Back To U

chapter Three

A pinch of cinnamon improves French toast.





"Is it going to do something?"

Gwen jumped, nearly knocking the French toast off her tray. "Oh." She tried to smile at Ty, but his face was very distracting.

"So, what’s up with the French toast?" He tipped his head to the nearest table, set his tray down and waited, too polite to laugh, she decided, even though she must look terribly uncomfortable.

She felt herself blush but sat down anyway. "It didn’t have any cinnamon." She held up her hand. "Long story. I’m just kind of a food person."

Ty motioned to the food on his tray. "I’m sorry."

She cataloged the scrambled eggs, more chopped up omelet than anything, and the sheen of oil on the previously frozen hash browns. "Well, it’s hard to cook for so many people and have it be complex."

"Or good."

Gwen laughed. "Or good. They call it institutional food for a reason."

"Do you know the arts building?"

"I don’t think so."

"You should check it out. It’s just north of the SUB." He stopped. "The Student Union Building."

"That, I remember."

"You’ve been here before."

Gwen nodded and began to eat her rapidly cooling breakfast. Heat lamps seemed to tan the outside but not contribute that much heat. She tried to focus on that but felt Ty watching her, waiting to see if she would say any more. Hearing him drinking his coffee with patience, she finally looked up.

He smiled. "You have a story to tell, Gwen Melissa."

She felt the quick pull of tears she stopped with a deep breath. "I’m almost forty, and I don’t have much of a story."

But he just waited and she sensed he could do that a long time. In addition to looking really pretty, he was also very good at waiting people out.

She shrugged. "My story is I’ve done everything I thought I was supposed to do." Checking her watch, she felt relieved that she’d have to run off to psychology.

Ty sat back in his chair, studied her until she thought she had something on her face. "Then your story is just beginning."





Psychology II was so enormous, a couple hundred students in the lecture hall, that she hadn’t felt odd or old or old and odd at all. There’d been a few folks who were lots odder and a few even older than she was. So who would even notice her? She’d just go to class, study, pass, and voila a two-year degree with her name on it. And like any to-do list, and granted hers was shorter than it had ever been in her life, but like any list, it just took knocking off that first item to really get things, unnamed and unknown, into order.

Yeah, her life sucked, but she wasn’t going to give it a second’s thought, just go to the SUB and get her textbook. And she’d sit for a while in the atrium. She loved the huge room, dotted with tables and plants. She’d crack open her new psychology book and use a highlighter. A highlighter would really help her. It would illuminate everything. Later, she’d put it under her pillow and in her dreams all her questions would be answered. School supplies would be her mid-life band aid.





She got in line to pay for her two dollar cup of marginal coffee at the convenience store that had always been in the SUB and had always overcharged. She felt almost giddy with her textbook, notebook, pens, pencils, thesaurus, dictionary, postcards she had no idea who she’d send to, and Belmar University travel mug.

Three checkers made quick work of the lines, and Gwen stepped out into the atrium and felt the cup leave her grip as easily as she was taken back the twenty years since she'd last seen him.

Green eyes. His hair was the same dark blond, and he had a camera in his hand. In broken-in khakis and a new t-shirt, he looked like himself, just more himself with the passage of time. When he noticed her, she held her breath, afraid that somehow he wouldn’t know her. The way he froze for a moment then moved toward her without the ease she’d seen, made her understand he did.

He stood further away than a friend would, further away than even a stranger would. "Gwen."

Not knowing what to say, she just nodded once, felt panic and sadness all mixed together.

He studied her as if looking for a clue why she’d appeared, and she regretted the bag on her shoulder, Missy's red leather student one. It might make it difficult to get out of the truth. Then she registered the heat and glanced at the floor where her new travel mug sat split in half. A rivulet of coffee pooled in the low spot at her feet. Yep, that would be her, the low spot.

Seeing the trajectory of the spill, she might have felt lucky that most of it had missed her except that after twenty years… she looked up, shook her head, "Max." She tried for casual. "I imagined when I saw you again, I’d be standing in a cup of coffee."

He just watched her, and she didn’t think he was going to say anything, but then he raised his camera, obscuring his eyes, and took a shot of her sandals. He lowered the camera and held it against his chest. "I imagined I’d never see you again."

