Nell and Gene kicked their boots off by the back door; they wouldn’t even bring them in the mudroom. Because of the plastic aprons Stephen had given them, however, their clothes were relatively clean. They followed his example of washing up in the deep utility sink just off the mudroom, in the spacious laundry.
“This laundry room seems like it was designed by a woman,” Nell declared, rubbing her arms and hands with the towel Stephen provided.
“Why do you say that?” Stephen asked her, grinning. She never ceased to amaze him with her bluntness.
“Well, it’s just perfect. Plenty of counter space to spread all of the clothes out and fold ’em—so they don’t clutter up the kitchen table—places to hang them to dry like this rod here, and even your ironing board in a cabinet on the wall. That’s a neat idea.” She ran her fingers over the oak door that hid his ironing board.
“Thank you, Nell. And I have to admit you’re right. My sister Maria designed it. You know I take most of my stuff to the cleaners’. It’s just easier. But I guess the design is nice.”
They walked into the kitchen and Nell said, “Let me help you with dinner.”
She motioned for the fridge, but Stephen stopped her. “No way. I’ve been working on this since yesterday, and I’m going to treat you.”
Gene smiled at him, taking the bottle of water Stephen offered, and Nell finally relented, taking one, too. Stephen settled them into the sunroom—a recliner for each—and gave Gene the remote to the TV. “It will just be about thirty minutes.”
Stephen could hear Headline News—and Gene’s subsequent snoring—as he prepared the meal. He was intent on spoiling Nell, especially, with his cooking, and he couldn’t wait to see her face when everything was ready. He preheated both of his ovens.
First, Stephen stirred together flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a big pottery bowl, and then he opened a warm beer and added it all at once. It bubbled and foamed. After mixing everything, he dumped the dough into a loaf pan, pouring melted butter over the top, and put it in his top oven at 375.
Next, he took the cooked brisket out of the refrigerator. After slicing it thinly with a butcher knife, he placed it back in its baking dish with the drippings and doused the whole thing with rich, thick barbecue sauce—the best money could buy—ordered from a place in Texas. Then he put the brisket back into the oven at 350, to reheat for thirty minutes.
While the brisket was warming, he took out the bag of shredded cabbage he’d picked up at the Market the day before and made slaw. Combining sugar, salt, buttermilk, mayonnaise, vinegar, and a little lemon juice, he poured it over the cabbage and tossed. Then he sprinkled it with celery seed and set it inside the fridge to chill.
Stephen took out his best dishes, a set of multicolored Fiestaware, and arranged three place settings on the table. He grabbed three linen napkins, which he rarely used, from the drawer where Maria had housed them, and anchored them down beside the plates with his heavy sterling silverware.
The kitchen started to smell like heaven. The brisket sizzled in the first oven, and the beer-battered bread looked golden brown through the glass window of the second. The coleslaw was waiting in the refrigerator. Stephen felt sure that Nell was probably dying to come in and be a part of the action, and so he called, “Nell? Want to come in and give me a quick hand?” He’d let her get ice and water in the glasses.
There was no answer from the sunroom, just the quiet droning of the television and Gene’s snoring. Then Stephen heard another noise, a sort of whistling sound, and decided to investigate. Nell was reared back in the recliner, feet up and mouth open, snoring to beat the band.
When Nell woke, an hour later, Stephen was on the couch beside her chair in the sunroom. He was reading a book called Neuroplasticity, which a colleague in the clinic had recommended. Gene was still asleep.
“Turn that light on! You’ll ruin your eyes!” Nell ordered. “What time is it?”
“It’s seven thirty,” Stephen answered. “Good evening, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Did you eat?”
He could hear the wheels spinning in her head.
“No, not without you guys, but it’s ready.” Stephen put his book down on the coffee table.
“Gene! Wake up! It’s nearly time for bed!”
Seated at Stephen’s table, Nell and Gene felt like family. They were the kind of parents he wished he had—or, at least, the kind he wished his own parents could remotely resemble.
