City Kitty and Country Mouse

by Alyssa Linn Palmer

  “I don’t know what we’ll make,” I say. Ideas have been floating around my mind all morning, but I’ve had to keep pushing them aside to focus on my job. My real job. The one that makes money. The one that pays for my apartment. The one I love. Another few months, and I might even get partner. That job.

  Except I keep getting flashes of the greenhouse, of Lucy.

  Suddenly I’m craving blackberries.

  “You know, I had no idea you could cook,” Cindy says. “You always get takeout.”

  “No time,” I admit.

  “There should always be time for homemade meals,” Cindy says. “My mother, back in Manila, told me that no matter what you’re doing, meals are important. It’s about love, not just about sustenance.”

  “What’s that saying the guys are always parroting? I need a wife?”

  Cindy shakes her head. “Those guys are so lazy. And their idea of a wife is stuck back in the 1950s.” She rolls her eyes. “But you, Kitty, you need to not work so much.”

  “I’m not working enough right now for a partnership,” I point out. “Jack says he worked hundred-hour weeks or more when he was going for his partnership.”

  “That’s nuts,” Cindy says bluntly. “Plain nuts. No one should be working that much. I know I don’t.”

  That’s true. Cindy keeps to a pretty set schedule, seven thirty until five, five days per week. There’s the odd exception, of course. But they’re rare.

  I wish I could do that. But I know I can’t. Once I’m a partner, I might be able to choose my own hours, but right now, it’s all about showing I’m capable.

  “I’m not working hundred-hour weeks yet,” I note, taking a sip of my water. I know I should be, but I already feel like I don’t have much time outside work.

  “You work seven days a week,” Cindy says. “You need to unplug. To have fun with that gorgeous woman and leave your phone turned off.” She shakes a finger at me, and I know she’s partly joking, but partly serious. She only ever shakes a finger at me when she’s about to quote her mother. “There’s nothing more important in life than love.”

  “Love is great,” I admit, “but it doesn’t put food on the table.”

  Cindy lets out a guffaw. “In your case, love might literally put food on the table.”

  She has a point.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say. “Once I’m done with these clients, I’ll have some downtime. But I need to help Lucy with the restaurant idea. We really could do it, Cindy. We really could. I can see it. And I want to have that food.”

  “Chinese and Western in a new twist,” Cindy replies. “I think it’s brilliant. Now, how can we help you manage to get that time?”

  I pull out my phone and bring up my calendar. The dates are full of little red notes. Meetings, clients, work. There are gaps here and there, and the weekends are partly empty so far.

  Cindy takes my phone away and begins to work, looking focused, biting her lip. After a few minutes, she hands me back my phone.

  “I’ve cleared all of your weekends,” she says. “No working on weekends. We’ll do it all during the week. No client calls, no file reviews. That means you can spend time with Lucy as much as you want then. It’s getting closer to the summer, and clients are going to be going on holiday.”

  I look at my calendar. Pairs of blank days stare back up at me, every weekend clear for the next two months.

  “How did you do that?” I ask.

  “Priorities,” she says as the server brings our dessert. One of the bussers follows with a tray with two coffee cups and all the fixings.

  “Ice cream with summer fruit for you both,” the server says, setting down two bowls heaped with vanilla ice cream and covered with berries. “Enjoy.”

  I pick up my spoon. “This looks delicious.”

  “It really does.” Cindy takes a raspberry from the top and pops it into her mouth. She chews, looking thoughtful. “Not bad, but not nearly as good as Country Mouse. I bet these aren’t organic.”

  “I can’t tell the difference.”

  “Try it,” she says. “You’ll know. You’ve been eating Lucy’s berries for a couple of weeks now, so I’m sure you’ll notice.”

  It’s my turn for a raised eyebrow.

  “And no, I did not mean that as a double entendre.”

  “If you say so.” I pick up my spoon and take up a couple of raspberries and one large blackberry. As I chew, I notice that the juices aren’t as flavorful. The taste seems muted, a shadow of what it could have been.