She watched him walk away again, this time down the length of the atrium. When she felt herself shake, she knew it was for the best that she hadn’t gotten any of the caffeine inside her. She hoped she wasn’t taking it in through the soles of her feet. Stepping away just in case, she looked back to where Max had stood the moment she’d seen him again. A new information kiosk curved against the back wall. Its copper letters were shiny against the dark wood and spelled out The Source.





He sat at his desk, glad he’d shut the door. He was fine, hell, why wouldn’t he be? He’d been shot at once and had gone on to get some great pictures. Sure, the shooter had been an old Sicilian woman he'd surprised by checking into his room early, but cleaning women had good aim, pretty good aim, fair aim. He’d been fine after that bullet missed him.

This was nothing. He just needed a minute because he'd been genuinely surprised, that’s all. She took him by surprise. He set the camera down, already getting back to business. That’s as much as he was going to think about her. He slid open the panel on the side and tried to get the memory card out. He’d pushed his thumbnail a million times on the thin blue edge of it and watched it slide out enough to grab, but he couldn’t get it to budge. He lifted both hands from the camera, took a deep breath, and left it in the middle of his desk.

Getting up, he shoved a couple of boxes out of his way until he found the right one. He pulled the strip of masking tape off and opened the dog-eared cardboard flaps. He reached in for the dark leather case, the good heft of his first camera. He ignored the notebook beneath it, slid the box over with his foot, and set out to find some film.





Max's Life - September 3rd, 1989 -Saturday



"Your mom called and said your Dad says you gotta be at dinner Sunday."

"Shit." Max set his camera on the built-in desk and slumped into the chair, his legs sticking out in front of him. His roommate turned back to his economics textbook, having delivered the message and all the responsibilities that went with it. Justin usually studied in the library. It was weird to come back from shooting some hoops, shooting some pictures, and remember he even had a roommate.

"Shit." Rob echoed Max and tossed a basketball in the air over and over, checking out the book over Justin’s shoulder. "It's Saturday, ya know, and what are you, some freakin' secretary? You tell the parents, he’s not here. You don’t take a goddamn message. Max, you gotta move in with me." He missed the ball, and it hit Max in the toe, and skidded under the nearest bed.

"Yeah." Max considered his options. He could just not show up for dinner. They'd figure it out, though, and his old man would track him down. His dad would get him coming out of a class or worse, not coming out of a class he was scheduled to come out of. F*ck. He knew it was a mistake to go to Belmar, but it was the only place they'd pay for. He'd mowed lawns, had a paper route one year. At seventeen he'd made really good money for three months in construction, but he wouldn't have had enough for college unless he'd taken at least a year off. So there he was, screwed at Belmar, ordered home for dinner. Dress pants for Christ sake. Dress pants and disapproval.

"Oh," Justin looked up from his book, "and your mom said you could bring somebody."

"Why would I bring…"

"Like a date. She said like a date. She asked me if you were seeing anybody. She said it like that. Seeing anybody."

Rob dug under the bed for the ball. "Shit."

Justin ignored him. "I told your mom I didn't know."

Max felt a jolt of relief. There wasn’t anything to keep from his parents yet, but it was good to not tell them things right up front. "Good. God. Good."

Rob had the ball again, shot it at the garbage can, and knocked it over with a crash. "We are single men."

Max needed to leave the guy on the court. He wasn’t an inside guy. "Yeah." Hell. It would be hell to bring a girl home. He'd gotten through four years of high school without once taking a girl there. He wasn't going to start up his mother's ridiculous you'll find an appropriate girl thing or his father's grow up, get a degree, get a real job bullshit either.

"The first time I took my girlfriend home to meet my parents…" Justin smiled at the framed photo of the girl Max had heard more about than he wanted to hear about anyone ever. "They talked to her the whole dinner. I could have left, and they wouldn't have noticed. They love Jen-Jen as much as I do."

Rob lifted his hand, the basketball palmed, and gave Max a what the f*ck? face. Max shook it off. It was funny, but Justin, besides the Jen-Jen thing, was a great roommate and gone nearly every weekend to his girl’s college two hours away. Plus, he didn't leave tread-marked briefs around, and he didn't drink Max's beer the one time he’d managed to get some. And he was brilliant… "A date to dinner!"

"Yeah." Rob agreed. "I see where you’re goin', Max. After Mom's mashed potatoes and Dad's, what does your dad do? the girl’s gonna be an easy target."

