips.

 "This was lovely, babe," she said to Sumita. "Your friends are very nice, and it felt good to be acknowledged like that. No drama or anything. You have no idea what a relief that is."

 "No, I guess I don't," Sumita said, "nothing like you anyway. I'm just glad everybody got along."

 A noise from the living room reminded Jenna that Rose and Brendan were still there, and that they had driven together. "I should probably go," she said. "Brendan has school in the morning, and we have work."

 "I wish you didn't have to," Sumita sighed, "but I know you do. Friday?"

 "Yeah," Jenna replied. "Looking forward to it."

 Rose drove home, and Jenna sat in the passenger seat feeling warm and fuzzy. She was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, she and Sumita could actually make it work together.

 ~~~

 After Diwali, life conspired against them for a while. They didn't get to meet Friday night because of a work emergency for Sumita, and Saturday and Sunday were out because of a big rush job for Ballard Bites. The next weekend Sumita had plans with Gita and Jenna with Rose and Brendan. So when they could finally meet for dinner at Sumita's house on Tuesday night, two days before Thanksgiving, they were both thrilled.




Reboot Pt. 02



Jenna pulled into Sumita's garage and walked over to the front door. She went in without knocking, called out "hey", and made her way to the kitchen. That's where she usually found Sumita when she came over. Sumita was waiting for her, and Jenna could immediately sense something was wrong. Jenna couldn't quite look her in the eye.

 "You had no right," Sumita said to her. Her voice was soft and low, but there was no mistaking the fury behind it.

 Jenna felt sick, like she'd been punched in the gut. Even worse, she didn't know why.

 "Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," Sumita said.

 "I honestly don't," Jenna replied. She could feel the panic rising in her chest.

 "Gita is MY daughter, MY responsibility," Sumita said, and the words hit Jenna's chest like hammer blows. "You should have told me."

 "Did Gita say something about Halloween?" Jenna asked.

 "No," Sumita replied, fuming. "I had to hear it third hand, from Vivek. He noticed a photo last week of his boys at that stupid party on Bill's Facebook or Instagram or whatever feed. When he interrogated Bill, the boy gave up everything, including the tall, scary, mysterious woman Gita called after that kid OD'ed, the one who he recognized later from Diwali."

 "Sumi, I'm sorry," Jenna said, and finally looked into her lover's face. "I promised Gita I wouldn't say anything."

 "That's not your decision," Sumita said. "Gita was all I had left after my husband died, and it's my job to keep her safe. Not yours, or anyone else's. And don't tell me she's an adult just because she's eighteen years old. She wasn't acting like a fucking adult when she went to that party."

 "Sumi," Jenna said, "Gita was trying to do the right thing. She was trying to help a kid who was in trouble, under tough circumstances. She really is a smart, responsible girl. You raised her right."

 "Nobody gets to talk to me about how I raise my daughter," Sumita said, her voice raised almost to a shout. "Nobody, not even you. I think maybe you should go."

 "So, what?" Jenna snapped. "I'm good enough to show off to everybody as your girlfriend, good enough to fuck, but I'm not good enough to help your daughter out of a tough spot? As soon as things get serious, you want me out. Figures."

 Jenna spun around and headed for the front door.

 "Jenna, wait," Sumita said, but it was too late.

 Jenna flew through the door and slammed it hard behind her. She was in her little green Toyota, squealing the tires as she pulled out of the driveway, and then she was speeding down Lake Sammamish Parkway toward the freeway, and then home.

 She burst through the door from the garage into the house and startled Rose, who was watching TV on the couch. Brendan was in his room with homework.

 "Jesus, Jenna," Rose said when she saw her sister's tear-streaked cheeks and puffy eyes. "What happened to you?"

 "I got into a fight with Su..." she said, not quite able to say Sumita's name out loud. That made her feel even worse.

 "Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry," Rose said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

 "No!" Jenna cried, and charged up the stairs to her bedroom. She curled up into a ball on her bed, still dressed, and cried some more. It was Tess, all over again.

 A beautiful, smart, rich woman decides to go slumming, to see what it's like to date a real, honest-to-goodness dyke. Has fun scandalizing her friends; feels like she's subverting the social order. Only she's just playing at it, and sooner or later she'll realize that there's more to it than just playing, and she'll dump her poor butch girlfriend and go back to her beautiful, smart, rich life. And her girlfriend will have to go back to her non-beautiful, non-smart, non-rich life with her heart in pieces.

 Sometime during the night, Jenna finally got to sleep. It seemed like it was only about five minutes later when her alarm went off.

