Speechless(99)

                She’s only saying that to cheer me up, I know, but I’m still                     flattered. Lou has wide-set violet eyes, so light they’re almost translucent.                     Not like mine, which are a muddy-green, or maybe brown, never settling on one                     shade.

                “You get away with this no-talking thing. All you have to do is                     look at someone, and it’s all right there.” She waves a hand in the general                     vicinity of my eye area.

                I don’t know if I like the idea of that. Having everything I’m                     feeling written right on my face. It makes me feel too exposed.

                “So Dex wants to repaint,” she goes on, like it’s the natural                     flow of the conversation. “He gets like this sometimes. Last summer he did a                     surfer theme—he put surfboards up on the wall, and these glass bowls with shells                     on every table, like this is Southern California or something. Tacky as all                     get-out.”

                I laugh at the thought of it, and she smiles a little,                     surprised, maybe. I haven’t really laughed around her. Or anyone. It hasn’t been                     intentional; I just haven’t had any reason. Laughing isn’t the same as talking,                     really, so I’m safe. It’s not like anyone’s going to call foul. I make up the                     rules here.

                “Now he wants purple,” she scoffs. “Jesus Christ, I mean, purple? Ugh. I’m trying to talk him out of it. I’d ask                     you to help, but that wouldn’t really work, huh?” She quirks a grin at me and                     tosses the paper towel wad into the trash can.

                I’m feeling a lot better when I join Sam at the grill. He’s                     already laid out all the ingredients. He shows me how to drain the tuna using a                     colander (which, thanks to yesterday, I now know the location of), then mix it                     with other ingredients, sprinkle on cheese and pepper and green onions and this                     stuff he explains is called crème fraîche, which is sort of like mayonnaise but,                     he claims, tastes better. After that’s done, he stuffs the pita bread with the                     tuna and some avocado slices, butters the bread and slaps it on the grill.

                He lays out the whole process as he goes. It sounds more                     complicated than it looks. When he’s finished his, I do one of my own. Even                     under his instruction, it ends up less than perfect—one side is a little burned,                     and the other a little undercooked, and I used too much crème fraîche.