Even with Cashmere driving now, Raych is kind enough to go with Annie when she applies for her first job in Ayre. A few phone calls have turned up a hardware store that does in-store and at-home repair jobs and is hiring.
Cashmere instinctively takes her spot in front of Annie as they enter the store, so the man waiting in uniform by the entrance asks her how he can help. She and Annie answer at the same time.
"She's looking for a job-" "I was told you were hiring-"
He gestures down the aisle directly in front of them. "Right over there, very back on your left."
Annie grabs Cashmere's hand as they approach, even knowing Cashmere will need her hands free if there's an emergency. She's not really afraid that she needs a bodyguard here, not truly. She's just...scared.
She clings to that hand through the whole first interview, where she explains about her lack of work history and formal education, her heart sinking as she realizes more and more that she doesn't have anything they're looking for, and there must be fifty people who need this job and can prove they can do it.
"She doesn't have any work history in this country!" Raych interjects loyally. "She built all my bookshelves from scratch, and she did a great job."
"Well, it's not quantum physics," the man says kindly. The interview is being conducted by two employees, a man and a woman. Annie's already forgotten their names, and is trying to surreptitiously peek at their name tags. "Formal education doesn't matter so much."
"She can do that too!" Cashmere pipes in, squeezing Annie's hand back with all her might.
The woman interviewing her gives her a curious look. "Can you?"
Annie blushes. "I was studying a little engineering when I left the country, but I still had a long way to go."
"Well, Panem is the one with the nuclear weapons," he says, sotto voce, to his companion.
"I don't know how to make nuclear weapons!" Annie flares, forgetting to be polite in her anger. Now she's not going to get the job because everyone hates and fears Panem, and that's going to be yet another thing her country has ruined for her, halfway around the world. "I don't ever want to see another weapon as long as I live! Boats. I built fishing boats. And now I want to build bookshelves and tables and doors, and if you don't hire me, then I'll stay home and build them for people who want them."
"Better hire her before she drives us out of business," the woman jokes. "I think we should give her a practical exercise."
Here, Annie is on more familiar ground. She hammers and saws, drills and sands, and with each passing minute feels her hands growing steadier and her stomach subsiding. Cashmere's close by, keeping an eye on the customers and the employees, mentally improvising weapons and finding escape routes, so that Annie doesn't have to.
When she looks up from the table with a deep breath and no sense of how much time has passed, she's fixed a damaged birdhouse and installed a simple lock. She wishes they'd ask her something she couldn't do in her sleep, something that lets her show that she has actual skill, but at least she did it.
Then comes the third round. Annie's a little calmer for it, but the questions are about dealing with difficult customers, resolving disputes, things like that, and she doesn't have any experience to draw on. Once again, she becomes sure she's disqualifying herself.
In the end, they take down her phone number, promise to call if they decide in her favor, and wish her a good day.
Startled that that's all, Annie follows Raych out to the parking lot. "Want to try the next place on our list?" Raych asks as they're getting into the car. "They only make house calls for repairs. No store, no new construction."
"I-I didn't realize I'd leave not knowing if I got the job," Annie tells her. She slides into the back next to Cashmere and tries to reorient herself.
"Oh, that's standard. If you wanted to clean tables, you might get your answer on the spot, but if the job requires any kind of skill, you'll wait to hear back."
Shaking, Annie buries herself in Cashmere's arms while she thinks. Is she up to yet another job interview today? None of this is going the way she expected.
Cashmere's embrace, patient and supportive as always, is not only comforting, it's motivating. If Annie doesn't get a job, Cashmere will have to. She's willing, but it'll be a lot less fun and pay less. And Annie will have to sit at home, bodyguard-less, scared to death, feeling like she failed, and getting sicker and sicker instead of getting on her feet.
"I...I guess." Annie still doesn't move, and Raych waits, not starting the car as long as Annie is half on Cashmere's lap. Cashmere strokes her hair, not saying anything, letting Annie decide. She wants to go home, she wants to curl up under the covers and cry with Cashmere, she wants everyone to just bring her work so she doesn't have to leave.
Just as she's starting to imagine how comfortable the bed would be, Annie pulls away from Cashmere. "Let's go before I change my mind."
