by C. J. Birch
And that’s exactly what this kitchen looked like. Murphy, the guy who loaded the dishwasher, hadn’t shown up, and the rush had them all scrambling so that a towering pile of dishes stood next to the dishwasher. Cups lined every available surface.
She’d dropped the panko container, scattering little bits everywhere across the centre island and a good foot around her workstation. Dirty knives and kitchen utensils covered the counter, and a mouldy tomato she’d found in the back of the fridge sat in the middle of the island on top of the panko container.
Hayley stepped over to the stereo and pressed play.
“This is….” Lauren stood frozen in the doorway as Springbok’s “Too Late for Goodbyes” began playing. “You were only in here ten minutes. How did you manage to get it so messy?”
Hayley gave a sheepish shrug. “It’s a gift.”
Lauren blew a breath out, and the air ruffled her bangs. “Okay. I’ll load the dishwasher, and you clean the rest.”
They worked to the sounds of Hayley’s eighties covers playlist. As Hayley scrubbed the counter, Lauren loaded the dishwasher. Her actions were quick and efficient, almost like a graceful dance she’d memorized and was performing for Hayley alone. She’d pulled her hair into a lazy bun, leaving her neck bare. She couldn’t be sure, but when she looked up to check on Hayley, her cook’s gaze flicked back to her task.
“So what did you want to be when you were busy being the perfect student? I’m guessing it wasn’t an academic.”
Lauren pulled a stack of plates from the top of the dishwasher and stacked them beside her. “It’s silly.”
“Ballerina?”
Lauren laughed. “I definitely don’t have the feet to be a dancer.”
“Circus clown?”
“Nothing so exciting. I wanted to design cakes. The multi-tiered monstrosities that look too good to eat.”
“That’s not silly. That’s amazing.” Hayley held the trash can up to the ledge of the counter and scooped the spilled panko into it. “Is that why Ramiro calls you sweetums?”
“Ugh. I hate that name. Mostly it’s because I have the biggest sweet tooth. He’s watched me eat almost an entire red-velvet birthday cake. In one sitting.” Lauren held her hand up. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but that cake was so good, the stomachache afterward was worth it.”
“I don’t think I could eat that much sweets in one sitting. I like cream-filled liquorice, but that’s the extent of my sweet craving.”
Lauren scrunched her face up. “That sounds kind of disgusting.”
“7-Eleven sells them for ten cents apiece. They’re so good, especially when you’re tucked into bed with a good book.”
Lauren stopped loading the dishwasher and turned around. “You’re a bit of an odd duck, aren’t you?” She smiled softly to ease the statement.
“I’m not the one who ate a whole birthday cake in one sitting.”
“Fair enough.”
After the dishes were loaded and the kitchen sparkled, Lauren set the alarm and held the door open for Hayley. “Thank you for dinner. It was amazing and delicious and definitely fattening in a good way.”
Hayley turned back in the doorway. “And thank you for getting my stuff out of hock. I will pay you back.”
Lauren squeezed her arm. “I’m not worried.”
* * *
“Dad, you never told me they had lawn bowling across the street,” Lauren said.
His eyebrows shot up his forehead.
She handed him the brochure. “You didn’t know there was lawn bowling across the street?”
“I’m not surprised. What makes you think I’d care?”
“You used to love bowling.”
“Lauren, honey, those are two very different sports. One is played by men—” Off her look he amended his remark. “I mean, able-bodied adults. Lawn bowling is for old farts who eat dinner at three and go to bed at five.”
Lauren opened his hall closet and searched through the hangers to find a jacket that would fit the weather. “Which you are rapidly becoming if you don’t start exercising better.” She pulled out a burgundy linen jacket with minimal padding.
“What’s that for?”
“We have an appointment today.” She held out his jacket to him, wiggling it like her mom used to. Sometimes she felt like she was the parent. She supposed that’s how the cycle went.
