Cookie Cutter

by Jo Richardson

  “Carter?”

  “Sorry, Frank, what was that?”

  “I said, maybe we’ll find you a flip out here next. It’d be great to work with you. See how much you’ve learned without me hovering over your shoulder.”

  I stroll through the front room of the house and pull the drapes closed but stop when I see movement outside. A slow smile grows. It’s Iris Alden, carrying what looks to be a card table. And a ton of other somethings she can’t quite manage with finesse.

  “That’d be great Frank. Hey I gotta run, okay? I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Yeah, no problem Carter, keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  I blindly end the call as Iris struggles to carry everything in her arms. Has this woman ever heard of taking two trips anywhere?

  I should get started on some smaller projects I wanted to get done before the weekend is over but instead, I head outside. In part, I’ll admit, because I’m curious as to what she’s got going on now but mostly because I’m in desperate need to talk with someone other than family. After spending the entire day alone in that drama room, she’s the only person I really know here.

  Maybe I’m bored. Or maybe I enjoy giving Iris Alden a hard time. Either way . . .

  “Whatcha got there Iris?”

  I catch up to her as the sky begins to darken a little more. Her shoulders slump as she pauses her trek. It bothers me because I don’t know if her shoulders are slumping because of her day in general or specifically because I’m here now.

  “Going to play some cards?”

  She smiles as though she’s humoring me. That I like.

  “I guess you answered your own question, huh?” She starts to go again, quickening her steps.

  “Want me to walk you?” I follow along.

  She gives me a side look so I try to play it off, jokingly. “Ya never know who you’re gonna run into this time of night.”

  She stops cold this time. “It’s Friday night, Mr. Blackwood.”

  “Really,” I say. “Carter’s fine.”

  “Do you know what Friday night means?” she says, like I haven’t said a word.

  “It’s the weekend?”

  She huffs, then starts off again. I follow. Now it’s as though she’s talking to herself more than me as she mumbles, “Bordering on stalking for crying out loud.”

  “Stalking? I was just--”

  “First Gail, then Mark . . .”

  I recognize Gail’s name as the principal from the school, but . . . Who’s Mark? I wonder. “That the boyfriend?”

  She answers with a short, loud bark of a laugh just as we arrive at her destination. She sets the table down. It’s only now that I’m kicking myself for not taking it from her so she could manage the rest of what she’s carrying.

  That’s rude.

  “Can I…?” I fumble an offer even though it’s too late.

  She answers with a defensive “No.”

  She rings the doorbell with her elbow and things are very suddenly quiet between us, but I refuse to let this get awkward.

  “So, how is the uh . . .?” I wave at her rib cage and Iris lets the card table rest against her hip, freeing up her hand to rub the area, gingerly.

  “Better.”

  I nod, and find myself staring at her fingers then the “V” that her shirt comes to. Then her neck. Her skin is smooth. Like silky smooth. Or at least it looks that way. My hand twitches. It wants to confirm this theory. Iris let’s a noise out, one meant to grab my attention. Then I snap my mouth shut and clear my throat as the door opens.

  “Well, well, well.” The older woman whips her boa around her shoulders. With her carefully applied make up and wavy, red hair, she reminds me of an older Greta Garbo, only spunkier. “Look what Iris brought me.”

  “Oh for the love of God, Cynthia, he’s not for you.”

  Iris makes to pick up the card table again, probably thinking, we’re done here, and that she’s going to be rid of me in a moment’s time. So naturally, I snatch it up quicker than she can, determined to prove I’m not rude nor a stalker, even though, now I kind of am acting like a stalker.

  You’re not a stalker, Carter. You’re simply . . . curious.

  Cynthia closes the door behind me like she’s making sure I won’t leave. I instinctively move a little further into the house like a caged animal.

  “Who’s this strapping young man?” Another woman bellows from the living room.