 ~~~

 The next day seemed to last forever, which was fine with Jenna. As long as she had work to do, she could avoid thinking about Sumita. The boxed lunch schedule was fairly light - day before a holiday weekend - but after her delivery run, she had to get back to the kitchen to help Rose cook Thanksgiving dinner. Specifically, eight different Thanksgiving dinners for eight different families, all delivered on Thursday morning before Jenna, Rose, and Brendan drove out to Poulsbo to spend the holiday with their parents. They didn't finish until nearly ten at night. It was exhausting, but it was also more profit than they had made for the entire rest of the month.

 When they finally packed up to go home, Jenna checked her phone. Seventeen missed calls, three voice mails, and a dozen texts and emails, mostly from Sumita. She ignored them all - she had absolutely no need to hear how badly her life had been fucked.

 Thanksgiving morning was just as early as a normal weekday - there were a few more turkeys to cook, and rolls and other things that couldn't be done the night before. Jenna and Rose made the delivery run together, making eight families very happy and getting paid quite well for it. Around ten, they went back home to clean up and change and then they left again, this time with Brendan, a couple of vegetable casseroles, and a pumpkin pie. They got to the downtown ferry terminal about fifteen minutes before the Bainbridge Island ferry left. Rose turned off the car, and they all climbed out to watch the ferry coming in and unloading.

 "So, um..." Jenna said to Rose and Brendan, "Could you guys not say anything to Mom and Dad about Sumita, or Diwali, or anything?"

 Brendan looked confused. Rose looked her son in the eye, making sure he was paying attention. "That's fine, Jen," she said. "We won't talk about anything to do with Sumita. Isn't that right, Brendan?"

 "Sure, I guess," Brendan replied. "Whatever. I'll be good."

 Rose held his gaze a moment longer, and then tousled his hair. He gave her an annoyed look, like he was getting too old for that sort of thing. They walked back to the car and boarded the ferry.

 Jenna let Brendan's constant commentary distract her through the half-hour ferry ride, and she just zoned out for the drive to Poulsbo and then up to the house, watching the trees go by and thinking about nothing at all. Rose had to nudge her to get out of the car when they arrived.

 Jenna and Rose's parents' house was built in the thirties - about the same age as Rose's house in Seattle - but it could just as easily have been a hundred years older. For years, it had been a farmhouse, and they still kept a garden, an orchard, and a chicken coop on their two and a half acres.

 A long covered porch stretched the whole length of the front of the house, complete with a pair of hand-carved rocking chairs. Inside, the house was all wood. The floors were wooden planking, polished smooth by boots and bare feet, the walls were exposed wood, stained rather than painted, and the furniture was solid and functional wood block. The few flashes of modernity - the computer monitor on top of the roll-top desk; the newish fridge across from the old gas range; the one small TV in the den - only served to highlight the agelessness of the rest of the house. It looked much as it did when Jenna was born.

 Jenna's mother Ingrid, a blonde, big-boned, red-cheeked woman, was in the kitchen, fussing over the gravy. Jenna deposited the vegetable casseroles next to the oven, and Rose set the pie down on the counter. 

 "These just need five minutes in the oven," Jenna said to her mother. "You really should have let us bring more, Mom. Thanksgiving is a lot of work."

 "Nonsense," Ingrid replied. "If I'm doing the turkey, then I have to do the gravy and the stuffing, and the potatoes aren't that much effort. You girls brought the rest."

 "'The rest' isn't very much," Rose said, shaking her head at her mother. "You just can't stop yourself, can you?"

 Ingrid did not respond. Everyone in the kitchen heard the back door slam shut, the floorboards creak, and a pile of wood settle on the floor next to the hearth. Jenna's father Richard, a tall, wiry man with chestnut hair just a shade darker than Jenna's, appeared in the kitchen a moment later. After wiping his palms on his blue jeans, he held his right hand out for Brendan and Jenna, and then he bent down to give Rose a hug.

 "Good to see you girls," he said brusquely. Turning to Brendan, he added, "You too, grandson." That was about as emotional as he ever got.

 Jenna stepped into her traditional job of stirring the gravy while everyone else flowed around her, assembling all the pieces into the traditional Ibsen family Thanksgiving dinner. When Jenna finally poured the gravy into the gravy boat, they were ready to eat.

 The meal was exactly what it was supposed to be, what it had been for her whole life. The turkey was moist and tender, the potatoes creamy, the gravy smooth, and the stuffing balls appropriately crunchy. Even the one store-bought item, the canned cranberry jelly, tasted exactly right. Or at least Jenna thought so; she didn't eat much, and she didn't really taste what she did eat. Her stomach was tied in a knot, and putting food into it was not something she really wanted to do.

 The conversation mostly centered on Brendan, from school to after-school sports to that girl-friend named Amy who was definitely not a girlfriend. Brendan was the one topic that was safe and interesting to all the adults at the table, though Brendan himself didn't really enjoy being the center of attention.

