Distorted Reflections

Clara’s laugh, usually a bright, clear bell, seemed a little muted today, like a melody played through a thick carpet. Eleanor watched her across the small café table, a knot of unease tightening in her chest. Clara was recounting a story about a disastrous baking attempt from their shared college days, a story Eleanor knew intimately, a story that had ended with them scrubbing burnt sugar off the kitchen floor until dawn. But Clara’s telling was…off. She spoke of a mishap with a faulty oven thermostat, a detail Eleanor couldn’t quite place. The original disaster, etched into Eleanor’s memory with the acrid scent of scorched gingerbread, had involved a rogue spark from the toaster oven igniting a tea towel.

“And then,” Clara continued, her brow furrowed in a way that wasn’t quite Clara’s furrow, “I remember you saying, ‘Well, at least the smoke alarm didn’t go off this time!’”

Eleanor’s breath hitched. The smoke alarm had gone off. It had shrieked like a banshee, a piercing, insistent sound that had made them both jump and nearly knock over the already precarious stack of cooling racks. She forced a smile, her heart thrumming a nervous rhythm against her ribs. “That’s right,” she lied, the words tasting like ash. “The smoke alarm. Of course.”