  She’s not quite as up there in age as Cynthia, or as elegant, but she’s has her own thing going on with the colorful array of clothes she’s wearing. None of which match, by the way. Iris doesn’t bother introducing me. Instead, she makes her way to the kitchen, where she begins unpacking something from one of her bags.

  “Carter Blackwood,” I extend my free hand toward the Greta look-a-like. “I just moved in to the house across from Iris.”

  “Ohhhhh.” The rainbow wearing woman squeals. “The house flipper!”

  I nod. “Tell me where you’d like this and I’ll set her up for ya.” The doorbell rings again as she shakes my hand. Then blushes.

  “I’m Beatrice, that’s Cynthia.” She points to the woman I kind of sort of met at the door, who’s now answering it again so I assume is the owner of the house.

  I nod again and let the information overload sink in.

  “You can put that right over here,” Beatrice says.

  She shuffles her way to an empty corner of another room and I follow. It seems this is the permanent, designated card table space. I base this observation on the fact that the foot of each leg to Iris’s card table fit perfectly into the grooves in Cynthia’s carpeting here. Cynthia walks into the room with another, much older woman, who’s struggling with the chairs.

  “Carter, this is Patricia. Patricia, this is Carter.”

  “The house flipper,” Beatrice says.

  I gain a raised eyebrow from Patricia as I take the chairs from her before she hurts herself.

  “Nice to meet you, Patricia. You from Spangler, too?” I smile and set the chairs up around the table as she answers me.

  I’ve missed whatever it is that she’s said because Iris has joined the gang again, with a tray of those cookies she had at the school earlier. I inhale and hum the air out.

  “Any chance I’m gonna get one this time, Iris?”

  It’s just us standing there suddenly, without three elderly women who seem like they’re itching to break into wolf whistles at any moment. There’s something behind Iris’s eyes as we’re staring at each other and I await my answer. The same something that was there earlier today. Like she’s lost or lost in thought about something. The air thickens for a minute. Beatrice suddenly giggles beside me.

  “I think Carter needs to stay and play cards tonight, don’t you, Cynthia?”

  “Oh, I think I agree, Beatrice, how about you Patricia?”

  “I definitely think Carter should make himself at home, Cynthia.”

  The three of them resemble precocious children, with their bright eyes and huge smiles. I’m putting a theory about them together in my mind when Iris blurts out a resounding, “I don’t think so.”

  There’s finality in her actions as she turns her back to me and fiddles with the tray. Her tone is cold and quite frankly, I’m not the only one taken aback by it.

  The four of us gape at her, waiting for an explanation.

  Iris’s lids flutter a few million times, attempting Morse code with them while trying to come up with a good enough reason for me not to stay.

  “I mean—” She laughs it off, shuffling the plate of cookies from place to place on the card table.

  I take one. Iris watches me as I bite into it and I try not to let on that it is perhaps the best fucking sugar cookie I’ve had in my entire life. Damn she knows how to bake.

  “I’m sure Mr. Blackwood has--”

  “Carter.”

  “--things he needs to go do.”

  I shove the remaining cook
ie into my mouth while I ponder what she said, the way she said it and how her eyes immediately divert themselves from me when she’s done with her proclamation. I chew slow as I tick off the many things I need to get done over at the house. Painting some trim, sanding the dried spackle on the walls, screwing those damn closet doors into place. None of which sound nearly as enticing as watching Iris Alden try to act like she’s fine with me being here for the rest of the night. After I swallow, I slap my hands together to get the crumbs off. Then I shrug. “I don’t have anything going on right now.”

  “Well, we can’t play Euchre with five people.” She fidgets, inspecting a fingernail and I’m already loaded with a retaliation.

  “You can play poker with five people.”

  In a flash her eyes are on me and I’m triumphant. I know it.

  “Oh, poker,” Beatrice says and claps. “I remember poker.”

  “We don’t play poker, Beatrice.” Iris purses her lips together like she’s the designated schoolmarm.

  “Why not?” Cynthia waits for her answer, impatiently.

  “Because,” Iris says.

