by LN Cronk
I usually did pretty good – especially if the questions had anything to do with science or technology – and I started looking forward to watching it in the evenings. He wasn’t as good as Bizzy or Dorito, but all things considered, Wally wasn’t bad company.
~ ~ ~
NOT TOO LONG after Josette had moved in, I woke up in the middle of the night and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. When I got to the hallway, however, I found that the bathroom door was closed and I realized that Josette was already in there.
Her bedroom door, next to the bathroom, was open. Not open much actually, just slightly . . . but enough that I could see into her room if I got close enough and really craned my neck (which I did).
The light was on and I saw two suitcases and three cardboard boxes. There was no furniture whatsoever, and several blankets, along with a pillow, were spread out on the floor.
The toilet flushed and the sound of it sent me tiptoeing quickly back to my room, closing the door quietly before the water in the sink had even started to run.
The next afternoon I knocked on Josette’s bedroom door, unsure if she was even home or not.
“Yes?” she called.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I stepped back from the door as she opened it slightly and peered at me through the crack.
“Yes?” she said again.
“Can you come out here?” I asked. I stepped back even farther, and she opened her door just wide enough to slip out into the hallway. She closed the door quickly behind her and looked at me expectantly.
“I went to the grocery store today,” I began, “and they were having this huge special on ribeyes. There were two in a package and I thought I’d grill them up tonight and then take one of them to work to heat up for lunch tomorrow, but I just remembered that I have this thing to go to tomorrow and I don’t want it to go to waste and I wondered if maybe you liked steak?”
I took a breath from my rambling, and she looked at me carefully.
“A thing?” she finally asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Some intern thing with sandwiches and stuff . . . and I think maybe shrimp.”
Sandwiches and shrimp?
“So, anyway,” I went on, “I’m not that great of a cook or anything, but I don’t want it to go to waste and . . .”
“I don’t want to take your food,” she said, shaking her head. “You could just wait and cook the other one tomorrow night or something.”
“Eh,” I said, waving my hand at her. “I don’t really want to mess with the grill two nights in a row. If you don’t want it, I can just throw away what I don’t eat. It’s no big deal, they were really cheap.”
“Don’t throw it away,” she said hastily. “I’ll eat whatever you don’t want.”
“Great. You want a salad, too?”
“Well . . .”
“That stuff’s just going to go to waste too . . .”
“I guess so,” she said hesitantly. “If you’re sure.”
“Sure, I’m sure,” I said, smiling. “I’ll throw in a baked potato for you, too.”
Dinner turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. We took our meal to the coffee table in the living room and sat down on the futon.
“Do you like game shows?” I asked, turning on the television.
“Sure,” she replied.
“I found this game show that I’ve never seen before,” I told her. “It’s pretty good.”
“Chances Are?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, and I realized that she’d been sequestered in her bedroom every evening listening to me watch it. “Do you like it?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “It’s brilliant.”
We watched quietly until the first commercial break. That was when I told her, as nonchalantly as I could, “I’m getting a different couch tomorrow.”
“You are?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, spearing a wedge of tomato onto the end of my fork. I pointed down at the futon. “I hate this thing . . . it’s really uncomfortable.”
I put the tomato into my mouth.
“Oh,” she said, nodding back.
I chewed and swallowed.
“I’m going to get rid of it,” I said, wiping my mouth, “unless you want it or something.”
We looked at each other for a long moment until I got really uncomfortable and went back to my salad.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible liar?” she asked.
I looked back up at her.
“I don’t need charity,” she said.
“It’s not charity,” I protested. “Can’t I buy a new couch if I want?”
“Was it on sale like the ribeyes were?”
I glanced down at my plate.
“You’re a terrible liar,” she reiterated.
“I know,” I sighed, looking back at her.
“I really appreciate what you’re trying to do,” she said gently, “but I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay,” I protested. “You shouldn’t be sleeping on the floor and eating ramen noodles every day.”
“I don’t mind,” she assured me.
“I mind!”
Now it was her turn to sigh.
“Marco–”
“Look,” I interrupted. “I’ve already ordered it, it’s coming tomorrow . . . just take the futon.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“I want you to take it,” I said. “Please?”
She finally gave me a little nod.
“Good,” I said, satisfied. “Now eat your steak.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, looking down at her plate and picking up her knife.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll pay you back as soon as I get on my feet.”
“I don’t want you to pay me back.”
She was quiet again for a minute and then finally asked, “Can I at least do the dishes tonight?”
I looked her dead in the eye and smiled.
“If you’ll do the dishes, I’ll cook dinner for you every single night.”
