The Roommate (Trixya)

Chapter Three: A Macaroni and Cheese Vegetarian

Katya swept into the kitchen, a pair of potted plants tucked under her arms and dirt smudged down the front of her overalls. She glanced over her shoulder before setting them atop the refrigerator, inches from the fluorescent light that lit the kitchen. She hummed, unwinding her hair from the knot she tied it into earlier that day and grabbing a cigarette from the front pocket of her overalls.

Just as she was fumbling for her lighter, Trixie called out from the living room. "Katya? Is that you?"

Katya stuffed the cigarette back into its box and pocketed her lighter, smoothing her hair just as Trixie joined her in the kitchen. Trixie's hair was free from its rollers, pulled back from her face by a pink headband that matched the lipstick she smudged on while Katya was away.

Katya cleared her throat, dazed momentarily, before wiping her grubby hands on the pants of her overalls. "Uh...yeah. Just got back. Home Depot."

"Home Depot!" Trixie cheered, clasping her hands delightedly. Her nail polish matched her lipstick. "I see you're a gardener?"

"Oh. Yeah, those," Katya nodded dismissively toward the plants atop the refrigerator. "Alright if I keep them up there? The climate's kind of ideal."

"Oh, that's no trouble," Trixie chirped, examining the leaves before turning back to face the other woman who shifted uneasily. "My son forgot to call me today."

"That's a shame. I'm sure he's just busy. How was your book club?" Katya asked as she moved to wash her hands in the kitchen sink.

I was Trixie's turn to adopt a perch atop the kitchen counter as she watched Katya scrub dirt from under her nails. "Oh! Wonderful, really. Kimberly brought these delightful lemon bars. I'll have to get the recipe. And we talked about our children and our houses and the weather."

"And books?"

"Yes, books, of course. That too."

Katya smiled as she dried her hands on a dish towel, grabbing a pan from underneath the sink. "What else do you do? Besides your book club, I mean."

Trixie frowned thoughtfully, pushing her headband back into place. "Well, I'm a mother."

"I know that."

"And I'm retired."

"From what?"

"My marriage."

Katya let out a shout of laughter, hair falling into her face and nearly catching alight as she turned on the stove.

"He was retired long before I was. From the marriage," Trixie explained curtly. "He liked his model-sized planes and trains and cars better than he liked normal-sized me and all my moving parts." She clucked distastefully and pretended to be distracted, picking at the polish on her left thumbnail. "What do you do?"

Katya retrieved olive oil from the top cupboard above the sink and poured a drizzle into the pan before collecting an assortment of vegetables from the refrigerator. "I'm a slam poet."

Trixie squealed, hopping down onto the linoleum to hand Katya a cutting board so as to protect her nice countertops. Katya accepted it with a smile and resumed her yam-dicing on the cutting board. 

"A slam poet! Maybe I should write a poem about my husband and you can perform it!"

Katya chuckled, scraping them yam into the pan before moving on to the shallots and peppers. "I'm retired from slam poetry now but you're welcome to give it a shot."

Trixie hummed thoughtfully, using a spatula to push the yam in circles around the pan. "Oh, I don't know. It would probably be a bad poem anyway."

"Probably. But there's a great liberty in being bad."

Trixie gave the woman beside her a curious smile as Katya nudged past her to scrape the rest of the vegetables into the pan. "Grab me the tortillas, will you?" she prodded, reaching for a fistful of chili powder and the salt shaker.

Trixie obliged, setting the tortillas beside the pan before grabbing a pair of plates and two forks. "It's nice having company around here again."

"It's nice having all this space."

Trixie set the plates at separate ends of her small dining room table, laying the forks on top of paper napkins and arranging the collection of plastic flowers in the center to her satisfaction. "Do you have any children, Katya?"

Katya went still, a lump catching in her throat as her eyes fixed on a crack in the grout of the countertop. A heartbeat later, she shook herself free, finding she had ground far too much pepper into the pan. "Are you okay with some extra spice?"

Trixie frowned, taken aback. "Um, just a little. I'm more of a macaroni and cheese vegetarian, to be perfectly honest. Now about y-"

Katya interrupted her with a sizzling pan of vegetables, sweeping into the dining room and setting the pan in the center of the table. She posed like a gymnast and gave a toothy smile, declaring "Let's eat!" before Trixie could get a word in edgewise.

Trixie decided to let the issue go for the moment, collecting the abandoned tortillas before sitting down opposite her roommate. She had to peer around the arrangement of faux foliage to get a look at the other woman's expression. Katya, unbothered, was already helping herself to a tortilla and the fajita filling so Trixie kept her mouth shut as the pair tucked into dinner.