  Good come back, Iris.

  “Because why?” I beat Cynthia to the punch and cross my arms. This is fun.

  “Be—” She’s working hard to come up with something, anything but, just as I suspected, she’s got nothin’.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, let him stay, Iris.”

  “It’s my house and I say he stays.” Cynthia tilts her chin and curls her brow. When she turns to me, her expression is softer, younger even. “You’ll stay, won’t you Carter? I mean despite Iris’s rude behavior, we’re actually quite fun.”

  And oh, I’m staying. I smile wide because this is getting good. “Now, how can I turn down an offer like that, Cynthia?”

  Beatrice squeals next to me, pointing her index finger into the air. “I’ll get the drinks!”

  Iris munches on her cookie. Her eyes seem distant, as though she’s contemplating her next move. I take the opportunity of the chaos around us to snag another treat for myself. I won’t lie and say it doesn’t bother me that it seems to bother her that I’m eating her cookies. Or that I seem to bother her in general. I just can’t figure out why.

  “So tell me something Iris, what is it about me that--”

  “Here we are! Places everyone!” Beatrice interrupts with her friendly demand. Iris takes the opportunity to act as though she didn’t hear me.

  Beatrice has got a pitcher of Sangria in one hand and a stack of red plastic cups in the other. Cynthia claps her hands together, grabs a deck of cards and sits. “You can sit next to me, Carter. There’s an extra chair in the kitchen you can use.”

  I obey. I’m not stupid. Iris, however, eyes the front door like a cornered cat as though she’s trying to find a way to leave.

  “Relax, Iris, it’s just a man.” Patricia nips that thought in the bud.

  And now she resembles more a cat that’s about to pounce. Finally, the woman takes her seat as Cynthia deals the first hand. Beatrice gives out cups then fills them with Sangria. I take a swig to wash down the cookie because – why not? Iris doesn’t take any and when I finish my drink, I tip the cup toward her.

  “Why aren’t you drinking, Iris?”

  She checks her cards and rearranges them. “I prefer not to.” She doesn’t bother to look at me. It’s such a simplistic answer, really, and even though there’s no reason for me to question her, I’m not buying it.

  “That’s it?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  I shrug a shoulder. She’s hiding something. “You in rehab?” It would make sense. It would make a lot of sense, actually.

  But she snorts. “No.”

  I search the table for knowing eyes but everyone seems extremely engrossed in their cards all of a sudden.

  “You one of those . . . Moms Against Drinking?”

  Now, she looks up at me from behind her playing cards. She’s dead pan, I can’t tell if she wants to laugh or cry. Turns out, it’s neither. “It’s Mothers Against Drunk Driving and although yes, I am one of those moms, no, I don’t have anything personally against drinking, I just . . . prefer not to . . . right now.”

  She goes back to studying the hand she’s been dealt. The room grows quiet. Cynthia clears her throat.

  “Another cookie, Carter?” she offers in a small, high pitched voice.

  I smile for her because it’s not her fault she happens to be card playing buddies with little Miss Cold Shoulder.

  “I think I’ve had enough tonight. Thanks though.”

  “Wouldn’t want a gut or anything.” Iris mumbles.

  “Actually, no, I wouldn’t.”

  She snorts at me again. And this time, I snort back. She rolls her eyes.

  “What is your problem anyway?”

  Before she can answer for herself, Beatrice chimes in. “Oh she’s had a stick up her ass ever since James left.”

  And then Iris loses her shit. “Beatrice!” She slams her cards down onto the table as Beatrice moves into innocent bystander mode.

  “What?”

  “You just . . . why would you . . . how could you . . .?”

  Iris’s eyes are blinking at a rate faster than I can count now, and her hands are flailing and it’s just like that first day I met her. I don’t even know I’m laughing until her very heated attention moves from the elderly woman to me.

  “What . . . are you laughing at?”

  “I’m sorry,” I chuckle. “Really. I just, you have this sparkle in your eyes when you get all pissed off like this.”

