Chapter 9: Lunch With Dora
1035 Words
Monday arrived with the specific energy of a week that intended to be busy.
Two assignments due Thursday, a group presentation being assembled by people who had not yet agreed on anything, and Professor Ellis announcing via email that the next class would include an in-class writing exercise worth fifteen percent.
I read that last part twice.
Then I texted Prisca.
*Ellis. Fifteen percent. In-class.*
Her reply came in under a minute.
*I saw. Thursday. Are you prepared?*
*Getting there. You?*
*I will be.*
Three words. Quiet confidence, no performance. Entirely Prisca.
---
Tuesday after class Prisca told me Dora wanted to have lunch.
She said it in the straightforward way she said most things — not as an elaborate invitation, just information delivered plainly.
"She wants to meet you properly," Prisca said. "Her words."
"We've met."
"Twice, briefly, in passing. Dora doesn't count those." She adjusted her bag strap. "Wednesday, the dining hall on Morris Street. Twelve-thirty."
"Is this optional?"
She considered it. "Technically."
"But?"
"But Dora will find another way to make it happen and that version will be less predictable." A pause. "Wednesday is the controlled option."
I smiled. "Wednesday at twelve-thirty."
---
The Morris Street dining hall was the better of the two on campus — actual natural light, food that had not been waiting too long, enough noise to make conversation feel private without requiring effort.
Dora was already there when I arrived, which surprised me given what Prisca had said about Dora's relationship with scheduling. She had claimed a table near the window and was reviewing something on her laptop with focused energy. She looked up when she saw me and closed the laptop immediately.
"Daniel." She gestured to the seat across from her. "Prisca's getting food. Sit."
I sat.
Dora looked at me with the frank assessment I was beginning to understand was simply her default mode — not unkind, just direct, the same way some people look at a document they are deciding whether to sign.
"I want to ask you things," she said.
"All right."
"Prisca would tell me I'm interfering."
"Are you?"
"Absolutely," she said pleasantly. "But I prefer the word *invested.* She's my best friend and I've watched her make the mistake of letting things stay vague too long before. I would like to not watch that again."
Before I could respond Prisca arrived with a tray, looked at both of us, and sat down with the expression of someone assessing damage.
"What did I miss?"
"Nothing yet," Dora said. "I was establishing context."
"Dora."
"I'm being civilized, Prisca. Look — no spreadsheet."
---
Lunch moved in the specific rhythm that Dora created wherever she went — quick, layered, jumping between subjects with a connective logic that wasn't always obvious but always eventually landed.
She asked me about Chicago. About my family. About why sociology specifically. I answered honestly, which seemed to be what she was calibrating for — she had a way of asking follow-up questions that only made sense if she had actually processed the first answer.
Prisca ate and listened and occasionally added something that reframed what I had said in a way that was more accurate than my own version.
At one point I said something about choosing Harlow because I wanted distance from a family dynamic that had become too loud, and Prisca said quietly, "Not running away. Running toward something quieter," and I looked at her and said yes, exactly, and Dora looked between us with an expression she made no effort to conceal.
"You two are going to be insufferable," she said, with great affection.
"We're having a conversation, Dora," Prisca said.
"I know what I'm observing."
---
After the food was cleared Dora leaned forward with her coffee cup.
"Final question," she said, looking at me. "And you can tell me it's none of my business."
"Ask it anyway."
"What do you want? With Prisca. Actually."
The table went slightly quiet. Prisca did not intervene, which told me she wanted to hear the answer too — she was just willing to wait for it rather than demand it.
I thought about Abdullahi's word. *Clarity.*
"I want to know her," I said. "More than I do. I want the kind of time that makes that possible." I paused. "I'm not in a rush. But I'm not indifferent either. She knows that."
Dora looked at me for a long moment.
Then she looked at Prisca.
Prisca was looking at her coffee cup. But the corner of her mouth was doing the thing it did.
Dora sat back and picked up her cup. "Okay," she said simply.
"That's it?" I said.
"That's it. You answered honestly and you didn't perform it." She shrugged. "That's the whole test, Daniel. Most people perform it."
---
Walking out of the dining hall, Dora peeled off toward her afternoon class with a wave that managed to feel both casual and ceremonial.
Prisca and I walked in the same direction for a while without talking.
It was a comfortable silence — the kind that exists between people who have recently said something real and are letting it settle.
"She means well," Prisca said eventually.
"I know. I liked it, actually."
She glanced at me. "You liked being interrogated?"
"I liked that someone cares about you that specifically." I paused. "It says something good about you that she does."
Prisca was quiet for a moment.
"She's been my best friend since freshman orientation," she said. "Fifteen minutes in she told me my lanyard was the wrong color for my complexion and then helped me find a better one in the campus store." A small smile. "I've never questioned it since."
I laughed. "That is the most Dora story I've ever heard."
"There are many more."
"I look forward to them."
She looked at me sideways. Something warm and unhurried in it.
"Same class Thursday," she said.
"Same class Thursday, Prisca."
---
That evening I sat at my desk and thought about what Dora had said.
*Most people perform it.*
I wrote it down.
Below it: *She was looking at her coffee cup. But she was smiling.*
Some things did not need more words than that.
- Writer
