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Zee
PRESENT DAY
Pompeii MMXXIII - Bastille, Hans Zimmer
“Iswear you’re a masochist, Susanne McAllister.”
My hand, seizing from pushing royal icing through a #1 tip, tightens on the piping bag. “Firstly, don’t call me Susanne. You know that I hate my name. Secondly, I think I’d notice if I were into whips and chains, Tee.”
“You’re sooooooo funny.”
“I know.” I shoot my BFF a glib smile. “It’s all in the wrist.”
“No, that’s the premature arthritis you’re going to give yourself by doing this sugar-cookie shit. I mean, seriously, Zee, it’s not like you even eat the cookies afterward!” she drawls, her focus on the letter in her hand so she bumps into me.
Because our apartment is tiny, she’s like a foot away from me at all times while I work.
I’m used to it now, but boy, was there a learning curve when we first traded space-rich Pigeon Creek for space-poor New York City. My piping hand doesn’t even falter after our collision.
“Ohhh, so leaving the cookies for you is what makes me a masochist and not the winner of ‘the best friend in the world’ title?”
Technically, I can eat the cookies with my type 1 diabetes, but I tend not to.
Maintaining a low-carb diet makes for an easier life and I’m all about easy.
Plus, after dealing with this shit since I was four, ease is the only thing stopping me from losing my mind.
“You’re definitely the best friend in the universe but I’m not privy to what goes on between you and your bedroom walls. Since, ya know, you won’t tell me anything about your love life.”
“I don’t tell Parker either if that makes you feel any better.”
Parker Henshaw’s our mutual best friend. We have a weird setup—Christy ‘Tee’ MacFarlane and I endured the hell of school together, traversed the continent as a daring duo, stuck fast to one another through college stresses, breakups, and career lows—but we know Parker through me as I met her at work.
Technically, I’m the cream filling in our passion flakie, but we’re all super close.
“How is Parker?”
I stick out my tongue as I pipe fronds onto my palm tree-shaped cookie. “You haven’t spoken to her?”
“Not recently.” She shrugs at my shocked expression. “She’s still mad at me.”
“Why you don’t leave her alone is beyond me. Let her be who she wants to be?—”
“She’s agoraphobic! She needs help.”
“She doesn’t. She’s perfectly fine in her safe spaces.”
“She’s missing out on hockey games.”
“It’s not like she even lives in New Jersey anymore, babe. You couldn’t attend together anyway.”
“Sweet Lips.” She harrumphs. “It’s not right for a man to be called that. It means something.”
She’s been pissed at Sweet Lips since he swept Parker off her feet, onto his hog, and took her to Coshocton, OH.
“Just because you’re not getting any sugar, there’s no need to be bitter. He makes her happy.”
“I don’t need sugar. I get plenty in my diet.” She wafts her letter to her pen pal. “And Butch Cassidy might be deployed only God knows where, but he’s with me in spirit and that’s like a direct shot of glucose to the heart.”