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“Don’t worry, Dr. Sinclair.” Nadia smiled in a way that she hoped was reassuring. “Everything’s fine.”
“You’re sure everything’s fine?”
“Yes, yes.” Nadia was in a rush. She paced back and forth in front of the restaurant with her phone up to her ear. Inside, she could see Margaret chowing down. Nadia hated being rude on her phone like this, but she always picked up for Janet.
“It’s just…” Janet trailed off, and Nadia bobbed up and down on her feet with impatience. “We haven’t had a good chat in a while, and I wanted to see what you were up to, see if you needed any help with Like Minds, or anything else you might be working on.…”
“I appreciate it, Machekha.” Nadia did appreciate it. She did! But the things she was doing right now were really more Margaret things than Janet things. Especially since she still hadn’t told Janet about Maria’s list. Or Margaret. Or…anything, really.
It just seemed like getting into it was more complicated than keeping it to herself. She tried not to think about how it was falling further into the “lying by omission” category every day.
Telling Janet about any of this would just open another can of worms Nadia wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with right now. She knew how Janet felt about Hank, and rightfully so. Nadia just wanted to get to know her mother in the best way that she could without hurting anyone. On her own terms. Involving Janet was just asking for confusion, and it would mean opening Janet up to a painful part of her past, too.
Nadia was confused enough as it was. She was having an amazing time getting to know Margaret. And she really had been enjoying Star Wars, while Ying was still around. But every time she crossed off a list item, she just felt like she learned something more about herself, and not about her mother. Like that she didn’t enjoy Attack of the Clones. Maria had never even seen Attack of the Clones. So did it even really count as an item on the list? It certainly didn’t feel like it was bringing her any closer to her mother.
Nadia shook her head. “I’m fine, Janet, really. Is Dedushka worrying about me again?”
“Tell her I am not worrying about her!” Nadia heard Jarvis yell from the other end of the phone.
“Jarvis says—”
“Tell him he’s not very convincing,” said Nadia, laughing. “I’m sorry, Janet, I’ve just been busy. Let’s make a plan to do something soon? After Like Minds?”
Nadia could almost hear Janet’s relief through the phone. “Okay. After Like Minds.”
“Sounds good. I’ve got to go, though,” Nadia said. And she almost hung up before she said it, but caught herself at the last second. “I love you,” Nadia said.
“Love you, too,” Janet said. Nadia hung up and rushed back into the restaurant.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, sliding back into the booth she was sharing with Margaret.
Margaret waved off her apology with her fork. “So tell me about it,” said Margaret, her mouth half-full. “You’ve been working with VERA?”
Nadia bobbed her head in agreement, too busy chewing to answer at the moment. She and Margaret were out in the Ukrainian Village in Manhattan’s East Village, chowing down on the food of Nadia’s people. Or of Maria’s people, at least. Nadia had been raised on poorly cooked Russian food…if you could even call it “food” in good conscience. It was mostly what Americans assumed food would be like in a gulag. Nadia hated to give credence to Americans’ weirdly closed-minded ideas about Russian culture, but also…the food in the Krasnaya Komnata really was bad.
Just…so, so bad.
It was part of the reason why Nadia was so eager to try as much new cuisine as she could now that she was in New York City, the greatest melting pot in the world. If there just happened to be many literal pots of melting deliciousness around, well, she was going to take advantage. And there was no better place to discover what you liked than in Manhattan. You could try anything.
And Nadia had.
She wondered if Maria would have liked Ethiopian food.
“Well.” Nadia paused to pop another potato-stuffed pyrohy* into her mouth whole. “I actually got the idea when I was sitting in that human fishbowl office after you had to step away.”
Margaret laughed, cutting up her holubets,† carefully attempting to keep the stuffing inside the cabbage roll. “I love that fishbowl, but go on.”
“I kept thinking about it when I got back to my lab,” Nadia continued, increasing in speed as she became increasingly more passionate. “And more and more ideas just kept coming to me and it was like…a moment of inspiration. Finally!”
“Those are rare,” Margaret sympathized. She lifted a fork overfilled with stuffed cabbage. “Think I can get this all in my mouth in one go?”
“If you do not, I’ll be disappointed,” Nadia said with grave seriousness. She laughed as Margaret shoved the whole thing right into her mouth. She was a true inspiration, after all. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down!”
“Mmmff.” Margaret gave a humble shrug around a mouthful of cabbage.
“You had VERA bring up my mother’s list—with my permission,” Nadia continued. “Do you remember that?”
Margaret swallowed. “Sure. I have admin privileges that allow me to access off-site VERAs, but only with permission from their primary user.”
