Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction!

by Lizz Lund

  I started to open the first email from How-weird when my phone rang. “Mina Kitchen, EEJIT,” I said automatically, while trying to decipher the content of How-weird’s first bold-face, red 14-point email.

  “Girlfriend, you are not going to believe this!” Belinda hissed into the phone at me from across the miles.

  While I had to endure How-weird and the occasional stray Amish buggy, poor Belinda endured various levels of dysfunction in EEJIT’s corporate offices in Atlanta.

  “Ken is on a rampage,” Belinda whispered in a voice so low only a bat could hear it. But I got every word. We’d perfected the office phone whisper until we could hear each other’s pulse.

  “He’s joined the club, huh?” I said, still perusing How-weird’s emails, which had grown from 14-point bold red to 20-point purple, highlighted in yellow, and pulsing against a black border. I wondered how he did that. It was pretty eye catching. I’d have to look into it.

  “Ken is actually sweating,” Belinda said.

  This was significant. Ken is about 7 feet tall and weighs 90 pounds. When he visits Lancaster and stands next to Howard, he looks like a giant fork standing next to a 4×4 meatball. The effect is pretty humorous. Especially since Ken’s gestures are pretty effeminate, and Howard is a confirmed homophobe. This means that after one of Ken’s visits, there is usually a mass exodus to the restrooms so we don’t all pee in our collective pants.

  “What’s the deal?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you hear? You’re out there, for Pete’s Sake!” Belinda was a Baptist. Saying ‘Pete’s Sake’ for her was significant cussing.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. All I heard is that Buy-A-Lots’ new store on Fruitville Pike got torched again.”

  Belinda sighed. “And did you know the same thing happened out this way AND in Buy-A-Lots’ corporate hometown?”

  “Really?”

  “And they think all three store sites were selected by using guess-whose Predict-O system?”

  “Hey!” I smiled. Sometimes Fridays weren’t so bad after all.

  “And you know that fingers are pointing every which way, and Ken ain’t gonna take the heat for nothin’, neither,” Belinda said. She was right. When it came to passing the buck, Ken made How-weird look like a rank amateur.

  “Anybody hurt?” I asked. I had to. It was the nice thing to do, and I was still trying to fit into Lancaster.

  I heard Belinda smile. “Nope.”

  Cool. But also weird. It meant there had to be some actual arsons going on. Since all three stores were already under construction, they weren’t exactly the world’s best kept secrets. Especially with all the PR Buy-A-Lots made sure was in play. New stores and store openings were announced in every major newspaper.

  “And get this,” Belinda squeaked into the phone. “All three fires were set off by flaming –”

  Her sentence was cut short as she fell into one of her coughing jags. Poor Belinda has asthma that’s probably irritated by the same source that heats up my catering crazies at EEJIT.

  “Are you okay? You wanna call me later? Or email?” I offered. There was, after all, no reason why EEJIT should ruin her weekend by landing her in the ER.

  I listened for a response, and heard nothing. “Belinda!” I said, then jerked in my seat. I’d scared myself by speaking out loud into the phone like a normal person.

  I heard some crackling and a snort. “Heeeeee-heeeee-heeee.”

  “Belinda, are you gasping?” I went into Commando mode. “Hang up the phone!”

  “No-oooo…” she whispered back at me. “I’m t-t-t-trying not to – p-p-pee myself! Heeee-heee-heee!”

  Oh. She was laughing. I’d never heard her laugh before. In fact, I’d never heard anyone laugh at EEJIT. Ever. Although I’d heard lots of sighing.

  I got curious. “So what’s the big ‘heeee’ about?” I asked, sensing Belinda wiping the tears from her eyes.

  “Phew!” she gasped. Then, matter-of-factly, she said, “Every fire was caused by flaming bags of feces.”

  “Huh?”

  “Bags of doggie doo – on fire! Hee-heee-heeee…”

  I clapped my hand to my mouth so I wouldn’t LOL. Wow. TGIF! I started to snicker – and that made Belinda snicker more. Then she ended up having a real coughing jag. “Gotta go,” she gasped and hung up. This damn company.

