Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction!

by Lizz Lund

  There’s a fierce competition between First Meth and St. Bart’s. First Methodist sponsors the first Saturday of the month for the breakfast, St. Bartholomew does the third. The breakfasts are held at the neutral zone of the downtown Unitarian Church.

  The Brethren Breakfast (or Breakfast Wars, as I call them) began innocently enough with some friendly competition about protein-packed breakfasts for the needy. Since then it’s escalated into a full blown rivalry that comes loaded with lots of pork and dairy by-products. If it escalates any further, the winning church will be the one responsible for creating the most new Heavenly memberships caused by arterial blockages.

  Those who volunteer for either camp quickly learn you are not simply called upon to serve: you are enlisted in an all-out cholestoric war. I let myself get assigned as principal egg slinger, in the hope that the volume of eggs I cook for others will eventually displace what I cook alone. I read somewhere that people who are on serious diets allow themselves a favorite dessert once in awhile as a reward. So, once a month I scramble eggs for 225 people or so. I also limit my grocery trips to last just 18 minutes. I figure I can’t cook what I don’t have.

  I told Vito I’d be there, and offered to drive him. “Thanks anyway, Cookie,” he said. “But I gotta do some errands before I do the breakfast.” Errands? What kind of errands does anyone besides Farmer Brown run before 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning?

  I gave Marie some of my seed-encrusted eggs, poked around the burnt kielbasa and onions and swigged some ginger ale. Then the doorbell rang. Marie shrieked and threw her seed cup upside down. Vinnie stuck both paws out from under the basement door and rattled the door — BANG-BANG-BANG. Marie sent up more hysterical fluff. I walked down the hall shaking my head, opened the front door and gasped to see Evelyn DeSantos.

  Evelyn DeSantos heads the Breakfast Wars. Evelyn whips up the troops to maintain the frenzied rivalry between both denominations. Some call her Evil-yn, but only if they’re sure she’s visiting her grandkids out of state.

  “Come on in,” I said carefully.

  She stepped in with all the due caution one should muster toward my Disney-puked walls. “Just for a minute,” she said, with an askance glance at my electric blue hallway with silver and pink wallpaper borders. Then again, it might not have been the walls: most of her glances usually seem kind of askance because she draws her eyebrows on herself. On good days, she looks like a demented French child ran amuck with a marker. But at least they match her black helmet hair. Today Evelyn’s eyebrows sported a cynically bemused look: her right eyebrow arched up, and her left eyebrow sloped down.

  Both Evelyn and her eyebrows took in the hallway and smiled at me. I smiled back and wished I had a pot of something to stir.

  “Hey, Evie,” Vito said, sauntering into the foyer, holding a spatula in one hand and his beloved Swiffer pad in the other. “How’s tricks, kid?” Vito sparkled his senior vintage savoir-ick. I shuddered. But Evelyn was made of stronger stuff.

  “I came by for my package, Vito, but I didn’t find you at home,” Evelyn said. “I recalled Wilhelmina was your neighbor. When I saw her door open I thought I’d ask her to remind you. I do need it before the breakfast tomorrow.” She smiled and raised her eyebrows, but they waved in opposite directions and scared even Vito. I cringed. Vito was clearly out of his depth.

  “Sure, Evie, sure; I was plannin’ on gettin’ it to yous tomorrow morning. I was just tellin’ Mina here I had some errands to run before the breakfast tomorrow, and yous is one of them.” Vito smiled enthusiastically, showing off spaces where his molars ought to be.

  “I will be seeing you both for the Brethren Breakfast in the morning,” Evelyn commanded.

  Vito and I exchanged glances and gulped. I was really glad Vito had reminded me. I’d have been a goner otherwise.

  “No worries, Evie,” Vito said. I smiled and nodded. Evelyn nodded and left. I didn’t hear a car start up or drive away, so I figured she re-mounted her broom and left. Vito and I exhaled.

  “Ya know, I never mind helping a body out,” Vito said. “But this breakfast thing Evelyn has with First Meth is going a little over the top.”

  “Ditto. Even for me.”

  “She’s already got me buying her six hams. And now it ends up I also gotta cook three of them, because there’s not enough room in the church ovens, with the sausages and bacon and casseroles and all.” Vito looked at me nervously. “Ya don’t think Evie’s got somethin’ special up her sleeve for this week, do yous?”

  “Fastnacht French toast?” I ventured.

  Vito looked at me. “Fastnacht?”

