Chapter 2: The Grocery Bag Gambit
The heat of the kitchen clung to Wanda’s skin like a second layer as she pushed open the back door of Bellisario’s, stepping into the cool evening of the alley. The sharp contrast was a relief. She carried the smell of garlic and baked dough with her, a perfume she’d long stopped noticing. In her arms were two cardboard boxes—Tony’s notion of “leftovers” that could feed a small battalion: dough balls, a container of house-made ricotta, a vacuum-sealed pack of pepperoni.
Her mind was still buzzing with the graphic designer’s idea. TikTok. A brand. She could see the pixelated version of herself, filtered and perfect, her smile quantified in likes. It was a logical extension of the power she’d been wielding in the dining room all night. Why keep it local?
The narrow back staircase to her apartment was poorly lit, the concrete steps worn smooth in the middle from decades of traffic. She fumbled for her keys, the boxes tilting precariously. A muffled bass line thumped from somewhere above, the soundtrack to someone else’s night.
Just as she reached her floor, the door to apartment 2B swung open, casting a rectangle of warm, yellow light onto the faded hallway runner. Troy Peterson emerged, holding an empty microwave dinner tray, presumably headed for the garbage chute at the end of the hall.
“Oh, hey!” Wanda’s smile switched on automatically, brilliantly. It was a reflex, but a genuine one. She liked Troy. He was funny in a dry, self-deprecating way, and he never made her feel like just a collection of new body parts. Well, he tried not to.
“Wanda. Working late?” Troy’s eyes did their usual, frantic dance. They met hers, held for a nanosecond of normal human interaction, then performed a swift, helpless sweep of her entire form before jittering back to her face. The journey seemed to physically pain him. He was tall enough that his gaze, when it slipped, had a clear sightline down the V of her ribbed cotton tank top. She’d changed out of her uniform, but this top was its own kind of statement—soft, casual, and cut with a confidence that left little to implication.
“Just grabbing some supplies,” she said, shifting the boxes. The bottom one, containing the ricotta, slipped. “Whoa!”
She clutched it tighter, but the motion was enough. A single, perfect Granny Smith apple she’d balanced on top of the ricotta box rolled free. It hit the thin carpet with a soft thud and began a lazy journey down the sloping hallway towards Troy’s feet.
“Damn it,” she laughed, a bright, unfrustrated sound.
“I got it,” Troy said, too quickly. He bent at the waist to snag the apple just as Wanda moved to do the same.
She bent from the knees, a slow, deliberate dip. The boxes in her arms pressed her chest forward, deepening the neckline of the tank top. The fabric gaped. She knew it did. She felt the cool hallway air on skin usually covered. It was an accident, but only in the strictest, most technical sense. It was an accident she had orchestrate a thousand times in the last few months, testing angles, measuring reactions. A quiet, constant experiment in human physics.
Troy froze. He was caught in a horrible limbo, bent over, his hand an inch from the apple. His eyes were locked on the revealed swell of her breast, the lacy edge of a pale lavender bra. A strangled sound, something between a cough and a gasp, escaped him. He shot upright like a sprung trap, smacking the back of his head sharply against his own doorframe.
“Christ,” he hissed, pain scrunching his face.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Wanda straightened up, her expression a masterpiece of concerned innocence. She held the rescued apple. The boxes were still secure.
“Fine. Yeah. Just a… doorframe. It came out of nowhere.” He rubbed his head, his cheeks flushed a deep, blotchy red. The empty microwave tray dangled forgotten from his other hand. “Your, uh. Apple.”
“My hero,” she said, her tone lightly teasing. She placed the apple back on the box. “You’d think I’d learn to make two trips.”
“You always seem to have your hands full,” Troy said, then immediately winced at his own phrasing. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on his temples under the hallway’s flickering fluorescent light. He was drowning, and his sarcasm was a life raft full of holes.
Wanda let the comment hang, her smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She watched him struggle. It wasn’t cruel. It was fascinating. Tony’s worry was a generational fog. The customers’ stares were a currency. But Troy’s reaction was… pure. Undiluted. It was a spectacular, real-time collapse of etiquette and biology. He wasn’t leering. He was malfunctioning.
“So, big plans tonight?” she asked, shifting the conversation onto what she hoped was safer ground for him.
“The same thrilling routine. Reheat processed noodles, maybe watch something, pretend I don’t smell pizza so I don’t go bankrupt downstairs.” His eyes were firmly glued to a point just above her left shoulder now. A water stain on the ceiling had his complete, rapt attention. “You?”
“Thinking. A customer today said I should put the shop on social. Make videos and stuff.” She adjusted her grip, causing another subtle shift beneath the thin cotton. Troy’s gaze flickered down for a millisecond, then darted back to the stain. It was like watching a nervous cursor. “Maybe start a page. Bellisario’s, but like, fun. My uncle hates the idea.”