In the end, Annie interviews at half a dozen places before she hears back. Each one is agony, and she wishes she didn't need two people to accompany her, but she goes every day she can.
"Don't worry about that, dear," Raych says, waving a hand. "Cashmere's been driving you to therapy and doing all our errands, I hardly go anywhere any more. It's good to have an excuse to get out of the house and see new places."
Annie chokes—she'd give anything never to see a new place again—but she's grateful to both of them. She went to two interviews sleep deprived, and one groggy when she sedated herself as heavily as possible the night before, but finally she got an offer.
It's not the first store, but it's another one, on the other side of town, that's much like it. "I'll go with you," Cashmere promises, "it doesn't matter how far."
"You can borrow the car," Nessa says, "until you can afford one of your own. I always take the bus, and Raych only goes into the office a couples times a week. If you don't mind continuing to do the shopping while you're out?"
Cashmere doesn't mind. Annie does, of course, but she's so lucky she doesn't complain. If she can go to work, she can follow Cashmere into the supermarket on the way back, no matter what it costs her. If they have a routine, maybe she'll even get used to it.
"And congratulations!" Raych says. "No pressure, but are we celebrating? Just us, of course, but something special for dinner."
"Hmm." Food would make her feel better. "I could make banana nut bread," Annie muses. "And-what?"
Cashmere has an unhappy look and is silently signalling her no. "They don't have bananas here. I asked at the store once. I wanted to surprise you, but nobody's heard of them."
Annie's jaw drops. "I know you don't have cinnamon, but you don't even have bananas?" And she knows how spoiled that sounds, but bananas weren't even a post-Victory discovery like cinnamon. They had them right there in the fruit markets, long before she could afford them.
"What's a banana?" Raych asks, interested.
"It's a fruit, and I guess it doesn't grow here."
Nessa, the agronomist, shrugs. "I haven't heard of it, but if we even had that here before the nuclear wars, I know some fruits have been harder to adapt to our climate than others. You could make another fruit bread."
"Cranberry, I suppose. I know you have cranberries. And fish for the main course?"
"We'll get some fish," Nessa promises.
Over dinner, Annie talks excitedly about the phone call. "I have to go through a few weeks of training. And I'm entry level for now because I don't have any experience working in a store with customers. But I can make cabinets and everything!"
Her first day starts out terrifying, but by the time she comes home, she realizes it went better than expected. She's brimming over with news at the dinner table. "They said Cashmere can't go into the employee-only parts of the store, but she can hang out in the customer service area all day as long as she doesn't distract me. And when I go out to do repairs, she can't go inside customers' houses, for liability reasons, but she can wait in the car."
Then, saying those words aloud to someone else, Annie hears how they sound. She turns to Cashmere, sitting next to her. "That sounds horribly exploitative."
"Oh, no." Cashmere keeps eating her fish, unconcerned. "That's what bodyguards do."
"But you're not—you're family!"
"Yes, I am," she argues. "Like you, you're family, but you're also the cook, and you do what cooks do. That's not exploitation."
Annie has to admit that actually sounds reasonable. She puts her arm around Cashmere's shoulders and glows. "Isn't she great?"
"She's pretty great," Nessa agrees, smiling at them both.
"And we're so glad you found a job you wanted," Raych adds. "And don't let us exploit you with the cooking!"
Annie laughs. "No worries, I'm happy to do it. I'll tell you if I'm too tired now that I have a job. But I really want to save up so Cashmere and I can get a car and a place of our own. I think it's all going to work out. I'm signing all the paperwork tonight and going back with it tomorrow."
Every day brings new excitements to share.
"They won't let me touch electrical appliances, but I was talking to Jonny, one of the guys who does, about my experience in District Three, and he says I should take the classes and get certified, and he doesn't think it'll even be hard for me!" She deflates a little. "I don't know how much it costs, or if it'll be worth the money."
Raych and Nessa exchange a look. "I should think an electrician makes more than a plain handyworker," Nessa says. Raych nods, not certain but not disagreeing. "And if you can do both, you can take more jobs. I'd look into it, at least. It might be a great career move, especially if you enjoy it."
So Annie does the research. Raych helps. So does the very friendly help desk in the library, where it's getting easier to go.
