On Saturday, after canceling her weekly brunch tradition with Suki, Katara sat at the old dining room table she and her brother shared. It was the only relic in their otherwise new apartment, a scavenger find back when Sokka was living alone. Katara had saved the painter from a would-be myriad of mismatched furniture, pieces he'd curated during his college days. Prior to dropping out, he'd comb the dormitories of seniors, the apartments of graduate students, looking for freebies, for steals. A blender here for mixing paint, a set of old combs for assaulting a canvas. When Katara moved in, she got rid of his bright pink sofa, the tweed futon, the ottoman with the missing peg leg, embroidered to resemble a pirate flag. But the oak table, Sokka insisted on keeping. It was where he painted his smaller canvas pieces. Plus, he argued, Katara could do her work there. The chairs were sturdy and comfortable - not a common combination - and besides, "It's not like we're hosting dinner parties here ever." It was true. They had their grandmother's old house in the north for that, ornate enough to host dozens.
Over coffee now, Katara tried to feel some iota of guilt for firing Meng, but found she could muster none. The prospect of no longer seeing her at work was a comforting one. She actually felt worse for canceling plans with Suki. Saturday brunch had been a tradition since Suki'd got the job at Gaoxing Lunwen about four years ago. Katara stood when she heard a rattle at the door.
"Yoo-hoo! O Sacred Virgin Water Tribe!" Suki had already made her way to the kitchen, cradling two mason jars with homemade mimosas and a full burlap bag.
"How many times do I have to tell you," Katara said by way of greeting, kissing the woman on the cheek. "That key's for emergencies. And I'm not a virgin - much less sacred."
"I would disagree with the latter." She dropped the goods on the dining room table. Mimosa jars, a baguette, pate, brie, and jam. Plastic tupperware with boiled eggs and olives inside. A container of fresh berries in rich white cream. Olive oil in disposable packets and a few printed picnic napkins.
"Suki! What's all of this?"
"Our brunch, mon cherie," Suki called from the kitchen. "When you chickened out, I had to bring it to you. Where are your butterknives?"
"They're hanging in a gallery somewhere." A month ago, Sokka had welded all the butterknives together to resemble an imploding bell. Katara had yet to replace them. "The steak knives are in the drawer near the sink."
Suki cut the bread and scooped the brie from its wheel, opened the jam and the jars of mimosas. Katara could hear a teapot start to bubble on the stove. Suki sat across from her, purred as she bit into a slice of loaded baguette. Wiping the crumbs from her mouth and spilling some when she spoke, she said, appropriately, "OK. Spill."
"Can we give the journalist in you a break?" Katara picked at her plate without interest. The gesture was sweet; Suki never took no for an answer, one of the reasons she and Sokka had survived so many fights. But Katara had hoped for a morning alone to process the week, and she felt uneasy with Suki here. She was too insightful, too clever. She could uncover anything, pull it from its roots before it ever became news. It was not like confiding in Sokka, who half-listened and half-assed half-listening. In the mornings, she'd air her grievances as the coffee brewed and he'd grumble in agreement, unable to ignore her in the small apartment space, forgetting all that she'd recited immediately.
"You can't finally fire that little pudgy nightmare without questions." Suki licked her fingers and pressed them to the loose morsels on her plate. "Even Head Fossil was surprised. And he doesn't have much of those left." She imitated Gyatso's worried brows and solemn pursed lips. "He walked in there like, 'Has anyone seen the secretary, at all?' And Sen was like, 'Katara fired her!' His eyes went up a whole millimeter, like this." Suki trembled an eyebrow in jest. "You made headlines, woman."
Katara, unfazed, grinned at the impression and sipped from her mimosa jar. "It was overdue."
"Stone cold!" Suki hooted. "Who knew you had it in you?"
"What," Katara laughed. "It's true. What was she adding to the office? Honestly? Absolutely nothing. Besides," she concluded, finishing off her icy drink, "it falls under my jurisdiction. Aang told me so himself after he memorized all of our jobs like a robot."
At the mention of the successor's name, Suki's eyes widened and found Katara's. They held them there, less than a second, just long enough to watch the blue gaze dart back to the table and observe the clean borders of her untouched plate. She said, her voice clear and definite though she was not sure what she was asking, "You did it for him?"
"He didn't tell me to do it. That's not what I meant."
"I know he didn't tell you to." Suki opened a packet of olive oil and smothered it on another slice of bread. She called after Katara, who had opportunely ran into the kitchen to tend to the thinly whistling kettle, "Then what do you mean?"
