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The Monday morning chorus of chairs unstacking and pots clanging against wooden spoons as the Durham staff prepared for yet another week of monotonous cooking and cleaning, over and over. Lilou laughed at Marjorie as she stumbled over her recollections of the day prior. "Well, we had talked about, you know, living together, and we decided to look for a flat and ended up finding one, and now we're moving in together next week."
"Someone's nervous," Lilou observed astutely. "Are you certain you want to do this? Because if you don't want to be with him then don't feel like you have to. We both already know that people are going to judge you for doing something like this before marriage." Though she preferred to ignore the thought of the world's opinion on cohabitation, Marjorie understood that her decisions were not favorable to the public. Even her mother would be inexorably against it, and she refused to relinquish the fragile bit of hope that was placed in her father. You'd think that she would've at least hinted to her parents that she was to abscond with Heinrich—Henry, to them—but she had done no such thing. It was because she was scared, and fear is often a controlling thing, contorting perception relentlessly until the line between truth and misconception is blurred to the point of anonymity. It is like a drug, lethal if overindulged upon yet resuscitative when rationed.
"No, it isn't Henry that I'm afraid of," Marjorie replied, already accustomed to using his fabricated English name in front of everyone spare him. "It's my parents that I worry about. Especially my mother... there's no way that I'll be able to do this without being berated by her." She pulled a large pan from the vast closet's shelves, shifting away so Lilou could do so as well.
Her French friend sighed, her breath smelling of her pungent toothpaste from the hour prior. "Why don't you just try to talk to her and tell her how you feel? You're moving in a week, maybe it would be a good idea to try to leave on better terms."
Marjorie tried to laugh, though it came out as more of a guttural grumble, sounding from the very back of her throat. "Ah, yes, because you're in the position to tell someone to confess their ulterior feelings."
"This is different and you know it," Lilou retorted.
"Is it, though? Why are you so afraid of telling my brother that you've been in love with him for the past four years? He has absolutely no experience with girls and would probably try way too hard to keep you happy." One eyebrow lifted, Marjorie wore the look of haughtiness proudly.
A throat was cleared behind them, and their heads turned to see their supervisor standing in the supply room's door. "Less chatting, more working," the man said, reminding the pair all too much of a particular mother. "Don't want to lose our jobs, do we?"
They exchanged looks of unease. "N-no, sir," Lilou said finally, even more diffident than usual.
He turned to Marjorie, and she set down the pan in hand to look at him with resentment. "And you?"