  I finally stopped and blew my nose hard. I started to pull myself together when I looked over and saw that I’d woken Norman. “Sorry, Norman,” I said. I really was. Norman is the only person who helps me when things get so bad I bang my head against the desk. Usually by folding up his towel and placing it in front of my forehead.

  “That’s okay,” he said. He looked at me incredulously. “Did something good actually happen?” he wondered aloud to me.

  I scurried across the aisle bent kneed, so How-weird or Lee wouldn’t see me above cube height, and plopped down next to him on his towel. I told Norman about the Flaming Fecal Flingers. Then we both kept trying from laughing so hard we turned red and tears streamed down our faces. In the end my bladder couldn’t take it anymore. I squeaked, “Bye,” and crawled back to my cube.

  I bent my head over my keyboard and tried to think of something to stop convulsing. The image that ended up coming to mind was Howard sitting across from me at a table in a restaurant, eating. With people nearby. That worked. I grabbed a tissue and blew and walked quickly toward the Ladies’ Room.

  I was just in front of the Ladies’ Room door when How-weird bellowed, “Mina, get in here now!”

  I apologized to my bladder and moped back up the hallway to How-weird’s office.

  “We are in a lot of trouble here,” he began. Oh good, I thought. The ‘we’ was code that I was going to get HA’d – hollered at.

  “Buy-A-Lots’ being sabotaged by arson!” Howard hissed conspiratorially, leaning over his desk, nose to navel with me. His breath reeked: it smelled like day-old liver. I had to step back to keep my eyelashes from melting.

  I exhaled his fumes and took in the data. Buy-A-Lots. Sabotage. Arson. He didn’t mention the doggie poop, but I couldn’t help but think of it anyway and the corners of my mouth twitched. I looked down at the floor, trying to pretend I was at a funeral. Heck, actually being at a funeral would be better than being here. At least the dearly departed would have let me go to the bathroom. My bladder burbled.

  “The police might be on their way here! To question us!” Howard squealed.

  “Huh?”

  “The cops picked up on the connection with the fires near Corporate and here,” Howard sweated. “Now it looks like the Feds may go in on it.” Howard stared up at me, pretending he had achieved a normal adult’s height. “Buy-A-Lots is not happy,” he ended, squinting at me, mostly because the sun was blinding him.

  “Okay,” I said, hoping for closure and an excuse to relieve my bursting bladder.

  “Okay!? Okay!? It is not okay!” How-weird yelled at me in his bold, red, 14 pt. font voice.

  I sighed. Howard threw himself back into his executive-like pleather chair. His eyes rested just above his desktop. He waved his eyebrows at me. “Buy-A-Lots is EEJIT’s biggest client,” Howard said from between gritted teeth. “If the police or Feds can prove there’s a connection between the arsons and the Predict-O software, we’ve had it! No client will feel safe using our product if they think for a moment that Predict-O could be used by terrorists!”

  Arson. Terrorists. Right. Uh huh. Gotcha, How-weird. Maybe he ought to cut back on that caffeine…

  Howard rubbed his balding head with his fat hairy fingers. I winced. Luckily for me, Howard thought I was wincing in agreement with his terrorist theory. Actually, I bet a lot of people wanted to burn a Buy-A-Lots. It’s just that very few people would actually go to the trouble to do it.

  Howard’s phone rang and he immediately leapt to answer it, as usual. Howard’s completely paranoid about not answering his phone at all times, in case it’s c
orporate. No matter how many people are in his office for a meeting, we all know that if the phone rings, we wait. Manners, schmanners. I hand signaled bye-bye to Howard and closed his door before he could motion me to sit and watch him talk.

  Once I’d finished my visit to the Ladies’, my bladder wasn’t so anxious and I felt lots better. I also felt lots more curious. Why did Howard immediately conclude it was terrorism through software?

  I looked at the clock. Happy hour was less than 20 minutes away. I figured a cocktail or few would help smooth my edges. I thought about putting on some makeup, but decided against it. I was only going to meet K., for heaven’s sakes. I straightened my shirt, and saw I was covered in orange Vinnie hair. Then I shook my head, and seed hulls sputtered out onto the floor. I sighed. With my luck I’d meet the man of my dreams. I hoped he liked pets.

