A hammering woke Cath from her sweet, sweet dreams, and she groaned. "What…"
"You're going to be late for work if you don't hurry up," Mary Ann called through her bedroom door. Cath lifted the corner of the pillow off her head long enough to check the time.
"It's only 7:15!"
"If you don't get up soon, we won't have time for breakfast. Especially not enough time to make those lemon-ricotta pancakes… I suppose I'll just have to eat all that extra lemon curd myself."
Cath bounced out of bed and hurled open the door. Mary Ann had barely processed the movement before Cath walloped her in the head with a pillow. Mary Ann threw up her hands and Cath grinned at her, swinging the pillow menacingly.
"That's what you get for threatening to eat my lemon curd."
Mary Ann sighed, trying to prod her hair back into its braid. "I get an extra pancake as recompense for that. I'm trying to look presentable, unlike someone." She gave Cath's bedhead curls and mismatched pajamas a pointed look.
Cath spun on her heel and tossed her pillow back on the bed. "If you get out the ingredients, I can be ready in five!" she called over her shoulder, and Mary Ann saluted.
"Will do!"
True to her word, Cath was out of the bathroom in four minutes and forty-three seconds, according to Mary Ann, and soon she was whirling around the kitchen, upt to her elbows in sugar and flour and lemon zest.
"You've gotten flour all over your shirt," Mary Ann reminded her as Cath flipped a pancake. She tested the spongy golden-brown texture with a finger and the corners of her eyes crinkled with pleasure. "Cath," Mary Ann repeated, a little louder, and Cath heaved a sigh.
"I'm getting it, I'm getting it," she grumbled, batting at her blouse with a towel. "Mother would be scandalized that I've gotten flour all over my work clothes."
Mary Ann snorted and spooned a dollop of lemon curd and fresh whipped cream onto her stack of pancakes. "That's what she gets for spending such a ridiculous amount on clothing," she muttered around her mouthful. She stabbed her fork in Cath's direction and swallowed. "But that doesn't mean you're allowed to go into the office looking like a wreck. We aren't college students anymore."
Cath lifted an eyebrow. "You never looked like a wreck, even when you were in college."
"That's because I was trying to look professional for the four jobs I was working." Mary Ann said it very matter-of-factly, but Cath felt a twinge of guilt anyway. She always tried to skirt around the fact that her parents had paid for her education while Mary Ann had been struggling to cover textbooks and housing deposits, but sometimes she still put her foot in her mouth.
Cath smeared lemon curd on her pancake and rolled it up like a burrito. She munched on her breakfast with one hand while she began rummaging through the fridge, which was stocked full of fun cheeses and fresh produce, bursting with colors and brightness. It made her happy just looking inside.
"You forgot you're meeting your mom for lunch today, didn't you?" Mary Ann pointed at the color-coded schedule on the wall, and Cath peered at her own red scrawl. To her disappointment, Mary Ann wasn't wrong. Cath stuffed another bite of pancake in her mouth, glowering, and Mary Ann hugged her from behind. "It'll be okay, Cath. Remember, she doesn't control you."
Cath sighed and rested her head back onto her roommate's shoulder. "I know she doesn't."
But the rest of the morning, while she was taking calls and sending emails, she thought she could taste the tang of her mother's perfume lurking behind the lingering flavor of the lemon curd. No matter how many bottles of her fruit-infused water she gulped, it wouldn't go away, and dread grew in the pit of her stomach. At 10:06, she wished lunch break would never come. At 10:08, she wished she could get it over with.
At noon, her phone lit up with a message from Mary Ann. I bought tiramisu ingredients for when you get home. They're waiting for you. Good luck!
Cath took a deep, steadying breath. Fortified by the thought of tiramisu, she left the office for lunch. Time to lunch with her mother.