by Liz Jacobs
“We come here for picnics sometimes,” she told Nick. “On special occasions.” She stamped her feet. Standing around had got cold, and she crouched down to sit on the pavement. She patted the spot beside her, and Nick dropped down, too. She’d forgotten to get that coffee, so now they huddled and shivered together in silence, taking in the view and the sunshine and the chatter of the people behind them. It felt nice. Easy. Nick didn’t seem as uptight. He looked positively giddy. Izzy remembered she still had a whole Dairy Milk in her bag. They polished it off in quick order.
“So, what did you say you were doing later today?” Izzy asked as they descended the hill. He hadn’t actually told her, but she had a goal.
Nick looked over at her. “Nothing much.”
“Well, Dex doesn’t have to go into work for once, so we were gonna do a whole proper roast later, with all the proper trimmings, the ways of our people. What’d you reckon, wanna come over? I’d put you to work, mind.”
Nick’s response was immediate. “Yeah.” A smile. “I’d love to.”
Izzy actually clapped and said, “Yaaaaay!”
13
When Nick got to the house, the kitchen was a bustle of activity. Natali was back, and Nick skirted around her carefully until he realized that she either didn’t know he’d spent the previous night in her bed or didn’t care. He relaxed.
“Nick! Good, you’re here. Okay, I need you to peel these potatoes.”
Oh crap. Zoyka was right—he was a lost cause at peeling—but he’d promised to help, so he took the bag of potatoes and the peeler from Izzy without a word. He found a spot by the sink and set to work. His mom could peel a potato all in one go, with a knife, without looking at what she was doing once. She could also cut them in her hand without slicing her own fingers off in less than ten seconds. When Zoyka made a comment about it once, his mom had just shrugged. She’d learned early and done it often, was the implication.
Nick was just hoping no one was watching his struggles.
When he chanced a glance at the others, he saw Izzy and Steph readying a hunk of beef for the oven, while Dex was busy doing some magic to broccoli and carrots. He didn’t look like he was having trouble with vegetable prep.
Natali was, by the looks of it, just stealing everyone’s ingredients and chowing down with zero compunction. He’d only just realized her hair had three blue streaks in the back.
“How’s it going with the potatoes?” Dex asked. Nick fumbled and nearly let a slippery potato escape from his already tenuous grasp. He shouldn’t have been staring.
“Fine!” He fixed his glasses with the back of his wrist.
“Cool.” Dex was, thankfully, no longer in the state of undress he’d been in that morning, but Nick remained hyperaware of him just two paces away. He looked laser-focused on his task, which seemed to be cutting the skin off of broccoli. Nick had never seen anyone do that. Had, in fact, no idea anyone did it at all. He craned his neck and tried to work out the point of the exercise, and when he looked up, Natali was watching him with a crooked grin.
“Dex is a weirdo.” She shrugged and took another bite of her pilfered carrot. Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Dex look up from his task. “He’s got a mate who works for a Chinese place. Apparently, if you peel them, they soak up the oils better or whatever.”
“Oh. That’s cool.”
Dex shrugged, but unlike with Nick’s mom, it looked self-conscious, which struck Nick as unbearably sweet. “It works really well for a roast,” Dex said and threw another finished piece into a bowl. “Anyway, if you don’t mind cutting those up once you’re done peeling and getting them ready to roast, that’d be great. Have you roasted potatoes before?”
He could feel heat in his cheeks and his neck and in the tips of his ears. He shook his head.
“That’s cool, mate,” Dex said as he picked up another broccoli floret. “You just cut up into quarters, toss them in oil, salt and pepper, that’s all.”
“Sounds good.” Nick cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
“Hey, at least you’re doing it,” Izzy said, smile in her voice. “D’you see Nat helping in any way? No. Her mum makes the most incredible food, and she’s never made us as much as an omelette, the lazy cow.”
“Oi!” A carrot sailed past Nick’s head. “I’m not lazy, I’m just no good. I’ve tried cooking, and it’s turned out like shit. Why bother, am I right?” The last part was addressed to Nick.