“How is Kelly?” he asked them, thinking he hadn’t heard much lately about their only son.
Nell’s eyes clouded. “Oh, you know, he’s staying busy. We haven’t heard from him in about a month.”
“He’s working on a big case, something with an oil and gas company,” Gene added. “I called him one day on his cell phone—he wasn’t answerin’ at home. Couldn’t talk much, though. He was in the middle of a meeting.”
Stephen understood Gene’s apologetic tone all too well. He’d met Kelly Patrick twice in the past eight years, the two times the guy had been home. Stephen wasn’t impressed with him, either. Kelly was a fast-talking, Rolex-wearing, big-city bachelor; a transplanted Texan who seemed at odds with his DNA.
“This brisket is some kind of good,” Gene bragged, changing the subject.
“Thanks.”
“And the slaw is, too—how’d you learn to make it?” Nell asked, helping herself to another serving of the stuff.
“Well, that’s a good story. I had this teacher in grade school named Mrs. Law. She was a wonderful lady, very smart and full of life. Always doing unique things with her classes. Anyway, her husband was the preacher at the church we attended, and whenever there was a potluck, this is what she would bring.” Stephen smiled at them both, enjoying sharing this little slice of his history.
“Over time, she became famous for it, and people started calling her “Miz Slaw.” She even called herself that. When I got married, she gave me a handmade cookbook of favorite local recipes. This whole meal came from it.” He waved his hand across the feast. “Obviously, I still have it.”
Nell wanted to see the cookbook, so Stephen retrieved it for her from the kitchen. She ran her hand over the sewn gingham cover.
“This is really something,” she said.
Turning to the first page, she saw a picture of a little boy with big brown eyes and a mop of brown hair standing by a piano. The woman beside him had horn-rimmed glasses and was grinning from ear to ear.
“Is that you and Miz Slaw?” Nell asked. “You haven’t changed much!”
“That’s us,” Stephen answered. “She was my piano teacher for a while, too.”
“You know, in all these years we’ve know you, you’ve never played the piano for us. Why don’t you get over there and give us a tune?” Nell pointed to the grand piano that stood, like a stranger, in the living room to their left.
“Maybe some other time.” Stephen grinned at them.
Gene snorted, pushing back from his empty plate. “That’s what you always say.”
“Well, I do want to tell you about my date.”
Nell slammed the cookbook shut as though snapping to attention.
“Praise God for small miracles,” she declared. “Gene done told me not to ask you about it.”
“And I’d say it’s a small miracle you decided to submit to me,” Gene teased her. “But go on, son. We’re both ready to hear.”
“Well, I met this woman about a month ago in the ER. She came in with her son, who had had an asthma attack. I thought she was married at first, but later I found out she wasn’t. Anyway, I kept seeing her around—first at a ballgame and then at a continuing education meeting over at Adams State.”
He continued, “You guys know I haven’t been interested in dating”—Gene grinned while Nell rolled her eyes and nodded—“but there was just something about her. I really wanted to ask her out.”
“Let me guess what it was about her,” Gene said, rubbing his chin. “Let’s se
e. Her face? Eyes? Or was it some other of her wily ways?”
Nell kicked her husband under the table. “Don’t pay him no mind,” she said to Stephen.
“That’s what got me, your wily ways,” Gene chuckled, further rankling Nell by winking at her.
“Let the man talk!”
Stephen laughed wholeheartedly. “There’s not much more to tell—”
“Yes, there is!” Nell spouted. “The last you told us, she turned you down! We’d done decided we didn’t like this girl! Now you spill the beans! Was that her in your truck last night?”
“It was. I picked her up at the grocery store.”
“Pretty romantic place,” Gene commented, rocking back on two legs in his chair.
Nell ignored him. “The grocery store?”
“She toppled the whole bin of oranges. I didn’t know it was her when I started helping pick them up, but there she was. It was actually quite embarrassing for both of us.”
“What happened then?”