"I just mean he knows our jobs really well, and when I called him into my office to finish his citizenship stuff, he reminded me that I'm her boss, not Gyatso. No directly, at least. I mean" — she had appeared in the doorway now, two mugs of steaming chai in her hands; she leaned her weight in the frame connecting the kitchen to the dining space and continued — "I love the man. He knows it. Had I been born two hundred years earlier, we might have been lovers." Suki snapped in appreciation as Katara set down her tea. "But he doesn't have any balls. No initiative. He keeps things the old way. No computers in the office except for that monster in the printing hall. No networks, no cellphones at work. We still use an espresso machine from before the Great War. It doesn't make any sense. And now with Aang…"
She was bringing him up again, she knew, a dangerous thing to do with Suki, who had already picked up on it. Each time she said Aang's name, Suki's eyes caught hers, darting by just quickly enough to notice any drift in Katara's demeanor. Unbeknownst to Katara, Suki was already aware of the affair - or, at least, she could smell the inklings of it. Each time, Aang's name was accompanied by a small, private smile - nothing obtuse, nothing pushy. She said his name now ready to rant, to argue about his addition as successor just because he was part of the old nation of Air Nomads, another grievance about Gyatso's obsession with all things not of this modern world. But she paused. She paused just long enough to sip the boiling chai and imagine him, taste him in her memory or imagine tasting him now. And Suki saw it, and said nothing, as she continued.
"He brings this twenty-nothing year old out of the blue, ties a tie around his neck and asks him to spread his legs and sit like a man. There are over seventy people working for him, and I'll be damned if he has a clue."
"You sound like you've talked to him," Suki suggested, wedging a toothpick between incisors. "He might be more qualified than you think."
"He isn't," she asserted, her certainty giving her away.
"He has you, though," Suki said, trying to stay light. "You could help him run things. Who knows," she shrugged. "It might end up being too much for the poor wittle baby. Then when he goes home crying, you'll be here to pick up where he left off."
Katara was silent; she hadn't considered the probability of Aang leaving, and Suki noted the instant drop in her face - however brief - despite the fact that the resulting disappearance would put her in charge of the press.
"Oh, God, Katara!" Suki cried, her hands over her mouth in mock horror. "Jezebel, you fucked him, didn't you?"
Her face reddened without her consent, and she rolled her eyes in the face of being found out. Jezebel was Suki's self-imposed 'slut-shame-name,' a code they used when they wanted to gossip around Sokka or in the office. After a night of dancing and staying out, Suki would return to work with a smile and stories of Jezebel's endeavors. Katara, who partook in fewer adventures, did the same.
"It's always cops and robbers with you," fumed Katara. "When do I stop being a culprit?"
"When you stop romping around with all the hot young things!" Suki was clapping. She wiggled her hips seductively as she cleared the table. "This is great! Sen owes me fifty yen. We made bets as soon as he landed here."
"Suki, no! You can't tell Sen! You can't tell anyone."
"Then how do I collect my money?"
"You don't!"
"OK, I don't think you get it. This is the first bet I've won a bet against that clairvoyant little bitch."
"Spirits. And you bet against me?"
"I knew my girl was overdue for some action." Suki winked from the doorway. She dropped the dishes in the sink and refilled her chai. On her return, Katara had her head down in her hands, her forehead pressed to the flat expanse of her knuckles.
"This is literally a nightmare."
"Gyatso would be a nightmare," Suki corrected.
"What are people going to say when they find out?" When Katara looked up, her eyes were strained. "I turn twenty-eight in a few months, Suki. He just turned twenty-three a second ago. I don't know what I was thinking."
Suki asked without hesitation, "Was he good at least?"
"Can we please focus on how terrible this has the potential to be?"
"It's an honest question. Let's focus on how good it was first, then how terrible."
"He was good. Whatever. What twenty-three-year-old isn't?"
"Most," said Suki, wincing in reverie. "They come too fast. Want to impress you so they try weird porn things that no one does. You're their first or second or third lover so in their mind, it's still a show."
"Where do you spend your weekends? Getting this information?"
"I stay at home," Suki laughed. "They come to mama. Sokka has his butterflies, I have my bees. I used to get jealous - now I get laid. But this is about you."
"It was an accident, Suki. With Aang. I don't know what happened. One second we're doing paperwork, and then I started thinking how long it's been since… I don't know, it started with his stupid lip."