"Not sex."

Rob gave a perfect match of his first what the f*ck?

"I’m not taking a girl, girl. It's a decoy that's a girl. They'll pay attention to her, not me."

"Then you…" Rob raised an imaginary rifle, "nail her."

Max and Justin looked at each other, but then Justin seemed to shrug in agreement. "My dad says there are girls you take home to meet your mom, and there are girls you..." he cleared his throat.

"Pizza and a six pack girls." Rob shot for the garbage can again and the basket was as loud as the miss had been. He grinned. "You f*ck ‘em and then you wish they'd turn into pizza and a six pack."

Max sighed. "Yeah, I think that’s exactly what Justin’s dad said."

Rob nodded and bounced the ball with enthusiasm, but Justin looked a little pissed. "Most girls… some girls out there are so… everything. They're the girl you want your mom to meet, and they're the girl you want to see naked every minute of every day for the rest of your life."

Rob stopped dribbling.

Max nodded towards Justin. "He is the only one getting it regularly. He may know more than you think he does."

Rob bounced the ball again. "Shit."

"Alright." Max figured he had a day. One day before the required homecoming, and he needed a girl, a girl to meet the folks. He considered the ones he knew from the dorm, from the first day of classes. There were some hard classes where the smart, focused girls sat in the front row, knocking down the credits before they sailed on to law school. He could ask one of those, but the one that came to mind was the girl from the bar. The screw that hadn't been a screw after all.

She'd taken him by surprise for a minute when she'd licked it. God, she'd just lapped at it, and he'd gone hard instantly. But she had nice girl eyes and dressed like a nice girl and the tongue had to have been from the empty drink glasses all over the table. Even nice girls could loosen up with enough liquor. Didn't guys count on that? He'd always had good enough luck to talk a sober girl into at least a little something. Yeah. Screw girl would be perfect. Smart. Even half-drunk he could tell that. And nice. She'd save his ass Sunday night.





Back to U…



The crush of students on the sidewalk should have made her uncomfortable. What was she doing among the mostly young who all seemed to know where they were going? But she couldn't stop seeing Max’s face, not just the aching familiarity of it even twenty years later, but the expression, something she hadn’t seen him wear before. He’d been the one to leave first. It seemed unlikely there was much pain for him. Maybe there had been. She did and didn't want to think so. His expression was probably just the smugness of someone who’d predicted something accurately. Maybe he'd known all along that she’d be a woman who’d take the path of least resistance right into the middle of her life.

The sculpture stopped her. She stood and looked up at all ten feet of it. God it was still so ugly. The seventies might not have been the best decade to commission public art. The squid-like shape had begun to oxidize the first time she'd been on campus. According to the artist, it was supposed to do that. The metal lump also took up a big chunk of real estate, and the cement base it rested on was streaked with dried rust. The artist was probably still trying to defend himself. "You were a risk taker. What good did that do you?"

She realized she'd spoken out loud when several students skirted around her as they would any potentially crazy person on campus, so she tried to move into the flow of foot traffic. On the other side of the squid, she spotted a sign for the arts building. That explained how the sculpture found a home. Artists would have a higher tolerance, a kindness, she supposed, for even failed attempts. And Ty had suggested she check the building out, hadn't he? Nice Ty. Unlike Max, Ty gave her the friendly face. But in Ty’s case no one had bailed on anyone yet, had they? She headed into the arts building before she could do anything else that might alert campus security.





The directory listed exactly what she’d expected: art studios, classrooms, some professors’ offices, the kiln, the black box theater. What had Ty, with such little knowledge of her, none really, thought she'd want to see? She headed down the hallway and reached a double door at the end of the building. An exit, she assumed, and pushed the bar, stepping into a newly constructed addition. The carpet was installed but still smelled new and gluey. The baseboards were piled to the side and there were several empty classrooms. She stepped around a stack of boxes in front of what looked like a small office and then opened a second set of doors to stainless steel as far as the eye could see. The kitchen was immense. To her right, a wall of gas burners with shiny hoods sported sprinkler heads. To the left stood a dozen long metal tables and several ovens, or variations of ovens, stacked at the end of the gas tops. At the back there were walk-in coolers and closed pantries.