And the conclusion that Annie comes to, when she's done the math, is that it'd be worth it. She can work, take evening classes, save up, and it'll pay off after not too long.
"You've done this sort of work before?" Nessa asks. "And you liked it and you'd plan to stick with it?"
"I didn't wire buildings," Annie explains, "but I helped assemble devices small enough to fit on a table, and I picked it up very quickly. And yes, I did like it. And more than that, I liked learning new things. I don't think I could be an inventor now—maybe if I'd grown up here, or even in District Three, and had the education—but I've seen what Jonny does and I asked the librarians, and I could definitely be an electrician, easy."
"And the numbers add up," Nessa says, looking at the sheet Annie's laid out on Raych's desk. "It'll pay off." She and Raych exchange a long look. "How's this, then? I see your company's willing to help you get started, about a third of the cost if all goes well. You can take out a loan for the second third—we can help you with that. And if the first two thirds are successful, and it's just a question of finishing up, we'll make sure money isn't what's keeping you from getting the certification."
"Really?" It's one thing after another, but Annie knows she wouldn't have gotten anywhere if not for unexpected kindness. Mags, Finnick, Cashmere, Joule, Raych, Nessa... "I don't want to ask you for even more money after you're already feeding us and paying for my therapy and medication, but we are trying to become independent."
"An education's a good investment," Nessa says. "And I know you're saving up for a car too."
"A car, yes, and we'd like to move out and get a place of our own so you can take in students again...do you think we'll be able to?
"I wouldn't think you could buy a nice place right off the bat, but if you're willing to do repairs, or rent for a while, I'm sure you'll be able to cover living expenses soon enough."
"And you've been saving us money on repairs and food," Raych reminds warmly.
"Not as much as we've been costing you."
Nessa smiles. "Oh, we wouldn't take in students if we didn't want to spend money on meeting young people and helping them out. How many times do we have to tell you that?"
"I wouldn't say no to another mushroom and tuna casserole, though," Raych hints.
"Casseroles are easy."
"You think everything is easy." Cashmere surprises Annie by joining in the banter. "Like becoming an electrician."
"Well. I guess I'll find out."
The placement tests are anything but easy. Leaving the large, table-filled hall after the last one, Annie's half convinced she can't do this at all. Raych tries to cheer her up, and Cashmere reminds her of all the times she did actual electronic work, but Annie's gloomy.
She takes to obsessively checking the mail, and it becomes contagious. Raych is heard leaving her study a hundred times a day, and when Nessa opens the front door after work, she shakes her head with a disapproving frown at the sad state of the mail.
Finally, the day comes when Annie wakes up from an impromptu afternoon nap to Cashmere telling her Raych slid an envelope under the door while she was sleeping.
Annie's hands shake. "You open it," she pleads with Cashmere. "I can't look."
Cashmere obliges, and then stares at the form, frowning. "I can't read it all. But it starts with...yes, I think this word is 'congratulations.' Annie, I think you got in!"
Annie snatches the letter, scans it quickly. "I got in!" It slips from her hands as she throws herself at Cashmere. "I got in!"
"You got in!" Cashmere hugs her, as delighted as she is. "You're the smartest person I know."
"Well, I don't kn—oh, what the heck. I'm the smartest person I know too!"
Flushed with excitement, Annie bounces a couple of times on the bed, laughing hilariously with Cashmere, and then looks around for her letter. Cashmere fetches it up from where it fell onto the floor, and they settle in together. Cashmere puts her arm around Annie's back and positions her head so she can read over Annie's shoulder.
Annie runs her finger under each line and reads it out loud, taking in the details. "Oh. Oh, it says remedial math. I guess that's fair." She cheats a little and skips ahead. "No, regular classes for all the others. I did it!"
That night, they feast on chocolate cake.
The first day is, as first days often are, the hardest. Annie sits in the very back at the end of the row, by the door where Cashmere has posted herself. She's here to learn about the safety codes, one of the first required courses before students are allowed to do any hands-on work.
Annie's expecting a lot of memorizing, and a hard time with all the reading, but she's hoping the chance to practice a bunch of reading on something that isn't conceptually difficult will make the rest of her courses easier.
