Page 17

Isabel put down the mail she’d been sorting through. Mira’s eyes were puffy, her makeup smudged. She looked bowed down by the overstuffed messenger bag she carried to work.

Isabel’s anxiety spiked. If anything bad had happened to Mira, she wanted to know. She resisted the urge to rush to Mira, to ease that heavy bag off her shoulders. “You okay? How’d it go?”

Mira grimaced. “Not good.”

“What happened?” Isabel said, too quickly. “Never mind. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Nothing too bad.” Mira’s voice was strained. “I didn’t do a very good job. I only talked to two people. One of them was a little rude to me and I overreacted.” Her face wobbled like she was about to cry.

Shit. Isabel wasn’t good at this. She wanted to hunt down whoever had done this to Mira, but that wasn’t going to help. At work, when younger women came to her crying, Isabel could usually help—backing them up when they reported whoever hadwronged them, or getting into confrontations herself. But that wasn’t an option now.

And part of her wanted to take Mira into her arms, to hold her tight, to protect her from every awful thing in the world. It wasn’t a small part of her. It was overwhelming. But that was even less of an option.

Alexa had always been better at this. Comforting people, soothing their tears. What would she have done? “Do you want some tea?” Isabel said, desperate.

Mira blinked. “Sure. Thanks.”

Isabel stood and nodded toward the dining table. “Sit down.”

At least now she had something to do. Mira always made tea by dunking two or three black tea bags at a time in boiling water, and Isabel could do better than that. She filled the electric kettle with water, turned it on, and rummaged through the pantry until she found the good looseleaf black tea. After a moment’s thought, she took the glass teapot from the highest shelf in the cupboard and tipped a mountain of tea leaves into the strainer. If Mira liked her tea strong, so be it.

She exhaled. The water started boiling, and the kettle shut off. She poured hot water into the teapot and carried it out, along with two mugs, and set it on a dish towel on the dining table.

She sat across from Mira with the teapot between them. The tea leaves unfurled in the water, turning it amber. Isabel had once given Alexa a teapot like this for her birthday—it was the kind of fancy, impractical thing her sister had liked. Then Isabel had grudgingly enjoyed using it on her visits so much that Alexa had given her the same teapot to tease her. Isabel hadn’t used it in a very long time.

Mira sighed, interrupting Isabel’s thoughts, which was for the best. She pushed a pile of her students’ papers aside. “I know union organizing requires a thick skin. I just need to get better at it. It shouldn’t matter so much what people say to me.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for people who are rude to you.” It was an attempt at being comforting. But to Isabel’s own ears, she just sounded brusque.

“I guess not.” Mira sniffled, clearly unconvinced.

Mira was so crushed, and Isabel’s heart was breaking, too. She was at a loss as to what to say. “Uh, be right back.” She took the box of tissues from her bedroom and put it in front of Mira.

“Thank you.” Mira’s voice trembled. She took a tissue and blew her nose.

Isabel sat back down. “What happened?”

Mira eyed her nervously. Maybe Isabel was being overbearing. Mira hadn’t said she wanted to talk. They were on decent terms as roommates, so Isabel hoped, but it didn’t mean Mira trusted her.

But Isabel was the only person around. Sometimes you had to step up simply because you were there, no matter how inadequate and unprepared you were.

Mira recounted what had happened. “I’m so embarrassed.” She dabbed at her face. “It wasn’t a big deal. I’m just really oversensitive. Sorry for making you listen to all this.”

Isabel tamped down the increasingly strong, futile urge to hold Mira and wipe her tears away. She had to say something. Never mind how bad she was at inspirational talk. “Hey, don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not okay for anyone to talk to you like that, all right?”

Mira said nothing. Isabel was in way over her head. “Uh, the tea’s ready.” She returned to the kitchen for milk and sugar. Mira liked plenty of both.

She poured tea for them. It was going to be too strong for Isabel, but that was fine. She pushed one steaming mug toward Mira, who poured in several glugs of milk, added a heaping spoonful of sugar, and took a drink. Her nails were plum today.

If Isabel couldn’t close the distance between them, then this was all she could do. Make Mira a little warmer.

“Thank you,” Mira said. “Oh, this tea is good. Anyway…” She sighed, her eyes downcast. “What you said. Maybe it’s not okay, but he said it anyway, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to get over it.”

“No, you don’t.” At that, Mira looked taken aback. “You don’t, okay? You can be pissed off. I wouldn’t let anyone talk like that to me.”

Mira frowned. “That’s the whole point. Of course you wouldn’t. You would have done something other than apologize and run away, which is what I did, because I’m not like you.” She sniffled. “You’ve dealt with so much worse and you’ve always been able to overcome it. I feel like such a coward.”

Isabel’s heart sank as she saw what Mira saw. She’d spent her whole life acting like nothing could get to her. She had been out and uncompromisingly butch since she was thirteen, and she was a construction worker. It was simply the price of living her life.