Page 59 of Love Deep

“Also they have four stomachs, and I don’t think they’ll taste good,” Riley says, screwing up her face like someone’s suggesting she eat cow stomach.

“Yeah, I’m not going for the cow stomach. But maybe a plate of waffles as tall as a cow?” he suggests.

“That sounds good,” she says, her grin back. “I want pancakes but I won’t eat a stack as high as a cow.” Riley’s expression turns serious.

“What about as high as a mouse?” Fisher asks.

“Oh no. I can do more than a mouse but less than a cow.”

“Hmmm,” Fisher muses, and rubs his hand along hisjaw. He’s really good at playing along. It’s like I’m hanging out with Riley and one of her friends. It’s the kind of weird conversations they have together.

“What about a cat?” he suggests. He raises his hand up over the table to about cat height. “That’s at least twenty pancakes. Could you handle it?”

“Yeah,” Riley says, nodding enthusiastically. “I’m really hungry. I think I could do twenty.”

“Is this helping?” I say, mock glaring at Fisher. “Are you going to clean up the vomit when she eats twenty pancakes?”

“If she vomits, I’ll clear it up, but I believe in her. If she thinks she can do it, I think she can do it.”

I laugh. This is all I need. “Now I know why you wanted Fisher to join us for brunch—so you two could gang up on me.”

Fisher winks at Riley and we’re interrupted by Donna.

“Riley would like a stack of pancakes as tall as a cat,” Fisher says. “Juniper would like…”

“I’m going to take the scrambled eggs on sourdough.”

“And I’ll have the waffles, please. And let’s get a fruit salad and three Oreo shakes.”

Riley grabs the table. “Really? An Oreo shake?”

“Is that okay?” Fisher asks me.

I shrug. What can I say? I’m not going to say no now that Riley’s excited. We might be having soup the rest of the week, given each shake is ten dollars.

“I’ll just stick with tap water,” I say.

Fisher doesn’t say anything.

“How are you feeling, Riley?” Fisher asks.

“Good. I have one of my teeth coming through at the back. It’s called a molar. Mom, what are the front teeth called if the back teeth are molars?”

“It’s a good question,” I ask. “I have absolutely no idea. The ones at the side are incisors. But these front teeth… we could do an internet search.”

“Anterior,” Fisher says.

“Anterior teeth?” Riley asks.

“Yup. And if I wanted to be a tooth pedant, your incisors are also anterior teeth.” He glances at me. “I was big into teeth as a kid.”

I grimace. “You were into teeth—like in a hobby kind of way?”

Fisher chuckles. “Yeah. It was weird. I was obsessed with oral hygiene. When we came to America, none of the toothpastes tasted the same and I was obsessed with not getting a filling. I read up about stuff and fell into a teeth vortex there for a while. It didn’t last long, but here we are. The front teeth are anterior teeth.”

“That’s cool,” Riley says. “Maybe I should be more into teeth.”

This brunch is going a whole direction I wasn’t expecting.