Saavik was stepping out of the bathroom and doing up the buttons on her shirt when she smelled what was most definitely coffee.
Brushing aside the bead curtain, she found Daria in the compact kitchen. The one here in Tom's apartment — theirs to use until he returned next Monday — did not have the extravagant expanse of space and gadgetry of her and Jane's home across the river. Daria was tending two sizzling skillets, one under the guidance of each hand. "Have time before you need to go?" Daria asked.
"A little. What's on the menu?"
"I call it 'things in the fridge that were going to go off before Tom gets back' surprise. Bit of green salad, sautéed mushrooms, a tofu scramble with a diced tomato. Oh, and —" she gestured with one of her spatulae at the toaster. "English muffins."
She came to Daria's side and planted a kiss against her temple. "Sounds lovely. How do you get the tofu to be yellow?"
"Nutritional yeast and a dash of turmeric. You can use the same trick in an oat-milk béchamel to make nacho sauce." Daria shrugged while stirring. "Ever since college, I've been cooking for people with dietary restrictions. I like it — makes me feel like I'm a mad food scientist."
Bustling from cabinet to stove to toaster, Daria plated up breakfast for both of them and then carried the plates to the table. Saavik worked the French press and poured them each a cup of coffee.
She made escalating noises of happiness as she tasted each component of the meal. "You are spoiling me rotten," she told Daria, who looked down, then away, then quickly back, and followed that with a hesitant smile. "Oh!" Saavik interjected. "And to return the favor." She half-turned in her chair, leaned over with a long Hobbes-the-tiger stretch and grabbed the sleeve of her jacket, which she had draped stylishly over the back of the sofa. She gathered the jacket into her arms and plucked an envelope from the inside pocket.
Daria took the unsealed envelope from her hand and slid the contents out for examination. "A map," she said. "Of the Greater Boston area. With X's marking several spots."
"A bookstore crawl!" Saavik grinned. "You, me, this weekend! I've figured out the bus routes and the cupcake breaks and everything."
"Wow," Daria replied. "That's ... very nice. Thank you."
"You're welcome. I'll tell ya, I was thinking, here I am, dating this girl who lives the life of the mind more than anybody I've ever met, I mean really gives herself over to it and feels her thoughts, and she has empty spaces on her bookshelves! I can't let that stand, can I?" She kept her eyes on Daria while bringing a forkful of mushroom to her lips.
"It's like you know me," Daria said.
Saavik took a sip of coffee. "Happy Day-after-Valentine's." And then, her memory jogged, she sang softly: "Then up she rose, and donn'd her clothes / And dupp'd the chamber-door / Let in the maid, that out a maid / Never departed more."
This time, Daria's smile was detectably more confident.
They settled into adjacent seats on the bus, Daria by the window, and Saavik letting her legs fall just a bit into the aisle. She reached into her coat pocket and offered Daria a bag of lemon drops. Daria accepted one and looked out the window as the bus grumbled into motion. A minute later, she glanced back and saw that Saavik was idly thumbing through a feed on her smartphone.
"Anything good on the socials?"
"Somehow that voice of yours makes it clear that the answer must be no," Saavik said, with a fond hint of a sigh. "But no." She tucked her phone back into her hip pocket. "A friend's mom is complaining about schools not teaching anything useful. You know, 'Gosh, I'm so happy we spent all that time studying triangles, every year when triangle season comes around.'"
Daria quirked her head. "I just had this mental image of Garak from Deep Space Nine, smiling and leaning in like he's imparting a confidence — 'My dear, it's always triangle season.'"
Saavik smiled and took Daria's hand. With her close-trimmed fingernail, she began tracing shapes on Daria's upturned palm. "Equilateral... right... obtuse... acute..."
Daria blushed. "Not in public."
Amid the dust motes, the dimness and the pulp:
"Daria? Where'd you go? You around here somewhere?" Saavik craned her neck past the shelf and saw Daria glasses-down in a hardback with a frayed cover that had faded to a pinkish red. A History of Science: Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C., by George Sarton. "Good find?"
Daria snapped back to awareness of the immediate world. "Oh. Yeah. I had never read the original, only quotes. He writes like... Like the professor who is really dry and tweedy, but you enjoy him all the more for it? You know he wouldn't get the weird music the kids are into, but he'd try to appreciate it as an expression of timeless things." She closed the book over her thumb. "And you?"
"A hardback of He Shall Thunder in the Sky," Saavik held it up, "the novelization of Darren Aronofsky's Pi, and something called Carolus Minimus et Fabrica Dulciolōrum."
"They translated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory into Latin?"
"Apparently so."
"Oompa Loompa doompa dee do, what did the Romans do then for you?"
"Come on," Saavik said. "I'm starting to think it's cupcake o'clock."
Daria found Saavik in the mythology aisle. The classification, as befits used books, was imprecise. She was thumbing through a graphic-novel adaptation of The Bacchae when Daria approached.
"Hi again," Saavik said. "Good finds?"
"Tempting ones," Daria told her, hefting the stack she carried. "You?"
"More than anything else, it's reminding me... making me wonder what Homer meant by the wine-dark sea. You know? I feel like I've heard a lot of complicated stories about that."
"You want the truth?" Daria asked. "The truth is that it's a damn good line. Those who tell complicated stories about it are not poets. When I think of inventing a line that people dwell on twenty-eight hundred years later, every fiber in my being burns with jealousy. The truth is that the first time Homer said wine-dark sea, his next thought was I am getting laid."
Saavik leaned over the stack of books and whispered into Daria's ear. "You and him both."