Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction!

by Lizz Lund

  I pushed on with, “Well, all’s well that ends well,” and handed her another tissue from the almost empty box. “You here for the sales? We could drop you off at the outlets,” I fibbed.

  “Actually, I’m trying to look up some family,” Helena admitted. “My boyfriend Mickey asked me to find my uncle,” she said.

  “Your boyfriend Mickey?” I nearly shrieked.

  Helena sniffed. “Well, sort of. He’s my daughter’s father, anyway,” she said.

  “YOUR DAUGHTER’S FATHER?”

  Norman turned around in his seat. “You’ll have to excuse her, miss. Mina’s pretty traditional. She’s not used to the having children before boyfriends thing,” he faked.

  “Oh, that’s okay. Me either. It just kind of, well, happened. And we do want to get married. That is, once Mickey’s out of prison,” she spluttered. And then broke off into another fresh wail.

  “Oh. That’s, uh, nice,” Bauser said, nearly driving into the car in front of us – his gaze had been fixed in the rearview mirror at Helena.

  “Uh, hey, uh, would guys mind if I, uh… stopped here at this store and grabbed a paper?” I lied.

  “Nope,” Bauser said, and pulled over.

  “Norman, could I borrow some change?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said, digging around in his backpack and handing me a couple of pounds of quarters. Yeesh. Didn’t his shoulder hurt him?

  “Great. Thanks. Anything I can get you while I’m in there, Helena?”

  “Oh. Well. Maybe, if you don’t mind, a box of tissues please,” she said, digging around in her Dooney & Bourke handbag for her wallet. I waved her off.

  “I got it. On me. Well, really Norman. Welcome to Lancaster, ha ha,” I said, and got out of Bauser’s car quick and hurried into the store in search of a payphone, stat.

  I dashed into the store, grabbed a newspaper and a box of aloe vera tissues – I figured Helena’s nose had to be pretty sore by now – and looked around for a phone.

  At the rear of the store was some poor sad soul who was obviously down on his luck. “Thank, thanks a lot, man. I appreciate that,” he said, hacking up a lung into the receiver, and hanging up. I cringed. I began to realize the appeal of cell phones and regretted my technophobia.

  The man left, wheezing goodbye to the clerk. The clerk gave him a nod, then continued reading his book from behind the counter. I walked to the phone, opened the box of Klean’ums, picked up the receiver with a tissue covered right hand and wiped the mouthpiece off with another wad wrapped around my left hand. I dialed the keypad with my hands wrapped inside tissue mittens. I called my house, looking for Vito.

  “Kitchen Residence,” a jolly voice answered. It was Vito. He sounded very happy. He was probably Swiffering.

  “Hey, Vito, it’s me. Mina,” I said into the phone, holding the receiver about fourteen inches from my mouth.

  “Hey, Mina, where you calling from? The bottom of a well? I can hardly hear yous,” Vito said.

  “I’m calling from a payphone,” I said.

  “A public phone? That’s not too sanitary.”

  “I know. Believe me, I know. Listen, Vito, we’ve got Helena with us.”

  “You’re kidding? You do? You mean she actually wants to talk to me?”

  “Uh, well, in a manner of speaking. She doesn’t know we know you.”

  “Oh. So why’s she with you?”

  “We thought if we offered her a ride, maybe we could find out why she was here in the first place. We were hoping she was outlet shopping.”

  “Oh. That makes sense. Was she?”

  “No. She’s here because her boyfriend wants her to look up her uncle.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Mickey.”

  “It figures.”

  “Actually, sounds like he’s more of a fiancé. He’s kind of promised to marry Helena once he’s out of prison. Mostly because he’s her daughter’s father.”

  I heard a thump, and then silence. “Vito? Vito!?”

  For a few long seconds, nothing … and then panting.

  “It’s alright, I’m alright, I’m alright, Toots. Just lost my balance for a minute, that’s all.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” I asked.

  I heard Vito sigh. “Just bring her home. I’ll take care of this,” he said.

  “But what if, umm… this means you have to relocate?”

  “Hey, there are worse things. Tampa might not be so bad. Besides, my niece is my niece. You just bring her home so we can get this all sorted out straight,” he answered.

