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Show Motherlunge a novel 28 "Espresso. Employee recognition gift." Pavia sat down at a wooden table and reached for a bag of mini rice cakes. "You're just used to mom's kitchen, which is just ugly. And dirty. And suburban." She still had her coat on. "And will you make some coffee for us?" She talked me through the process of making an espresso, and thus I learned the essential skill of my generation. I also learned, as we talked about Jack's absence, the essential and unconvincing story, which was: She thought she loved him, but maybe she didn't after all. Maybe she just needed something to do, or someone to (pretend to) love. (Maybe, admittedly, he did, too.) Maybe she discovered that he was not the person she thought he was-or maybe it was her fault. Maybe she had changed? And it was sad but probably, most likely, surely-their breakup was for the best in the long ran. My sister finished talking and looked at me in a way that I recognized-with a little stab of fear-as hope-filled. "What did the asshole do?" "Nothing." Pavia looked away, staring at the floor where General slopped water into his mouth, his tongue folding and unfolding like an envelope flap as it went in and out of his enormous head. She still had her hand in the rice-cake bag. She looked exhausted. "What did the asshole do?" The espresso machine hissed reinforcingly behind me, steam rising up. Pavia frowned, quickly shook her head no. "He's not an asshole, Thea." She put a rice cake in her mouth and bit down and up once, suddenly alert and irritable-seeming as |