That didn’t seem fair to me—not because she was wrong, but because I didn’t want to put her second. The thing about great problem-solvers is that they often don’t let others help them with their own stuff.
I was getting up my nerve to ask again, to make sure no gods or monsters had visited her during her day and given her quests, when my mom called from inside. “Hey, you two. Want to help with dinner?”
“Sure, Sally!” Annabeth pulled her legs up and climbed through the window. If there was anyone Annabeth liked helping more than me, it was my mom.
When we got to the kitchen, Paul was chopping garlic for the stir-fry. He wore an apron one of his students had given him for an end-of-year present. The quote on the front read “A RECIPE IS A STORY THAT ENDS WITH A GOOD MEAL.” —PAT CONROY.
I didn’t know who that was. Probably a literary person, since Paul taught literature. I liked the quote, though, because I liked good meals.
Annabeth grabbed a knife. “Dibs on the broccoli.”
Paul grinned at her. His salt-and-pepper hair had gotten a little longer and curlier over the summer, and he’d taken to shaving only every couple of days, so he looked, as my mom put it, “pleasantly roguish.”
“I cede the chopping board to the daughter of Athena,” he said with a little bow.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Annabeth said, equally formal.
My mother laughed. “You two are adorable.”
Paul winked at Mom, then turned to heat up the wok. Ever since last spring, when Paul had tutored Annabeth in some impossible English project, the two of them had bonded over Shakespeare, of all things, so half the time when they talked to each other, they sounded like they were acting out scenes from Macbeth.
“Percy,” my mom said, “would you set the table?”
She didn’t really need to ask, since that was my usual job. Five mismatched pastel-colored plates. I got the blue one, always. Paper napkins. Forks. Glasses and a pitcher of tap water. Nothing fancy.
I appreciated having a simple ritual like this—something that did not involve monster-fighting, divine prophecies, or near-death experiences in the depths of the Underworld. Setting a table for dinner might sound boring to you, but when you have no downtime in your life ever . . . boring starts to sound pretty great.
My mom checked the rice cooker, then took a bowl of marinated tofu from the fridge. She hummed as she worked—some Nirvana song, I think. “Come as You Are”？ From the glow on her face and the sparkle in her eyes, I could tell she was in a good place. She moved like she was floating, or about to burst into some dance moves. It made me smile just seeing her like that.
For too long, she’d been an overstressed, underemployed mom, heartbroken after her short affair with the god of the sea and constantly worried about me, her demigod child who’d been hounded by monsters since I was old enough to crawl.
Now she and Paul had a good life together. And if I felt a little sad about having one foot out the door just when things were getting better, hey, that wasn’t my mom’s or Paul’s fault. They did everything they could to include me. Besides, I wanted to go to college. If I had to choose between being with Annabeth and . . . well, anything, that was no choice at all.
Paul dropped a clove of garlic into the wok, which sizzled and steamed like a sneezing dragon. （And yes, I’ve seen dragons sneeze.） “I think we are ready, milady.”
“Incoming.” Annabeth dumped the stir-fry mixture into the oil just as our doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” I said, and ran to let in our fifth for dinner.
As soon as I opened the door, Grover Underwood shoved a basket of fruit into my hands. “I brought strawberries.” His nose quivered. “Is that tofu stir-fry?”
“Hello to you, too,” I said.
“I love tofu stir-fry!” Grover trotted around me and made a beeline for the kitchen, because Grover knows what’s good.
My best friend had allowed his appearance to go a little wild, which is saying something, since he is a satyr. His horns and his curly hair were having a race to see which could be taller. So far the horns were winning, but not by much. His goatish hindquarters had grown so shaggy he’d stopped wearing human pants to cover them, though he assured me that humans still saw them as pants through the obscuring magic of the Mist. If anyone looked at him strangely, Grover just said, “Athleisure-wear.”
He wore his standard orange Camp Half-Blood shirt, and still used specially fitted tennis shoes to cover his cloven feet, because hooves are noisy and hard for the Mist to cover up. I guess the explanation “athleisure-wear plus tap-dancing shoes” didn’t work so well.