Izzy knew she should head back to the kitchen to finish the sides, but she wanted to be with the kids. Disco was playing on the boom box and the children were wiggling without any regard for the actual beat, simply acting out the sounds as it fired in their brains. The photographer was now back outside, snapping photos of the children. She watched Cap and Ally roll an oversize beach ball back and forth and occasionally try to climb it. Gilberto, unattended at the edge of the playground (even with so many adults around, it was still so strangely easy to lose track of a child), toppled over and started to cry, and Izzy scooped him up and rubbed the reddening bump on his forehead until he crumpled in her arms and went quiet. Nina came over and checked on them, and Izzy handed the boy over to her; as soon as he was transferred, a smile returned to his face and he wriggled with impatience until Nina placed him back on the ground and he crab-walked back to the action. It amazed Izzy the way the children rushed through so many complicated emotions without space between each one. Everything rose so quickly to the surface and then subsided, like firecrackers, and what had originally been so jarring to her, their unguarded emotion, now filled her with great comfort, that anything, no matter what it was, would eventually give way to something else.
She wished this was how it worked for adults. She thought again about Asean, that kiss, the sight of the other couples in the corners. Why the hell had they all moved to the corners of the room like they were being punished? For a brief second, just long enough that it made sense, she thought of running out of the complex, driving as far as she could get. She wondered how long it would take before anyone noticed that she was gone. But she knew her absence would be noticed immediately, the way she was connected to them. What troubled her, the fantasy already turning into something dangerous, was how long it would take before they got over her, how quickly they would move on, would simply keep going as if she had never been there.
The reporter noticed Izzy and whispered something to Dr. Grind, who nodded and then smiled. As Izzy turned to flee back into the kitchen, the reporter came alongside her and said, “So you’re the youngest person here?”
“Except for the kids,” Izzy replied, wanting to shake him before she returned to the food.
“And you’re the only single parent?” he asked.
“Well,” Izzy said, feeling slightly irritated, “that’s the whole point of the project. I’m not alone. It’s why I’m here, so that I have a group of people to help me.”
“And there’s nothing about this that seems strange to you?” he asked.
“I can’t really answer that,” Izzy replied, thinking of last night, how strange it had been. “It doesn’t feel strange to me because it’s my life. It’s my family.”
“But surely you can—” the man said, but Izzy cut him off. “It’s unique, not strange,” she said. “That’s why we’re all here, to try something new, to have access to things that we wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“Are you dating anyone?” he asked and she immediately blushed.
“No,” she said.
“If you did start dating someone, how would you explain this place to them?”
“I’m not dating anyone, so I don’t have to worry about that,” she said, and she walked back into Main 1, swiping her key card and then pulling the door shut before he could follow her.
Izzy was now in her second semester at the university, taking courses in literature and history, bored out of her freaking mind. The work wasn’t especially difficult, though it did take up a necessary part of her brain, but it did little to excite her. The problem, she had determined, was that she had taken such a liking to her work with Chef Nicole. After talking so much about theoretical ideas, metaphors, and themes, there was something wonderful about taking a slab of salmon, the flesh so pink it looked like something in a children’s fantasy novel, and poaching it until the wine and dill infused the flesh of the fish and, when served, everyone thought you’d conjured up the flavor by incantation. She liked prep work, cutting all the vegetables to Chef Nicole’s exacting standards. After working with the cleavers to pound barbecue into irregular chunks, she loved how quickly she could now turn a bowl of onions into something precise and perfect with the deft movements of her knife.
Chef Nicole was strict and not very chatty in the kitchen, but she pushed Izzy into a million different methods with an assured manner that made Izzy want to please her. It helped that Chef Nicole thought nothing of making a simple dish of mashed avocados for the babies’ breakfast but then whipped up a delicate foam of strawberries and cream to top it, the flavors perfectly balanced. The babies, however, simply ate whatever was placed in front of them, no matter how outlandish, and it became an experiment in the kitchen to see what they could get away with, what they could sneak past the babies’ palates.