  “You know,” I said, “the fatty donuts they sell right before Lent.”

  “Oh,” Vito said thoughtfully.

  I pondered, then mused aloud, “Actually, if Evelyn wants to be super authentic, she’ll make sure they’re homemade Fastnachts, made from potato dough with lard, fat and butter and cut into squares.” I paused, then added: “And, of course, dusted with confectioner’s sugar.”

  “Huh,” Vito replied. “We better be on our toes next Spring,” he said.

  Just then the basement door rattled with the force of what I guessed was Vinnie’s head or a lion-sized battering ram. Marie shrieked. “Guess Vinnie wants out of the basement,” Vito said. “Ya can’t blame the fella. It’s all sunny and bright outside and he’s stuck down there.”

  Normally, Vinnie hangs out in the basement until I put Marie upstairs at lunchtime. Then he trots upstairs and hangs out, until eventually he falls asleep on his side of my bed. Some nights I end up sleeping too, when he’s not snoring or talking in his sleep.

  Vito was right. Even though the lights were on for Vinnie, I’d felt guilty about this for a while. I checked the time and was my usual late. “C’mon, Marie,” I said, lugging her cage upstairs.

  I got Marie tucked in ‘her’ bedroom, and the phone rang. Again.

  “I can get it for you,” Vito yelled.

  “Thanks,” I yelled back, closing the door to Marie’s room and heading downstairs.

  “Well of course, Muriel, I remember yous too,” Vito said. He smiled with his bridge-free grin into the kitchen phone, receiver to his ear, Swiffer hand resting on his hundred pound hip. He was the vision of domesticity. “Yes, ma’am, Mina’s right here.” He handed the phone to me.

  “Mina? It’s Aunt Muriel,” the godmother said.

  Aunt Muriel usually calls on Fridays, to help steer my weekend social life. As a result, I’ve rubbed shoulders with many of Lancaster’s elite – mostly retired. “I wanted to remind you about the breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  Were they really this short-handed? “Yes, I know; Vito and Evelyn reminded me,” I said.

  “Oh, good.” Aunt Muriel sounded pleased. “And I have some new paint swatches for you, dear, so I’ll bring them with me. Remember, Sunday we’re having brunch after church. And then we’re off to polo,” Aunt Muriel sang off.

  I hung up and sighed. Apparently I would be attending at least one church service before Christmas. Well, my weekend plans were made.

  I looked up at the clock and counted. If I drove at 45 mph through the 25 mph streets back to work, and got all green lights, I’d at least make it into the parking garage sort-of-maybe on time.

  I opened the door to the basement and Vinnie sprang out and stretched his 48-inch long torso. I put his bowl and a box of Kitty Cookies on the counter while he stood up on his back legs, placed his front paws on top of the counter, and peered into his empty bowl. “Maw-wuphf!” he said.

  “I know you want more. It’s coming, it’s coming,” I muttered. Yeeshkabiddle.

  “Man, he sure is a big cat,” Vito said. He always says this when he sees Vinnie. Which is a lot. “Ya sure he’s not some kind of special cat, like Maine Coon or somethin’?”

  “Mainly mountain lion,” I replied. I emptied a handful of treats on top of Vinnie’s Kitty Cookies and presented his normal lunch to him. Vinnie repl
ied with his usual, “Oh-kahyyye!” I put the bowl down on the floor, hollered my farewells and hurried out.

  I was just getting into the van when Vito came running down the driveway after me. “Hey, you almost forgot!” he said, holding his gym bag full of dirty dry-cleaning. He was right. I had forgot. No wonder people were always calling to remind me about stuff.

  He tossed the bag on the front seat next to me. “Sorry, Vito,” I said. He gave me a ‘fugheddaboudit’ wave and I started to take off. I hoped that old ladies, strollers and excitable squirrels stayed off the streets until I got back to my desk.

  I drive a dull brown Dodge Caravan, a vehicular hand-me-down from my sister Ethel and her husband Ike. Before the van, which I dubbed The Doo-doo, my ’90 Ford Escort gasped its last fumes as it entered the slow lane, just past the entrance ramp near Nutley Street on Route 66, during a visit to Ethel and Ike in Northern Virginia. That night I had my 15 seconds of fame on the 10 o’clock news. Apparently I had single-handedly backed traffic up into downtown DC as well as Route 29 until 8 o’clock that night. At the time, I was more than happy to accept the offer of a used, reliable vehicle. The price – free – was right and the timing was perfect. Even if it was a poop brown van.