  I headed back to my cube, swimming upstream against co-workers taking advantage of Howard’s door being closed at 4:45 p.m. on a Friday. The phenomenon was virtually unheard of. Howard’s door is always open so he can corner some unsuspecting programmer and force him to work the weekend. Even Lee waddled quickly past me. At least by shutting How-weird’s door I’d done something helpful.

  I shut down my computer and slunk out behind Norman – and then Howard’s door opened. Norman turned and stared deer-in-headlights back at me. I shook my head and motioned for him to escape. As Howard came out, I stepped around to block his view, offering Norman his route to freedom. I’m a bit protective about Norman. He got married for the first time recently; he’s in his mid-50s, and the gal he married has three teenage daughters and four horses. This means Norman spends a lot of his at home time in the barn or the basement. Except this weekend the girls were visiting their dad. I’d hate it if Howard ruined Norman’s weekend by asking him to work through it. Again.

  “Everything okay now, Howard?” I asked innocently, swaying from side to side to block his view of Norman’s exit. Howard jumped up and down, trying to look past me, but probably only got a good view of my tummy.

  “Oh, sure,” he sneered.

  “Well, so long as everything’s okay…” I replied, and drifted toward the door.

  “Everything’s just hunky-dory!” he said, throwing his paws up in the air and stomping on his little feet back toward his office.

  “Okey-dokey,” I said out loud to no one and made a quick exit, stage left.

  I left the garage and drove happily along toward the House of Happy, hoping for a parking spot within walking distance.

  The House of Happy’s ‘Snappy Hour’ involves a jazz combo and a lot of gay men, making it my friend K.’s favorite Friday night spot. K. is my very dear friend, and yes, K. is really his name. He actually changed his name legally – for unknown reasons and an unknown sum – to the letter K. With a period. Sadly, ‘K.’ in conversation is usually mistaken with ‘Kay’, which is a weird name for a guy, even a gay one.

  Most Friday evenings, K. and I flip a coin about where to meet, since meeting a lot of gay men doesn’t exactly improve my love life. Although it should have improved my walls. But, maybe this Friday night would be different. Maybe I’ll meet an enthusiastic house painter. I smiled. Things might be looking up.

  I quickly parked the Doo-doo, then strolled cheerily to the House of Happy on Queen Street (K. once proclaimed, in all seriousness during a very unsober moment, that this would be the street where he would meet the man of his dreams). As I began to climb the steps of the brownstone where the bar was, I stopped and palmed myself in the forehead. I’d forgotten all about Vito’s dry cleaning.

  I reached the top step and met Miss Marianne at the hostess podium. Miss Marianne is about 90 years old and has worked at the House of Happy since the first horse and buggy pulled up. She knows my friends, and more importantly, she likes me. I asked her to let them know I’d be back.

  “Sure, hon.” She winked at me from beneath teased magenta hair and large pink and black leopard patterned eyeglasses.

  I squealed off the corner lot, cursing myself for not remembering about the stupid dry cleaning before I left work. Then I could have simply walked across the street. Now I had to drive all the way back. I re-parked in the garage, and hurtled across the road with Vito’s gym bag of dirty duds to Lickety-Split Laundry.

  I plopped Vito’s gym bag onto the counter, and Mrs. Phang, who couldn’t have been more aptly named, took the bag and unloaded it beneath the counter muttering something in Vietnamese that did not sound complimentary.

  She frowned at me. “You have ticket?”

  I sighed and began to dig through the dumpster known as my purse, piling stuff on the counter. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had found one of Mrs. Phang’s relatives living amongst the rubble. Finally, I found my wallet without piercing my finger on the lost pin I discovered. I smiled, and Mrs. Phang snarled back. I quickly opened the wallet and several hundred receipts plopped out along the mess. Mrs. Phang smiled, and with surgical precision picked out the receipt bearing her logo so I could ransom the laundry I’d dropped off for Vito last Monday.

  Mrs. Phang brought Vito’s box of shirts out, and placed them on the counter, keeping a hand on top of the box. “You know, shirts weddy Weeeensday,” she scolded me.

