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“So,” Vanessa asked one day while they were washing dishes, “is Abby her full name, or is that short for Abigail?”
She set a bowl on top of two others she’d already dried. Between that, the sprawl of utensils across the drying towel, and countless cups, the counter space was slowly starting to disappear. They’d have to start putting things away soon.
Smiling, Mike dipped a mug into the soapy water that had collected in the sink. “Yeah, Abigail is her real name.” He rinsed the mug off, running his fingers around the inside to make sure it was clean, and handed it to her.
“So, with Abs, you just made a nickname of a nickname.”
“Pretty much. It felt natural.” Mike picked up another cup and dunked it in the water, then began scrubbing at the film of chocolate milk that had congealed inside. “I’m not really sure how it happened, but I guess I just wanted something more… personal.”
“Yeah?” Vanessa loved it when he opened up like this. Mike generally kept a lot to himself, but whenever he talked about his family, it was like looking through a window into a happier time. Sometimes Vanessa even felt like the warmth of those memories could spill out onto her.
Mike nodded. “We kind of had this unspoken tradition of not calling each other by full names,” he said. “It’s like a way of showing affection. And also a gauge for how serious you’re being.” A glint of fond memories sparkled in his eye. “That’s how I used to find out I was in trouble. Believe me, you don’t know fear until you’ve been having a good day, minding your business, and then hear somebody yell MICHAEL FRITZ SCHMIDT!! from the other end of the house.”
Vanessa wanted to say she knew plenty well what fear felt like, but resisted. She couldn’t bring her father into every conversation. She refused to. So she attacked something else instead.
“Your middle name is Fritz?” she teased.
He dropped his eyes with a sheepish smile. “Yeah. My mom, uh, really loved the Nutcracker, so our middle names are based on that. Abby is Abigail Marie—that’s Clara’s name from the original story.”
Ah, Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece. Vanessa was fond of the Christmas ballet, too. Not for the first time, she felt like she would’ve gotten along with Mike’s mom. “And you’re the little boy who broke the nutcracker?”
“Yeah, the brother who messes everything up. Turned out to be pretty accurate,” he half-joked.
"Don't say that."
Mike shrugged, but didn’t protest. She wondered if he really felt that way, or if it was just some kind of skewed coping mechanism. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done the same.
While it was nice to hear more about the sweetness of the Schmidt family, Vanessa didn’t have such a pleasant association with nicknames. Growing up, Dad had always called her “Vanny”. She had loved it. It sounded so cute, especially in that sing-song voice he liked to use. Now, though, it was all too obvious that the nickname had been a portmanteau of her name and bunny, and her father had used it to corral and coax her. A reminder that all he cared about was his prized yellow rabbit and what it stood for. That she was just another of his trophies.
In 2nd grade, a few kids tried calling her “Van-Van”. But Vanessa had been growing out of her cutesy phase at the time, and anyway, it just made her sound like a car. When she got to high school and made new friends, one of them had suggested “Ness” as a nickname. Vanessa liked it. It was short, sweet, sophisticated, and at the opposite end of her name, far away from Vanny. It was perfect.
Until she found out there was a senior student actually named Ness, and people started making jokes about her and the diner boy. It had taken almost all of high school to live that down. She still avoided going to Sparky’s.
Vanessa set another dry dish on the counter. Okay, that’s enough. Time to clear some space. She picked up the stack of dishes and began putting them away. “What was Garrett’s?”
Mike looked up. “His what?”
“Middle name,” Vanessa clarified. “Or his nickname… whatever you care to talk about.” She pressed her lips together, hoping she hadn’t pried at something too personal. It was hard to tell where the line was.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem bothered. “Well, with Garrett’s name, my parents swapped. Mom got to choose his first name, Dad got his middle. Theodore, if you can believe it. When Abby came along they switched back again.”
“Theodore. Sounds sophisticated.”
Mike laughed. “Yeah. He hated it. As for nicknames, we went through so many… G, Garry, Theo, Gare-bear… none of them really stuck.” He frowned, as if that was the biggest thing left unresolved by Garrett’s death.
“Gare-bear is kind of cute.”
“I thought so too.”
They fell quiet. Mid-day sunbeams had come through the kitchen window, and were illuminating Mike’s hair like a halo. In the light, his eyes turned the color of honey.
Vanessa realized she had run out of dishes to put away. Or dry. I need a distraction.
She reached into the warm water. Mike looked at her, curious.
“What are you doing?”
“You haven’t given me a new dish yet,” she said. “And I’m tired of waiting, so I’m gonna get one and rinse it myself. I know you’ve left a ton just sitting at the bottom.”
“That’s because you’re going too fast!” Mike protested, but there was a laugh in his voice. “I can’t wash faster than you dry.”
“Then why’d you volunteer to wash?”
Mike rolled his eyes. “I didn’t know I’d be working with the Flash.”
“I’m used to doing things… quickly.” Vanessa felt a twinge of shame as her thoughts slipped to the thousands of times her father had told her Do it right, and do it fast. “Don’t you wash a ton of dishes at your job, Mike? Like, so many dishes that you complain about it all the time?”
“Vanessa…”
She kept pushing. “Shouldn’t you be better at this by now?”
He glared at her, but there was no anger in his eyes, merely annoyance. Somehow even that look was attractive. It wasn’t fair.
Then he splashed her.
“Aah!!” Vanessa instinctively raised her hands, but of course they were still dripping wet. She scowled and dunked them back in the water again. To her annoyance, it did not create enough of a wave to splash Mike.