Stepping in, she realized more kitchen unfolded behind the row of burners. She took a right, passed a dish room with two spray nozzles hung from the ceiling but no pots and pans in sight. She peeked around the corner at more tables, a couple of them topped with marble, and a long line of labeled bins. In front of them rested stacks of giant flour bags. She leaned over the top one, fifty pounds. That was inspiring, but she just didn't feel the usual tug to dig in. The whole kitchen seemed more than just newly moved into. It seemed a bit soul-less.

The whoosh of doors made her jump like she'd broken into the place. Gathering herself, she went back to the main kitchen. If the woman was surprised to see anyone there, she didn't show it, but Gwen waved an apology. "I was just wandering around the building. I didn't know this was here."

"New program." The woman, older by ten or fifteen years, didn't seem like she wanted to chat.

"Oh, good. Well, I'll be going."

"I suppose you want a tour."

"No, really, I'm fine." Gwen decided she'd seen everything she needed to.

"It's not right, is it?"

"Right?"

The woman opened her hand to indicate the room.

"Oh. Well, I don't know anything about commercial kitchens or--"

"A kitchen's a kitchen. Cooking is cooking. And you're wondering where the feel of it is, aren't you?"

"Yes." Gwen stepped closer. "I'm Gwen."

"Deb. I'm only the instructor in this place." She looked around, a little disgusted, Gwen thought. "At the last minute they brought in an international chef to direct the first year of the program. Culinary Arts sounds like it's in need of somebody French and lots of metal."

Gwen tried not to smile. Deb had the kind of cranky nature that usually made her run the other way, but on her it was oddly appealing. Gwen watched her grab a white chef’s coat off a peg. "You busy?"

Gwen shook her head. "You have no idea."

Deb shrugged. "Oh well."

Gwen laughed. "I have nothing to do. Nothing."

Deb jerked her thumb to the nearest pantry. "Gotta test a recipe. You up for being a sous?"

"Yes. Yes, I am." A woman like Deb wouldn't say anything to that, of course, but Gwen noted that she did almost smile. Maybe the kitchen felt less soul-less with two in it. "You ought to know right up front, though... I don't know what a sous is."





Who sang what the world needs now is love sweet love? Whoever they were, they were wrong. Dead wrong. Love could and would disappoint anyone anytime. But shallots sautéing in a stick of butter could bring peace, joy, and cure world hunger. Literally.

Gwen watched the pink-striped skin of the small onions begin to brown in the heat, the delicious bits sticking to the bottom of the pan ready to be deglazed with the white wine in the cup beside her. At first she'd been alarmed when Deb unleashed the wine from a giant spigot. A bladder of wine dispensed from a cooler couldn't be good. Deb assured her that the program bought the best wine it could, but to not, for God's sake, drink any of it. No temptation there. Although, as a college student, she may need to lower some of the standards she'd had when she was comfortably middle class with Steve. That was another song wasn't it? Stuck in the middle with you?

Deb tossed a little coarse salt into the pan, and Gwen felt herself observed as she sautéed. She tried not to hold her breath while she waited, unsure why it even mattered to her if the teacher gave her a gold star for assisting. Maybe she just needed one for something. Finally Deb nodded. "You know what you're doing."

Gwen felt a rush at the compliment, relieved that someone thought she’d done something well. "It's just a hobby of mine."

"You love something it shows. Hobby, job, makes no never mind."

Was that true? She’d been a volunteer everything for so many years, nothing she did seemed like it could really count. But when it came to cooking, Deb’s comment felt true. "Okay. Thank you."

"You're happier now than when you started. That's the marker. Some people cook to live. Some people live to cook."

Gwen hadn't noticed that her shoulders were lower, her breathing more even. She felt more relaxed than she’d been maybe since the crying jag in her own kitchen when things really fell apart.

"First year students have the mornings in here. You’re welcome anytime. Keep you busy."

Gwen considered that busy was good. She only needed the one psychology class, but maybe she could fill the rest of her time being comfortable in the kitchen. "It is cheaper than therapy."

Deb’s short, gruff laugh echoed in the kitchen. "Works better too."





Gwen rounded the coffee urn with her tray of food and nearly dropped it. Jameson, the old man of the cafeteria. He stood a few feet away, looking as old as she’d remembered him but not any older, and scowling at a group of students in the dish line who were being ordered to scrape their plates to his specifications. He’d not seen her, thank god. She smiled at her own ridiculous thought that he could possibly recognize a thirty-nine-year-old woman from an erased memory of her at eighteen. Two decades had to be the visual equivalent of being in the witness protection program.