“I don’t remember having an appointment on Monday.” He still hadn’t budged from his recliner in the living room.
“It’s not Monday. I switched my day off with Vic so I could come with you.”
“Make sure I go, you mean.”
“You’ve missed the last three appointments, so yes. I had to switch my one day off a week to make sure you go to your own doctor appointment.”
He had the good grace to look embarrassed. Lauren spent almost every day off she had looking after him, and all he did was grumble about it. He pushed himself up from the chair and grabbed the jacket she offered.
“What’s wrong with your legs?”
“Nothing’s wrong with my legs. They just give me problems sometimes.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Lauren, I’m fine.”
The doctor’s clinic was packed with screaming kids and crying babies. Her father fidgeted next to her while she tried to read a magazine, but it was hard to concentrate with the noise level.
“Max Hames?” a nurse called from the door. Lauren’s father jerked but didn’t make it out of his chair as fast as he’d hoped. Lauren offered him her hand, but he waved it off and heaved himself up without any help.
The nurse put her hand up when she saw Lauren approaching. “Only patients allowed beyond here, I’m afraid.”
“I’m his caregiver. Dr. Chan’s expecting both of us.”
“Let me check, one second.” She disappeared into the back for a moment before returning. “Okay. Follow me.” She steered them into the rear exam area with doors on both sides of the hall. “Just have a seat in number six.”
“I don’t need you to come with me. I can look after myself just fine,” Max grumbled.
“If that were true you wouldn’t have missed your last three appointments.”
“It’s because I didn’t need to come. Everyone’s just overreacting.”
Lauren directed her dad to sit in the chair while she leaned against the wall and read a poster about vaccinations. After five minutes of silence, Max grumbled. “Why do they always do this? They have us come and sit in here and wait. What’s the difference from waiting outside in the other room?”
“Just be glad you’re not sitting out there with all the diseased people.”
“Where do you think the diseased people come after there? In here. They’ve probably touched every surface.”
“At least it’s quiet. We don’t have any screaming kids to deal with.”
The door opened, and a small Chinese woman entered. Her long hair was pulled into a ponytail, and she wore a green dragon pin on her white lab coat. “Hi, Max.” She smiled. “How are you doing today?”
“Fine,” he said.
“Good.” She smiled at Lauren as she sat at the desk and pulled up Max’s file on her computer. “Why don’t we talk about your last test results first? We can go over any questions or concerns, and then we’ll take a look at how you’re doing.” Her face was open and friendly. It said, as far as she was concerned Max and Lauren were the only two people in the office that day. That’s why Lauren liked her. She never rushed them out like so many other doctors she’d had over the years.
They talked for a few minutes about what they’d found. Max didn’t have any questions, so Lauren asked for him since she’d be the one taking care of him.
“My biggest concern, Max, is your diet,” Dr. Chan said. “You’ve mentioned you feel tired, and one reason is that your body isn’t producing as much energy as it should. We need to get you eating foods that will help your body process glucose better. It’s that
, or we’ll have to put you on medication.”
Lauren slumped against the wall. Both those options made her want to pull her hair out. He was too impossible to eat healthy, and forget about taking medication on a regular basis. Dr. Chan wrapped up her gentle chiding and opened the floor for any more questions. Max sat there staring at the floor and shaking his head.
“This morning when I went to pick him up, he had trouble getting out of his chair. He said he has problems with his legs sometimes, which means all the time.”
“Is this true?” Dr. Chan asked Max. Her voice was soft and coaxing.
“It’s not a big deal. They just go numb sometimes.”
Lauren and Chan exchanged a look. “Numbness is a very big deal, especially when it’s connected with type 2 diabetes. If you’re experiencing numbness, it could be an early sign of nerve damage. The longer this goes untreated, the more likely it will cause permanent damage.”