  My driveway has the approximate pitch and slope of Mt. Everest, so it’s a matter of habit while undoing the emergency brake to double-check my rearview for neighbors’ cars and smartass kids. But what to my wandering eyes should appear but a galumphing Great Dane and Mr. Perfect, in his baseball cap reading, ‘John Deere’?

  Okay, he was wearing more than a cap. But not much more. Tanned torso, cut-off jean shorts and the dopey John Deere baseball cap. A minus 4 for the baseball cap but a definite plus-plus-plus for the abs and the rest. I’d seen him before, of course, in one of my more memorable feminine moments hauling my new second-hand club chair out of the back of the Doo-doo. The chair is not a heavy piece of furniture, but it probably made me look like Amazon Woman picking it up all by myself. And of course at the time I was sporting a sweat-drenched T-shirt, soggy pony-tail and no makeup. I also bonked my noggin getting out of the van. (Luckily, I didn’t pass out or get concussed.)

  By the way, I’m a forty-something and sometimes pass for a less-than-forty-something on my happy days or in dark piano bars. I have shoulder-length mousy brown hair that is thick and straight and without any noticeable amount of grey. I’m also considered to be exceedingly tall by vertically challenged boyfriends: I’m 5‘10” in my stocking feet. In the spirit of boyfriends past, please do not insert basketball player jokes here. I’m also slightly accident prone which, combined with my kitchen addiction, is generally not a good mix.

  Mr. Perfect saw me staring at him in the rearview mirror. I wiggled a ‘hello’ with my fingers, and he and Marmaduke loped off. Why, oh why, does any female stumble across her Mr. Perfect at the wrong time? Like when we’re not perfect? I sighed. And then I burped. Vito’s lunch hadn’t done much for me except sabotage my insides. The botched opportunity to chat up Mr. Perfect was also not very settling. Urrrp.

  Now I was seriously late. So, as Fate would have it, every traffic light turned red on me from Millersville Pike up through Manor Street. The one green light I raced toward at Mulberry I forfeited to a pack of fire engines. When at last I pulled into the Prince Street garage, I came up behind someone entering a parking garage for her very first time. A wizened, woolly, permed head peered out the driver’s side window and stared blankly at the huge lettering of the machine’s instruction: ‘PRESS HERE FOR TICKET’. I sighed. I undid my seat belt, got out and walked up to the 100-year-old would-be parker. I pressed the button and handed her the ticket. She looked up at me confusedly through Coke-bottle lenses. Then she watched the gate go up. A moment later, I saw the light go on over her head. She smiled, waved thank you and floored her Camry for all it was worth, leaving me behind in the fumes.

  I coughed, got back into my car and ignored the silent parade behind me that was backed up Prince Street, probably well past Clipper Stadium. I have to admit it: people in Lancaster are super polite. If this kind of thing had happened in New Jersey, horns would be leaned on and various dialects of hand signals would be displayed, not so subtly. As an official Jersey transplant, I’ve found the hardest thing to get used to about Lancaster – besides the bucolic scenery and fresh air – is how nice everyone is to each other. It’s scary.

  I found a parking spot then hightailed it into the parking garage elevator. I raced out of the elevator, through the courtyard, and into the lobby to wait for a few thousand years until an elevator showed up. There are only seven floors in the old Armstrong building on Chestnut and Queen and it almost never fails that you have to wait a lifetime for an elevator’s arrival — and even longer when you’re running late. I drummed my fingers impatiently on the receptionist counter. Then I heard three simultaneous chimes as a trio of empty elevators opened at once. I got into what looked like was the least threatening elevator and pressed 7 for the ‘Penthouse’. Ha, ha.

  I began walking to my desk, when someone grabbed my arm and pulled me inside the IT lab. “Leave your purse here,” Bauser whispered.

  “You’re mugging me?” I asked.

  “Seriously, How-weird’s on a roll.” Bauser shook his head. “So leave the bag here and make like you were in the bathroom or something so he doesn’t know you just came back from lunch.”

  “Bauser, girls take their handbags into the ladies room all the time,” I said. “But thanks for the heads up,” I said, with a virtual pat on his head.

  I opened up the IT lab door, stepped back into the hall and found myself breast-to-face with my boss, Howard (or, as we not so affectionately call him, How-weird.)

  “MINA!” Howard screamed into my cleavage. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!”