“Tony hates anything invented after 1993,” Troy managed, his voice regaining a shred of its usual dry rhythm. “But he’s not wrong to be cautious. The internet’s a… particular place. You put yourself out there, you don’t get to choose who looks. Or what they say.”
There it was. Not a warning about modesty, but about scale. About the anonymity of the gaze. It was a different flavor of concern, and it intrigued her.
“People look anyway,” she said, a little of the evening’s defiance creeping in. “At least online, I’m the one holding the camera.”
Troy finally looked at her, really looked at her face. He saw the determined glint in her eye, the stubborn set of her jaw beneath the cheerleader smile. He saw the girl who decided to change her body and did it. The sheer, terrifying agency of it.
“Yeah,” he sighed, a long exhale that seemed to deflate him. “Yeah, you are.” He gestured weakly with the plastic tray. “I should… dispose of this evidence of my sad existence.”
“It’s not sad. It’s efficient.” She took a step toward her door, then paused. “Hey, you want some of this ricotta? Tony thinks I need to carb-load for a marathon I’m not running.”
“I’m good, but thanks.” He was backing into his apartment, a retreat. “See you, Wanda.”
“See you, Troy. Ice that head.”
He gave a feeble wave and shut the door. The click of the lock was a definitive period.
Wanda turned and slotted her key into her own lock. Inside her quiet apartment, she dumped the boxes on the counter. She walked to the small bathroom and faced the mirror. She studied herself, turning slightly, replicating the angle from the hallway. She saw what Troy had seen. The confident curve, the hint of lace. She saw her own smile, which didn’t falter.
You put yourself out there, you don’t get to choose who looks.
Troy’s words echoed, but they didn’t land like a warning. They landed like a challenge. A question of territory. The dining room was hers. The hallway was hers. Why not a little square of the internet? She could choose the frame. She could choose the narrative. It was just another room, bigger, with the lights turned way, way up.
She pulled her phone from her back pocket. She opened the camera app and switched it to selfie mode. The screen filled with her face, her hair, the familiar tiled background of her bathroom. She lowered the angle slightly, just enough to include the proud line of her collarbone, the promising hint of the neckline. She took a picture. It was good. She looked vibrant, real, happy. She imagined a caption: Long shift. Proud of my team. And yes, the dough is made fresh daily. A wink implied but not typed.
She didn’t post it. Not yet. She saved it to a folder she’d recently created, labeled “Ideas.” It was a start. A first draft. Downstairs, in the dark, silent pizzeria, Tony was probably wiping down the ovens, his world neatly contained by four walls and a family recipe. Up here, Wanda stared into the infinite hallway of the internet, feeling its vast, silent pull. She put the phone down, the screen darkening to black, reflecting a version of her face that was already thinking in pixels and hashtags. The apartment felt very quiet, and very small.
The apartment felt very quiet, and very small. The ricotta sat heavy in its container. An idea, fully formed now, buzzed against the quiet. She needed to talk it through with someone who wouldn’t just scowl like Tony, and Troy’s awkward, honest reaction in the hallway felt like a better sounding board than most.
She scooped a generous portion of the cold ricotta into a small dish, drizzled it with honey from a bear-shaped bottle, and scattered it with the crushed pistachios Tony kept for a dessert special. She slid it into her toaster oven, the coils glowing orange in the dim kitchen light. While it warmed, she changed into an absurdly soft cashmere hoodie, the fabric luxurious against her skin. She didn’t zip it.
The hallway was empty this time. She balanced the warm, fragrant dish in one hand and knocked twice on 2B with the other, a quick, familiar rap. “Troy? It’s Wanda. Bearing cheesy gifts.”
A moment of silence stretched, filled with the muffled pause of a video game. Then a latch clicked. The door opened to reveal Troy, his hair more mussed than usual, wearing faded sweatpants and a t-shirt for a band she didn’t recognize. He blinked, surprised. “Hey. You didn’t have to—”
“I know,” she said, already easing past him through the doorway with a swirl of honey and wool scent. “But it’ll go bad, and you’re my nearest neighbor. Consider it a zoning tax.” His apartment was a mirror of hers in layout but felt like a different planet: shelves bowed under the weight of technical manuals and graphic novels, a sprawling desktop computer glowed with spreadsheets, and a vintage movie poster for The Thing was tacked neatly to the wall.
“Make yourself at home,” he said, closing the door with a resigned sigh that wasn’t entirely unfriendly. He gestured to a worn but comfortable-looking couch. “To what do I really owe the visit? Apple rescue redemption?”
