Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare)(13)

“What.”

“It’s us.”

She exchanged a look with Bunny, who was sliding the block of tofu onto a plate now.

“Who’s us?” she called.

Dr. Battista appeared in the kitchen doorway. Pyotr Shcherbakov was at his elbow.

“Oh. Pyotr,” she said.

“Khello!” Pyotr said. He was wearing the same gray jersey he’d worn yesterday, and in one hand he carried a small paper bag.

“And here’s my other daughter, Bunny,” Dr. Battista said. “Bun-Buns, meet Pyoder.”

“Hi, there! How’re you doing?” Bunny asked, dimpling at him.

“For two days now I am coughing and sneezing,” Pyotr told her. “Also blowing nose. Is some sort of microbe, I am thinking.”

“Oh, poor you!”

“Pyoder is going to eat with us,” Dr. Battista announced.

Kate said, “He is?”

She would have reminded her father that as a rule, people informed the cook about such things ahead of time, but the fact was that in this house there was no rule; the situation had never come up before. The Battistas hadn’t had a dinner guest for as long as Kate could remember. And Bunny was already saying, “Goody!” (Bunny was the kind of person who thought the more people, the merrier.) She pulled another clean plate from the dishwasher and another handful of silverware. Pyotr, meanwhile, held his paper bag out to Kate. “Is guest gift,” he told her. “Dessert.”

She took the bag from him and peered down into it. Inside were four bars of chocolate. “Well, thanks,” she said.

“Ninety percent cacao. Flavonoids. Polyphenols.”

“Pyoder’s a big believer in dark chocolate,” Dr Battista said.

“Oh, I adore chocolate!” Bunny told Pyotr. “I’m, like, addicted? I can’t get enough?”

It was lucky Bunny had gone into her bubbling-over act, because Kate wasn’t feeling all that hospitable herself. She took a fourth apple from the bowl and went off to the dining room, throwing her father a sour look as she passed him. He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “A little company!” he told her in a confiding voice.

“Hmph.”

By the time she returned to the kitchen, Bunny was asking Pyotr what he missed most about home. She was looking up into his face with her eyes all starry and entranced, still holding the extra plate and the silverware, cocking her head encouragingly like Miss Hostess of the Month.

“I miss the pickles,” Pyotr said without hesitation.

“That’s so fascinating?”

“Finish setting the table,” Kate told her. “Supper’s ready to go, here.”

“What? Wait,” Dr. Battista said. “I thought we could have drinks first.”

“Drinks!”

“Drinks in the living room.”

“Yes!” Bunny said. “Can I have a drink, Poppy? Just a teeny-weeny glass of wine?”

“No, you cannot,” Kate told her. “Your brain development’s stunted enough as it is.”

Pyotr gave one of his hoots. Bunny said, “Poppy! Did you hear what she said to me?”

“I meant it, too,” Kate told her. “We can’t afford any more tutors. Besides, Father, I’m starving to death. You were even later than usual.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “Sorry, Pyoder. The cook calls the shots, I guess.”

“Is no problem,” Pyotr said.

This was just as well, because as far as Kate knew, the only alcohol in the house was an open bottle of Chianti from last New Year’s.

She carried the meat mash into the dining room and put it on the trivet. Bunny, meanwhile, set a place for Pyotr next to her own; they all had to crowd at one end because of the income-tax papers. “How about people, Pyoder?” she asked him once he was settled. (The girl was tireless.) “Don’t you miss any people from home?”

“I have no people,” he said.

“None at all?”

“I grew up in orphanage.”

“Gosh! I never met anybody from an orphanage before!”

“You forgot Pyotr’s water,” Kate told her. She was dishing out mounds of meat mash and passing the filled plates around, exchanging them for empty ones.

Bunny pushed her chair back and started to rise, but Pyotr held a palm up and said again, “Is no problem.”

“Pyoder feels water dilutes the enzymes,” Dr Battista said.

Bunny said, “Huh?”

“The digestive enzymes.”

“Especially water with ice,” Pyotr said. “Freezes enzymes in middle of ducts.”

“Have you ever heard this theory?” Dr. Battista asked his daughters. He looked delighted.

Kate thought it was a pity he couldn’t just marry Pyotr himself, if he was so set on adjusting the man’s status. The two of them seemed made for each other.

On Tuesdays, Kate varied their menu by setting out tortillas and a jar of salsa so that they could have meat-mash burritos. Pyotr didn’t bother with the tortillas, though. He ladled an avalanche of salsa over his serving and then dug in with his spoon, nodding intently as he listened to Dr. Battista ponder why it was that autoimmune disorders affected more women than men. Kate pushed her food around her plate; she wasn’t as hungry as she had thought. And Bunny, across the table from her, seemed lukewarm about her tofu. She cut a corner off with her fork and took an experimental taste, chewing with just her front teeth. Her green vegetable—two pallid stalks of celery—lay untouched, so far. Kate predicted her meat-free phase would last about three days.