you get my note?” Birdie asked.
“I did,” Mia said, swallowing a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich. “Thank you for the okra.”
“Are you free tomorrow night?”
Andie’s invitation to take Mia out for drinks had never materialized, so Mia’s social calendar was wide-open. “Yes. I’d love to come to dinner.” She was getting tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“Perfect. I’ll see you at six.”
“Can I bring anything?”
“Only your lovely self,” Birdie said. “Enjoy the rest of your evening!”
After she hung up, Mia stared at what was left of her peanut butter sandwich in dissatisfaction. Birdie’s parting advice made her feel like she ought to be doing something more enjoyable with her evening.
It was Friday night, and Mia was young and single. Theoretically, the world was her oyster. Or at least this small corner of the world.
Today marked her one-week anniversary in Crowder, and she’d hardly seen any of the town yet. She’d learned her way around campus and grown familiar with the route between her apartment and the faculty parking lot. There had been two trips to two different grocery stores and one stop at a Starbucks in town. But that was it.
She could go out, she supposed. Explore the town by herself instead of waiting for Andie to call. Drive down Main Street and find a restaurant. Somewhere with a counter, maybe, where she could sit and talk to the waiter or waitress while she ate.
They probably had somewhere like that around here. A diner where the locals gathered to trade gossip over cups of unlimited coffee refilled by waitresses who knew every customer by name. The kind of place reporters from The New York Times would go to find “real Americans” to interview for their perspective on current events.
Although most of what Mia had seen driving through Crowder was the same stuff you’d see anywhere else in America. Strip shopping centers filled with the same stores and restaurant chains that occupied strip shopping centers everywhere else. Walgreens and Bank of America and Mattress Firm. Subway and Pizza Hut and Chili’s. The sprawl wasn’t entirely unlike Los Angeles, actually, just…less urban. With fewer palm trees and more pickup trucks per capita.
To a lot of people, it was probably comforting, knowing they could travel anywhere and still find the same familiar favorites. Mostly it made Mia feel sad. The things she missed about Los Angeles and New York were the things you couldn’t find anywhere else. The dragon roll at her favorite hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant on La Cienega. Or the Italian bakery back in Brooklyn where you had to go early before the best bomboloni sold out.
Maybe there were gems like that to discover here too. Probably there were. Maybe not sushi or bomboloni, but other things she’d yet to experience. Uniquely Crowder things.
The thought didn’t thrill her. It had already been an exhausting week of orienting herself to campus culture. Learning the names of buildings and new coworkers. Memorizing logins and searching for room numbers. Being lectured on school policies, faculty guidelines, and departmental procedure.
She was sick of navigating unfamiliar spaces and feeling lost and out of sorts. All her exploring energy had been depleted.
Instead of going out, Mia went into the bathroom and washed her makeup off. She applied the various serums that were part of her bedtime skincare routine, following them up with a non-oily moisturizer. She’d found her skin wasn’t nearly as dry here—an unexpected bonus of the merciless humidity. After that was done, she changed into her softest, comfiest pajamas and made herself some microwave popcorn.
Getting to know the town could wait. Tonight, she was going to sit on her couch and watch Netflix documentaries.
And then first thing tomorrow she’d get back to work on her proof. The whole weekend lay ahead of her, gloriously empty and free of obligations, and she planned to spend it untangling her knot problem.
Except for tomorrow night, when she’d take a short break to have dinner with her middle-aged landlady.
What an exciting life she led.
When she woke up in the morning, Mia performed her a.m. skincare routine and made a full pot of coffee. While it finished brewing, she had a breakfast of farm-fresh goat’s milk yogurt and raw local honey that was worthy of an Instagram lifestyle blogger. If only she’d had any Instagram followers. Or an Instagram account where she could post artistically staged photos of her farm-to-table breakfast for her nonexistent followers to admire.
She’d never had goat yogurt before this week, but it had turned out to