The old man squinted at her. "Ciarrochi."

She hoped he’d missed her surprised expression quickly followed by a full-body cringe. She was a grown woman for cripe’s sake. She’d managed childbirth and abandonment and had once even hosted a birthday party with a bunch of three-year-olds and a pony. She could handle a hundred-year-old crank. "Hello, Mr. Jameson."

"Ciarrochi, what are you doing in my cafeteria?"

She smiled her thanks for asking smile even though he sounded more accusatory than inviting. "Well, I’m finishing my Associate’s degree." When he just continued to squint at her, she felt the need to keep talking. "I think I’m going to take a culinary arts class." Another minute of him staring at her, and she’d be confessing to crimes she hadn’t committed, yet.

"Culinary arts, my hiney." He pointed a finger at her like she was still a teenager, and he was firing her again. "Stay out of my kitchen with your arts. We cook around here." His attention turned to a worker with a bucket of bleach water and a rag at a nearby table. The worker’s baseball cap was turned backwards and Jameson stalked off to, no doubt, make it right by spinning the boy’s head around on his neck.

Gwen felt the edge of anger, a sharp spark she’d not possessed in a long time. Who the hell did he think he was, making everyone’s life miserable? Being ungrateful for the labor and, yes, cinnamon innovations of kind and giving people around him? After all she’d done, after all the hard work, and the complete dedication of years and years… "When you turn a-hundred-and-one, I will not rent a pony for your birthday!"

He didn’t even turn around, the deaf old coot. Yeah, coot, she liked that. No more Ms. Nice Guy, giving him the benefit of the doubt like she had when she was younger. She’d thought then that maybe he was terminally ill, but he was really just terminally sour.

She moved to the far side of the cafeteria before sitting down outside of his visual zone. Her lunch, a grilled cheese sandwich and coleslaw, needed so many things she wanted to make a grocery list. Dijon inside the sandwich, just a titch before grilling. And why make pale, anemic coleslaw when you could use purple cabbage, balsamic vinegar, and brown sugar for a rich, caramelly change? She’d made up that particular combination when she and Steve had first been married. Not having much money could really be an inspiration for a cook, and she had been inspired, hadn’t she?

She’d fed them well, made their first rental comfortable if not beautiful. Then they’d lucked into his family’s house, his mother letting them buy it from her when she’d moved south to be closer to her daughter and the sun. If Gwen felt the anger over Old Man Jameson spread to Steve it was only because Steve deserved it for ruining all that she’d built. He couldn’t question her devotion and dedication because it was his that had faltered. She’d done her part, and he’d tossed her aside like she was anemic coleslaw.





Earlier she’d had to go back to the bookstore since adding another class necessitated more supplies. Sure, she might have glanced around the SUB a couple of times in case he was there again. But he wouldn’t be. First, he’d obviously just been visiting and second, it was a big campus. There were at least nine, ten thousand students. Even if he were there… and why would a photo journalist even be in the United States? He wouldn’t be popping up and saying howdy after he’d walked off so deliberately, twice.

So she’d let the time in the bookstore be like a nice hot bath, a chance to indulge herself. And indulge was accurate because the textbook, baking kit, knife kit, and uniform, along with the extra class registration, took her spending money for the entire semester. She was lucky, despite Jameson, to have her cafeteria card or she’d certainly go hungry. She’d officially joined the rest of the poor student population. Although, to be fair, she was a home-owner and did have access to the rest of her daughter’s college fund. She’d heard one guy in the bookstore complain about a two-hundred dollar textbook and that was real suffering. He’d claimed the university had not only stuck it to him but broken it off. She would have given him a look of maternal disapproval in her own living room, but there it was both funny and true.

She walked into the arts building and down the hall with her new purchases in a bag held close to her chest. Inside were the houndstooth pants in the black and white pattern worn by chefs all over the world, and a skull cap. She’d never worn one of those before. It had been awkward putting the black thing over her curls when she’d tried it on in the dorm. She felt like she ought to straddle a Harley and ride off into the sunset. But her favorite, the item she’d never thought she’d have a chance to wear, had to be the white, long-sleeved chef’s coat.