 Jenna spaced out again during dinner, and she had to be reminded to go into the kitchen with her mother to help serve the pie. Jenna, Rose, and Brendan did the dishes after dinner, and they left soon after. They didn't want to miss the six thirty ferry.

 "Are you okay, Jenna girl?" Jenna's mother asked as they said their goodbyes.

 "Yeah," Jenna replied. "Just a little distracted."

 Rose snorted, but she didn't say anything.

 "Alright, dear," Ingrid said to Jenna. "If you don't want to tell your old mother, that's fine. Just take care of yourself, okay?"

 "Okay, Mom," Jenna replied, forcing herself to smile.

 That night, Jenna went downstairs to paint. She had finished two of the four figures in the forest piece, the ones on either end. They were sharp, vicious things, spirit guards who met invaders with violence. The two central figures had proved more challenging. One was meant to be dark and mysterious, a hidden power at the heart of the forest, and the other was dangerous but alluring, even sensuous, like the woman know you shouldn't fall for but do anyway.

 It was all supposed to be so simple, initially. The forest was angry, at the logging and the pollution and the unmanageable fires, and the figures in the painting were simply out for revenge. After talking about it with Sumita, though, Jenna saw it more clearly. There was more to it, and she couldn't finish painting it until she got to the bottom of what it was.

