Chapter Text
Maya sat gloomily on the park bench, kicking at nothing. It was only a few weeks until the end of 2018, and she was going back to Kurain Village soon. She had to. She needed to train. She wished she could stay with Nick. He needed her. He was hopeless with the computer, for one thing. And he never took clients without a push. Or ate. He would just forget to eat, sometimes for days.
“Seriously, Nick,” she said to her knees. “Just one meal a day to keep your belly button off your spine.” She smiled. She missed the big dork already. And who would take care of him when she wasn’t there? But her training was important too, wasn’t it? She sighed. It was; she knew it was. But not yet. Not quite yet. She wanted the freedom for a little longer, before she signed up for spending the rest of her life serving Kurain Village. She rested her elbows on her knees and leaned forward to put her chin in her hands. She looked around, filled with a sense of pre-nostalgia. She’d miss this park, with its dingy signs and twisty walking paths, its noodle vendors, its pretty views. Its particularly pretty views. Maya smiled at the sight of a dark-haired young woman walking by.
The woman stopped and turned to face Maya. Her black hair swept up from her face like wings, and she had some kind of decoration in her ponytail, like an immense hairpin with ends like a key. She had a sharp nose and bright green eyes.
Maya pretended not to have been looking. She looked intently over the young woman’s shoulder, as though trying to spot an acquaintance in the distance, then shrugged and leaned back on the bench nonchalantly, looking up the path.
She felt someone sit on the bench next to her.
“What is it?” said the crow-haired woman pleasantly. “You have something to say?”
Maya blushed. “No,” she said. “I was just people-watching. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
The woman laughed, and Maya revised her estimate of her age downward, seeing how her laugh lines crinkled and disappeared.
“You saw me, though,” said the girl. “Usually, I blend. I pass unseen, unnoticed, like a fog in the night.”
“With that?” said Maya, surprised into a lack of etiquette she regretted an instant later, gesturing at the huge key-like hair ornament. “Oh, but it’s pretty!” she added hastily. “But… unusual, right? I’d think you’d stand out.”
“The Yatagarasu is mysterious,” said the girl. “I’m Kay.” She stuck out a hand for Maya to shake.
“Maya,” said Maya, responding with a short handshake and a smile. “Ace Assistant.”
Kay grinned. “I’m one of those too,” she said. “Even if he doesn’t think so.”
“Which he?” asked Maya, looking around.
“He’s not here,” said Kay. “Wouldn’t be caught dead sitting on a park bench with the plebes. He’s classy. Kind of stuffy and stiff, actually. But warm and nice on the inside.”
“Like a stromboli,” said Maya.
Kay tilted her head. “I like you,” she announced. “Tell me about your assistant person.”
“I’m the assistant,” said Maya.
“I doubt it,” said Kay. “I bet you’re the capable one in the group.” She looked Maya up and down. “You look capable. How many people are on your team? Three?”
“Just us two,” said Maya. “And you’re not wrong. He’s a huge dork. Like, really huge. I mean, he’s tall, but that’s not what I mean. His dorkiness is extreme.”
Kay nodded. “I know the type.”
“He can’t run the office. The computer breaks if he thinks about touching it, and he doesn’t know how to find a client unless I push one into the chair in front of his desk. Actually, I usually push him into a chair in the detention center to meet a client, but you get the idea.”
“Hmm. My team is too good at getting clients. We’re practically over-run with corpses and murder raps.”
“Your stromboli is a defense attorney?” asked Maya, astonished. She tried to think of which defense attorney was that successful.
“Defense attorney?” Kay laughed. “No, no. He’s a prosecutor. Is your guy a defense attorney? I was thinking bail bondsman. You like like you’d be a kick-ass bondswoman.”
“Yes! And thank you; I like that image. No, I wish! I’m just a sort of paralegal who finds clients and makes Nick eat occasionally and clean up before he goes out to see clients.”
“So, not a stromboli?”
“No…” said Maya slowly. “He’s… more like… a Chicago-stye pizza. Really soft and good, thick underneath, and a hot mess on the surface.” She grinned. “But dorkier.”
Kay laughed. “Dork Italian-American foods,” she said, clearly delighted. “One crusty on the outside and squishy on the inside, and the other, soft and reliably messy. I love it!”
