Page 37 of Eat My Moon Dust
“Plate.”
He set the plate in the bay then frowned down at his food. “What isThe Three Sisters?”
“My bakery.”
“I don’t know what that is. It translates, but it’s a very old word.”
Hunar took our food and my drink to the break table while I pulled up pictures ofThe Three Sistersin the archives. I looked at them often, so it wasn’t new or shocking, but I’d never shared them with anyone other than Omi.
Our first big food blogger review had a lot of professional photos, so I went there first. I’d saved it, of course, along with pretty much everything I could find in the archives about my life. Social media, photos, playlists of all the songs I could remember ever liking. I didn’t want to lose a single note of what I’d left behind.
“These are photos of my bakery.” I grabbed my root beer from the food bay, then sat down next to him, holding out my arm so he could see my holoscreen. His eyes went wide.
“You made all of that food?”
I beamed. “Yup! Well, me and Sam. So one other person helped.”
I lifted my panini one handed and took a big bite while he scrolled, taking in every cookie, macaron, and Danish. Like most days recently, I hadn’t had breakfast, so I got lost in the melted strings of cheese and the burst of tomatoey sweetness mixed with salty cured meat. One bite down, I picked up my root beer and took a long swig.
“It’s beautiful,” he admitted, letting me take my arm back. “You’re very talented.”
I smiled, vision far away and dreamy. I nodded to his cider, not really looking at him anymore but at my cash register and Sam’s smile and Adam’s buffalo mug. “I made that too.”
“I remember.”
“The night I was abducted.” Unsettled quiet descended between us. I cleared my throat and forced myself back from the blizzard and the bell over the door and Sam’s hoarse shouting. “I was abducted outside of my bakery a few days before Christmas.”
Hunar sighed, setting his cider down on the table, staring at it like it bit him. But he didn’t give me platitudes or greeting card sympathies. I appreciated that, just letting the grief make itself known before going back to sleep inside my soul.
“I’m from Dharatee, not Samridve,” Hunar said a moment later, picking his cider back up. He took another sip, savoring it. “It’s cold, and the sun is just this grey marble behind all the storm clouds most of the year. When I came here, I was shocked at how beautiful the sun was. Same star,” he clarified. “But just… different.”
“The skyisbeautiful,” I admitted, handing him a bident so he could eat hisgheele.The purple kelp and black roe smelled slightly of balsamic vinegar and capers.
“I bought a unit that overlooks the sunrise so my spats would get to see what I didn’t every morning. Then Corsa kicked them out, and I’m worried that the sunrise depresses them now. And if we can’t stay here, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give it to them again. I saved for decades to get that unit and–” He bit off the rest of his sentence, nostrils flared with frustration. Inhaling slowly, he changed directions. “What I’m trying to say is thank you. Even if it doesn’t work out. And I’m sorry for all the things you’ve lost. Mine aren’t as big, but they hit hard. So I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”
I nodded slowly, cradling my root beer. “Sometimes healing takes us far away,” I recited. I’d carried that piece of wisdom with me for a long time, wondering what I could possibly be healing from so far from my home that I’d never see it again.
But maybe I wasn’t here for myself. Maybe I was here to make sure Hunar and his kids got the chance instead.
Hunar chuckled and itsizzled.I glanced at him, sandwich jammed in my mouth, to see arealgrin on his face. He leaned back in his chair and caught my eye, those three canines on one side glinting as his tendrils rolled over his shoulders and framed his face. My cheeks turned pink when he bit his lip in disbelief.
“A bouncing chaos machine one beat, a serene enigma the next. You’re really something, Tinsley, you know that?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I laughed.
We spent the rest of lunch talking holiday plans. With the twinkle lights printing, Hunar had moved on to the tree. The weird spiky caterpillar he’d been holding when I came in were supposed to be spruce branches. We talked about some changes and looked at any videos I could find. Since he didn’t know the human words, he hadn’t been able to do his own research.
It would take him a while to get it feeling just right, so he asked for other easier projects. At first, I was surprised, but then I realized we needed reasons to spend time together until Zufi left. It would help Hunar as much as it helped me with all the festivities, so I gave him a list. Festive pop-up tents for food and trinkets, more glitter spray, wrapping paper, ornaments for the tree, bows… We decided to order the glitter spray and have the wrapping paper printed in Samridve once Imani had designed it, but the other things he could get started on.
After finishing my root beer, I looked at the time and winced. “I need to get going. Wade and Mikaela are down at the playfield today making booths for the pop-up tents. They wanted to do a check-in.”
“Go. I have a lot I can work with until tomorrow.” Hunar screwed the cap back on the last of his cider and set it on the windowsill. “And leave the plates. I’ll clean up.”
I stacked them up anyway and brushed off the table just as a familiar, grating voice interrupted. “Oh, damn. I’d hoped to catch lunch with our newest couple. Guess it makes sense that you eat a turn earlier, since your work begins before office hours.”
Hunar and I both looked up at Zufi as he entered the engineering lounge and I swallowed hard. His piercing attention immediately shifted to Hunar, walking down his figure like he was a stud up for auction rather than a person.
“Hello, Ambassador Zufi,” I said, trying to draw his attention away. “You’ll just have to come earlier next time.”