“I guess. I was never taught. Or learned. It’s—” Stupid, now he thought about it. “My mom never wanted us to help, she just wanted us out of the way. She taught my sister the basics, though.”
“But not you?” Dex didn’t sound accusatory, just curious.
“Zoya’s a girl. My mom said she should know how to.” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s a Russian thing.”
“Did your dad never cook?” Natali asked.
“Nat—”
“What? Oh, sorry, Nick.”
Nick shook his head. He wasn’t a delicate fucking flower. “No, it’s fine. He didn’t cook, and Zoyka actually used to give him grief over it.” He found himself smiling.
“So why did your mum want you out of the way?” Dex again.
“When we were growing up, it was pretty tight quarters, so there was never any room for us to be underfoot.” He traced the pattern of the peel as he twisted the potato in his hands. “And she had no time to teach us. She just needed to cook food for the week and go do other stuff. And that sort of didn’t change when we moved to the States.”
“I could…” Dex paused, and when Nick looked up at him, Dex looked down. “I could teach you the basics, if you wanted. I love to cook.”
Nick swallowed and nearly dropped his knife. Before he could reply, Izzy said, “Do it. Maybe he’ll actually eat.” She winked. “You’re skinny, babe. We’ve got to get some mass on you.”
Nick flushed—again—and picked up the last potato from his stash. He pictured Dex taking him through the paces of cutting, frying, stewing. What else was there? Nick couldn’t picture the details, but he could envision the mechanics of it. Dex’s attention laser-focused on him. His own attention wandering. To Dex. He should come up with some excuse. Not enough time, no interest. He didn’t care. Anything.
Instead, he snagged the skin and began to peel it, one long pinkish, papery strand, and said, “Sure, that’d be awesome.” He looked up and met Dex’s startled gaze. “Thank you.”
+
“We’re here!” Jonny’s voice rang out just as Izzy poured the sweaty, triumphant cooking crew some wine.
Nick caught her wrinkling her nose. “Tweedle Dee,” she whispered, then put on her stunning Izzy smile as Jonny and—yep, Lance—walked through the door.
“Smells good in here,” Jonny said. He had a covered tray. “Yorkshire puddings, as promised.” Lance leaned against the doorway with his dreamy expression.
When he caught sight of Nick, he smiled and lifted his hand. “Hiya, comrade!”
Nick didn’t roll his eyes for Jonny’s sake. “Hey.” He took a sip of his wine. It was sweet and went down easy. When he looked at Dex, who was covering his mouth with his hand. His eyes looked bright, and so warm, Nick thought it would take being the Ice Queen not to smile just looking at them. He wasn’t an Ice Queen. Nowhere near. So he grinned and looked away.
“You’re a culinary genius,” Izzy told Jonny, kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks for letting him use your oven, Lance.”
It smelled amazing now, with the meat and the veggies all doing their thing in the oven. Izzy had already explained how growing up, her mom used to just boil everything, which she had found revolting, and it wasn’t until Steph and uni that she figured out a roast meant a fucking roast, d’you know what I mean? We roast it all now.
Nick, no stranger to boiled everything, did know.
When they ate, they did it in the living room. Izzy apparently had a dream of having a real dining table they could all sit around for hours, but unti
l such a time, draping themselves over available furniture was the best they could do. Nick took himself to a corner where he could sit cross-legged and not look like an idiot stuffing his face. For a few minutes, all that was heard in the living room was the sound of eating and an occasional satisfied moan.
Whatever Izzy and Steph had done to the meat made it melt in Nick’s mouth, and even his slightly undersalted potatoes weren’t half bad. He looked to see if the others were eating them. Lance had already put his away, which warmed Nick to him ever so slightly. Natali had gone in on a double helping, as she wasn’t eating the meat. Okay. So maybe he could do more than sandwiches, cereal, and soup from a can.
Dex could definitely cook. His broccoli and carrots were amazing—right amount of seasoning, crunchy, a little salty, a little sweet. Nick felt anticipation build in his belly. If Dex really meant it about teaching him, would it just be the two of them? Or would others be there, as well? Nick didn’t want an audience, but he and Dex hadn’t spent time alone together since he had his fucking panic attack. What would it be like?
