Hugs!

And then he goes back to his suddenly very empty bed, emails Claire and the head of the Aarons Foundation that he's met somebody so he'll be working less for the next while, curls into a ball, and starts mentally replaying the afternoon and thinking about all the horribly embarrassing things he said. 

Karen has way more important things to do than think about all of the embarrassing things she said. She gets her pile of comics and reads about Batman and - 

- gets about halfway through the first one before she notices that she's crying and vaguely feeling like her life is completely over. Because it is. She is never going to get to do any more things that are not this, ever, unless and until she fails, because giving up would be killing Zana, and because there's nothing wrong with Lev, at all, he's nice and he's a nerd and he's terribly hug-deficient and he made a play room for her four-year-old and he eats Kraft macaroni and cheese.

She has no excuse not to do this. Therefore she has to, and has to keep doing it as long as he lets her. It would have been cool if they could have been friends without her having to give up any expectation of ever doing anything else ever, or without her having to give up all credibility by being paid for the supposed service. In an ideal world. In this one it's whatever.

She puts the comics away and texts her cousin and tucks herself in to bed. She cries until she gets tired of it, and then she goes to sleep.

In the morning Lev has responses to his email. The Aarons Foundation head says congratulations and most things aren't super-urgent but they really do need the final decision on the tuberculosis grant by the end of the week. Claire says to keep her posted so that she can rearrange the work if she has to and that he has accumulated nearly six months of paid time off by this point and he might want to consider taking some of it, which is how you say "I'm happy you've met someone" in Claire. 

He opens up a few spreadsheets full of statistics and starts trying to figure out why the social desirability bias metrics have stopped working and what he can do to fix them. Cereal appears as if by magic at his elbow and he eats it without paying any attention. 

Karen wakes up and considers curling up with some comics before remembering that she's, like, being paid to be a trial spouse type person who should probably be available and approachable if she wants this to continue for any length of time. Also the dining room is a fine place to read her comics.

She makes her bed herself and takes her comics to the dining room and sees whether she can find Edith.

Edith is reading some comics in the kitchen. "Hello, Karen! Do you need something?"

"I'm good! I was going to get some breakfast. I can get it myself unless you have a system you don't want me to mess up."

"Oh, go ahead! It's here for you. You have a kitchen in your rooms too, if that's easier."

"Ooh, cool. I can check it out later. I wanted to make at least a token attempt not to be a recluse while I'm here, though."

She finds some eggs to scramble and makes herself some breakfast. She washes all of the dishes she uses herself.

Edith glances up and sees that she's washing the dishes. "You don't have to do that, I'm paid to wash the dishes."

" - oh, sorry! Habit. I'll get out of your way. Thanks for letting me use your kitchen, though."

"It's your kitchen for as long as you're staying here!" she says cheerily.

"Well, thank you."

Annnd she will just take her comics to the library and read them. Maybe mess around on the internet and post some halfhearted freewriting to her blog, which she has told no one about at any point because it is supposed to be entirely private and have zero connection to her actual real life, except insofar as her real life inspires writing.

Lev is probably doing important things so she figures she shouldn't bother him. She does make good progress on the pile of comics, though.

The thing about flow states is that it is really hard to notice how much time is passing when you're in them or think "hey, I got a person who's supposed to be hanging out with me, maybe I should check up on them."

Lunch appears and is eaten.

Karen hasn't had extended periods of free time in several months anyway, so hey, this is an opportunity to read things and sporadically write and play some of those games that she bought for fifty cents and then never had time to look at. A week of nothing will drive her crazy, but one day of nothing is probably restorative, apart from the mild worrying that she might be losing time with which to make a good impression on Lev. But he wouldn't want her to bother him while he's working, so.

For lunch, she asks Edith whether she knows how to make grilled cheese sandwiches with onions and bacon in them, and if so whether she can watch her make them so that she can figure out what order all the steps go in.

Edith does and is happy to show her!

She seems to have decided Karen is Good People, so if she wants to find out more about Lev now's her chance.

This does not actually occur to her as a thing that she can do. She's mostly trying to make friends-or-acquaintances with Edith because failure to do so sounds like it would be uncomfortable and depressing, and also Edith is Very Good.

She does ask how long Edith has worked here, in an attempt to make conversation.

"Only about a year! He went through three cooks before me, because they kept trying to make him escargot and things of that nature."

She laughs. "He seems really - easygoing is the wrong word. Unpretentious."

"He's definitely the easiest boss I've ever had. Never gets angry, mostly wants the same kind of food you'd serve for your family, never invites people over-- well, until you. Only problem is that he won't eat of his own accord. Half the time when I take a weekend off it turns out he just didn't eat for two days!"

"Oh dear. I guess at least that way you know your job is very important."

When she has made sufficient progress on project Bond With Edith, she will return to the library to read. She takes a break from the comics at some point and cracks open one of the less intimidating psychology books, eventually, just so her brain doesn't totally turn to mush. She thinks whether she fits the 'smart' criterion on Lev's list of desired qualities is pretty debatable, but maybe she can fake it if she reads enough.

If it gets to be six or so then she will begin making plans to maybe figure out where Lev is at some point.

Edith is carrying some food to his office and can point her the right way!

"Oh, hi Karen," he says. "What time is it?"

"Sixish. I know you work a lot so if you're in the middle of something that's fine, though."

"Uh, no, nothing that can't wait. There are too many men that are exactly six feet tall on Yenta and this is a problem but I'm not going to solve it tonight."

"That does seem fairly hard to solve without secret measurement police. Or requiring people to submit pictures of themselves next to tape measures instead of just filling in a text field. But yeah, uh, I read some of the comics! Didn't make it through all of them but there were some that were really good."