  Cindy was right.

  “So?” Cindy asks as I set down my spoon.

  “All right. You have a point.”

  Cindy claps. “Told you.”

  “I’m ruined for fruit now.”

  Cindy nods. “Nothing like Country Mouse. Well, I’m sure some are, but not your average grocery store fruit, imported from who knows where.”

  “I never knew you were so picky.”

  “You’d be too, if you knew where some of this came from. Half the time stuff isn’t even ripe. That’s why it’s so flavorless. It looks ripe, but it isn’t. It comes from some refrigerated truck that’s driven all the way from Mexico or California.” She makes a face. “BC fruit is better, but only in season. Country Mouse is the tastiest I’ve had, outside of being on Vancouver Island at the height of the season.”

  “What’s so much better then?” I ask.

  “Peaches,” she says. “All throughout BC, at every farmers’ market. Whole cases of them.” She closes her eyes, her lips turning up in a smile. “They’re amazing. Melt in the mouth.”

  “Maybe you should help with the restaurant too,” I remark.

  Cindy opens her eyes. “Not me,” she says. “I like my free time. But I’ll be your taste-tester. Every good restaurant needs one, right?”

  “You’re in.” We will need a taste-tester once we start on menus. Everything seems so intimidating as I think over all that we’ll need. And menus are only one part of it. Appliances, licenses, somewhere to host it all…

  “Don’t overthink it just yet,” Cindy says.

  “I’m not.”

  “You are so,” Cindy says. “I know that look. I’ve seen it many, many times before. Trust me on this, Kitty. Take things as they come. Between you and Lucy, it’ll be the best restaurant ever.”

  * * *

  I make it home to the apartment at a sensible time for once. I’m sure Cindy has pulled some strings with her magical calendar rescheduling trick, but at six o’clock, I find myself in my kitchen, staring at my empty fridge.

  No wonder I always eat out.

  I head into the bedroom, kick off my sensible pumps, and make quick work of my skirt suit, hanging it back in the closet. I change into skinny jeans, Converse, and a T-shirt that says Time to Smash the Patriarchy. Simone de Beauvoir’s on it, and I love it. Cheeky, a statement, but also a bit obscure, because she’s not exactly a household name here. I grab my purse on my way out the door, and my car keys. Time to hit the grocery store. I’m not quite sure what I want, but I know that anything has to be better than the sad bottles of condiments in my fridge. A girl can’t live on ketchup, Dijon mustard, and a half bottle of expired Caesar dressing.

  Ick.

  Instead of going to the closest grocery store, I take a longer drive, going to the Asian grocery in the northeast part of town. It’s huge, and I’ve only been here once or twice before, and not in the last few years. I grab a rolling basket just inside the entrance, and then I start off on my sojourn.

  And it is a sojourn. The place is packed, and it’s huge. There are so many things here, and it’s mind-boggling. I start in the frozen section, snagging some shrimp dumplings. I know I have a steamer somewhere in a cupboard that I could use. And if I feel lazy, they’ll be perfect with a salad. I move into the sauces, picking up a few I don’t have and a fresh bottle of soy sauce. From there it’s to the rice aisle for a bag of jasmine rice, then to the cooler section for a bit of milk and some fres
h rice noodles, and then to the meat section. I snag some chicken drumsticks, but then my eye is caught by the live fish in the tank, and the lobster.

  I leave those behind, though, after I come to the realization that there’s no way I can kill either creature myself. Just thinking about it makes me shudder. Sad, perhaps, since I’m definitely no vegetarian. But I go into the frozen fish section and pick up some light basa fillets and some frozen shrimp. After I take a round of the produce section, picking up lettuce, salad fixings, green onions and ginger, and some Shanghai bok choy, I drag my full basket to a checkout.

  I don’t quite know yet what I’ll make, but I have a few ideas. One of the recipes in Lucy’s book caught my eye, a steamed fish with onions. My stomach growls. I look down at my basket.

  I really shouldn’t shop when I’m hungry.