“Ooof,” Lance groaned and set his plate aside. “Of all the fucked-up British institutions, the roast is a proper good time.”
Nick stuffed half a Yorkshire pudding in his mouth.
“Word,” Jonny replied and leaned against Lance’s side. “Bang up job, us, well done.”
“More wine?” Natali asked.
Impeded by the bread in his mouth, Nick gave her his glass to refill wordlessly as she beamed at him. Nick couldn’t figure her out, but at least she no longer filled him with terror. That was a good step.
Later on, Dex went around collecting empty plates, and Nick staggered to his feet before Dex could grab his. He was a guest.
“I got it,” he said, and awkwardly followed Dex into the kitchen. They moved around each other by the sink. Dex dumped his dishes first, then took Nick’s plate carefully and did the same with it. Natali was refilling Nick’s glass, so he took it off her and gulped a mouthful down. He was full, but the wine felt good, cool in his throat.
“Good, right? That’s my dad’s elderberry. Makes it himself,” she told him. “What’s that face? No one’s forcing you to drink it, Dexter.”
“Elderberry is gross.”
“I like it,” Nick told her. “It’s nice. Sweet.”
“Exactly.”
Dex grabbed a beer from the fridge. “Whatever, I’m gonna go and see if I can’t be called a fascist by Lance or something.”
“Tell him the Socialist Workers are ineffectual, that’ll get his hackles up!” Natali called out after him, then turned to Nick. “Let’s see what happens.”
+
“Oh, you will not ask him that, for fuck’s sake—” Dex’s voice streamed through the hallway as Nick made his way back from the bathroom. He’d killed off two glasses of wine, and he was mellow and happy. He paused outside the doorway, curious.
“Look, you lot keep badgering me to look at it from all angles, and this is prime research material. First-rate source! Primary source!”
“He’s not a bloody book, man, what if he doesn’t want to?”
“Good lord, can I digest in peace, please?”
Nick walked through the door, and everyone stopped talking. Nick leaned against the wall and laughed at their expressions. “Lance, you wanna ask me stuff?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind!” Lance lit up. He was sort of adorable, in a slightly crazy way. Saying no to him felt like kicking a puppy.
“Go for it. But, I mean, I may not know everything. I was just ten when we left.”
“No problem, man.” Lance settled in against Jonny, and Nick couldn’t fail to miss the easy way Jonny moved to accommodate him, the way Lance had leaned into him without looking. “Your parents lived during Communism, right?”
Nick nodded.
“What was that like, they ever tell you? Like, was it cool, knowing everybody was equal and whatnot?”
Nick wanted to laugh. As a kid, he had actually gone through a Lance phase of his own, reading vague Soviet propaganda novels because some of that stuff was historically riveting, moving, but so completely removed from reality it might as well have been shelved in the Fantasy section. “You probably won’t like what I tell you, though.”
Lance shrugged. “I just believe power should be with the people, not the oligarchical few and whatnot, so the idea’s solid.”
“I mean, sure,” Nick said, looking him in the eye. “But it wasn’t like that in execution. It was the opposite.”
“What was it like, then?”
Nick slid down until he was sitting on the floor, hugging his knees. “I mean, the first election wasn’t even held until ninety-one. And my parents said that Gorbachev was a decent enough guy, but that that was pretty rare. Most of them were ineffectual, at best.” At worst, they were Stalin.
“At least it wasn’t capitalism and monopolizing and privatizing and all that bullshit,” Lance countered. “Not like with Thatcher and whatnot.”
“Look, I’m not defending capitalism. I think it’s fucked up, on so many levels.” Nick struggled to find the words here. It was too confusing, it was too much to explain. He barely understood all of it himself, but he remembered his parents’ stories. They’d stayed with him like the black-and-white pictures of their youth, Pioneer scarves tied around their necks, stars pinned to their uniforms, serious expressions in grainy print. “There was just no chance for improving your life at all back then. It was a grind. And people had no power at all.” He swallowed. “You know?”
