Out of Her League |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 14

With my hands jammed in the pockets of my jacket, I walked down our street and across the footbridge. If I stayed out of the house for a while, things would settle down. Dad would shut himself in the study and work. Mom would put music on really loud and scrub out the sink. By dinnertime, all of us would be quiet and polite and act like a family again.

I didn't have anywhere in particular to go but as I strolled some more, I found myself at the front entrance of the Matryoshka. It was closed until dinner time. But in the alley that ran down the back of the cafés, the door into the kitchen was open.

I peered in to see Mitko working on the stove. Felik was chopping stuff on the long benches with the woman who gave me some bread. Their hands flew over piles of veggies in machine-gun-fast movements.

When Mitko bent down to check the progress of something in the huge steel oven, he spotted me hanging around the doorway.

"Darci! Come on in!" he said, throwing down his kitchen knife.

"I was just going up the street and I thought..." I mumbled. I didn't want to disturb them or get in the way, but Felik came to me.

"You're alright?" he said. "You want any help?"

"No, no," I said. "I'm fine."

Felik looked at me for a moment before he nodded. He seemed to have a way of understanding things. Things that are not spoken.

"Alright then, maybe you can help us getting ready for this evening?" he said.

"Oh, I don't know if..." I said.

"Easy. We'll show you," he said and threw an apron into my hands. Felik decided to teach me to make fresh pasta. I don't mean out of a packet. I mean pasta made from scratch with flour and all that.

First, we made a dough out of flour, eggs and a bit of olive oil. Kneaded and thumped the gooey stuff into balls of elastic dough. Next, we fed chunks of it into the silver rollers of a paster machine, sprinkling it with flour so it wouldn't stick. Honestly, this was major fun-like mucking around with play dough when you were a little kid.

And all the time we worked, we chatted about something easy and good. A bit later, we finished with the dough then Felik turned to me very matter-of-factly, "You know today was the deadline for the team. The six weeks?"

"Yeah, I know."

"So. You're still thinking about quitting baseball?"

"Uh...no," I said.

"Good girl," Felik said with a smile. "You cook much at home?"

"Oh not really...just fried stuff and eggs," I said.

"Well, we'll send you home today with a dish you can cook for your parents," he said.

I laughed. Yeah, right.

"She enjoyed the game today, your mom?"

"Yes, she did."

"I'd like to meet your dad too, sometimes."

Just thinking about Dad made my guts churn. Sad, angry, guilty feelings- and I don't know what else —all churning up together. Felik could tell from my face that Dad was a no-no topic, so he quickly changed the subject.

"Did you know that Charlotte's coming to have dinner here tonight?" he said to my surprise.

"Here?" I asked, turning to look at him.

"Yeah, she called for a reservation."

"Is she on a date?" I couldn't help asking.

Felik shrugged. "I didn't know."