Everyone's seated and talking more or less quietly at one minute till start time, but Annie's anxiously looking around, most of her attention focused on the door.
So she sees a middle-aged man stop and smile at Cashmere.
"Come on in," he invites, "class is about to start."
"Oh, I'm not-" Cashmere is flustered. She was expecting to stand here and not be noticed.
"Not in this class? I'm sorry."
He continues on to the front of the room, where he introduces himself as the instructor, Nills.
Annie can barely concentrate, but with the help of Jenn, she's set herself one assignment for today, and that's staying put and copying down the homework so she can complete it at home. Next week's assignment is getting to know one of the other students so she can ask for help if she needs it later on.
The moment class ends, she's the first one out the door, trying to flee before she can make a public scene. But Cashmere, for once, has dug in her heels and refuses to budge. "Annie, I don't want to get in trouble for standing here."
"But he didn't say anything, he was just being nice."
"But what if he thought I was a student in another class, and I'm not even supposed to be in this building? I need to know what the rules are."
Annie wants to cry in frustration, but she knows that completely blank look on Cashmere's face hides a petrified interior.
On the verge of having a meltdown, she just stops herself from blurting out, Go ask him yourself if you're so worried. Cashmere came all the way here to help with Annie's fears. Annie can't hold her own fears against her.
At the front of the classroom, there's a short line of students all wanting to talk to the instructor, and the waiting makes it worse. But so does the audience, and when Nills catches her eye, Annie panics and shakes her head and looks away, so he turns to someone else.
Only once they're the last ones left, does Annie dare to step up. She should have rehearsed, but her mind was a complete blank the whole time. "I-um-isitokayifshestandsbythedoor?"
Nills takes a step forward, tilting his head in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."
Annie takes a deep breath, forces herself to slow down and speak up. "Is it okay if she's not a student and she waits outside while I'm in class?"
"Sure, of course." He smiles. "She your ride home, or vice versa?"
Annie nods, her throat closed. She's so glad his guess means she doesn't have to explain the real reason.
"Well, it'll be boring, but come on in if there's room for you and you want to sit and read or something," Nills tells Cashmere. "As long as all the enrolled students have a seat."
"Really?" The word comes out before Annie realizes she can talk again. "Because they wouldn't let her inside during the exams," she explains.
"The admissions to the program, you mean? That's a lot more formal. Here, if it's quiet, and there's no cheating, it doesn't matter to me. Are you new to the country?" he asks politely, but his eyes fly open wide when the tears Annie's been holding in check spill over onto her cheeks. "I'm sorry, if that was insensitive-!"
It's a tossup who's more embarrassed, him, or Annie. She sees Cashmere look from one to the other in confusion, wondering if she's supposed to field the small talk or comfort Annie or what. She settles for tucking her arm through Annie's and passing her a handkerchief, which Annie accepts gratefully.
"No, no, it's not you!" Annie says through the handkerchief. As long as she was scared, she could hold it together, but his kindness at letting Cashmere into the room broke past the scraps of her facade. He was just starting to treat her like a normal person, and she had to go and ruin it again.
"No, but I shouldn't have assumed you haven't been here since you were a child, I didn't mean that you stand out-"
"No, I know you can barely understand me through this accent, I know I stand out!" Somehow, between the flood of tears and his own embarrassment, Annie's dam of words has been loosened. She leans against Cashmere, and laughs and cries and blows her nose. "Yes, I just moved here, and it's been a long day, and it was the strain, that's all." And it's taken her the better part of a decade, Mags, Finnick, Cashmere, and Jenn to get to the point where she can articulate any of this while crying instead of hiding in that very inviting cabinet over in the corner.
Stepping awkwardly from one foot to the other, Nills tries to put her at ease. "You're not the first student to cry in front of me, but usually after exams, not on the first day!"
"Well, I, um-" Annie shifts, and without her needing to say a word, Cashmere slides an arm around her and looks around the classroom so that Annie doesn't have to. "I'm from Panem. We're from Panem. And it really means a lot to me that she can come inside the classroom. My therapist said if I can't make myself go to a new place alone, I should try going with her. So thank you. Really."