  “Yuppers,” I said and hung up, shaking my head. Maybe Vito was right. Tampa isn’t so bad. Besides which, it couldn’t have many more senior citizens than Lancaster.

  I paid the kid behind the counter, who rang me up, took the change and gave me a receipt without taking his eyes off of his book. “Good book?” I asked.

  He shrugged without looking up. “It’s okay,” he said. “But nobody’s got whacked yet,” he added. I winced.

  “Shame about that poor guy,” I offered. The kid looked up at me like I’d landed from Pluto, the outcast non-planet. “The guy at the payphone,” I explained.

  “Oh, him,” the kid shrugged. “He just comes in here for cigarettes and to use the payphone sometimes,” he said.

  “That’s a shame, especially for someone down on his luck like that,” I tried.

  “Are you kidding me?” the kid yelped. “That’s our landlord. He owns this building, and the two parking garages behind it.”

  I cringed and walked out the door toward Bauser’s car, and saw Jim splayed across the backseat with his head on Helena’s chest, and looking up at her in complete adoration. I opened the door, picked up his one hind leg and sat down. Then I passed Helena what was left of her box of tissues. She looked at the opening. “Allergy attack,” I fibbed.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Well, where to now?” Bauser asked, looking into the rearview mirror at me.

  “Actually, I think maybe Helena would like to meet my neighbor,” I said.

  “Really? Why’s that?” she asked.

  “Because he’s your uncle,” I said simply. Bauser nodded and we drove off, while Helena began to sniffle again.

  CHAPTER 10

  (Wednesday afternoon)

  “You just don’t understand,” Helena sobbed. “Wujek will kill me,” she wailed.

  “Uh, no, I don’t think he’s going to kill you,” Norman offered.

  “Of course not. What for?” Bauser added hastily.

  “B-b-because I had a BABY!” she wailed.

  “Well, these things happen,” Norman offered.

  “And the father’s not even POLISH,” Helena continued. “Or JEWISH.”

  “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

  Norman shrugged. Helena blew. Jim bayed a la beagle in support.

  “Jim bays?” I asked.

  “Who knew?” Bauser shrugged.

  Huh. Figures. Just like every other guy I ever met, Jim has a thing for blondes, too.

  “When I got pregnant, Pop sent me to a group home in Vermont for wayward shiksahs,” Helena explained. “He wanted to shame me because the baby’s half-Irish. But a week later, Ma showed up and bailed me out. We took a cabin on Lake Champlain for the summer,” she added wistfully. “That was a real happy time. Ma was nice to me. It was a real first.” I nodded empathetically.

  “So Ma and I decided to rent a condo in Burlington, near the hospital. At that point, neither of us was speaking to Pop, anyway. Especially after he told us Uncle Vlad had Mickey locked up.”

  Helena started to sniffle again. The wad of used tissues in her lap grew from the size of a ping-pong ball to something more like a baseball.

  “I had a beautiful baby girl, Marie, named after my Auntie Marie, may she rest in peace,” she ended.

  “So where’s your kid now?” Norman asked nervously.

 
; “Not to worry; she’s with her Gramma and Grampy back in Bumville,” Helena said.

  “I guess you patched it up then?” I asked.

  “Sure; right after Marie was born, when I moved back. I didn’t really want to, though.” She paused and blew again. “But I had enough of Vermont. I really hate snow. And skiing. I completely don’t get the downhill thing,” she said. “Bu the time I came home, Uncle Vlad had just – poof – left. And Pop wouldn’t say a peep.” Another tissue joined her growing collection. “Later I visited Mickey in prison with the baby, and he told me all about Uncle Vlad testifying against him in court.”

  “Jeez, are you sure you want little Marie to, umm… visit Mickey in prison?” Bauser asked.

  “He is her father,” Helena sniffed. “And I don’t understand what the big deal was about, anyway. Don’t you think it’s a little extreme to put someone in jail over some lousy unpaid traffic tickets?” she asked.

  Traffic tickets? “Umm… yeah,” I said. Oh boy

  Bauser forced the Aspire up Mt. Driveway, tugged at the emergency brake and shut the motor off. The car lurched back. Norman and Bauser got out, and hauled me and Helena and Jim out of the gulch what was Bauser’s backseat. We shuffled to the front door where Vito was already waiting, dressed up in a dark blue Armani suit, light blue silk shirt and paisley tie. He was even wearing his bridge.

