The children then took their trays back to the kitchen and Izzy, Jill, and Dr. Grind began cleaning up the dishes from lunch. Jill wiped down the counter and talked about a concert that she had attended with a few of the staff members the night before, while Izzy and Dr. Grind washed and dried the dishes, Izzy handing off the plates to Dr. Grind, who dried them and carefully returned them to the cabinet.
Later, Jill left the kitchen to retrieve one of the children for some individual testing, and Dr. Grind then leaned against the sink and told Izzy that he had some news for her.
“I talked to Nicole yesterday. Her restaurant is doing well, finally making some money, and she asked about you.”
“That’s kind of her,” Izzy replied. She had taken Cap and Maxwell to the restaurant, Golden Apples, a few weeks after it had opened, and Izzy had been mesmerized by the adventurousness of the menu, and yet how delicious it had been; even the boys had happily eaten everything served. Nicole had come to their table and seemed wired, smiling more than Izzy had ever seen her do at the complex. “It’s destined to fail,” Nicole had told her. “Running a restaurant is a different beast than being a personal chef, but it’s so much fun. It’s constant madness, which I like. And, who knows, maybe it will last.”
Dr. Grind then said, “Nicole wondered if you might like to take on an apprenticeship at the restaurant. She said it would be a chance to gain experience in a real working kitchen.”
Izzy was surprised by the offer, but could not help but wonder about the work. She was already handling the kitchen duties at the complex. She also had Cap in her life, and didn’t want to lose that time, see him even less than when he was part of the larger family.
“How would that work?” Izzy asked.
“Well,” Dr. Grind continued, “you could work a few nights a week, whatever would fit your schedule.”
“But what about the kitchen here? What about Cap? I’d be out most of the night. Where would he stay?”
“We can help out,” Dr. Grind reminded her. “We can all chip in with dinner on the days that you’re away. As for Cap, he can stay with other parents on those nights.”
“Then I wouldn’t be with him when he woke up. He’d be in another house.”
Dr. Grind thought about this for a moment. It seemed obvious by his now worried expression that he had not expected this response. “Well, I could stay with Cap,” he finally offered. “In your house. I’ll just bring my work with me and stay with him until you get back from the restaurant.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” she said.
“You know I don’t sleep anyway,” he said. “I’ll stay with Cap and get him ready for bed and watch over him.”
“It’s very kind of you,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. “But I don’t think I can do it. I’m just getting used to the changes in my life. I like cooking for the family. I don’t want to take on too much work and lose what makes this place so special to me and Cap.”
“I just don’t want you to turn down opportunities, because you’re the only person here without a partner to help you,” Dr. Grind said.
“I don’t feel that at all,” she replied, though of course it was an ever present concern; she couldn’t figure out how to explain that to Dr. Grind, who had done so much to help her that it seemed greedy to whine about it. She imagined coming home from Nicole’s restaurant, at two or three in the morning, and looking in the window of her house to see Dr. Grind waiting for her, reading a book, sitting on her sofa as if he lived there, Cap safely asleep upstairs. She thought of it and it felt like the best kind of dream. It was natural, she imagined, to love Dr. Grind, to want him to be a part of her life in such a way, and she couldn’t help but feel, especially with his offer to watch Cap, that he perhaps felt the same way. She wondered, knowing she would never do it, what would happen if she leaned over and kissed him. She then thought of Jeremy and Ellen, the slight fractures already forming in the family. It wasn’t clear if their indiscretion would be seen as worse than Izzy making out with the founder of the project. She didn’t wish to find out.
“Well, if you change your mind,” Dr. Grind said, trying to smile, slightly disappointed, “the offer stands. From both Nicole and myself.”
“Thank you, Dr. Grind,” she answered,
This was the moment, Izzy knew. If she didn’t tell Dr. Grind about Ellen and Jeremy right now, this very moment, she would lose the chance. Of course, she knew that she could tell him later, but it wouldn’t mean the same thing. It would still be a kind of betrayal, though she wasn’t sure exactly who would be betrayed and how. All she knew was that Dr. Grind expected and encouraged honesty, the easiest way to solve a problem, and she had a planet-size problem. But she knew she would say nothing. She simply let the moment pass, the easiest action in the world, and, the kitchen now clean, nothing left to do, the two of them turned off the lights and went their separate ways.