~ ~ ~
I DON’T KNOW if Josette was tired of eating ramen noodles or if she believed me when I told her that I really did hate doing the dishes, but whatever the reason, the two of us started eating together every night after that, and on the third or fourth evening, she started helping me cook each evening too. This might have been because she thought my cooking needed help, or it might have been because she thought I shouldn’t be handling knives and hot pans when I didn’t have any fingers. I could tell she worried about me whenever I did, but it didn’t take too long for her to realize that I did okay (and that if I wasn’t a great cook, it wasn’t because of my hands).
One evening, as I was using a small paring knife to peel garlic, I noticed her watching me curiously.
“What?” I asked, glancing at her.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I just . . .”
“What?”
She shrugged, then admitted, “I just think it’s neat the way you can do so much stuff.”
“I can do pretty much whatever I want.” I nodded. “My parents never let me use my hands as an excuse for anything, so I pretty much had to figure out how to get things done.”
“What happened?”
“To my hands?”
She nodded.
“I was born this way,” I said, rinsing off the knife.
“Oh.”
She didn’t ask anything about my scar and I had almost convinced myself that my moustache covered it completely up, so I didn’t tell her that I’d been born that way, too.
“I hope you don’t think it’s rude that I asked,” she said.
“No. Not at all,” I replied honestly. Then I looked at her and said, “Do you mind if I ask you something about your hands?”
“My hands?” she asked in surprise.
I nodded.
“What?”
I pointed with the tip of my
knife to a pale band around the ring finger of her left hand.
“What’s up with that?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I said hastily, already sorry that I’d asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s okay. I used to wear a ring, that’s all.”
“Well, I had that much figured,” I said dryly.
She glanced at me.
“I was married,” she finally explained, shrugging slightly. “Now we’re separated.”
I’d pretty much had that figured too, but she obviously didn’t want to talk about it so I let it drop with a simple, “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Thanks.”
Josette and I continued timing dinner so that we could eat while watching Chances Are. Before long we were keeping score, competing against one another to see who could shout out the correct answer first. I’d thought Bizzy was competitive, but she was nothing compared to Josette.
A week or so after we had asked each other about our hands, the two of us were eating burgers on the couch when Wally Fletcher asked a contestant for the name of a beef dish that was made with a mashed potato crust on top.
“Shepherd’s pie!” I called out confidently.
“Cottage pie,” Josette said at the same time.
Wally proclaimed that Josette was right, and I stared at the TV in dismay.
“Shepherd’s pie is made with lamb,” Josette informed me.
“You can make it with beef, too,” I insisted, looking at her. “My mom always makes it with beef.”
“Then she’s making Cottage Pie.”
I pulled out my phone and searched the Internet just long enough to determine that she was right, and then I spent the rest of the evening sulking.
The next morning I called Mom.
“Will you send me your shepherd’s pie recipe?” I asked when she answered.
“I’m not home,” she reminded me. “We’re visiting Grace.”
“Well, I need you to send it to me,” I said. “I tried to download one but it has carrots in it instead of peas, and then I just looked up another one and it has mushrooms in it.”
“So?”
“So,” I said, “you never put mushrooms in it.”
“Then don’t put mushrooms in it.”
“But I want it to taste like yours,” I complained. “There’s about fifty-thousand recipes out there and I don’t know which one is yours.”
“Feeling homesick?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
She started rattling off a list of ingredients and steps.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “I’m driving and I can’t write it down right now. Can you send it to me?”
“Sure,” she agreed. “I’ll write it down and get it in tomorrow’s mail.”
“No, I want to make it tonight,” I said. “Can you email it to me?”
“Email it?”
“Please?”
“Your dad’s not even here,” she said worriedly. “Andrew got them a reservation for eighteen holes at Pebble Beach and they just left a little bit ago.” (Andrew was the fiancé that Grace had somehow managed to snag.)
“Grace has a computer, Mom,” I said patiently. “She can help you do it.”
“Okay,” Mom agreed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I love you.”
By the time Josette walked in the door late that afternoon, I was sliding a casserole dish into the oven.
“Get ready to have the best thing you’ve ever eaten in your entire life,” I told her.
“Cottage pie or shepherd’s pie?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
She smiled.
“Need any help?” she asked.
“Nope. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “I’m going to go change and I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Okay,” I nodded back.
She was actually gone a lot longer than a minute, and what brought her out was the sound of the smoke alarm.
“What’s going on?” she shouted over the din.