“With extra dork sauce,” said Maya, giggling.
“Dripping with dork sauce,” agreed Kay. “Dorky drips. And cheesy!” She was giggling too. “Oh, he would have a fit if he knew I was calling him a stromboli. I love you, Maya. We are officially besties.” She held out her pinky, bent into a hook.
Maya immediately linked her own pinky. “Besties,” she said. “Officially.”
They shook pinkies, once up and once down, and unlinked.
“Does it come with any benefits?” asked Maya, and then she blushed into what she was sure was carnation pink. “I didn’t mean --”
Kay was smiling broadly. “It’s cool,” she said. “I know you didn’t. I like the sentiment, though. Bring it up again when we know each other better, if you want to. But moving on, we should totally have some kind of perks. Like a gym membership, or a frequent buyer card.”
Maya looked up and saw that Kay also had warm pink in her face. She filed the information under “Examine Later” and said, “How about a Frequent Meeter card? We could punch ‘em every time we meet up.”
Kay clapped her gloved hands. “And then on Christmas we could trade them in for a special reward, if we’ve got ‘em filled by then. Excellent! When do we meet again?”
Maya wondered if Kay was taking this a little too seriously. But meeting again sounded good.
“Same park bench, tomorrow?” As soon as she spoke, Maya wondered if that was too pushy. Should she have suggested in a week?
Kay was already nodding vigorously, her ponytail bouncing. “Yes! Same time, same park bench! And bring your secrets ‘cause we are going to spill tea, and you can help me because I’m trying to find a present for the man who has everything, and my shopping trip was a fail enchilada with extra failsauce, and I said I’d meet him on the other side of the park at two. Do you know what time it is?”
“No,” said Maya. “Kind of near two, though, I think.”
“Yeah,” said Kay. “And he said if I didn’t show up on time he’d leave me to take the bus, and I think he almost meant it this time.” She grinned and bounced onto her feet. “So I’m off! But tomorrow I’ll have more time, because he’s got boring work to do and I’m not going to hang around like Gummy waiting to be sent for a file or a crumpet.”
Kay was already trotting backwards down the path, waving. “Bye, Maya Bestie! Tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow!” called Maya, getting up herself. She didn’t feel so bummed out any more. Even the looming spectre of Kurain Village and training was less awful when she thought about how much fun it would be to take Kay there and watch her bounce through all their rules. She smiled, made a mental note to find out what “waiting like gummy” meant, and headed back to Wright & Co.
~ ~ ~
“Nick, what does ‘waiting like gummy’ mean?” she asked, pulling another yellow page of Nick’s chicken-scratch handwriting near enough to try to transcribe it into the database.
“Nn?” said Nick, absorbed in his work, making notes from some thick, boring book.
“Urban Dictionary scares me,” she said. “Can you just tell me? Pretend I grew up sheltered in a small village with no technology and never learned slang like the other kids?”
Nick looked up.”You did,” he said.
“So it won’t strain you.”
“But it’s not slang.”
“It’s not standard English, Nick.”
“Where did you hear it?”
“Oh, I overheard someone saying it,” she said vaguely, pretending she was having trouble telling what was written on the legal pad. She didn’t have to strain to pretend either. Search backdrop? Seated heel cling? Neither of them made any sense.
“Nick, what the hell does this say?” she asked, pointing.
He got up and walked the few steps to the desk, leaning over to read it upside down. “Seward Leopold,” he said.
“No way does that say Seward Leopold,” she said. “That’s not even a real name.”
Nick leaned in closer. “Well, I’m reading it upside down.”
“You wrote it,” she said, exasperated. “For heck’s sake, Nick.”
He smiled sheepishly and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Uh… when did I write it?”
“Did you write a date on this?” she demanded. She held up the pad dramatically. “Did you? Point to the date, Nick.”
“Hey, I interviewed a potential client. By myself. I thought you’d be happy. You’re always telling me we need clients.”
“A, we do always need clients. B, I’d be happy if we could research this potential client because we could, I don’t know, figure out their name or their legal issue, for example.” She banged the pad down on the desk and Nick jumped. God, he was adorable when he was scared, the big dork. Didn’t he know he was bigger and older than her?
“Do you need another break? The holidays are a stressful time,” he said nervously, wringing his hands.
