from a novel in progress (how life intersects art)

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She’d teach me her cake. Try out her latest. Turn my kitchen into a mini coop—Harvey lacing us together with the striped ribbon of his tail. She’d bring the sugar with her, ask for eggs. She’d put the whole milk on the sill to get it to temperature, use the sixteen-ounce cups to sift into, to stir. She’d carry sea salt in a clear bag in her back pocket, explain the purpose of its crunch inside the batter’s silk. She’d call the confectioner’s snow, her French whip Jacob’s Pride, her technique ineffable, and it was. She was. We stood side by side, her elbows shaped like cul de sacs, the rest of her arms so skinny that it looked as if they would be permanently bent at the hinges, as if she would, and she never spoke of the boy, and I didn’t ask her.

(last night, at a street fair, I met an adorable girl named Sophia. she drew this rose. I give it to you.)