  “Lunch?” I said.

  The little vein running up the center of Howard’s bald head throbbed. I gulped.

  “Everyone’s out to lunch! You’re out to lunch! Roger’s out to lunch! And Buy-A-Lots’ execs are out to lunch! Now those crazies are griping Predict-O is being used by arsonists!”

  Bauser was right. How-weird was on a roll. I tried to muster all the intellectual wit I could from my energy-absent lunch. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth to explain, and let out a very loud burp.

  Howard threw his stubby little arms up in the air and stomped off. Bauser fell backward into the lab convulsing. I blushed.

  “Man, oh man, that was like totally the best response ever,” Bauser hooted.

  I sighed. Three years I’ve been with EEJIT now and each year I get depressingly decreased raises accompanied by increased hints of termination. Belching in my boss’ face clearly wasn’t helpful.

  Bauser – known only to his mother as Ralph Bausman – took off his glasses to wipe the tears out of his eyes. Well, I thought, at least my dyspepsia provided comic relief.

  “So what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Okay, seriously, babe, you are not gonna believe this,” Bauser grinned. “You know How-weird’s pet Buy-A-Lots project?”

  I knew all too well. “Yip. Help Buy-A-Lots put a store on every corner of every town all across the country.”

  Buy-A-Lots pays EEJIT a boatload of money for the Predict-O reports, because Predict-O is supposed to find them the best possible new store locations. When Buy-A-Lots ran the program, and Predict-O forecasted Lancaster as the best place to open up their next new store, they went nuts. There are six Buy-A-Lots here already, and all of them are bleeding money. Both EEJIT and Buy-A-Lots couldn’t understand the results from the data – but here in the Lancaster office, we sniggered. If you stay here for more than 48 hours, you realize that Lancastrians are frugal people. Very, very nice, and very, very frugal (in other words, cheap). So it was no surprise, then, that Buy-A-Lots execs couldn’t believe our data was telling them to open up a seventh loss leader.

  “Babe, remember how at contract renewal Roger talked Howard into letting Buy-A-Lots pay
only half for Predict-O so we could keep the contract? The other half’s bet on the new store opening up in Lancaster on time and being a lean, mean cash machine.”

  “Right. So what’s the catch?”

  “The new store on Fruitville Pike. It’s burned down. Again.”

  Oh. So that’s where the pack of fire trucks was going.

  This was the second time a fire ‘happened’ to the same new store. The first time was an accident, the paper reported: a workman’s torch was left on when it was supposed to be off. Although the gossip with the senior crowd during that Brethren Breakfast was that none of them were too unhappy about it. Especially since no one got hurt. (You see how nice Lancaster folks are?)

  So that explained How-weird’s meltdown. It was common knowledge that if the new store didn’t go up on time and wasn’t super profitable, How-weird would get the boot. I sighed. This could make my position even worse. Who knew who would replace Howard? Someone even more awful? Or maybe he’d fire me on his way out: his last hurrah, that kind of thing. I started to read the writing on the wall: scapegoat for hire.

  “Welcome back, Mina,” Lee said smugly as she sashayed past me.

  When she was past, Bauser said, “Man, she is such a witch.”

  I shrugged. Ever since I’d been hired, Lee’s jealousy for my office manager position flared at every opportunity. I figured it was mostly because she’s a dyed-in-the-wool busy-body. Part of my ‘other duties as required’ includes being the closest thing we have to an HR department. Consequently, I help people deal with a lot of health benefit issues, which means I end up knowing a lot more about their personal lives than I’d like to. Someone like Lee would definitely use this information for no good. But luckily, Lee is a QA technician who reports to Achmed. And it seems that Achmed likes to keep her pretty busy so he can check out his stock investments and eBay.

  I shrugged bye-bye to Bauser and trudged back to my cube. I looked over at Norman’s cube across from mine, and saw him lying on his towel. Norman stretches himself out on the floor of his cube every day at exactly 2:00 p.m. Clearly it was half-past nap time, since he was already settled in. It was also a clear sign that I was even later than I thought. Crap. I plopped myself down in my chair and stared at the corporate logo screensaver. I logged in and waited for my email inbox to open. Since lunch, another 185 new emails had rolled in. I clicked on the ‘Message from’ column and confirmed what I already knew: 90 percent of these were from How-weird, whose office was less than twelve feet from my cube. I sighed, then reordered them by date and time to trawl through the missives in order.