 That train of thought just reminded Jenna of Sumita and their big fight, and she couldn't paint at all. She went upstairs to bed and tried to sleep. She did, eventually, but it didn't feel any better than being awake.

 ~~~

 "Jenna, wake up," she heard Rose saying. Rose had grabbed her by the shoulder and was shaking her.

 "What?" Jenna asked. "What time is it?"

 "Almost ten, sleepyhead," Rose replied. "Meaghan's on the phone. She called me because she couldn't get through to you."

 Jenna sat up in bed and took the cellphone Rose handed her. "Hey, Meaghan," she said, her head still full of sleep. "What's up?"

 "Are you okay, Jenna?" Meaghan asked, with real concern in her voice. "Sumita's been worried sick about you. She finally gave up trying to call you and asked me to see if I could get through, and then when I tried, I couldn't get you either."

 "Sorry," Jenna replied. "I turned off my phone yesterday at my parents' house - no reception out there - and then didn't turn it back on."

 "I'm glad you're okay," Meaghan said, "but that doesn't explain why you've been ignoring Sumita since Tuesday. She was imagining you dead somewhere on the roadside."

 "Oh, ah, yeah," Jenna said, and the pit of worry in her stomach turned into a sharp, sudden ache. "We kind of got into a fight, and I stormed out. I didn't think she'd ever want to see me again."

 "Well, then, you're being an idiot, Jenna," Meaghan said. "Sumita's desperate to see you, or at the very least to know you're still alive."

 That just made Jenna feel worse. "Fine," Jenna said. "I'm alive - you can tell her that. But I don't want to see her. I don't need to be reminded again how much I don't belong in her life."

 "Look, Jenna," Meaghan said, "I don't know what it is that you two fought about, but whatever you think happened, Sumita still wants to see you. She was basically crying into the phone when she called me."

 The ache in Jenna's stomach cracked open into a boundless void, threatening to swallow her completely. The idea of seeing Sumita again made her sick, but the idea of not seeing her again was even worse. She had to face Sumita, now, or she would be lost.

 "Do you know if she's home?" Jenna asked. "Whatever is going to happen, I should do this in person."

 "Yes, she's at home," Meaghan said. "What do you want me to tell her?"

 "Tell her I'm coming, I guess," Jenna said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

 "Okay, I'll tell her," Meaghan said. "And Jenna, everything's going to be okay. If you care about Sumita at all, and I know you do, then you can work things out."

 "Thanks, Meaghan," Jenna said, though she didn't believe her. "I should go."

 "Bye, Jenna," Meaghan said, and hung up the phone.

 It took Jenna a very long hour to shower, dress, and drive over to Sumita's house. Every traffic delay felt like the world conspiring against her personally. Eventually she pulled into Sumita's driveway and parked behind Gita's little gray Audi.

 She walked to the front door, her heart in her throat, stood for a moment, and raised her hand. Here goes nothing, she thought, and knocked. Her knuckles hit the brown-stained wood with a solid thump. No cheap, hollow plywood here.

 Sumita was waiting for her, and she opened the door after the first knock. "I'm sorry," was the first thing she said. "I'm sorry you got dragged into the middle of a fight that should have been between me and my daughter. I'm sorry I yelled."

 "Oh," she said. "Um, okay." That was not what Jenna expected. She expected Sumita to justify herself and explain why everything Jenna did was wrong. That's what Tess would have done. Tess never apologized.

 When Sumita reached out and took Jenna's hand, Jenna realized that she was standing there outside Sumita's front door like an idiot, and she was freezing. It was clear and very cold, and she had forgotten to put on a coat.

 "You should come in," Sumita said, gently pulling her inside. "You're shivering."

 Jenna followed Sumita into the living room and sat down next to her on the couch. "You're really not mad at me?" she asked.

 "No," Sumita replied. "I am not mad at you, Jenna. You did give me a scare though. Please don't ever do that again."

 "I just thought, when you told me to leave..." Jenna said, and then broke down crying.

 "Hey, hey," Sumita said gently, putting an arm around Jenna's shoulders. "It's okay, Jenna. Everything is okay."

 Jenna sobbed a little while longer, and Sumita got up to fetch a box of Kleenex. "I'm sorry," Jenna said. "I shouldn't fall to pieces like this. It's just ... I really like you."

 "I really like you too," Sumita replied, with a hint of warm, indulgent laughter bubbling underneath her voice. "Do you want to tell me why such a smart, confident woman is so afraid of getting hurt? Whoever she was, you must have been crazy about her."

 "Was it that obvious?" Jenna asked, managing a weak smile.

 "Not until just now," Sumita replied. "She was the woman in the painting, wasn't she? The one in Sarah's office."

 "Her name was Tess," Jenna said, nodding. "We dated for about a year, a long time ago, and she was wonderful."

 "Until she wasn't?" Sumita asked.

 "No, she kept on being wonderful, long after we broke up," Jenna replied, with some acid in her voice. "The problem was me."

 And then the whole story spilled out. How she met Tess in a downtown night spot while she was tending bar to supplement the income from her day job. How Tess got hit on by five different men that night, all in expensive suits, and dismissed each and every one with just a glance. The first time they went out; the first time they slept together; the first time they spent a weekend away. The times Tess took her shopping, bought her just the right clothes, sleek and stylish, neither feminine nor masculine. The parties Tess took her to, full of bankers and lawyers and politicians, a world she never imagined seeing.

 "Trouble was, though," Jenna said, "I never knew quite how to be at those things. I was beside this stunning, powerful woman, hanging on her arm like a decoration. I felt like an afterthought. I didn't understand what she could possibly want to do with me."

 "So what happened?" Sumita asked.

 "Eventually," Jenna said, "she stopped taking me to parties, and she stopped wanting to be with me. At the time, I was convinced it was because I wasn't good enough for her. When she couldn't turn me into the person she wanted, her own little Eliza Doolittle, she gave up."

 "That sounds awful," Sumita said.

 "It wasn't her fault," Jenna said. "I can see that now. I was so afraid that I wasn't good enough for her, that I was going to lose her, that I stopped being somebody she could want. If I had trusted her a little more, maybe things would have been different."

 "And yet you're doing the exact same thing with me," Sumita said.

 "Yeah, well," Jenna said with a snort, "nobody's ever accused me of being flighty and unpredictable. I'm sorry I was an idiot and ran out on you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Gita and that damn house party."

 "First apology accepted," Sumita said. "As for the second, you have nothing to apologize for. I was out of line, and I'm the one who should be sorry. Gita asked for your help and your trust, and you gave her both without reservation. If you had ratted her out, she'd never be able to trust you again, and I want her to trust you."

 Sumita kissed Jenna on the forehead while Jenna wiped up the last of her tears and blew her nose, and then she pulled Jenna into a hug and held her tight.

 "So what do we do now?" Jenna asked.

 "It's cold, but it's a lovely day out," Sumita replied. "We could go for a walk in Marymoor Park."

 "That's not what I meant," Jenna said.

 "I know," Sumita replied, "but that's still my answer. We spend the weekend together and do things that make us both happy. We can figure the rest out later."

 "Isn't Gita here for the weekend?" Jenna asked. "I saw her car outside. Are you okay with me spending the night with your daughter home?"

 "I'm fine with it if you are," Sumita replied. "It's not like Gita doesn't know we're dating."

 Jenna blushed. "Well, okay, then," she said.

 ~~~

 With the emotional fireworks over, Sumita and Jenna bundled up for a walk outside. Jenna borrowed a heavy sweater, hat, and coat from Sumita, since she hadn't brought anything with her in her haste to get there. She looked very un-Jenna-like in the bright red hat and bright blue coat, but she stayed warm, and that was all that mattered.

 "Can I ask you something?" Jenna asked while they walked. "I'm not being stupid again; I just want to know."

 "Sure," Sumita replied.

 "Why did you notice me, of all people?" Jenna asked. "I know how much you like pretty girls, with pretty hair and pretty clothes. I'm not pretty. I'm butch, I'm flat-chested, and I have the most boring wardrobe in the world."