Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave XXXVI - "The Dardanelles"

Nobody said anything for a long while.

Nobody changed the channel; with empty eyes, they simply watched the static return to the postgame coverage of the Wampanoag game. The player did, in fact, hit that buzzer beater...but none of the kids watching in Audrey’s apartment felt particularly enthusiastic about it.

Finally, Reed reached up and changed the dial on the television; it now displayed a modern sitcom, The Last Family, produced in California but neutral enough to be broadcast in New England. The sitcom centered around the eponymous family, particularly Ted Last, who considered himself the last bastion of sanity in his family as his children grew up and his wife tried a laundry list of different hobbies and fads. It was quickly apparent that he was far from the sanest man in the family, and some of those sitcom jokes landed with Audrey, and then Reed pointed out how the son had the weirdest nose, and that was enough to get everyone talking again.

They were still kids, after all.

With the mood for a marathon back on, Audrey looked in her cabinet.

“Huh...” Audrey mumbled as she looked around. “We got no snacks, guys! What a tragedy!”

So, a few minutes later, Audrey and Reed headed down the steps of the apartment complex. Considering the curfew, they shouldn't have gone anywhere, but the two were young enough to still flaunt the law (but old enough to not flaunt the law beyond heading to the vending machines at the bottom of the apartment complex).

As they walked over, Audrey took a look at the glowing streetlamps of the apartment's courtyard and the lights from nearby buildings. Though she smiled at the sight, she had to bring her coat tighter around herself as she shivered. “You’re smart, wearing that heavy jacket around.”

Reed shrugged. She always wore her greatcoat anyway. “I try.”

Reed eyed Audrey. Audrey was the reason they were outside at the moment; Audrey was the host, so she should provided for everyone, right? Not having enough snacks beforehand demonstrated a serious lack of foresight, raid or no raid.

But still, when Audrey volunteered to go get more, Reed felt like going with her. Don’t get the wrong idea, it’s not like she was concerned about Audrey going off on her own at night during a curfew or anything like that. Reed just happened to have something on her mind, that’s all.

Nothing tsundere about it at all.

“Hey, just to clear something up,” Reed said, because she actually did have something on her mind.

“Ooh! I’m good at clearing things up!” Audrey answered.

“Yeah, I suppose you are.” Reed let out a long sigh. “If Esther’s your sister, why didn’t you punch out that New Yorker when we met that one time?”

“Huh?”

“Remember? The morning after the convenience store thing, after meeting with Stockham, we ran into Isaac and Alfie outside of his office. You acted real friendly with Alfie. But he tried to kidnap your sister. If someone tried to kidnap Bramble, I swear I’d give him the one-two. That means I’d punch him out real good.”

“What’s a Bramble?”

Reed realized she herself had a family member she never talked about – not that she talked about them a lot in the first place.

“Bramble’s my younger sister."

Audrey gasped. “Reed! You never mentioned a younger sibling!”

“It never came up in conversation.”

“That means you’re an older sister!” Audrey exclaimed. She grew a little more serious. “That means you have responsibilities.”

Reed shrugged. “I’m a very responsible person.”

“As an older sibling, you have to make sure your younger siblings can go as far in life as you can, if not farther!” The cheerfulness in Audrey's voice grew more reflective as she looked up at the twelve stars of Narragansett. “It’s something I’ve had to learn a few times.”

Reed supposed Audrey probably had some sort of backstory there, but more importantly-

“Don’t dodge the question,” Reed reminded her. “That makes me even more confused. That New Yorker, he tried to kidnap your sister. So why act all friendly with him?”

Audrey smiled as they arrived at the vending machine. “Do you remember the way Isaac introduced him? He corrected himself. He was gonna say New Yorker, but then he corrected himself to say new partner.”

“So?”

Audrey put a few quarters into the machine and reflected on that moment. “It means Isaac thought well enough of him to introduce him as an equal. And you know Isaac. If he thinks that way, then I trust him enough to treat Alfie the same way.”

Reed leaned her back against the machine and crossed her arms. “Well...you got a point. But I’d still kick the shit out of anyone who messed with Bramble. Not that I’ve ever had to, I guess." She glanced off to the side. "She was always real popular.”