  Once out of the store and back home, I lug my bags up to the apartment and put everything away. The basa is frozen solid. I frown. They put two fillets to a package, and I only need one. I wrap both naked fillets in plastic, then put one into the freezer and the other into a bath of warm water in the sink.

  My stomach growls again. I take down a cutting board, trying to ignore the noises as I chop up the green onions and mince the ginger.

  I close my eyes, picture the recipe page from Lucy’s book, skim down the list of ingredients and instructions. I can’t normally remember that much detail, but I went over this recipe at least half a dozen times. I take out the soy sauce and pour some into a small bowl. And it’s there that I stop, trying to picture the page. Usually I can remember something exactly, but not today. What else was in the sauce?

  I pull my phone from my back pocket, dial Lucy. She picks up on the third ring, and the line is crackly.

  “This is a nice surprise,” she says, sounding a bit out of breath.

  “Did I catch you busy?”

  “I was in the shed, figuring out this dragon. I only just heard the ring. What’s up?”

  “I miss you,” I say. That wasn’t my first intention, but hearing her voice, a small ache has started in my chest. I want to be there with her, watching her work on her dragon. Not just talking to her on the phone.

  “I miss you too,” she replies, her breathy voice starting to return to normal.

  “I also was hoping you might be able to check something for me.”

  “What’s that?” I hear a slight clanking in the background.

  “Remember that book you showed me? There’s a recipe in there for steamed fish. I’m trying to make it, but I can’t remember all the ingredients.”

  “You’re making a recipe you’ve never made before, from memory?” Lucy sounds startled.

  I look at the counter, full of ingredients. “I am.”

  “I’m impressed. I’d never do that. I can’t even imagine trying something without having the book in front of me, or having at least made it a few times. How do you remember it all?”

  I chuckle. “Thing is, I can’t remember it all. At least, not this time. The sauce is stumping me. I knew about the fish, and the green onions, and the ginger, but the sauce? I know there’s soy, but I feel like there’s something I’m missing.”

  “Oil for the pan,” Lucy says. “I know that for sure. And a good sealing lid for the pan too.”

  “And the sauce?”

  “Definitely the soy.” Lucy hums to herself. “I’d better check the book. You should do it the regular way the first time. See how you like it, and then you can get all fancy.”

  “My mother used to say that,” I say “when she was around. My nanny did too, but only for really complicated stuff.”

  “You had a nanny?”

  I hadn’t thought about Mrs. Chadwick in a long time. “I did, at least until I was about eleven or twelve. She was the best.”

  “Where was your mom?” Lucy asks. I can hear the creak of the shed door, and I assume she’s heading toward the house.

  “Working. She’s a doctor. And Dad’s a lawyer.”

  “I never had that,” Lucy says. “A bit more old-fashioned here, I guess.” I hear her footsteps against the wood porch. “Almost there. I think I left the book in my room.” She says a hello to her mother, then I hear her breathing growing heavier. She lets out a breath. “Took the stairs at a run.”

  “Wish I’d been there to see it,” I say. I can picture her doing it, though, taking the stairs two at a time, maybe more.

  “All right, here’s the book.” There’s a brief pause. “Soy sauce and a bit of rice wine.”

  “I was so close.”

  “You were. Do you have rice wine?”

  I go to my pantry and open the door, scan the bottles. Damn.

  “Nope.”

  “Sake?” Lucy suggests. “It doesn’t have to be Chinese rice wine. Although, if you have really nice sake, I don’t know that you want to waste it on steaming when you could be drinking it instead.”

  “I think I do.” I reach up, push aside a couple of bottles. There it is. It hasn’t been used in a while. It’s not often that I eat in Japanese. “Got it.”

  “All right. It’s half a cup of sake, one-third cup of soy sauce.”

  “Perfect.” I rattle off the rest of the directions to her and Lucy confirms them.

  “You have a scary good memory, you know.”

  “I’m a bit weird,” I admit.

  “Not weird,” Lucy says. “You.”