“That’s what you get for questioning my experience,” Mike said, barely restraining a smirk. He swished his hand in the water, like he was preparing another water attack. “Good work takes time and patience. If I went faster, these dishes wouldn’t be clean. And it would probably take… twice as long.”
Vanessa pouted. “Well, you’re holding up the line. I’m getting bored, Mike.” She used the towel to wipe her face, hoping Mike wasn't a germaphobe about that kind of stuff.
“My apologies. I didn’t realize you were so impatient.”
Vanessa stuck out her tongue and reached into the water for another dish anyway. Mike apparently had the same idea. As they both tried to grab a mug, their fingers brushed. An electric thrill spiraled up Vanessa’s arm and sent heat rushing to her cheeks. For a second, she couldn’t move. Mike had also paused, staring vacantly at the spot where they'd touched under the water.
Okay, that’s enough of that. Vanessa removed her hands and wiped them on the towel. “All right, hurry up and give me a dish, I haven’t got all day.”
Mike studied her, like he was trying to figure out why her mood changed so quickly, but he gave it up and went back to the water. “Your wish is my command.”
Trying not to think too much about that comment, Vanessa accepted the mug that Mike handed her. The mug that they had both tried to pick up, which almost resulted in them holding hands.
Yep, she was already blushing. She narrowed her eyes at her dish-washing companion.
This is all your fault, Michael, she thought, even though she wasn’t really mad at him. But the way his full name came so easily to her thoughts made her think of something else, and she smirked.
“Thanks, Fritz,” she said, like it was second nature.
Mike gave her another sideways look, like, really? but then his smile broke through. “All right, I guess I deserve that. Sorry for splashing you.”
“Sorry?” Vanessa wiped the mug dry and set it on the counter. “Why are you sorry? That was fun.”
Mike laughed. “Sure, anytime.”
They went on washing and drying. Vanessa filled the time between waiting for a new dish by putting the dry ones away. They chatted and teased intermittently, Mike refusing to be made fun of, and Vanessa edging him on. It was cozy. It was… nice.
Before long, they had emptied the sink. Vanessa play-fought Mike for the last dish, which happened to be Abby’s favorite bowl—a vintage piece decorated with Snap, Crackle, and Pop’s smiling faces. Vanessa was pretty sure had owned something similar as a kid. She wondered who this bowl had first belonged to.
“You can just leave that,” Mike told her as she started to dry it. He stifled a yawn. “I’ll get it later.”
“All right.” Vanessa smiled, shaking the last droplets of warm water from her hands. They felt pruny. “Well, this has been nice, but I’m getting tired, so I think I’m gonna go take a nap in Abby’s room.” Her cloud-throne sleeping cot was still set up on the floor, and she’d gotten quite used to it.
Unsurprisingly, Mike also looked tired, with a dreamy look drifting across his face and lifting a corner of his mouth. “Okay. Sounds good, Nessa.”
Vanessa’s hand stalled halfway to putting the towel back on its hook. Her heart thudded once, twice, right in her throat.
Nessa?
NESSA????
Mike was standing frozen over the sink, staring off into space again. Except this time she definitely saw a reddish color start to spread across his face.
“Well,” he said slowly, like he couldn’t believe his ears either, “that, uh, kinda… slipped out.”
Vanessa struggled to form a sentence. “Did… did you just…?”
Mike stepped back, raising his hands like a caught criminal. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, no, it’s okay,” she said, pulse and words tripping over each other to reassure him. “It… it’s nice. It’s sweet.”
Mike watched her closely. She got the feeling he was constantly searching for the imaginary emotional line with her, too; measuring her reaction, searching for signs that she was bothered but hiding it. She took a slow breath, and did her best to show that she wasn’t upset in the slightest. In fact, she was trying not to look too excited and happy and flattered and—
Vanessa cleared her throat. “So, did Abby come up with that, and she just hasn’t told me yet? Or…” She tried to sound teasing to cover up how flustered she felt. “…Is that a Mike Schmidt original?”
Mike rubbed his neck, and Vanessa was briefly distracted by the thought that he hadn’t dried his hands and was probably dripping water down his back, and also how cute he looked when he was embarrassed. “Well… yeah. I mean, it’s kind of a habit, y’know?”
A family tradition.
Vanessa’s heart sang. “I like it,” she half-whispered. “Thank you, Mike. You don’t have to worry about making me feel… weird. Call me whatever you want… whenever you want.”
“Okay,” Mike said. He was staring at her, like he'd already slipped into a dream. “Uh, you got it. You’re the boss.”
When they had met, that compliment would’ve puffed up her ego, but now? It couldn’t hold a candle to the fact that Michael Schmidt had given her a special nickname.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “Later, Fritz.”
He smiled, and Vanessa decided this was a good time to make a classy exit before her giddiness became obvious. It was a smart choice, because as soon as she turned away the warmth rushed back to her face.
Nessa. Nessa, Nessa, nessa, nessanessanessanessanessa. It sounded so right in his voice. She wanted to hear him say it again. She wanted to hear him say it a thousand times, every day, every night, seeing her, naming her, calling her his. It was ridiculous. It was stupid. But it was clearly important to him, because so was Garrett’s lack of a proper nickname, and so was his need to call Abby something more special, more intimate and personal than what his parents did. It wasn’t just a tradition. It was a love language.
Nessa, she thought again, with a thrill. It was perfect.
And, if she allowed herself to herself to daydream for just a little bit, it was a step towards the impossible happily-ever-after Vanessa had begun to hope that all her years of sorrow might end in.