Chapter Fifteen
The soft splatter of water running in the shower filtered into Lauren’s room. Even through her closed door, she could hear the muted sounds of Hayley humming. A loud crash and a quiet “mother fuddrucker” woke Lauren fully. She rolled over and checked her phone. Still four hours before she had to be at the diner. Another thud and she was up slipping on her robe.
Lauren rapped a knuckle on the door to the washroom. “Are you okay in there?” No answer. “Hayley?” When she didn’t get an answer, she poked her head in and stopped in shock. The place was a disaster. Wet towels were strewn on the floor, one draped over the toilet, and the sink had clogged (something it was prone to do) with a sludge of blue water.
It had been only a couple of days since Hayley had taken over the spare bedroom, and taken over was the right way to put it. Hayley had a way of spreading. Lauren didn’t think she meant to be messy, but her things just had a way of showing up. Everywhere. The bathroom cupboard, the sides of the tub, the coffee table, coat rack, even the kitchen table. Lauren had made the mistake of peering into the room she was increasingly thinking of as Hayley’s, and it was hard to see where Lauren’s well-organized storage ended and Hayley’s stuff began.
It was too early to deal with all this. Lauren shut the door to escape to the kitchen, which hadn’t fared any better.
“I was going to clean it before you got up.” Hayley appeared behind Lauren wearing a loose T-shirt and yoga shorts, a towel wrapped around her hair.
“How?” Lauren looked over at the fridge, a large smear of dark muck dripping down the handle. “How do you manage to get it so messy?” She’d been working with cooks for almost half her life now and had never seen anything so extreme. If Lauren had tried to be messy while cooking, she wouldn’t be able to reproduce the havoc Hayley managed to create by accident.
“I don’t know. It just happens.”
“What were you trying to make?”
Hayley brushed past Lauren and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. She smelled like coconut and soap. “Coffee.” She poured Lauren a mug and handed it to her.
Lauren stood shocked as she surveyed the damage. “All this because of coffee?”
“I wasn’t sure where you kept your beans, so I had to go through some cupboards.” It was as if Hayley had transferred the contents of the cupboards to the counters. Hayley had apparently sorted through the piles of stacked dishes and also decided to empty the dishwasher, but had no idea where anything went.
Lauren took her coffee to the kitchen table and sat, pulling the unfinished crossword puzzle from yesterday’s paper toward her. Her first sip was heavenly. “This is amazing. Thank you.”
Hayley leaned back against the cupboard. “It was no trouble.”
Lauren paused and looked up from her crossword puzzle. From where she was sitting, Hayley’s idea of “no trouble” wasn’t even on Lauren’s scale. But she didn’t comment. Usually, when she didn’t work mornings, she liked to sit with the puzzle and wake up slowly. At the diner she had her routine and the quiet of the morning. Now that Hayley was here, she’d have to think about the schedule. Obviously, both having the morning off wasn’t going to give her the peace she was used to.
As she scanned the clues she could hear Hayley in the kitchen shifting things back to their rightful place. At least she didn’t talk or try to intrude on Lauren’s time, and for that she was grateful.
After a few minutes of quiet, Lauren raised her head, expecting to find the kitchen empty, but instead, Hayley was leaning against the counter, sipping her coffee and watching her.
“What?”
“I was just curious. When’s the last time you lived with anyone?”
“Besides a moody cat?”
Hayley smiled. “As much of a pain in the ass I’m sure he is, pets don’t count.”
Lauren clicked her pen a few times and set it next to the crossword. “I guess Greta was the last person, and that would’ve been over four years ago. Why?”
“No reason. She owned the diner before Aaron?”
“Yep. Aaron’s mom.”
Hayley nodded and leaned forward. The towel uncoiled, revealing deep blue beneath. She flipped her head back, the hair slapping against her back. Lauren watched, mesmerized by the motion of Hayley’s fingers combing the strands.
“I always wondered how you got it so blue.” Lauren pointed at the wet locks draped over Hayley’s shoulder. “Why blue?”