Audrey handed over several snacks from the vending machine to Reed, then went to grab more.

Reed sighed, watching her breath trail away into the night sky. “That sure sounds like Isaac, though,” she supposed. “Talk about a nattering nabob of naivety.”

“...nabob?”

“Yeah, nabob. I don’t know what it is, but that’s the saying.”

“Who said that?”

Reed shrugged. “Someone did, I know that.”

Audrey smirked. “Speaking of Isaac, you jealous?”

“Jealous? Jealous of what?”

Audrey pointed at a particular window on the second floor, light flooding out from it. “He’s back in my apartment alone with Esther, you know.”

“And?”

Audrey smirked harder. “Do you think they’re getting it on?”

Reed laughed. “Isaac? Isaac getting it on? You think Isaac knows how to get it on?”

“Do you?”

Reed's experience with any sort of intimate relationship between man and woman was limited to a trunk hidden below her bed in her apartment - simply known to her as the Forbidden Zone - full of Californian R18+ tapes.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’d like to see.”

“I’d love to.”

Reed shooed her off. “Alright, enough. It’s bad enough you’re making me run errands on a Sunday night as it is. Sunday errands are a misnomer – that means it’s something that shouldn’t exist. Errands should be done at that sweet spot early on Saturday morning, between 11AM and ideally noon, but I’ll admit, occasionally there is a runover until 1 PM. But by 1 PM, you should be back home, and shouldn’t have to go on any sort of errands until after school on Monday, though I’d much rather do them on Tuesday. I already stay late on Tuesdays for the blueberry bread, though I suppose I don’t really do that anymore. But that’s how life goes. Blueberry bread one day, Sunday errands the next. At least we’re together though-”

Reed covered up that last part with a heavy cough.

“...anyway, in Japanimations, the girl always gets soda and shit for her friends on her own, but fortunately, New England is a bit more of a civilized place than that...”

Back at the apartment, Isaac yawned and stretched out on the couch. Esther sat next to him, a little hunched over, circling her thumbs around each other. She knew that when two people were together, they were supposed to talk, but what were you supposed to say? What were two people who don’t really know each other all that well supposed to talk about?

It was times like these that made Esther miss her spreadsheets and contingency plans. She did, in fact, have a subject she did want to talk about...but she had no idea how to bring it up.

Fortunately, Isaac took the initiative. “So, Esther, you watch any good movies lately? Of Limes and Lemons with Suga just came out, me and Reed are planning on watching it some time this week. We don’t have passes to the rest of the city, so we’ll have to watch it in a black-and-white theater here, but that’s alright. They’re cool, those funky films out of Berlin.”

Esther swallowed. “Um...no, I haven’t really seen any movies.”

“Oh. Any television shows?”

“...no...”

Isaac mulled it over. “Read any books?”

Esther sighed in relief. “Um, yes, I’ve read some books recently...”

“Nice! What kind of books?”

Esther supposed this would not be an appropriate place to discuss Marx’s Das Kapital and her thirty-two page commentary she wrote on it. “Um, well, you know...I like history books.”

Isaac nodded. “That sounds cool. They got a little book market here in the Pond, one of those underground type deals, and they got all sorts of amateur writing. Some of it's so good it doesn't even feel amateur. It’s amazing what a guy can do with a pencil and paper or even a typewriter if he can afford one. That’s all fantasy and sword and gun stuff type, though.”

Isaac tried to recall the history books he read. “We’ve had assignments in history class where we had to read about history, though I guess that's sort of obvious. And...well, sometimes I read them. I guess I know some stuff about recent history. Are you one of those people who like to read pre-Unleashing history?”

Esther nodded. “The old industrial era is my favorite. There was so much going on...and it reminds me a lot of what’s happening now.”

“I see.” Isaac got an idea. “Hey, tell me about industrial-era Italy. Gotta know about the homeland, after all. The only thing I know about Italy is that they tended to switch sides a lot.”

Esther let out a small giggle. “You’re not wrong...industrial Italy, they weren’t as strong compared with the other countries...there was a big divide between north and south, even after the unification...”

“Unification?” Isaac asked. “You mean...Italy was like us right now? How all the former American states are their own countries now?”