“Well, like I said, it was a little awkward, and I tried to make it easy for her to just walk away. At this point I thought she was just not interested—but then she grabbed me by the arm and asked if we could talk. She said she wanted to explain something.”
Nell’s eyes read Stephen like the pages of a murder mystery. She couldn’t seem to hear the story fast enough out of desperation for how it would end.
“We went to the park—you know, with the pines—and she told me why she turned me down.”
Gene raised his eyebrows.
Nell leaned forward.
“She thought I was seeing my sister!”
Gene’s face broke out into a smile. “No way!”
Nell gasped and then covered her wide-open mouth with one hand. “Well, I’ll be darned.”
Stephen smiled at them both. He reflected, as he often did, on what a blessing they were in his life. Who would have thought he’d ever find a home with a simple farm couple in a village called Romeo? They really, truly cared.
“You know,” Stephen told Nell, “you should get a gold medal for how well you listen.”
Chapter Seventeen
The house was a flurry of activity. Mickey, who had led the team in tackles the night before, was responsible for getting Gabbie over to Claire’s abuelita’s house by nine o’clock. His baby sister was currently packing a bag the size of Texas with high heels, baby dolls, gardening tools, and plastic cooking utensils. She was wearing a pink tutu with silver sparkles.
“Can I borrow your fishing pole?” she asked him, batting her long eyelashes.
“No, hermanita, not this time.”
“Mommy!” Gabbie stomped her foot, scowling at her brother, and ran toward the kitchen.
Martina was on her third trip home from Art and Sol, the Mexican restaurant she and Jesús were opening today.
“Mickey!”
“Yes, Mom?”
Her dark hair was pulled back underneath a hairnet, and she wore a standard red cook’s apron over her clothes. She was dumping what seemed to be the kitchen’s utensil drawer into a big paper bag. She must have read the questioning look on her son’s face, because she offered an explanation.
“I’m not making another trip to this house again until we close this evening.”
Mickey grinned.
“Son, can you pick up ten heads of lettuce at the market after you drop Gabbie off? I need the green leaf kind—the ones I ordered from the supplier are too wilted already. And go ahead and pick up a bunch of cilantro.”
“Sure, Mom.”
Gabbie put her hands on her hips.
“Did you tell him, Mommy?”
“Tell him what, niña?”
“About the fishing pole!”
“Mickey does not have to give you his fishing pole. You have your own Barbie pole that is just your size.” Martina replaced the drawer.
Gabbie crossed her arms and scowled at both of them, standing “big” as she called it.
“Bastante, Gabriela! That’s enough.”
“Let’s go, hermanita,” Mickey said, smiling sweetly as he followed his mother out of the kitchen.
The kitchen of Art and Sol was heating up. Jesús, clad in an apron like Martina’s, was simmering separate pots of black and pinto beans, cooking chorizo, and sautéing peppers and onions on the gas stove top, while also manning the grill. The pork sausage for the chorizo was nearly brown—as brown as Jesús liked it—and he added in generous amounts of garlic and chili powder without draining the meat.
The look and smell of the chorizo, his grandmother’s recipe, was soul-satisfying to Jesús as he stirred it. He put down the wooden spoon after a taste and then grabbed the handles of the two big skillets, running them back and forth across the burners to disturb the peppers and onions. This action stirred the small fires under the skillets, and they kicked out sparks. The onions, which were nearly caramelized, smelled like heaven. The peppers, too. He turned their burners off. Then he moved on down to the grill, which was covered with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Turning them with meticulous care, Jesús poured on a little water. The grill sizzled and popped, blowing smoke in his face. He waved it away like a cloud of mosquitoes.
Dr. Banks, who had volunteered his services for the grand opening, was standing back-to-back with Jesús at a long, wooden table. His salt-and-pepper ponytail was covered by a hairnet and sweat dripped down his face. He wiped it with the shoulder of his shirt. He, too, wore a red apron and also surgical gloves. With a less-than-sharp knife, he was doing his best to dice fresh jalapeños, reserving the seeds. There was a mountain of white onions and a bucket of tomatoes in front of him, which were also to be diced and placed into stainless-steel containers.
