"Oh. Okay." Naomi peers at my feet—I'm wearing my slippers, black fuzzy, furry, comfy Ugg clogs, barefoot. "TOES!"
I rear back in surprise at her shouted non-sequitur, following her gaze to my feet. "Toes?"
She points at my feet. "I've never seen your toes. Nakey feet time, bitch." She stares at me, eyes wide. "I called you a bitch. But I was just teasing, okay?"
I splutter a laugh and lean into her. "I promise not to cut your heart out and eat it, Nay-Nay." I pretend to glare. "This time."
She shrinks away from me. "Eeep!" She actually says the word. "I'm not tasty!"
"DISAGREE!" Silas shouts from across the room.
This whole exchange has Anjalee off into another fit of giggles. Keeping her cup against her mouth, giggling, Anjalee leans precariously forward, stretches out a hand, and yanks one of my slippers off, tossing it wildly to one side; it nearly brains Tatiana. Giggling so hard she's about to hyperventilate, Anjalee yanks my other slipper off and hurls it the other way; the sole of my slipper thwacks the wall and drops to the floor, leaving a black shoe print on the freshly painted wall.
"Oops," she whispers, and she points at my feet. "Nakey feet.”
Annika shakes her head, looking at me. "Lightweights." She juts her chin at the swarm of polish bottles. "Pick a color."
I frown at the dizzying array. "Um." I look at my toes, wiggling them. "I don't know."
"Pink!" Naomi says. "Barbie-barf pink. Because you would normallynever, and this is the new you."
My eyebrows go up at this. "I agree, as a matter of fact." I point at the bottle labelled Cotton Candy Dreams. "That one."
Annika grabs my feet and suddenly I'm laying across Anjalee with my head on Naomi's lap, and the joint is pressed to my lips and Annika is expertly swiping pink polish onto my toes.
I look up at Naomi. "I don't eat hearts, Nay-Nay. That was a joke."
She sputters behind her hand. “I know. It was funny. You're scary sometimes, but not, like, serial killer cannibal scary."
"At least there's that," I deadpan. I turn my attention to Annika. "You're very good at this, Annika."
She shrugs, focused on the task. "I did a lot of travelling for volleyball. Lots of girls, lots of downtime on buses and in hotel rooms. We did each other's nails a fuckinglot.”
"Do you miss it?" I ask.
She nods, gaze fixed on my toes and her hands. "God yes, every day."
"What do you miss most?”
A tip of her head to one side. "All of it. The bus rides—although that’s a love-hate thing. You really get close to your girls when you spend hours and hours together on the bus, especially those fucking interminable overnight trips across the Midwest. I miss crashing out on sugar and adrenaline in the rooms after a game. Watching tape. Practices." She pulls back, dips the brush into the bottle, hesitates. "The games, though.Fuuuuck, I miss that shit. The rush. The crowds. The way everyone would lose their minds when I got a gnarly kill."
I blink at her. "Kill?"
"Spike," she clarifies. "That's what I was best at—where you jump up close to the net and hit the ball really,reallyfucking hard."
I nod. "Ah, yes."
She shrugs again. "I miss it all. But…I wouldn't go back. Is that weird? That I can miss something like crazy but also not want to go back to it?"
Tatiana shakes her head, pointing at Annika with her cup. "No, it is not so strange. Not to me, at least." A sigh. "I miss Tata. I miss Zagreb. I miss my business and my girls. But like you have said, I would also not return to that life. I quite like my life here, with you all, quite a lot more."
Annika finishes with my other foot and twists the top onto the bottle. "Now. Fingers. Pick a different color."
I shake my head. "Surprise me."
Someone takes the joint from me, puts it to my lips—I puff, and it's gone. I exhale, head spinning, light and floaty and loose.
I hear a chorus of shouts from the men, followed by groans and laughter. "Who won?" I ask the room at large.