“Partly.” She settled onto the couch, curling her legs beneath her, and placed the dish on his cluttered coffee table. “Eat that before it cools. It’s therapy.” She watched as he sat in a desk chair opposite, picked up a spoon, and took a tentative bite. His eyes widened slightly in genuine pleasure.
“Okay, that’s incredible.”
“Told you.” She pulled her phone out, swiping to the ‘Ideas’ folder. “So, the social media thing. I’m serious about it. I was thinking I start with behind-the-scenes stuff. Dough tossing. The oven. Uncle Tony grumbling in Sicilian.”
“Sounds cute.” Troy took another bite, watching her over the rim of the dish. “The algorithm likes cute. It also likes…”
“Like what?” Her eyes were bright, challenging.
He put the spoon down carefully. “You know what. Wanda, come on. The ‘cute pizza girl’ angle is one thing. But if you step into that arena, you’re not just selling pizza. You’re offering a… persona. And the part of the persona people will latch onto isn’t your dough technique.”
“My smile,” she said, tilting her head.
“Your smile is a weapon, sure,” he admitted, a faint smirk on his lips. “But we both know it’s not the primary artillery.”
There it was, sitting between them on the stained coffee table, next to the empty microwave tray he’d never discarded. The unspoken thing from the hallway, now given a shape. She felt a strange thrill at his directness, a relief after the usual dance. He wasn’t pretending not to see. He was just worried about the lighting.
“Okay,” she said, her voice dropping its performative cheer slightly. She took a deep breath, which she knew emphasized exactly what they were discussing. “Let’s talk about the artillery.”
Troy simply waited, his expression carefully neutral, giving her the floor.
“I got them because I wanted to,” she began, her fingers tracing the plush cuff of her hoodie sleeve. “I saved up from this job for two years. Every tip, every extra shift. It wasn’t about men, or trends, or some… profound lack. It was about a line.” She gestured a curve in the air with her hand. “I had a picture in my head of my silhouette, and my real one didn’t match. It felt like wearing clothes that were almost, but not quite, right. All the time.”
She looked at him, checking for understanding or, worse, pity. She saw neither. He was just listening.
“The recovery sucked. I felt like a bruised piece of fruit. But when the bandages came off, and the swelling went down…” Her face softened, lit from within by a private, fierce joy. “It was like meeting myself for the first time. Like I’d been speaking a sentence my whole life and finally got to say the last word.”
Troy nodded slowly, saying nothing, letting her fill the space.
“I love how they look in my clothes. I love the confidence. I walk into a room and I own the space I’m in now, before I even say a word.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her expression utterly earnest. “But that’s not even the best part, Troy. The best part is the physical feeling. The weight of them. The way they move when I walk. Just… existing in my own body feels interesting now. It feels like a celebration, every single day.”
She fell silent, the confession hanging in the air, mixing with the scent of honey and cheese. It was more naked than any neckline.
Troy absorbed it all. He didn’t blush or look away. The fetishist in him was momentarily stunned into silence by the person. “So it’s authentic,” he finally said, his voice low. “It’s genuinely you. That’s… powerful.”
“It is me.” She held his gaze. “So if I make a TikTok, that’s part of the package. I’m not going to hide them in a baggy shirt. But I’m not going to jiggle them on camera for pepperoni views, either. They’re just… there. A fact of me. Like my hair or my laugh.”
“And you can handle the comments? The DMs? The guys like me, but without the… decency?” The question wasn’t protective. It was practical.
“The guys like you are fine,” she said, a real, warm smile breaking through. “You’re appreciating a work of art. You’re just really bad at being subtle about it.” She teased, but her tone was affectionate.
He let out a short, genuine laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Guilty. But seriously, Wanda. That’s a hell of a line to walk. Showing but not selling. Being proud without becoming a product.”
“I know,” she said. The energy between them had shifted, the tension melted into something like collaborative alliance. “So, you’ll help me? Be my… focus group? Tell me if an idea is clever or if it just makes me look like I’m trying too hard?”
He looked at the empty ricotta dish, then back at her resolute, glowing face. He saw the complete picture now—the vanity, yes, but also the profound self-possession. It was dangerously compelling.
“Yeah,” he said, the word leaving him before he could overthink it. “Yeah, okay. Somebody’s got to save the internet from your uncle’s.Counterpoint.”
Her smile then could have powered the entire dim apartment. She reached for her phone, already pulling up a video. “Great. So, watch this clip I took of Giovanni tossing dough. Now, where should the text pop up…”
Troy rolled his chair closer to the couch, his own earlier awkwardness shelved. As she pressed play, the screen’s light illuminated both their faces—hers alight with creation, his with a dawning, fascinated comprehension. The quiet from her apartment was gone, replaced by the low hum of his computer and the easy, rhythmic flow of two voices weaving a new idea into the night.