53.)
The kitchen was a disaster. Had I done that? I was dressed in a fresh set of clothes, since my pajamas were still covered in flour. Blossom had put them in the laundry and told me that they would be ready before bedtime. It was only six in the evening, but the sun outside was already threatening to disappear. Unless Blossom really liked snickerdoodles, we would have to figure out something to eat for dinner.
"I should at least clean up," I sighed, removing the final batch of cookies from the baking sheet. I could already tell they were a little overdone.
"Not a chance, cupcake - you're going to sit on that sofa over there and stare at your laptop. Maybe you'll write, maybe you won't; but cleaning up is something I am good at, while writing is something you're good at. So shoo, get out of my kitchen, little lady."
The diminutives really helped Blossom make her point. It was hard to stay vigilant when she kept undermining me like that, and worse still when it made me too embarrassed to come up with a clever argument. So I made my way back to the sofa and opened my laptop. Oh, right... the scene with Nurse August.
After Wendy's diaper change, I had one more class to write before lunch. Then I could reuse some of my lines from an earlier chapter. The perks of parallel storytelling.
It only felt like ten or fifteen minutes had passed, but when I looked up the room was lit with corner lamps and Blossom was nowhere to be seen. I checked the clock in the corner of my computer: 8:20. Fuck.
"Blossom?"
No answer. I pushed my laptop aside and got up, walking to the stairs. I shouted a little louder, hollering to the upper floor.
"Blossom?"
In a stroke of genius, I went to the front door and peeked outside through the paneled windows. The porch light was on, but Blossom's car wasn't in the driveway.
So she left?
I went to the couch to find my phone. It was sitting on the coffee table. I was just about to text Blossom when I saw I had a text from her.
Blossom🌸 >> Went to get dinner. You looked so focused I did not want to disturb you.
It was sent over half an hour ago. I sighed and typed back:
>>ETA??
>> I am not sure but it is probably 20 minutes or so!
Twenty minutes, huh? Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to get started on Chapter Ten. I sat back down and went back to writing.
I wasn't even one page into the new chapter when the front door opened. Blossom had paper bags in both her hands. I closed the lid of my laptop and moved it to the coffee table before meeting her in the kitchen.
"I hope you like Italian," Blossom said, hiking the bags onto the counter.
"I'm white, so... yeah, I do." Pasta and sauce: it was like adult mac and cheese. And who didn't like garlic bread? Vampires, I guess.
"I got lasagne, which my Dad used to describe as 'cake but dinner' and I got fettuccini alfredo and also I got carbonara which is like my biggest weakness so if you ever wanna coerce me to do anything I can be bought with carbonara. And I also got cannoli, which is the best desert ever made, obviously. Well," she paused, "apart from what you bake, which is empirically better."
Blossom was blessed with the metabolism and keenness for fitness that meant she could eat far above what someone her size might be expected to, and still do okay with her weight.
"Sorry I didn't notice you leaving," I said, helping Blossom unpack the boxes. "I guess I get pretty into it when I'm writing."
In a way, it was a lot like cooking for me. As long as my mind wasn't moving faster than my fingers, it was like living in my own little world. I only ran into problems when I got caught up on word choice, or something I was writing was a little too emotional. Usually that emotion spurred me forward, but sometimes it would stop me dead in my tracks.
"Psh, don't worry your pretty little head about it, cupcake; you writing is good news for me, right? And you look extra cute when you've written something you know is cute or clever. You get the most subdued little smile."
There was something unsaid to that; the fact that Blossom liked to watch Amy do her work attentively enough to notice these things. It was equal parts cute and creepy, probably.
"Oh..." So after Blossom finished cleaning the kitchen she just... watched me write? That was kind of creepy, but maybe equal parts cute.
I got some plates out of the cupboard and helped Blossom serve up the food. I wasn't really sure what to say. I wanted to offer Chapter Nine of Academy A, but eating would just get in the way. I would have to wait my turn, just as she waited hers.
"Did you have a successful time with your writing this time?"
Blossom was cutting her lasagne into pieces with a knife as she asked the question, because there wasn't much worse in the world than a big errant sloppy piece of lasagne noodle splattering pasta sauce all over your chin. Honestly, eating pasta without a bib was probably the litmus test for proving someone was an adult.
"Yeah, actually. I got a lot done." A whole chapter, and a little bit of the next one! I was actually really proud of myself. If only I had been able to do that earlier without cooking a thousand snickerdoodles... the errant thought brought down my mood a touch and I twirled my fork in the fettuccini.
"I'm proud of you, cupcake. I was thinking as I was driving about how creative you are, but like in the literal sense. You create. You create stories, you create food. You take the parts of something; flour and eggs, or letters and words, and you make them into something more than the sum of their parts. That's pretty amazing."
It wasn't Blossom's MO to be so soppy and gushy, but she felt comfortable in that moment.
"I guess..." I thought I would be able to ride the writing high a little longer, but it seemed to have already left me. Even Blossom's words - which were always so kind - didn't seem to pull me out of it. I took another bite of my pasta and tried to change the topic. "What did you do all day? Did you really just watch me write?"
"I watched you write, and I made some notes about an assessment I have coming up for school."
Blossom held up her phone with its notes app up, covered in diagrams and explanations and dot points; remarkably neat for someone who'd done all the drawing elements of the note-taking with her fingertip on the touchscreen.
"Oh yeah... I guess you have schoolwork and stuff, huh?" I always did it on Fridays before she came over. Fridays were my day off most of the time. I took another long look at her notes. "Looks complicated."
"I'm not gonna say it's not complicated, but I picked up good note-taking habits when I was a mousy-haired little bookster. That's been probably the most useful stuff I've ever picked up in my life. I'm not that smart of a girl, cupcake, but I sure do know how to study and take notes and that carries me through."
Honestly, it was probably a bit of both; Blossom was underselling her natural cleverness quite a bit.
"Well, color me impressed." I finished off one of the pieces of garlic bread. Honestly, I was hungry. Sometimes I didn't notice how hungry I was, especially when I was doing something like writing. Moreover, I almost always felt too nauseous to eat when I was anxious. It was a bad combination, with a lot of hours marked by not eating and spikes of overeating. Maybe that was why I was fat. I wasn't a nutritionist.
"The idea that I could impress you is so wild to me, Amy. I'm just a blonde bimbo brat playing schoolgirl and hoping that it'll all make sense when the time comes. But you actually create art and the world needs more artists then it does engineers."
"Now who is selling themselves short?" I teased, faking a smile. I took a few bites of the cannoli and pushed my plate away. I was full. Blossom had slowed down a lot, and my anticipation was growing. I wanted to know all her thoughts on Chapter 9.
"I suppose! Anyway, when do I get to see what you wrote today?" Blossom was trying to hide her excitement, but her eagerness was obvious and showing.
"When you're done eating," I said with a smile.
"Then I'm done eating."
Blossom pushed her plate away too and wiped her hands on a napkin that came with the order. We both got up from the bar stools in the kitchen and repositioned ourselves on the living room sofa. I picked up my laptop and opened it up. I had to copy/paste the chapter out of my main document just so she didn't read ahead. Then I passed her the computer.
***
(If you are following Academy Works, please read Ch.9 [linked above] and return here to continue the story. If Ch.10 has been released, it is recommended that you DO NOT read it at this time.)
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