Something I Don't Know

28: toasters are apparently very complex devices

       

We wake to smoke.

    It's not a pleasant awakening, that's for sure. I peel my eyelids open, rubbing the crust out of them, and Midge is still furled against me and my other arm's pinned underneath her and my shoulder feels like the equivalent of what television static looks like.

    And, yeah, there's smoke in the air.

    As if on call, the smoke detector begins to shrill. Midge wakes up with a curse, and she jolts enough that her head bumps into my head, so then we're both cursing, and when I've had just enough of all of this, I scramble to my feet and head downstairs.

    Midge follows me, and together we trail into the kitchen. Levi and Violet seem to be fussing over the toaster, from which a heavy stream of smoke spills, shrouding the whole floor in a haze of gray. Jamie stands a few feet away, still in one of my old sweatshirts and a pair of pajama pants, watching them with a mournful look in his eye.

    Midge glances at Levi and Violet, then at Jamie. "Jamie," she begins, and he looks up at her guiltily. "What did you do?"

    He replies, simply, "I made toast."

    I shake my head, stepping further into the kitchen. I wave a hand towards the fuming toaster Levi and Violet continue to argue over; neither of them seem to have noticed Midge or me yet. "This does not look like you made toast. This looks like you tried to make toast, and made a volcano instead."

    Jamie blinks at me. "You can make volcanoes with toast?"

    Midge sighs, shooting me a look that's very obviously the nonverbal equivalent of You handle this, before coming to Violet's side, bending over the toaster with her wand in hand.

    "By the way," Jamie says, watching Midge's back. "Safiya called."

    "Safiya called who?"

    "She called Midge, technically, but her phone was downstairs, so I picked it up."

    "Oh," I say, frowning. I scrub a hand through my hair, remembering the faraway look on Safiya's face as she said I don't want to be...hurt like that again. It was the most sentimental either of us have ever been in each other's presence, and even now, the awkwardness of it is still kind of lingering. "What did she want?"

    "She said we all have to be in her apartment in ten minutes," says Jamie.

    I sputter, turning to face him. The toaster's stopped fuming, but there's still a fair amount of ash in Violet's hair and each breath in and out still stings. "Ten minutes? I haven't even eaten yet!"

    Jamie shrugs. "That's why I was making toast."

    "Screw your toast, kid," I say. "Look what it did to my kitchen. We'll stop at Waffle House."

When Jamie, Violet, Midge, and I reach Safiya's apartment, the door is swung open. For the first time in possibly ever, however, she's not feasting on someone right within the open door (funny of her to grow out of that habit as soon as I'm gone, and not while I was there). Instead, when we enter, she's seated calmly on the futon, one leg folded underneath her. Sitting in front of her is another girl, her back turned to us.

    Safiya's eyes float upwards, however, landing on us over the girl's shoulder. "You're late."

    I say, "We had to stop at Waffle House," at the same time that Jamie says, "I burnt all the toast!" and I figure she can put two and two together.