  Helena gulped a breath, stepped forward, and sobbed into her basketball of tissues. Vito hurried down the steps and engulfed Helena and her snotty ball in a big Uncle Vlad bear hug.

  “Moja mała mysz,” Vito said to the top of Helena’s platinum flaxen head. We weren’t sure what that meant, but it was obvious it wasn’t something bad.

  “Oh, Wujek!” Helena wailed.

  Vito – Vlad – held her and patted Helena on the back of her head. We all sniffed a little, too. I sniffed mostly because Helena was snotting all over the lapels of a perfectly good, and rarely used, expensive Armani suit. Ma and Aunt Muriel would have had a fit.

  Ethel came out red-eyed. Either she was watching the same thing we were, or peeing on her Instant Speedo Econo Pregometer (‘Like 2 kits in 1!’) pregnancy test kits took a lot more effort than I’d reckoned. Vito turned around as the screen door shut, and noticed the rest of us.

  Vito mopped his brow with a meticulously folded handkerchief. It turned orange. “Well, listen, Cookie,” Vito – Vlad – began to his niece, “I think we should talk. But in private like; not here out on the lawn.”

  Helena blew into another tissue and added it to her mucoid medicine ball. She looked at me, then Vito, and nodded. “I guess you don’t want to talk about family stuff in front of your neighbor,” she said.

  “Hey,” Vito replied, “Mina’s more than just a neighbor. Her and her aunt kind of took me in, like. As far as I’m concerned, she’s family.”

  I felt a tug at my heart. Then I realized Jim was sitting pretty with his paw on my chest.

  I also felt the usual crimped nerve in my spine. I can’t help it. Public displays of familial affection make me a little nervy, unless there’s shouting involved. The crimp pinched with a vengeance. I rubbed my butt.

  Helena started sniffling again. Wasn’t she getting dehydrated? Vito winced. He must have been thinking the same thing. Or maybe he was wincing because Helena had crumpled his very expensive Armani handkerchief and merged it with her soggy wad.

  “C’mon, Cookie,” he said. “Let’s go inside, have a bite to eat, and catch up.”

  Helena sniffed and nodded. She turned to look at us, and then she started bawling again.

  We waved bye-bye at Helena and Vito. Then I herded all my escorts into my house.

  Vinnie grrled and stretched hello at me. Clearly things were not so uptight at my house that Vinnie hadn’t been able to nap. Then again, I had yet to find too many situations that Vinnie couldn’t nap through. Jim greeted Vinnie by sniffing his butt. This made Vinnie spring upward, fur sticking up in all directions, especially his tail. Hello, Afro Cat.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Bauser asked, thrusting his chin toward Ethel, who was blowing her nose in the corner.

  “Uh… cramps,” I lied.

  “Umm… your, uh, little boys room is down here somewhere, right?” Norman asked.

  “Yup,” I said, and showed him the powder room.

  “And another’s upstairs, too?” Bauser asked.

  “Uh, yeah, right off my bedroom,” I said to Bauser’s sneakers heading up the stairs. I guessed Krumpthf’s has diuretic effects. At least, I hoped that was it, and not the effects of Meat! Meat! Meat! & More Meat! Personal Pie.

  I walked into the kitchen to find the counters lined end to end with pregnancy kits. “What the?” I asked.

  Ethel sniffed. “Well, there wasn’t enough room in the bathrooms for them all.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Well?”

  “Every friggin one of them says I’m yùn fù.”

  “Huh?”

  “I had to look it up on the internet. Yùn fù is Chinese for pregnant woman,” Ethel said.

  “Oh. Well, that’s great,” I said. Ethel started to cry some more. “Look, I’m sure Ike was speaking in the figurative about Hansel and Gretel. He’d never get rid of them. Especially now that this is a real situation, not a hypothetical one.”

  “I guess. I don’t know. They’d be too nervous in a foster home!” she wailed. “Hansel’s on a very strict diet. It’s expensive. Most people wouldn’t take care of him like we do.” I gulped. I wasn’t going to tell Ethel about the donut crumbs if nobody else did.

  Norman came out of the powder room. “Mazel tov!” he said.

  Ethel sniffed. “Thank you, I think…” she gulped.

