There was the saying: affordable, nice, or safe and sane. Pick one. It was a chronic problem with the speed they were trying to get buildings and houses up. Shoddy construction, rush jobs, cut corners, mistakes, and general ugliness were pretty normal. I was hopeful that in a little while we might be able to get to a point where it was ‘pick two’ instead of ‘pick one’, but we had a ways to go.

I tried to squeeze the end together where two pieces didn’t quite meet and simultaneously push it in with my stomach. It refused to slide in.

“What are you doing to my kitchen?”

Crystal was in the doorway, her hair a mess. She wore an oversized t-shirt and pyjama shorts, and she still looked half asleep.

“Did I wake you?” I asked.

“Uh huh,” she said, sleepy. “Don’t tell me you’re a morning person. That would be a problem.”

“I’m not. I’m a person who fell asleep early last night—”

“Almost right after eating. Yep. And now you’re up, showered, dressed, and you’re dismantling my kitchen. For reasons.”

“I woke up and thought I’d keep my normal work routine while I figure out what I’m doing.”

“Renovating my kitchen?”

“I’m trying to find scissors,” I said. “I’d settle for a sharp knife.”

Crystal smiled wide, her eyes still sleepy. She grabbed a glass from a cabinet, and she half-walked, half-floated across the kitchen.

“Don’t laugh,” I said.

“You’re such a cliché,” she said, as she passed me on her way to the sink. “Oh my god, Victoria. You’re that person with super strength that trashes everything she touches.”

“Just help me,” I said.

She reached over and helped me hold the drawer together. As it slid into the confines of the front of the counter, the framing held it together where the drawer’s own construction wouldn’t.

“I wasn’t using my super strength, for the record,” I said.

“Yeah. I’ve done that with the drawers before, I’m just making fun of you. It’s a funny image, to walk into the kitchen and see that.”

“Ah ha,” I said. “Then can I make fun of you for having two big jars of spatulas, whisks, spaghetti scoops, having two food processors—”

“One was a gift.”

“—And no scissors or shears anywhere I can find? I’d settle for a sharp knife. You have those steak knives, but they look nice and I don’t want to use them for the wrong thing and ruin them.”

She reached across the counter to get the package of bacon, holding it up. It was inside a hard plastic tupperware-like container with a small black and white label stuck to it. A mark stamped on it had it sourced from another world. Even without the mark, the pricetag might have given it away.