He looks embarrassed again. "It's nothing special, but you're welcome. And, oh, a therapist—is this a conversation you'd rather have in my office? These aren't my usual office hours, but I'm on my way there if you want to come."
Annie takes a deep breath, but she really is well past her limits if she's standing here with tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry-"
"Or if you'd rather not, if you want to write down anything you'd like me to know about your situation, or any other suggestions your therapist made, feel free to hand it to me in class. I know most students taking evening classes have day jobs and families and can't always make office hours, so if writing works better for you, go for it."
"Really? I might try that."
Of course, after the struggle of deciding what to say, comes the struggle of putting it into writing. Raych helps, though, and tells her it's good practice. "I suppose," Annie grumbles. "There's so much to practice. I wish I could have learned all this math and science at school, when I didn't panic over every little thing and when I knew how to spell and I didn't sound like a foreigner all the time."
"You're doing great, though," Raych encourages. "Look at how far you've come."
"I've had a lot of help. I've had so much help."
Annie looks gratefully at Cashmere when she says those words. Cashmere never seems to get tired of her, even after all these years. It makes Annie guilty sometimes, and furious at herself because she's not perfect, not by a long shot. When they're stuck in traffic on the way to school, she's so stressed about being exposed and being late and failing her class and getting in a car accident that she snarls at Cashmere.
"I'm sorry!" Cashmere doesn't know what she did wrong, but as usual, she must have done something. She freezes, at the wheel, her eyes just darting to the corner to look at Annie, without daring to say anything.
"No-I-you didn't, I just-" Annie feels sick, and she can't apologize, she can barely form words, she just wants to dig a hole in the ground and hide there where no one can find her. "I'm sorry," she bursts out, "we'll talk about this later." And then she really can't say any more.
Cashmere just drives in a tense silence, waiting.
After all that, they're not even late. Pathologically afraid of something going wrong, Annie's normally the first one to class, which buys her some time on days like this. She even has time to pull Cashmere into the women's room for a little privacy and give her a long hug and some reassurance, now that she's past the peak of her fear. She's still tired, and she can feel a headache coming on from all that, but she's going to do this. She just has to go to class. She can leave early if she has to.
But then she has another problem.
When she gets to class, there's a man in her seat by the door. Annie stands uncertainly, clutching her books to her chest, looking around the room. Maybe she could just sit next to him? But there's no room for Cashmere on the other side—that spot's taken too.
"I can stand," Cashmere whispers, reading her mind.
It's not like her mind's hard to read. Eventually, she hovers there so long that the guy in her seat looks up and catches her frustrated, indecisive gaze. "I'm sorry, did you want to sit here?"
She hates being an inconvenience, but she knows if Finnick were here, she'd already have her seat, and he'd be friends with the guy who gave it to her.
"Just in case I have to leave early?" Annie gives him an apologetic smile through the headache.
He shrugs and shifts his stuff one desk over. Cashmere presses her back to the wall and stands motionless behind Annie, able to survey the entire classroom and react quickly if anyone comes through the door.
"Thank you so much. I'm Annie, by the way." Finnick told her that it's easier to get someone to do something for you if they feel they know you, so always introduce yourself when you ask for a favor.
"I'm Paul." He hesitates, then leans over and whispers, under the quiet hubbub of the classroom, "Do you understand this week's homework at all?"
"Oh my god, it's so hard. I've got a friend from another class who's promised to look over it with me. She's really good at math, she's not in remedial." Talking shop, Annie feels her words start to flow again.
Paul looks down at the desk. "I'm taking this class for the second time."
Annie raises her eyebrows. It's hard, but she hopes she doesn't do so badly she has to repeat it. "Well, if she can explain it to me so I understand it, I can try to explain it to you." The offer is partly selfish; she'd love a second chance to go over it with a study partner. "Can you come over to my place at eight tomorrow? Or eight-thirty the night after? I know that's the day before it's due, but-"
Paul makes a face. "It's a little late. What about seven tomorrow?"
"That's when my friend Marthe and I are meeting. You're not in schematics?"
He shakes his head. "I had it last year. I can visualize like there's no tomorrow, I just can't do this number business."
"Hmm. Want to help us with schematics and she'll help us with math?"
"Sounds perfect!"
