Page 10 of Chess Not Checkers
I grab a kitchen rag out from under the sink. “Yeah, could you just tell her I’ll have dinner ready later if she wants it?” I ask as I wet the rag to start cleaning the flour off the island.
“Sure.”
The sound of simmering soup and the swish of my towel against the countertop is the only noise for a minute.
“I don’t want to ignore your question,” Marigold says, making me look up from my cleaning. She’s staring down at her phone. “We knew each other, but I just don’t like to talk about it. This might sound silly, but it still hurts a lot.”
I nod in understanding. “I’ve got things like that in my life. You don’t have to share, but if you ever want to talk, I’m here.”
She lifts her head and offers me a small smile. “Ditto.”
Chapter six
Avoidance Strategy
Jasmine Chamberlain
“Can you teach me how to make these?” Saylor asks, holding up a half-eaten muffin from her spot on the floor. She’s spread our schedules and syllabi across the dark blue rug, along with a pile of highlighters, tabs, and sticky notes all in a coordinating pastel color palette. Though she’s using her laptop—which is sitting precariously on the edge of our coffee table—to organize our schedules, she said that having everything on paper is part of her process.
“Sure,” I say with a shrug. “They’re from a recipe I found online. I tweaked a few measurements, but it’s simple to make.”
She nods, her gaze trained on the laptop, which bathes her smooth complexion in a pale blue glow.
I take a bite of my muffin, savoring the sweet notes of chocolate mixed with the delicate spices and subtle pumpkin flavor. Yeah, these are worth recreating.
“I think if I made them for one of my husband candidates, he would ask me to marry him.”
I choke on a crumb and reach for my nearby reusable water bottle.
“Did you just sayhusbandcandidate?” Marigold asks, looking up from the laptop that she’s been typing vigorously away on. She sits up a little, poking more of her body out of the cocoon she built in the corner opposite me. In between us, Aurora lifts her gaze from the bowl of soup she reheated after getting home late from the studio. Meanwhile, I cough into my sleeve before chugging water.
Saylor pauses her organizing. “Yes?”
I get down the muffin crumb in time to wheeze, “Elaborate, please.”
She picks up a pink highlighter off the floor and fiddles with it. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Too late,” Aurora deadpans.
I shoot her an admonishing look, which she does not see because her eyes are trained on her bowl again. Marigold fails at stifling a laugh.
Saylor sighs. “I’m not very good at holding back my…intensity.” She flips the highlighter between her fingers. “I meant to reserve my wholeget a husband before I finish my bachelor’s degreeplan for at least a few more weeks until you get to know me better.”
“And this plan already has candidates?” I ask, hoping she won’t shut down based on the concern in my voice.
She winces. “Not really. I was getting ahead of myself. Another fun habit of mine. Wait until my future husband finds out I have our entire lives planned out from the wedding to what we’ll name our first three kids.”
My sister would have a field day dissecting all of this. I, on the other hand, only have it in me to stare, wide-eyed.
“I know it’s weird, okay?” Saylor throws down the highlighter. “But I’ve thought this through. If I don’t meet my husband now,my chances get slimmer and slimmer. Medical school is not exactly the easiest place to date. Neither is residency, as much as television shows beg to differ. If I meet someone now, we can establish a solid foundation before I go into both of those life stages.”
Marigold shrugs. “Makes sense to me. But I couldn’t imagine trying to find my husband in college. Your pile of syllabi is, like, five times as high as the rest of us.”
Saylor wilts. “I know. Ideally, I would have married my high school sweetheart. But all of the guys in my school were dumb.”
“And you think that’s changed coming here?” Marigold retorts.
Aurora huffs a laugh. I’ve noticed over our short time together that she doesn’t talk much, but maybe that will change once she gets to know us.
