METANOIA

SANDWICH

Samia had turned him down once again. Giving her attention seemed to push her off. Misha had also concluded she wasn't worth the effort.

About a half hour of them trying to fool around, Samia wanted to grab something to eat and Misha, being a makeshift gentleman, wanted to take her out to be satiated. He was putting his shoes on as Silas walked out of the shower. From his body language, Silas could tell she had turned Misha down again. He shrugged in disbelief and walked into the spare bedroom.

Pete was fully awake by then and hungry as well, so he decided to join Misha and Samia for a sandwich. Normally, he would feel self-conscious about being the third wheel, but at that moment, he didn't particularly care about Misha's possible romance with Samia. He was also curious to see how she would act with Misha.

Before they left, the guys asked Silas if he wanted something to eat. He asked them to bring him a sandwich, but something light. Then he went back to sleep, at least for a bit, without interruptions.

Misha, Samia, and Pete walked to a deli about half a block from Misha's house. Here, the customers placed orders in three steps. In aisle one, the customers indicated their choice of bread, in aisle two, the ingredients, and in the last one, the sauce and other toppings. The bread was made in-house, and the place smelled delicious. The three of them got in line to order their subs. Misha was first up.

An exotic, blue-eyed girl with dark hair stood at the counter. She was remarkably attractive, which in her experience, incapacitated most men. She was well aware of her looks, and she used it as she asked Misha, "Can I get a name for the order?" She beamed a smile and changed her posture to emphasize her... assets.

Misha, whose jaw had dropped slightly at her beauty, mumbled, "Misha."

The girl completely misheard him, and asked, "Michael?"

Misha was surprised at this, and also at the effect she had on him. Irrationally, or perhaps reflexively, Samia was also jealous immediately. Misha wondered how the hell she got Michael from Misha. After half a second of bafflement, he decided to go with it, "Sure, Michael."

As they scooted over to the next aisle, Misha asked the other two, "Did you see that?"

Pete said, "Yeah that she was friggin' gorgeous? Even I'd hit that." Samia tried to look indifferent. "She looked okay, I suppose." To be honest, she'd hit that too.

Misha was cheeky, "Hehe, that part was hard to miss. No, I meant did you see how she got Michael from Misha? That's really funny because the name Misha is a rendition of the name Mikhail, which is like the Russian version of Michael. So, even though the girl royally screwed up my name, she actually got the answer right in the end. Isn't that funny?"

Normally, this sort of linguistic mishap would be right up Pete's alley, but by that point, he was more concerned about two things: his massive headache and why he would imagine Samia walking out naked from Silas' room. He brushed the event off by saying, "Cool..." It seemed condescending.

Samia, on the other hand, was mesmerized by this seemingly significant turn of events, in part because she didn't understand what made it interesting, to begin with. She did not want to look stupid in front of Misha, who she realized was significantly smarter than she had thought initially. But she was somewhat genuinely surprised because she had, up until this point, thought Misha's name was Mirshka.

Misha, not granted the social satisfaction he sought, turned to its easier alternative. It was always easier to find a sucker to give him a thumbs up online. "You two are not fun, I am gonna post this on Facebook; I think it's so funny." Flashing his phone, he began thumb-twiddling, but as he struggled with how to describe the incident, Pete's apparent lack of enthusiasm seeped under his skin. Misha thought aloud, "Once you write it out, it doesn't sound all that funny, I suppose." He smiled bitterly.