Annie's seriously stressed about this math class, but she remembers Joule's advice: take breaks and give her mind a rest, instead of obsessing over the details until everything's a blur. It's hard advice to follow, but she makes herself.
In the morning before work, she bakes chocolate chip cookies and wrestles with a scone recipe. The scones don't turn out as fluffy as she'd like, but the cookies make up for it.
When a knock sounds at the door at seven, she nods at Cashmere to slide the trays into the oven just to warm them up, and she goes to answer the door. "Marthe! I hope you don't mind, I invited another student. We can do half schematics, half math? I have cookies."
Marthe laughs warmly. "Sounds good."
"Come on in. We just have to be a little quiet, Raych works from home and I see her door is closed."
Paul joins them just a few minutes later, and helps himself to a cookie. "They're really good!"
Marthe looks tempted. "They smell good! I'm watching my figure, though."
"Oh, I'm watching mine," Annie laughs. She puts her hands over her belly and pantomimes it expanding. "I'm watching it grow! You can have a scone, though. They're not as good, but next time I promise they'll be better. Or some fruit, whatever you want. Just help us!"
Marthe is one of those people, like Beetee and Joule, who's good at explaining things. She walks them through a sample problem, then another. Then, patiently, another, when Paul is still uncertain.
"Wait a sec." Eyes narrowed, Annie drops out of the conversation to scribble equations on some scratch paper. Then she rearranges them into the unfamiliar symbols she's been struggling with and pushes the paper in front of Marthe. "Are these right, here at the bottom?"
Marthe looks them over. "Yeah, looks pretty good. I think you got it, Annie!"
Groaning, Annie sinks back into her chair and covers her face. "I can't believe it. I learned this years ago. In District Three. I could definitely use a refresher, but I did learn it! I think I've been so confused because I got misled by the different name and different notation and thought this couldn't possibly be the same thing."
"So you're good at math," Paul says enviously, "you're just handicapped because you're from a different country."
Annie throws up her hands. "I don't know, maybe I am good at math. I'm pretty sure most of the stuff we've covered in this class is new to me. We hardly learned anything where I grew up, and I didn't spend much time in Three before I came here."
Paul keeps looking at her with admiring envy throughout the session. Then, at the end, he smiles at her. "The food's really good, Annie, and you're really smart. You're not, uh, interested in going out some time, are you?"
This always happens. Annie braces herself and puts on a forced smile. "I'm sorry, I don't really like going outside. This is why I have my study groups here."
Paul looks surprised. "Well, I could come over some time."
Then Annie gets it and wants to smack herself. Wow, it's been too long. "I'm sorry, was that a date going out or a just-friends going out?"
"Either?" He still looks hopeful, and Annie says the first thing that pops into her head.
"I'm sorry, you seem very nice, but I'm married. Come over for cookies and studying, though, both of you!"
Paul takes the hint, and they both manage not to break down in embarrassment in front of Marthe. The study group ends on friendly terms, with Annie urging cookies on them and promising better scones.
But as soon as they're gone, Cashmere, who's been sitting silently in the back of the kitchen taking up less space than you'd think possible, whirls on Annie. "Would Finnick mind or not?" she demands.
Annie sinks, exhausted, into a chair, and grabs a cookie. "He wouldn't, of course," she mumbles through a mouthful of chocolate. "I just wanted to let Paul down gently. I don't know, maybe I'll get to know him and it'll be great. But right now I have you, I have a job, I have classes, I have a math handicap, I have therapy, and I don't think I could handle dating on top of all that. And I don't feel like I need to? You give me great sex, someone to go out with, someone to cook for, someone to snuggle up with while I read...and if he's not nice to you I'd have to kill him."
Cashmere chuckles. "So it's not really because you're married?"
"I'm married to you. I'm very busy being married to you."
"But you won't be too busy being married to me if Finnick comes back, right?" Cashmere checks.
"No, and that's another term in the equation. If he comes back, I'll be even busier, and if Paul isn't nice to him, I'll have to kill him! Paul, I mean."
Finishing her cookie, Annie puts out her arms. "No one's going to be mad at you, love, I promise. And you're not keeping me from anything I want to do. Now eat a cookie and make me happy."
