#katlaska

"Do snakes eat fruit?"

Katya rolled her eyes. Alaska was still stinging from all the hate, which was exactly why Katya had demanded that they get out of town and off the internet for a few days. 

"I don't know," she said. "You're asking the wrong person about that, ma'am."

Alaska looked up from her phone. "Was that a read?"

"No! I just don't know anything about snakes! Except the one I'm sleeping with."

“Ha,” Alaska said without humor, and went back to scrolling. She blindly followed Katya past the fresh-squeezed juice section. "I think they're all carnivores," she added.

"I'll be happy to google snake diets for you later," Katya said. "Can you put the phone away and help me, please?"

"Mmm."

That was helpful.

"What do you want? Apples? Bananas?"

"Summer fruit." Alaska still wouldn't look up.

"You're going to have to be more specific than that, babe."

"I don't care. I just know I've been eating nothing but airport crap and green room junk and I need fruit."

Katya put some plums in one bag, and some peaches in another. She looked at the grapefruit. "Did the Airbnb listing say it had a juicer?"

"Yes."

Katya selected half a dozen grapefruit. "Are mangoes summery?" Mangoes got no reaction, so she racked her brain for what had been more expensive and less fresh in the cold months back east. In California they got perfectly ripe fruit every day of the year. "Strawberries?"

"Strawberries!"

"Done." Katya put a quart in the cart.

"Everything! All the fruit!"

"We're only staying for three nights."

"Compost," Alaska said. That was also in the description.

"You know what's going to happen, don't you?" Katya asked. "You're going to survive on fruit for one full day and then tell me you're staaaaaarving and you'll die without an immediate infusion of Chipotle."

"Tortillas and beans and salsa, then," Alaska said absently. "Salad."

"Enough," Katya said.

They'd waited until well after rush hour to head out of LA, and they'd stopped partway to buy groceries so they wouldn't have to leave the house and risk running into anyone they knew in Palm Springs. At this point, they'd arrive too late for the Romantic Jacuzzi Moments Katya had been planning. She was exhausted from the whirlwind after the All Stars finale, too. "Give me your phone."

Alaska looked up with wide eyes and hugged the phone to her chest with both hands. "No! I get to keep it until we're at the house!"

"I'm changing the rules because you are a crazy person. Give it." Katya held out her hand and wiggled her fingers. "You don't need to see any more strangers insulting you."

"I know," Alaska whined, her face screwed up. "It's pathological."

"It is," Katya agreed. Normally she'd say I love you and your family loves you or Reclaiming the narrative, remember? but affirmations wouldn't work when Alaska was like this. "Isn't it sexier when I insult you?" she asked instead, undulating her body for emphasis.

Alaska laughed, sighed, and handed over her phone. Katya quickly shut it off and put it in her back pocket.

"Thank you," Katya said. She rolled the cart over to the prepackaged salad mixes. "Now, you know you have a horse face, right?"

"Fuck off," Alaska said cheerfully.

"Giant feet!"

"My giant feet come with a nice benefit for you," Alaska pointed out.

"No rhythm even though you claim to be a singer-songwriter?"

"I only claim that in jest."