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CHAPTER TWO

Returning to her dining room table, refreshed mug of tea warming her hands, Jess stopped short.

"Steinem," she said. "The whole and entire point of getting you that toy laptop was so that you could mirror me and stop—" She put her mug on the table and cupped his sleek black-and-white bottom. "Stop parking yourself on mine every time I step away." She nudged, and after a bit of resistance, the cat yawned and stood. Jess tapped the toy sitting in front of the chair beside hers. "That's yours," she said. "This is mine."

Steinem shot a glance at the toy, a glance at Jess, then stalked to the other end of the table and sat, his back to her. Jess rolled her eyes.

"Okay, fine," she grumbled, picking up her mug. She glanced at the corner of the screen. Still another ten minutes before her video call with her close friends Alice and Stephanie. She straightened the papers on her desk with one hand as she sipped. The first day of school was the following week. Her first day as Dr. Anderson, University of Michigan professor, the career she'd been dreaming of and striving toward since middle school. Along with her excitement about work, she also counted herself lucky to have found a place to shoot. Her competition days were over, but she still loved archery and needed it to be a part of her life.

She hadn't been thrilled about the way she learned about the Michigan Folk School. Her car was the only one in the relatively empty teacher's parking lot with a flyer tucked under her windshield wiper. Jess had approached her car carefully, checking underneath it and in the backseat before getting inside. But once she'd read the flyer the anxious prickles that had shot over her skin faded, and curiosity bloomed.

She'd found a couple of indoor archery clubs that would have saved her the thirty-minute drive from Warrendale to Ann Arbor, but the ambiance of the Folk School, and the few people she'd already met there, made the commute more than worth it.

"Guess I'm doing all right, huh, Sty Sty?" she asked the cat, still giving her his back. "Back to the States. Truly started my career, my grown-up life." A shower of sadness passed through her, and she readjusted in her seat to get rid of it. Something was missing from that picture. Her sister should have been there to share in this new stage with Jess, but she wasn't. If Jess wanted a good start, she would need to keep doing what she had been—ignoring her grief, stuffing it away in the deepest corners of her mind. Allowing it the tiniest foothold would open the door for it to overtake her.

According to the psychologist she'd seen briefly before she moved back, she was doing well. He'd shared that it was normal to just react to life after a cataclysmic event like losing a sibling, and that Jess would continue to do well if she lived one day at a time, focused on one step at a time. The fact that she'd started to regain interest in archery was a big deal. It meant that she was rebuilding her agency in life—beyond her career.

The video call ringtone went off from her laptop, bringing her back to the present.

"Buenas tardes!" Alice announced as she appeared on the screen.

The sight and sound of her friend brought a wave of excitement for an instant, but it quickly died down. Alice's skin was bright pink.

"Buenas...tardes?" Jess said, confused.

"Your pronunciation's getting better," Alice said, half-smiling. "Though I probably can't talk. I still have a looong way to go before I communicate well. At least people are kind and patient about me trying."

"That's good," Jess said. "What is up with—"

"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late for a very important date," Stephanie said, interrupting Jess as she joined the call.

"The surprise would have been if you were on time," Jess said, smirking as she sipped a bit more tea.

With Jess in Michigan, Alice at an NGO in Mexico City, and Stephanie teaching at a university in Sao Paulo, they'd been staying in touch through video calls in addition to their group chat. They'd become close friends while finishing their doctorates in gender studies at the University of Sussex near Brighton in the UK. Finding a good time to talk with their newly differing time zones was taking a bit of an adjustment, but they were adamant about making it work.

Stephanie stuck out her pierced tongue.

"I am nothing if not consistent," she said. She got closer to the camera, raising an eyebrow as she angled her head to one side and ruffled her bright purple pixie cut. "Apart from the story behind this impressive sunburn you're rocking, Alice, what did I miss?"