“Um...yes, they were like us...in the middle of the 1800s, all the kingdoms and duchies and cities all unified after being separate since the city-state era, even longer...”

“City-state era?”

“Um, during the Renaissance, there were lots of countries in Italy...” Esther went deep into thought. “Well, perhaps country isn’t the right time...more like separate political entities...the Kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the Florentine Republic which really wasn’t a republic by the end...and then the French and Spanish got involved...there were the Papal states as well...”

“Papal States?”

“The Pope had his own little political entity, too...” Still lost in thought, Esther smiled to herself as she recalled moments studying in her library. “Pope Julius II even led his armies in battle...”

Isaac whistled and put his feet on the coffee table. “Wow, battle popes and all...and that’s not even the industrial era!”

“Everything’s connected...that’s why I like history,” Esther said. “You can always link something to something else...though I guess you can really do that with anything, history or not...but as for the industrial era...”

Isaac listened intently as Esther, lights in her eyes, spoke calmly and fluidly of Italian colonial campaigns in Africa, one which failed against the Ethiopians, one which succeeded against the Ottomans. She described how, where Roman triremes once treaded, Italian cruisers now steamed across the Mediterranean, bombarding the Dardanelles (Isaac actually knew where that is thanks to his victory in the geography contest in elementary school), how everyone wanted to pick apart the Ottomans, but how nobody wanted it to collapse, how Italy’s war and the idea of a nation-state exemplified by Italian unification contributed to wars in the Balkans, and how that all contributed to a certain man shooting a certain archduke on a certain day.

Isaac enjoyed hearing someone speak so passionately about something. “You should do one of those documentaries,” he told her. “How they interview an expert on what they’re covering.”

Esther grew a little red. “Um, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert...I guess I know some things, though...”

Isaac got another idea. “I’m gonna read a book,” he declared. “From front to end. A book about Italy. That’ll be a fun project. You got any recommendations?”

Esther could list about ten, but she supposed Isaac wouldn’t be interested in an in-depth history of the Medici-Papal disputes about handling the church’s salt taxes. “Um...I have some general books on Italy’s history, if you’d like...I could, um, bring it to you...”

“Sure! Next time you come around here.”

Esther sighed in relief, thankful for Isaac giving her an opening to transition to what she really wanted to talk about.

“Um, Isaac, speaking of coming around here...I wanted to thank you for earlier today.”

“Earlier today? All I did was beat up a microwave.”

“Um, you know, a little before that. The whole thing with Audrey and I.” Esther thought back to a few hours ago, regret turning into relief that things seemed to work out well. “That whole conversation we had on the balcony, it helped me realize some things...you got me to my feet again...so thanks.”

“Ah, I didn’t do anything,” Isaac simply said. “I just said what I thought should be said. You’re the one who stood up. And you’re the one who got the Staties to stand down. And you’re the one who patched things up with Audrey. Maybe I just helped a little along the way.”

Esther supposed he had a point. “Still though, thanks...you’ve helped me a lot this semester. When you saved me from the New Yorker...now with Audrey...”

Esther, of course, was grateful Isaac saved her that day after school. But that feeling, that was just being thankful. Her own work and anxieties kept her from seeing him after that, something she always regretted.

Seeing him here now, though, Esther felt something rise inside her. Before today, his face always seemed a little blurred in her mind, the face of him standing in the doorway, ready to confront the spy. She could see him clearly now though, the way he kept his head up, and, sure, Esther wouldn’t call him ugly, but she looked at something beyond his appearance, the way he spoke kindly to her, the way he offered his hand to her, that feeling when she took it...

Esther didn’t know what this feeling was called. She circled her thumbs over each other again. “Um, Isaac...do you have a girlfriend?”

Esther's sudden choking and coughing was enough to startle Isaac.

“You alright?” he asked.

Esther raised a hand to show she was alright and brought her coughing under control.

Isaac chuckled. “Nah. Do you?”

Esther shook her head. “No, no girlfriend...” She coughed violently again. “Boyfriend, boyfriend, I mean...”

“Me neither.” Isaac grabbed the remote with a grin. “Knowing Audrey and Reed, they’ll be gone for a while. I can put on the educational channel or something like that if you want. I’m in the mood to learn, too.”

Esther smiled.

“That’d be great.”