Across the table from Dr. Banks, Frieda Franklin was grinding avocados with a mortar and pestle carved from lava rock. Her unruly hair was tamed somewhat by a hairnet, and her skin glowed under the fluorescent lights that shone from copper pendants running the length of the kitchen. She sat on a stool with crumbling gold paint, feet crossed, and leaned in with her shoulders to mash the ripe, green fruit. The texture had to be perfect. When she had a gigantic bowlful, she pressed fresh garlic, using both hands to grip the garlic press and force the cloves through. These she stirred together with sour cream and added to the bowl of avocado, just as Martina showed her when their home group had a potluck awhile back.
“This is good, if I do say so myself!” Frieda declared to the two men, crunching on a fried tortilla laden with the green stuff and smiling at the result.
Dr. Banks looked up, eyes bloodshot and burning from the fumes of the jalapeños. He wiped his chin with his shoulder. “Everything we’re doing is making me hungry! What about you, Jesús?”
“I’m too nervous to be very hungry,” Jesús replied, stirring the pots of beans.
Suddenly, the back door burst open and Martina stepped in, breathless.
“Hey, babe!” Jesús greeted her.
“The angel of mercy!” Dr. Banks cheered as she handed him a butcher knife from her paper sack.
“That one should be razor-sharp, Henry,” Martina told him. Then, looking around the kitchen, she exclaimed, “Wow! You guys are amazing! This place smells fabulous!”
She handed Jesús some tongs for the peppers and onions and assembled the rest of the utensils in a large blue canister. Then she placed the canister on a shelf that stood against the wall.
“What do I need to do?”
Jesus pointed with the tongs. “All that’s left to do is combining the pico and slicing up your famous cheesecake—until Mickey gets here with the lettuce.”
“Sounds good. He should be here in a few minutes.” Martina slid a huge sheet of lemon cheesecake out of the cooler and placed it on the table.
“I can do the pico, I think,” Frieda offered. “Lime juice and vinegar?”
“Just enough to coat the veggies—and a little salt,” Martina said. “Oh, and garlic. Mickey is bringing cilantro.”
; “I’m all over it!” Frieda hooted, hopping down from her perch on the stool and grabbing a big bowl from the shelf.
Just then, Sue poked her head into the kitchen through its front entrance, a swinging door with a porthole window.
“We’re here!” She was wearing a white dress, which was covered to below the waist by a bright blue shawl. Her sandals were the color of the shawl, and she wore a necklace with many strands of colorful cut glass. Blond hair shining and brown eyes warm and inviting, she looked like quite the hostess.
Jerry came up behind her and opened the door wider so he could peer in at his friends.
“Are we ready to rumble?” he asked the group in the kitchen.
“As ready as we’ll ever be!” Jesús answered.
“Well, I’ve got my running shoes on.” Jerry held his foot through the door.
“Me, too.” Martina took off her apron, tossing it into the bin in the corner, and removed her hairnet. “Let’s get that drink station ready.”
The drink station was a nook that Martina had designed between the two dining rooms. It was adorned by colorful painted tiles, randomly placed so that there was no apparent pattern to the whole. Some of the tiles were broken. Some were misshapen, rejects from the kiln that Martina chose for their character. The effect of all of these pieces thrown together was a wild mosaic of orange, cobalt, red, green, and gold.
As Jerry placed lemon slices on the rims of tall, clear glasses, Martina poured the freshly made tea into matching pitchers. Next, she poured several pitchers of water.
“I can’t believe I’ve got a rocket scientist as my head waiter,” she teased him. “If that’s not a conversation starter, I don’t know what is!”
“I just hope I won’t ruin your grand opening,” Jerry said. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Martina patted his arm. “Just be yourself and look at it as a ministry. You’ve already blessed Jesús and me by being here to support us. It is our hope that many will be blessed today as they come through these doors.”
As if on cue, Sue announced from the front that the first customers had arrived.
Love Finds You in Romeo, Colorado Page 13