  She lets out a breathless, “What?” as the blinking stops and a scowl spreads across her forehead. It’s not an angry scowl though. Not really. It’s more like a confused scowl. Like she can’t figure out if I’m poking fun or paying a compliment.

  “You know,” I wave my hand in a circle like motion toward her. “Sparkle.”

  I watch it fade, the sparkle that is, as we sit there in some sort of stare down with each other. Cynthia fills my red cup back up with sangria as everyone watches the two of us and I gladly drink it but cannot take my eyes off of Iris. She wants to kill me, I can see it in her expression but it’s also like she’s looking past me, even though I know nobody is there. Instinct tells me to let it go. Iris’s expression of utter loss of self-control tonight tells me not to.

  “Come on, Iris.” I smile and pick up another cookie. “It’s just a game.”

  I bite into the sugary goodness, fight the urge to give her any inkling that I’m stealing the rest of what’s left later on and with that, she sits, composes herself, and says, “I need two cards.”

  She doesn’t engage with me much more after that, no matter what kind of snarky comment I make. A few hours and five more sangrias later and I’m out fifty bucks. Iris may not play poker, but she sure has a knack for it.

  “Oh come on Carter, stay a while longer,” Beatrice pouts when I announce it’s time for me to surrender for the evening.

  I laugh and wave a hand at her. “Long day tomorrow.”

  “I thought men were supposed to be able to hold their liquor better than this,” Patricia says, teasing.

  I’m not that bad off for Christ’s sake, so I point over at her. “Hey, now you’re bringing to question my manliness. I said I have a long day tomorrow, not that I’ve had a long night.”

  I sneak a peek over at Iris as I stand. She rolls her eyes as she begins to pack her things. I don’t think I’m supposed to spot the smile that’s sneaking out.

  “You too?” Cynthia protests. “What has the world come to when the night is over at eleven PM?”

  “You know I have things on my plate tomorrow that can’t be ignored, Cynthia,” Iris says. “I have to get up early and-”

  “I know, I know,” Cynthia says. “Here, Carter.”

  She holds out a baggy full of cookies and I wink at her, tucking them into my jacket pocket.

  “Here, let me get that.” I start over to Iris�
�s side of the table. She tries to carry everything she brought with her, less the cookies, plus the card table.

  “No, no, really.”

  I pick the table up by its side and tell my poker pals goodnight with a nod. “Thanks for having me, ladies.”

  “Oh no, thank you, Carter.” Cynthia bats her eyelashes and I wink back.

  They all grin from ear to ear as they wave goodbye.

  “Fine.” Iris huffs. “Bye girls.” She kisses the three women and tells them she’ll see them soon. Beatrice whispers something into her ear and I’d swear on a Bible if I owned one, Iris blushes.

  “What was that all about?” Once we’re outside on the sidewalk, well away from prying ears, I want to know what the secret it. She shakes her head and stares off into the darkness without answering me. So I change the subject.

  “You stole the last of my weekend money in there, ya know.”

  “Not stole, won. Big difference,” she says. “Besides, you can afford it; I know what that house is worth, and what you paid for it. It’s not like you’re hurting for money.”

  If I’m not mistaken, there’s a twinge of fire in her words and regardless of my curiosity as to why she might be so fired up about my owning that house. I like this Iris.

  “Why so interested in little old me, Iris?” I tease her as we approach our homes. It’s an easy way of avoiding admitting that I might actually lose money on this place. Especially if I continue playing cards with Iris.

  Mental note, never play poker with this woman again.

  “I’m not . . .” She lets the thought fade with the night, staring blankly over at her place.

  “You want me to . . .” I motion, offering to carry the card table over to the front door for her but without hesitation, she refuses this time.

  “I’ve got it from here, thanks.”

  “You sure? It’s really not that big a deal,” I say but Iris won’t hear it. She takes the table, fights to keep everything from falling and breathes heavy.