Trying it on in her room, she'd kept checking herself out in the full length mirror on the closet door. That woman, the one in the checked pants and official jacket, that woman had a place to belong, a job to do, a title after her name that said she could accomplish something. And even more importantly, what she could accomplish was something anyone would recognize and appreciate.

She entered the kitchen and spotted more than a dozen first year students, many of them also gripping bags. They were lost too. Sure, they were eighteen and were supposed to be lost, but it felt good to fit in somewhere.

Deb stepped out of the dish room and eyed the bunch of them. They stood silently, and she hooked her thumb toward the entrance. "Classroom’s out there. Morning lecture, afternoon kitchen on Tuesdays and Thursdays." They headed out, and Gwen heard the bags crinkle along with the occasional clink of a baking or knife kit already broken into and let loose. She brought up the rear, and Deb stopped her with a head jerk. "Frame, wipe that grin off your face."

Gwen felt the corners of her mouth rise higher, and she hadn’t even realized she’d been smiling. "Ciarrochi. The name’s Ciarrochi."

Deb’s mouth quirked up on one side. "Well, hell, that explains it. Got a damn cookin’ Italian in my kitchen."

Gwen sighed, felt the pleasure of it as her rib cage rose and fell. "Yes, yes you do."





By Friday she’d gone from amazed at what she already knew to a little bored at another demonstration on how to hold a knife. A couple of the students still hadn’t gotten it even after a week. She’d helped Deb out when one of them needed some encouragement to overcome the fear of cutting cinnamon roll dough the wrong thickness. She’d also saved a couple batches of rolls from over-cooking and left a perfect specimen outside Annie’s door. Somebody needed to feed that girl. She’d even gone in early to help set up workstations so everyone had what they needed before they began. Otherwise there was chaos and, once, fire. Mise en Place. Everything in its place.

Deb had suggested to her that her place was not in the first year kitchen, but it felt so comfortable, she just wanted to enjoy the semester in it. Although, even staying a couple of hours after the session couldn’t prevent her from running out of things to help with. Four o’clock and she reluctantly hung her coat on its peg and headed out of the culinary arts wing. What exactly was she going to do for the whole entire weekend?

She stepped out into the building’s lobby and spotted a row of photos displayed along the right corridor. They were all in bright colors but one. She moved closer to the eight by ten black and white, framed beautifully in black wood with two shades of cream matting. Her sandals. Her feet. A pool of coffee that would have been brown in a color print but was a clear liquid captured by this developer. The title, beautifully mounted beside it, read Housebroken.

In the well-traveled hallway, she was immortalized in a puddle of urine. If he’d known she had also been house broken it would be cruel, but instead it was just a kind of gotcha. Twenty years ago she’d been a wreck about leaving Belmar, leaving Max. But she’d been right about him. He wouldn’t have been suitable in any way. What kind of irresponsible human being took such a mean-spirited photo and put it in a public hallway? His photos had always been a little dark, but this was deliberately misleading and… what was it even doing there?

The display ran the entire floor, broken up occasionally by office doors. She made it to the third one before she spotted his name. Max Holter, Visiting Professor.

She heard a sound, bolted down the hallway, and shot out of the building before she even had a thought. Standing on the sidewalk, she tried to catch her breath and cursed herself for running away. He’d have something unflattering to say about that, no doubt. It just really pissed her off that he thought he was getting away with something when she knew about the picture, but he just didn’t know she knew.

Hell, when she left the kitchen after a week of knowing something she didn’t know she knew, she’d been really happy. She might need more oxygen, but she wanted to storm right back in there and tell him he hadn’t gotten away with anything. Him not knowing she knew what she knew was going to ruin her whole damn weekend.

"Gwen."

She jumped, let out a breath when she saw Deb. But Deb just tilted her head and narrowed her eyes like she was trying to decide how unhinged unhinged could be. "You only have a grip in the kitchen?"

Gwen might have laughed under other circumstances, but she’d begun to think that was a distinct possibility. She nodded. It was true. She really did have a good grip on herself when she was cooking. Why couldn’t she stay in the university kitchen forever?

Deb headed down the sidewalk. "Can you come by the kitchen Monday?"

She considered her schedule, an hour of psychology in a sea of nothing. Maybe there was more she could help out with in the kitchen. "Yeah."

"Good, I’ll see you then."