While Cashmere is nibbling, Annie looks at the pieces of paper Cashmere's been poring over while all the electrician students were busy studying. "How's the reading practice going?"
Cashmere sighs. "I don't know. It's hard to concentrate. I keep worrying that you need me for something and I keep looking up."
"Honey. I'll tell you if I need anything. I'll say your name."
"I know." She sighs again, looking down. "Maybe I'm just not good at this."
"No, come on, what helps you relax?" The last thing Annie wants is to be keeping Cashmere from doing something for herself. "I can snuggle you, or play with your hair-"
Cashmere looks up, hopefully. "Maybe that one. I like snuggling, but I think it relaxes me too much for this."
"Hair it is, then."
In between munching on pieces of fruit, and okay, one more cookie, Annie braids two long plaits and winds them around the top of Cashmere's head, then secures them with hairpins.
Finally Cashmere sets down the paper and reaches a hand up to her head. "What did you do?"
"Made you a crown," Annie says proudly.
Cashmere explores it with her fingers and looks pleased. "Princesses wear crowns, right?"
"I don't know about other princesses, but this one does."
Cashmere turns around and hugs Annie. "Remember when I did your hair before your wedding?"
"I remember," Annie says, but it seems so far away. She tries not to think about Panem more than she can help. "Speaking of weddings, would you...would you like to get married?"
"Oh, I don't know, Annie. I did want to, but that was back when I needed someone to rescue me. Now I have all the good parts of being married, like you said, and I'd rather live with you. I don't want to go through the whole process of meeting people and-"
About halfway through, Annie starts laughing. "I meant me, silly. That was a proposal."
"Marry you?" Cashmere repeats, startled.
"I know, it never would have occurred to me either, but if Raych and Nessa can do it..."
"But you're already married!"
"In name." Annie sighs. "But I live with you, and this feels a lot more like a real marriage. I didn't realize how much, until Paul asked me out."
"That's not Finnick's fault!" Cashmere protests. "It hasn't even been two years. The war's still going on."
Annie doesn't want to push, because the answer is clearly no, and it feels like criticizing Finnick, but she has to be honest. "To me, it's been longer than two years, though. It's no one's fault. It's just the way it is. But how often did I see him when I was in the bunker? Who was getting food for me, standing guard while I assembled electronics, sleeping next to me at night?
"I don't want to abandon him like he did something wrong, when he's just fighting a war I wish I could have fought in, but even before the war...when I went out with him, I had to do it on his schedule or not at all, because he was busy all day and in the Capitol half the year. He'd drop by my house, and I'd have to decide, Yes, I can go out today, or No, I can't. With you, I can wait until I'm ready and then we go. And I can talk to you when there's something on my mind, not three months later. And I can cook for you when we're hungry, not on no notice when you show up famished, one hour after I ate a big meal.
"It's no one's fault, or if it is, it's mine for not being able to leave the house and do anything with him, or even go on dates with no notice, but if he's not here anyway, I just like the thought of having a marriage that works."
"It's not that I don't want to be married to you," Cashmere explains, somewhat desperately. "It's just that I don't want to hurt Finnick. If the war ends, and he comes back...we have to at least give him until the war's over."
"That's fair," Annie concedes. "But when the war's over?"
"You mean if he doesn't make it?" A battle of emotions plays out across her face and settles on stubbornness. "I hope he makes it."
"So do I! You think I want anything to happen to him? I just have this idea that after the war, he's going to be very busy with cleanup. I don't want to spend my life waiting on someone who might not even be coming."
"I can understand that," Cashmere says, "but I don't want to be the one who broke up your marriage. You would have to divorce him, right?"
Annie makes an unhappy face. "Yes. I asked at the library, and not even Ayre will let me be in two marriages at the same time. And we can't have him declared legally dead for a long time."
"Then we have to wait. But if it weren't for Finnick, yes, I'd be over the moon at getting married, Annie, really I would."
Annie's disappointed and relieved at the same time. She doesn't really want to give up on making it work with Finnick. But at the same time, it's already working with Cashmere, and she'd started letting herself play with ideas about weddings in her head.
It doesn't matter, she tells herself. She's married in all but name, and when Finnick comes back, she'll be married in name too.