  “No, really. This is great news. You must be relieved all the tests had the same results.” I stared blankly at Norman. “The pregnancy kits in the powder room are all positive,” he said. I looked him. “Yùn fù is Chinese for pregnant woman. Our neighbors own the Rising Sun Chinese Restaurant. We’ve had Dim Sum there every Sunday for years.”

  I shook my head and looked at Ethel.

  “Well I wasn’t going to line them all up in the kitchen,” she said.

  We heard flushing from upstairs and then Bauser bounded back down. “Congratulations,” he said matter-of-factly to Ethel. Ethel nodded and cried some more.

  “Where’s Ike? What does he think?” I asked.

  Ethel shook her head and blew. “Ike just dropped Vito off. He said he wanted to go to Pets-A-Million with Hansel and Gretel to look for new winter sweaters for them, because they’re on sale…” She trailed off, trying to stifle a sob.

  “Uh, well, that’s nice,” I said. Ethel sniffled some more. “What is the matter with you?”

  “They have adoption groups at Pets-A-Million… What if he gives Hansel and Gretel away?” she wailed.

  I grabbed some paper towels, wet them with cold water, and threw them in her face. “Stop it!” I shouted neutrally. Ethel wiped the cold wet towels across her face, took a big breath, and then exhaled.

  “Now don’t be so stupid,” I said. “Ike’s not that bad. Let’s just give him a little time. He’s probably just stocking up on Hansel’s diet food,” I said.

  “Okay,” Ethel sighed.

  “And if you’re wondering about how to tell him you’re pregnant, leaving these test kits scattered all around the house sure would be a hint, even if you don’t speak Chinese,” I said.

  The other shoe dropped. “Oh!” she said. Then she moved into hyper drive collecting up the kits and throwing them in the garbage.

  Bauser grabbed a trash bag. “I can’t stand family fights,” he said simply, and pounced up the stairs.

  Norman shrugged, grabbed another garbage bag and went into the powder room.

  Before long, all of the kits were disposed of, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  Ike walked in later with the Ratties. The very, very fluffy Ratties. Hansel and G
retel looked like they had been given bad perms and tumble dried. They were also spectacularly dressed for some unknown occasion. Gretel had a large dopey red-sequined bow fastened to the top of her head. Hansel sported a matching dopey sequined bow-tie around his neck. They both looked equally humiliated.

  “Hey, the Lancaster Pets-A-Million is great,” Ike said with a grin, taking Hansel and Gretel’s leashes off of them. The dogs immediately began tearing at their respective bows. “They’ve got a doggie day spa and everything. I got Hansel and Gretel manicures and pedicures, and a Fluff ‘n’ Phoof volumizing pooch wash. Don’t they look fluffy?” he asked proudly.

  Hansel lay down and put his paws over his head. Gretel growled at Ike.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said.

  “It’s really neat,” Ike went on. “They’ve even got doggie hair dryers.”

  “Really? What are those like?” Bauser asked. Jim growled.

  “They look like people hair dryers,” Ike said. “But they say ‘just for dogs’ on them.” Gretel growled some more. “What’s wrong with her?” Ike wondered aloud.

  “Maybe her bow’s on too tight?” Norman asked.

  “Hey, has anyone heard from Ma?” I asked, trying to switch gears. Ethel said she had, and that the girls were having a girls’ day at Aunt Muriel’s. “Great! I mean, uh, that’s nice,” I started, “so we’ll just go have a look in on them, right guys?” I hinted at Bauser and Norman.

  “Oh, right, yes,” Norman said, picking up his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder.

  “OH! Right, yeah, need to stop by,” Bauser continued, catching on.

  “Great, we’ll follow you,” said Ike.

  “NO!” Norman, Bauser, Ethel and I yelled at him.

  I said, “I mean, I’m sure you and Ethel haven’t had a quiet moment together since you got here. And you just got Hansel and Gretel back from the puppy spa thingy. You wouldn’t want all this humidity to defluff them, would you?”

  “Why don’t you just call her?” Ike asked practically.

  “Uh… we have to drop some things off to her anyway,” I said, as Norman and Bauser walked toward the door with Jim.

  “Like what?” Ike asked to our backs.

  “Us,” Bauser said, and we all exited stage center, pronto.