“I don’t know!” I cried. I was already reaching into the oven with potholders and pulling the casserole dish out as smoke billowed into the kitchen. The top potato layer was completely black, burned beyond recognition.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing!” I said, backing away from the stove and fanning it with a potholder. Josette grabbed a magazine and began waving it in front of the smoke detector.
I turned on the hood fan and Josette started opening windows, but the air was so thick with smoke that we soon retreated, coughing, to the front porch.
“What in the world happened?” she asked after our coughing had subsided.
“I don’t know,” I said once more. “I was just following the directions and doing what they told me to do.”
“How long was it in there?”
“Only about five minutes.”
“At what temperature?”
“High.”
“You had it on broil?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “It said ‘Top rack. Broil on high for fifteen minutes’.”
She stared at me in disbelief for a moment.
“Are you sure that’s what it said?”
“Positive.”
Now she looked at me doubtfully.
“That’s what it said,” I insisted, pulling my phone out to show her the email.
She took it from me and peered at it intently, her eyes narrowing after a moment.
“This can’t be right, Marco,” she said, handing me back my phone.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she explained, “that I can’t think of a single thing you can broil on high on the top rack for fifteen minutes without burning it to a crisp.”
“But that’s what my mom does,” I said slowly.
“I don’t think so,” she said, shaking her head, and all of a sudden it clicked.
“Grace . . .” I muttered.
“What?”
“Grace!” I said louder. “It was GRACE!”
“What was Grace?”
“That WITCH!!” I yelled and Josette’s eyes got wide really wide (because “witch” isn’t at all what I said).
I picked up one of my new wrought-iron chairs from the front porch and heaved it toward the driveway with all my might. The chair clanged and bounced against the pavement, missing my car by inches. I turned around and slammed my hand against the doorframe.
“Who’s Grace?” Josette finally dared to ask.
“My stupid sister!” I shouted.
“What does she have to do with anything?”
“My mom sent me this recipe,” I explained to Josette, waving my phone at her. “She’s the most technologically illiterate person on the face of this planet. She can barely operate her phone. She would have had to have Grace help her send it – it came from Grace. My mom wouldn’t have made a mistake like that, but Grace . . . Oh my gosh. WHAT A WITCH!”
(Again, not at all what I said, and again with another chair into the driveway. Now I had a matched set.)
Josette bit her lip and watched as I turned around, closed my eyes and banged my forehead against the storm door.
“I hate her,” I said.
Bang.
“I hate her. I hate her. I HATE her.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Marco,” Josette said softly, laying a hand gently on my shoulder. “Why don’t we go get a pizza and let the smell get out of the house and then I’ll help you get things cleaned up when we get back?”
“I’m not hungry,” I said, giving my head one more good whack against the door.
“I am,” she said. “I’m starving. All I had for lunch was some celery.”
I rolled my forehead against the door to look at her sideways.
“
I packed you leftovers today.”
“I know,” she said, smiling at me. “But I really am hungry. Come on. You’re not going to make me take the bus at night and eat all by myself, are you?”
She knew she had me.
I looked at her for a moment and sighed before going back into the smoky house to get my keys.
It was almost midnight in Monterey, but I didn’t care. I called Mom on my way to the pizzeria and gave her an earful. When I hung up, I glanced at Josette and was surprised to see her shoulders shaking, her hand covering her mouth.
“What’s so funny?”
“I can’t believe you actually just called your mom and dobbed on your sister!”
I had never heard the word dobbed before. I had also never heard Josette laugh.
“Dobbed?”
“You know,” she said. “You told on her . . . tattled.”
I looked at her uncertainly.
“What’s your mom going to do,” she continued on, still laughing. “Ground her? Put her in a time-out?”
I didn’t answer.
“You know, Marco,” she said, not laughing quite as much but definitely still laughing. “You reacted exactly the way Grace wanted you too. You played right into her hands.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked angrily. “Ignore it?”
“Yes,” she agreed, nodding. “That, or – if you really wanted to get back at her – you should have called your mom and thanked her for the recipe and told her that it turned out brilliantly. That would have made Grace mad.”
I thought about that for a minute and then I answered, “I’m a terrible liar, remember?”
“I remember,” Josette said, and she laughed again.
~ ~ ~
THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY, Josette invited me to go to church with her. This might have been because it was starting to feel like the two of us were becoming friends, or it might have been because my foul mouth had convinced her that I needed to hear the Word of God.
I had actually been trying different churches every weekend since I’d arrived in Australia, but I hadn’t found anything that had tripped my trigger yet, so when she asked me if I wanted to go with her, I said sure, and I offered to drive.