“I need a client whose name and phone number I can read.” Relenting, she slept the computer and stood up. “Did you have a plan for dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Dinner, Nick. It’s a meal. A meal is when you eat more than coffee. Most people have them regularly.”
“Uh, yeah, I had a plan,” he said, too quickly. “I was going to take you out to, ah, what’s the place.”
“You’re volunteering to take me out to dinner.”
“I value your contributions to the office and I want to honor them with spaghetti,” he said.
“Spaghetti not at your apartment.”
“Or pizza. Or something.”
“Out of food again at home?”
He shrugged. “You complained last time.”
“All you had was eggs and instant ramen and grape juice!”
“I like egg ramen.”
“Yes, Nick, spaghetti or pizza will be fine, as long as you promise to eat a damn vegetable.”
“Done,” he said. “We’re going to Giovanni’s.” He smiled, and drat the man, her heart warmed from that sunny smile. Someone should weaponize that smile, she thought.
~ ~ ~
“I think I’ll have a stromboli,” said Maya, looking down the plastic-coated menu.
Nick looked up, surprised. “You’ve never gotten a stromboli before.”
“Is there a new law against strombolis?” She darted her eyes around the small restaurant. “Quick, hide the menus. Wouldn’t want to end up in jail. Do you know a good lawyer?”
“Ha, ha.”
She smiled. Baiting Nick was one of her favorite pastimes. It kept him humble.
“Nah, I was just thinking about that person I overheard about the gummy. I was listening ‘cause they were talking about a prosecutor, but they didn’t say his name.”
“Or her name, or their name,” said Nick, eating a practically microscopic piece of the bread from the basket on the table.
“His name,” said Maya, tearing off a bigger piece of the bread, dipping it in the olive oil and herbs on her plate, and putting it into his hand. “They used pronouns. And they said he was like a stromboli.”
Nick absently started eating the dripping bread in his hand. “Do the Payne brothers like Italian food?”
“No, not likes strombolis. Is like a stromboli. You know. Crusty outside, warm gooey center.”
He smiled. “Food simile. No wonder it caught your attention.”
“Shut up and tell me who’s like that. I want to know who it is.”
“I can’t do that,” he said mildly.
“You better, or else.”
“Or else what?” he asked, with obvious curiosity.
“I’ll order the lobster ravioli.”
“Ah,” he said. “Yes. Except I can’t both shut up and tell you. Which?”
“Tell, old man.”
“I don’t really know. But I’ll try!” he said hastily. “Ah, lemme see.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Not the Paynes. They’re not warm or gooey anywhere. They’re all flaky crust and no substance.”
“And not Portsman,” Maya added. “That guy has no crust. He’s just a dude-bro.”
“I haven’t really gotten to know any of the other ones except Godot. I guess it could be him. I don’t know what makes him tick. Except coffee.”
“I don’t think so,” said Maya, thinking of Kay. “He doesn’t seem like the type to work on a team.”
“Oh, a team player? Hmm, yeah, not Godot for sure. Although that makes Portsman seem like a candidate again. Sports, teams…”
“No,” said Maya positively. “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
“Not about sports,” admitted Nick. “Okay, not him. Ah…” He leaned his chair back and balanced it on two legs.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Maya informed him.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She kicked him and his chair almost fell over. He caught himself on the table and the wall.
“Ow!” he said. “That hurts!” He set his chair down carefully and rubbed at his back.
“Told you,” she said, and the waiter arrived to take their order. They didn’t return to the topic of prosecuting strombolis, instead bickering amiably over their meals.
~ ~ ~
Phoenix lay in bed awake. He stared into the dark as his mind wheeled around everything he had left undone. He tried to bring it to something pleasant. Maya’s Christmas present. She was going to love it. She’d probably ask him to go with her with her second ticket, and he could moan and fuss about how totally lame the Steel Samurai was, but he’d still get to go to the microcon. He would never admit it to Miles or Maya, but the Steel Samurai reminded him of the Signal Samurai and it made him feel all warm and squishy inside. Like a stromboli, soft and warm under a crust of false irritation. He knew a prosecutor like that, but he didn’t think anyone else knew about Miles’s softness. They were all taken in by the show of coldness, the Demon Prosecutor act. They didn’t know his Miles. In the darkness, Phoenix smiled and his eyes closed.