  That statement makes me want Lucy here even more than I already do. I’m not very sentimental, or at least, I’ve never thought I was, but my heart aches.

  “Want to come for dinner?”

  * * *

  My heart skips a beat. In an instant, I’m calculating how long it would take, how much driving it would be, how I could do it. The answer, though, is that it’s not really possible, at least not tonight. There’s too much distance.

  “Not tonight,” I reply, reluctant to even say the words.

  “Still Wednesday, though?” Kitty asks.

  “Yes. Absolutely.” I can do it. I think. There’s a lot to do here, but I can manage it somehow.

  “Fantastic.” Her voice is low and warm and emotional.

  “Too bad you don’t live closer.”

  “Or that there isn’t better tech to get us there,” Kitty adds.

  “Star Trek? Beam me up, Kitty.” I chuckle.

  “I didn’t really watch that,” Kitty admits. “Sci-fi isn’t really my thing.”

  “Favorite TV show?”

  “Um…”

  “Laverne and Shirley? Who’s the Boss? Full House?” I rattle off a few from when we were kids. Well, that first one not so much. But reruns, maybe. “MASH? The Flintstones?”

  Kitty laughs. “When I was a kid I loved the Smurfs.”

  “Smurfilicious!”

  Kitty keeps laughing. She tries to say something, but she can’t stop. I love that I can get her to do that.

  I have an idea. I move into the kitchen, to the junk drawer, and pull out a small pad of paper and a pen. As I wait for her to stop her giggling, which is turning breathless, I sketch out a Smurf, and then think of how I could make one. Or maybe something else.

  “Sorry…” Kitty takes a long breath. “Better now. It’s just…I didn’t expect that.”

  “We can be smurfy anytime you want.”

  “Oh, don’t, I won’t be able to stop.” Kitty sounds like she’s muffling more giggles.

  “Careful, you don’t want to turn blue,” I chide. Now I’m having a hard time holding back laughter.

  “My face hurts,” she confides.

  “Mine too.” I’ve never smiled this much.

  “I’m so glad I met you.”

  The statement is heartfelt, and it makes my knees weak. I sink into one of the kitchen chairs. I’d thought this could be casual, but maybe it’s a bit more.

  “Me too,” I reply, at a bit of a loss for words. What’s to say to that that isn’t over the top?

  There’s a silence on the line between us, almo
st as if we’ve somehow overstepped, or somehow exposed too much of ourselves.

  “What should I bring tomorrow?” I ask to break the silence. “And what’s the best way to get to your place?”

  “I’ll text you directions,” she says.

  “I have a pen.”

  “Oh. Right.” She gives me the address and the best route there. “I’m on the fifth floor.”

  I wince. More downtown. Traffic and chaos. But for her, I’ll do it. “Is there parking?”

  “Street parking. Text me your license plate and I’ll put it into my account and can set you up so you don’t have to pay. Way easier than using the machines.”

  “I think I can be there around six. How’s that work?” I can do my chores early, and maybe Alice can take some of the others.

  “Perfect.” I can picture her smiling.

  “I should let you get back to your cooking. Let me know how it goes.”

  “If it goes well, we could put this on our menu,” she says. “It seems easy enough and quick enough to cook.”

  “And it is delicious,” I add.

  “I’ll text you a photo too,” she says.

  “I’ll be waiting for it.”

  There’s another pause, a silence. I don’t want to say good-bye, and I have a feeling that she doesn’t want to, either.

  “You hang up first,” I say.

  Kitty giggles again. “What are we, twelve?” she teases.

  My turn to giggle. I do feel younger, like there’s a new energy. “Maybe. Now hang up.”

  “No, you hang up.”

  “No, you.”

  Kitty snorts, a sound I’ve never heard from her. I love it. “We’ll count to three, do this the sensible way,” she says.

  “All right. One…”

  “Two…”

  And we say together, “Three.”

  Reluctantly, I hang up the phone.

  Just then, Mama comes into the kitchen, carrying a woven basket with some vegetables from the back garden.