Hayley pulled a strand through her fingers, examining the colour. “Blue’s my favourite, but it’s not always blue. Depends on my mood.”
“Have you ever dyed it a normal colour?”
“Normal?” The look on Hayley’s face made Lauren wish she could take back the question.
“I only meant not something from the rainbow.”
Hayley shrugged. “Normal’s boring.” She balled up the towel and pushed off from the counter. “I’ll go clean up my mess.” She breezed by, her expression neutral, and Lauren couldn’t be sure if she’d insulted her or not.
“Rats.”
* * *
“So you’re saying you have the hots for your boss, who is now also your roommate.” Kalini tsked and continued through the aisle. Every few minutes she’d pick up an item and scan it, then replace it on the shelf.
“That’s not what I said at all.”
“I was reading the subtext in your story.”
“All I said was that she’s a bit Felix to my Oscar.”
“And by that admission, you’re saying you care what she thinks. I’ve lived with you, remember? You never cared how messy you were before. Does she strut around in the buff?”
“Of course not.” Hayley grabbed a vegetable spiralizer out of Kalini’s hand before she could add it to her wedding registry. “You don’t need that.”
“How do you know?”
“You hate vegetables.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t hate them so much if they came in spiral form.”
They’d been in the depths of the Bay for over an hour, adding things to Kalini’s registry—her mother had insisted—and since her parents were helping out with the cost of the wedding, she found it hard to refuse.
“This is pointless. You don’t even like half the stuff you’ve picked. You’ll just end up returning it anyway.”
“Exactly. Then we’ll get cash, which is what we want anyway.”
Hayley picked up a bronze statue of a cat licking itself to examine the price. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Kalini linked her arm with Hayley’s and dragged her to the next aisle. “More important, what are we going to do about your hot lady boss?” She slapped Hayley with the scanner. “I know. Why don’t you bring her with you to Jo’s show? It’s like a date but not a date.”
Hayley stopped mid-aisle and stared at Kalini. “I’m not trying to date my boss. That’s not what we’re brainstorming here…Besides, she’s straight.”
“Did you check her straight card at the door?”
“Someone said she’d been
married to some guy a while back.”
Kalini chucked a small moustache pillow back onto the shelf. “Oh yeah, because no gay woman has ever been married to a dude before.”
“I’m not bringing her.”
“Fine, but you’re still coming, right? It’s on the eleventh.”
“Of course I’m coming, I’ve already told Lauren I can’t work that day.”
“Lauren? That’s her name?” Kalini pretended to swoon.
“Get off it. What’re you, twelve?”
“It’s one of many things Jo loves about me. Okay.” Kalini waved her hands in front of her. “I’m done with this whole ‘being a good daughter’ thing. Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving.”
Twenty minutes later and they were hopping off the streetcar in front of Greta’s. “Why’d you bring me home? I thought we were grabbing something to eat.”
“And does this fine establishment not offer food?” As Kalini crossed the street, she dodged a guy riding his bike with a pug strapped to the front basket.
When they entered, the place was almost dead. It was half past one, so the lunch rush had just ended. Kalini snagged the back booth and slid in, grabbing a menu from the holder as she did. “I need to see what we’re working with.” She peered around her menu, eyeing the servers. “Which one is she?”
“No. You’re not bringing crazytown to my place of work.”
“Oh, good. They’re wearing name tags. I don’t need you for this.”
Hayley covered her face with her hands. It was too much to hope that Lauren wasn’t working this shift, but Hayley knew Lauren’s schedule by heart, much to her embarrassment.
“Hi, Hayley. Who’s your friend?” Hayley looked up through her hands. Lauren was carrying a carafe of coffee, a huge grin on her face.
Kalini held her hand out. “It’s so nice to meet you, Lauren. I’m Kalini. Hayley and I used to be roommates. I hear you now have that honour.”
Lauren shook hands, her smile faltering. “You’re the one who kicked her out?”