Lance still looked riveted. “So is that why you left? ’Cause it was hard? Isn’t that giving in, man?”
“Lance…” Jonny laid a hand over Lance’s knee, a bit of a warning in his eyes. Everyone seemed to still.
“I mean, I didn’t mean it like that. What about the power of the people’s voice? Revolution?”
For a split second, Nick was torn between wanting to pummel Lance and legging it out of the house altogether. It felt like if he opened his mouth, bile would pour out. He swallowed. “Look, most people didn’t really have a voice. Especially Jews. My parents—” He felt his voice stuttering. Paused. Tried again. “My parents had to get their college degrees in Siberia because Moscow State wouldn’t take random Jewish kids off the street, no matter how smart they were. Both my mom and my dad had gold medals when they graduated high school, which is, like, the equivalent of a 4.0 GPA or—” He groped for the British equivalent, trying to remember if they had one. “You know, basically, all A’s. But nobody would look at them, because they were nobodies, and they were Jewish, to boot.” He paused to take in a deep breath. “It was corrupt as fuck. It still is, Communism or not.”
And that wasn’t just a Communism problem. His parents left fourteen years after the Soviet Union fell. Fourteen years of anticipating that maybe, somehow, things would begin to improve now. Fourteen years of slowly coming to realize that nothing would ever change, and if it did, it would be for the worse. Zoya would come home in tears because no matter how hard she tried, her Lit teacher refused to give her an A. Fourteen years of still being frightened to utter the word “Jewish” outside the company of other Jews because for all that the nineties saw a certain breath of freedom, a shift in views, several lifetimes of oppression were impossible to erase.
Despite it all, though, Nick had loved his childhood. That was the hardest thing of all to explain, so he didn’t even try.
He felt someone’s gaze on him and turned despite himself. Dex. A warm wave rushed through him. “Basically, we mostly left because of the Jewish thing.”
“Nick, I didn’t know you were Jewish,” Steph said. “You don’t actually talk about it, huh?”
He gave her a quick smile. “Yeah, we were able to get a refugee visa.” Eventually. “Anyway, all I’m saying is, Lance, Communism is a nice enough idea on paper, but it really doesn’t actually fucking work in reality because people in power tend to want to stay in power.”
&n
bsp; Lance threw up his hands. “All right, man, surrender. Thanks for letting me go all Grand Inquisitor on you, I get that this is heavy shit. Sorry I offended you.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.” Not entirely true, but on the other hand, maybe now Lance would stop calling him a comrade every time he saw him. He seemed a decent enough guy underneath the bluster and misguided idealism. Nick smiled. “Thanks for listening.”
A collective sort of breath whooshed out of everybody else. “All right, we good now? Who wants dessert?” Izzy asked brightly.
14
Hola, lover!”
Kat caught up with Izzy in two strides of her long, denim-clad legs and grabbed her shoulder like they were acting out a scene from a wacky eighties comedy. Izzy allowed herself to be steered towards the classroom. Her bag was caught awkwardly between them, forcing her bra strap to dig into her shoulder. She had worn a cute new bra—it was purple with pink edging, and the straps had flowers appliquéd on them—and she was quickly realising that, attractive as it was, it was not up to the strain of supporting her massive tits all day long.
“How are you, my lovely, lively Gingersnap?”
“You’re killing me, Smalls.” Izzy shifted until they were no longer plastered up against each other like they were trying to win the three-legged race. This was her last tutor session of the day, and she couldn’t wait to leg it home and throw off this frilly cage of oppression.
“Soz.” Kat grinned, unrepentant. “Anyway, we’re going for Lady Dancing, Take Two—wanna join us?”
She’d had a great time on Nineties Night, but nobody else wanted to go out dancing as much as she did, and it might be nice to just go where there was absolutely zero pressure to pull. Not that there was all that much pressure, but she always felt some weird obligation to let her freak flag fly. Going out with lesbians sounded like a lovely alternative.