The Kitchen Window

I had promised to cook for Mara and had spent most of Tuesday thinking of ways to make the promise less specific.

I could make a salad. I could buy something cooked and put it in a pan. I could text her that the oven had stopped working, although she had never seen my oven and might reasonably offer to fix it. In the end I made the pasta my mother had taught me when I left home: tomatoes, garlic, too much butter, nothing that could pretend to be impressive. I set two plates on the table and watched the sauce darken while Mara climbed the stairs.

She arrived at seven with a loaf of bread, as threatened, and a bag of lemons.

“What are those for?” I asked.

“I passed a shop.”

“Are we making something with them?”

“I don’t know. You said you’d cook. I wanted to bring something that wasn’t another plan.”

I let her in. My flat was smaller than the film room and had more evidence of me in it: shoes under the table, match programmes in a crooked stack, the exercise sheet stuck to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a pear. Mara looked at all of it without inspecting any one thing for too long.

The pasta was edible. She had a second helping. When I told her she didn’t have to, she said she knew. I believed her; she was capable of being polite, but she wasn’t capable of pretending to like a meal for the length of two plates.

We ate by the open kitchen window because the room had become too warm. Below, a delivery rider argued with the lock on the building’s front door. Mara told me that Jules had tried to imitate our two-tap pause during their second match, but had tapped her frame three times and confused them both. Jules had laughed and gone back to saying what she meant.

“We made a system that only two people can use,” I said.

“Most of our calls work better when we say the words. The taps bought us a second when we needed one.”

“You’re demystifying our great invention.”

“It was a good invention.”

She took a piece of bread to wipe her plate. We had learnt so much about each other in front of an audience that I was unsettled by how quietly I wanted to learn the rest.

“Jules asked me for your notes,” Mara said.

I put down my fork. “Which notes?”

“The clip of the return. She heard Ivo had you looking at film and wanted to know whether you’d take a look at her next opponents. I said I didn’t think you would.”

“Why?”

“I thought asking you to do more work for the team while you were out would feel like asking you to earn your place back.”

“You thought.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her to ask me?”

“No. I said you had your own work.”

It was a small decision, made out of the part of Mara that could anticipate three points ahead. Jules had asked about a professional task. Mara had answered for me because she saw what it might do to my pride. She had been right that it might hurt. She was wrong that this gave her the right to end the question before it reached me.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” I said. “Not this week. I’m doing the two mornings for Ivo and the exercises take time.”

“Then I gave the right answer.”

“No. I could have told Jules that myself. You decided I couldn’t bear being asked.”

Mara set the bread on her plate. “I didn’t say you couldn’t bear it.”

“You took the decision away so I wouldn’t have to feel it.”

“I was trying not to ask you for something that benefited me.”

“Then don’t ask. Tell Jules to ask.”

The rider downstairs finally opened the door. It shut with a sound that reached us through the window. Mara stared at the sill, not because she was done listening but because she was working to hear me without rearranging the point into one she could win.

“You’re right,” she said. “I should have passed the question on.”

I wanted to enjoy being right. Mostly I wanted not to lose the evening.

“I was frightened of her asking,” I said. “When you told me, I thought about how useful I could make myself to you without playing. I might have said yes for the wrong reason. That’s mine to manage.”

“I know how easily work can become a way of staying near someone.” She looked at me then. “I did it after you left Southmere. I told myself I needed the film when what I wanted was an hour with you.”

“You did ask me to come.”

“I got one thing right.”

The food cooled. Neither of us moved to clear it. Mara’s earlier mistake was real, and so was the care beneath it. I could not repair the first by pretending the second did not exist. I stood, reached across the table for her plate and asked, “Would you tell Jules I’ll answer her myself?”

“Yes. I’ll do it tonight.”

“No need for a speech about why.”

“There won’t be one.”

She picked up both glasses and followed me to the sink. My kitchen was too narrow for two people working side by side, so we took turns. She rinsed while I stacked, then we switched when I ran out of counter space. The open window let in cool air. We worked without speaking until the last pan was clean.

“I wanted to kiss you when I came in,” Mara said.

I nearly dropped the towel. “Before or after you saw the pasta?”

“Before. The pasta helped.”

“You’re telling me now because the argument’s over?”

“I’m telling you because I still want to. We don’t have to do it.”

The towel was damp in my hands. I could say yes to the kiss and no to her answering my work questions for me. The distinction mattered more than the timing.

“I want to,” I said. “I would like a moment to put this down first.”

She took one step back. I hung the towel over the oven door. When I turned, she was waiting where I could reach her without moving on my calf. I lifted a hand to her face and waited until she leaned into it. Her mouth met mine with a softness I had not expected from a woman whose voice could stop me at the net. I kissed her again because I wanted the second one, not because either of us had something to prove.

She was the one who drew back. I let her. We stood with the width of a clean sink between us, both of us breathing as if we had run for a short ball.

“We can stop here,” she said.

“We can. I’d like you to stay a while, if you’d like that too.”

“I would.”

She stayed for tea. I cut one of her lemons and put it in the cups. We sat on the floor because the chairs had become part of dinner and I wanted a different evening after it. Mara told me about her first doubles coach, a woman who had made her say “I don’t know” aloud before she was allowed to propose a plan. I told her about the first match Mum had watched after I moved to doubles, when she had brought a sign that read SASKIA and held it upside down.

“Did you tell her?” Mara asked.

“After the match. She said anyone who needed to read it didn’t know me.”

Mara smiled into her cup. I wanted her to meet Mum again when there was no score to settle. I didn’t say it yet. That was a future I could ask for when it had taken on the weight of a real week, rather than letting a kiss carry all of it tonight.

Before she left, Mara sent Jules a message asking her to contact me directly about the film. She showed me only the sentence she’d written; she did not ask me to approve it. When my phone lit a minute later, I set it face down.

“You don’t have to answer now,” Mara said.

“I know. I want to finish this evening first.”

She kissed me once at the door, after I had opened it. I could have asked her to stay longer. She had a morning practice, I had a morning’s paid work, and neither obligation had to become an excuse to run. I let her go because I wanted us both to come back by choice.