  “I know, Mrs. Phang, but I really couldn’t pick them up until today,” I sighed.

  “Shirt weedy Weeensday, you pick up! No wait ‘til Friday!” she instructed. Yikes. I might actually have to break down and get a BlackBerry after all, just to keep up with Vito’s dry cleaning schedule.

  I went through our usual ritual of trying to pay for Vito’s shirts, and Mrs. Phang continued her ritual of putting me in my place. “No – Vito regular customer! We get check! You take!” Like I said: Vito is a dry cleaning junkie. And he’d definitely found his source.

  I scooped up my mess and shoved it back into my handbag as I pretended to ignore Mrs. Phang’s laser beam glare at my forehead. Then I grabbed the shirt box and left. As I stood on the corner and waited for the light, I considered wimping out and going home and sautéing some onions and garlic and mushrooms in olive oil with rosemary as the base for some kind of recipe. I could always call Miss Marianne and she’d explain for me, maybe. Then I reconsidered. K. would never forgive me. And he’d probably confiscate my grocery bonus card, too.

  So I trundled the clean-shirt box and myself back into the van and chugged back to the House of Happy. I walked up the steps into the martini bar and ‘Snappy Hour’, and what I hoped was the beginning of a halfway decent weekend.

  But no one was there. Not even a mouse. Or a K. I sighed.

  An oh-so-brightly-expecting-a-large-tip bartender came up to me. “Hell-ooo! Aren’t we in a festive mood!” he sang at me.

  “Actually, not so much,” I replied honestly.

  “I know a fan-TAB-ulous Cosmo that will change your spirits!” he gushed. He really was determined to get that tip. I sighed. He was right – at least about the drink. Mostly because any beverage at House of Happy comes in a seriously fan-TAB-ulous glass that I swear makes your drink taste better.

  A few minutes later, I gratefully accepted my Cosmo, fan-TAB-ulous glass and all, and it was pretty good. I started to feel my spine untwist itself out of its weekly spiral. Then K. walked in.

  “It’s been that kind of week? Again?” he teased, pointing accusingly at my Cosmo glass – which stood empty. Huh. I guess I was a lot thirstier than I’d thought.

  “Again! Times two!” K. laughed. We got our Cosmos, and ‘tinged’ our fan-TAB-ulous glasses to TGIF.

  Armand sauntered in, and my spirits lifted higher. Armand is also a good friend, and definitely not gay. In fact, he doesn’t even look remotely happy. And tonight he looked especially sullen. But that was because it was a Friday. Fridays are supposed to be the Mondays of Armand’s work week. Armand makes his living – and a very good one at that – as a very silent headwaiter at one of Lancaster’s very uppery eateries.

  But for Arma
nd, waiting tables is about much more than monetary compensation. Waiting is Armand’s passion. He disdains those who do not have a true interest in the Waiting Profession, and abuse the privilege of serving the dining public by participating in this endeavor for a mere paycheck.

  As it turned out, last week Armand encountered a scheduling ‘mix-up’ at work. In other words, his manager was annoyed with him, and so he rescheduled Armand from profit bearing weekends to tip-barren weeknights. Apparently, the new schedule was still in negotiation.

  I smiled widely at Armand. Armand glowered back. “Wodka!” he commanded the bartender. Three smallish frozen vials of expensive vodka appeared on the granite bar, before the bartender skittered to the far corner to escape Armand’s glare.

  We ‘tinged’ to working weekends for Armand, non-working weekends for me and my cronies at EEJIT, and to the health of K.‘s very solvent interior design clients.

  The bartender continued to placate us with more frozen vodkas, sliding them before us and darting back to his corner. Other patrons arrived and crowded the bar. Smoke, gossip, jazz and a jovial crowd hemmed us safely inside Snappy Hour. I chatted, got jostled and generously shared my drinks with the shoes and elbows of those around me. Life was good.

  There was a lull in the music when the penny dropped.

  “Supper Clubs! Oh yes! We must!” K. said effusively.

  “Huh?” I asked, drifting back from my happy planet Wodka.

  “I heard about this from my friend Gillian,” he said. “What you must have, my dear, is an entree-VOUS… Understand?”