"His lip?" Suki raised a brow. "He kissed you when you were doing paperwork? That's bold."
"No - no, that's not what I mean. He was just sitting there, and I started looking at him. And he has a… a nice lip. It sounds dumb. But. You know, one of those lips you just… you just want to have it. Not have, like, for yourself, as your own lip, but just… to own as, as an item…" She was staring through Suki, out the window leading to the street below. It was the least articulate statement she'd made all morning, somehow also the heaviest. She did not know herself what it was about Aang Yangchen that had caused her to dribble and crave like a teenager; she felt it was more than physical but could not say what. They lived above a busy neighborhood, a grocery and coffee shop at the corner, an elementary school down the block. Outside, she heard the honks of irritated drivers navigating the narrow roadway, barks from eager dogs. She trailed off thinking of that day, her own lip forming her trademark pout, the small beautiful circle Aang Yangchen had also fallen in love with during that same meeting.
"Are you going to be okay?"
"Yeah," she said, shaking her head. "Sorry."
"Look, you're my girl. If you like this guy, I say, date him. So what if he's the successor? You'll still be the one wearing the pants. Plus, he's adorable. You hit the jackpot in the looks department. Hands down."
"That's the thing," Katara returned, "I don't know if I like him. We just know we like each other…"
"Naked?"
"Yeah, yeah. Let's stop sensationalizing it."
Suki hit a low, confidential tone. "Where'd you guys do it?"
"In my office…" Katara admitted miserably in a whisper. "Thursday night."
"And Meng saw you." Suki connected the dots, stirred a lump of sugar into her remaining chai. "She was there on Thursday doing work. I saw her before I left. That's why you fired her? Wow…" She hesitated, shaking her head. "I'm all for dirty work environments. But with your moral compass, I can't believe you'd fire her over that. She's not really at fault."
"Nothing gets past you," Katara sighed, crossing her arms. "She did see us. That's what she says. But I fired her because she confronted me about it and tore me down in my office. I think she must've had a crush on him, maybe wanted to move up the ranks. Who knows."
"Or she just hated you. But, whatever she wanted, it's dead. Cheers to you, Jezebel."
"OK, enough."
Suki was laughing. "Why on earth would you cancel brunch with me today? We covered so much!" She spread her arms out, the sun pouring through the open blinds, making her forearms appear golden.
Sokka's voice answered instead: "Suki's here?" His room was attached to the kitchen, an extension added by the landlord for his then-growing family. He had used the bigger bedroom as his studio, giving the master bedroom to Katara, the current breadwinner. He was careful to always use "current," his way of promising business would pick up. He grabbed a mug of coffee and sat at the table with them without invitation.
"Ah, here we see the painter in his natural habitat." Suki made her forefingers and thumbs into a camera frame. "Notice the unshaved, wary look, dim prospects for this season's best work. Teeth have not been brushed. Hair is to one side —"
"OK, I get it, I get it!" Sokka laughed. "Let me finish my coffee, woman."
"Finish. And then I expect to see some husband material at the table."
"Don't scare him, now." Katara grinned and turned to her brother. "Husband in this context means you shave."
"Message received." Sokka took Katara's full plate from in front of her and started eating, a piece of fruit already in his cheek as he asked, "You're done with this?"
Katara left them at the table to check her phone. She'd been aware of it buzzing earlier while confiding in Suki but hadn't had the urge to check, hoping it was not Aang and dreading it would be. Instead, she had several messages from Gyatso - out of the ordinary for him - and only a single message from the successor, still dated from last night.
"Hey Suki," Katara called, "did Gyatso call or text you this morning?"
"No," Suki answered. "Head Fossil knows how to text?"
"He knows you call him that?" Sokka wanted to know.
"He says he wants to see me right away. What do you think?" Katara dreaded what might be coming - that Meng had seen him prior to moving whatever few belongings she had back to her friend's old pickup truck. She was scared for a moment, the news of the affair managing to leak faster than she could control. Suki already in the know, and Meng, and Aang himself. She knew Gyatso had nothing but the utmost respect for her; would that change, she wondered, if he heard a rumor? Saw a surveillance tape?
"I'm heading to the office," Katara called, distractedly gathering her coat and keys. "I'll be back in a few hours. Wish me luck."
But Sokka and Suki were at it again, arguing about his scruff and morning breath, a futile fight that would dissolve with reluctant - then passionate - kisses.