by Diane Munier
“Yeah I love that stuff,” he says, “the old stuff.”
I do too, but…it’s just…where can this go, this sharing of personal information? I can’t be his friend.
So I go in and he must figure it out cause when I come out carrying two plates, and kind of dying that we’re going to do this…eat together…he’s sitting on the steps but he’s gone for his guitar and he’s playing again and singing, “She’s a girl, she’s a girl, she’s a lunch cooking girl.”
It’s just ridiculous. To be this flattered. He’s probably sung that song a hundred times for a hundred girls and all of them going, ‘oh Elvis,’ inside and him trying not to laugh.
So what in the hell am I thinking. He might get the wrong idea about me and here we are living side by side already and I’ll never get rid of him. It’s too much.
So I hand him a plate, fluffy white rice and chicken and vegetables I’ve grown, and three different colors of sliced tomatoes for an accent and also because they’re so damned good to eat.
And he takes a bite even with the steam coming off, and he tilts back his head and says, “Oh Sarah…man,” and he moans and I’m just holding my plate and I think my mouth is open, no it is.
And after that I don’t know what the hell he says I’m just so caught up in how he says it.
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Five
Game Night One
“It’s not right. It’s not right. I’ve told you and told you it can’t be this powdered stuff it has to be grated.” I am stirring the yellowish sauce with the bamboo spoon.
“Sarah it’s not the end of the world,” Mom says, no energy in her voice.
Well, it’s just me, it’s not like I’m a student…or Christine…or Spencer. Talk about energy, she has plenty when she’s telling him my life story, all my personal business I’ll bet. I’ve forbidden her to say anything about me, even my name, to the guys she meets on the web. I’ve had to reiterate the rules to her for Spencer. She told me to chill. No, to chill-ax.
“Oh…nothing matters. Right. Nothing is important. Put all this effort in for nothing,” I say, and the truth is I’m a nervous wreck. We’ve got all these people coming…the neighbors we’ve lived around, well Mom has for thirty years, and me…all my life, and now this new guy…um Spencer, and Aaron looming. What is happening to us?
“You’ve made it with the powdered cheese before,” Mom says absently, her jeweled glasses catching the overhead light as she sorts through the mail.
Does she not understand? It has to be perfect! It has to be!
“Are we related? Really?” I ask because I’ve always had this feeling she’s holding things back.
She smirks but she doesn’t even stop reading the Big-Mart ad.
“Because you can tell me,” I continue as I stir, stir, stir.
“Sarah, people are going to be here and you’re still in your underwear.”
I look at the clock. Oh crap. Time never gets away from me like this. I’m in my underwear and undershirt but I’m wearing an apron so I don’t get food on me. But dude from next door is not going to catch me this way again. You can bet on that.
“Stir this,” I say, meaning the Alfredo.
“I can’t right now, honey. I have to change. Did you put the soda in the tub?”
“We’re not having soda. I made peach tea.”
“Not everyone likes peach tea honey. Christine doesn’t.”
I make a sound. Like I give a flying fig what Christine likes.
“I made lemonade.”
She looks at me now, frowns.
“Get some Diet Cokes on ice honey. And not a word about the fake-sugar ooze from someone’s brain or something.”
“Aspartame, Mom.”
“Whatever Sarah,” she says pitching the mail in the drawer. She pushes it closed with a loud snap and she’s off to beautify. Her hair is already perfect, she wears it short and stylish, her clothes are fine, but she’ll want to sex it up probably and ‘work her voo-doo,’ as she calls it. Well she’s not bad for forty-four. She gets a lot of hits on her dating site, not that I’m sure that’s a compliment. She has these poodle eyes…begging to be petted or something. She attracts losers. Like my dad the angry cop.
I always ask her, why him? Once she said he was a good dancer and I told her I was really impressed by her criteria for picking my dad, and sometimes she says, we were young and in lust, and that answer always makes me scream so she’ll shut up. To be the product of their…fever hotter than a pepper sprout…well so much for self-worth.
I turn off the burner and move the sauce to the side. The texture is grainy because Mom can’t seem to appreciate that when I say a block of parmesan I am not saying a can of parmesan and some sawdust.
Someone is opening the front door as I run up the stairs, my butt bouncing in my underwear as I reach behind and untie the apron. I figure it’s Christine using the key Mom gave her…giving out keys to our house like we’re city hall. But it’s Christine and our new neighbor from the sound of it.
“Is that Sarah?” I hear Christine say, then Spencer says, “Yes,” and he draws out the ‘s’ a little.
I run like the stairs are collapsing behind me. He could only have seen the bottoms of my legs, my feet, disappearing up the stairs, not my jiggly butt in the pink and purple underwear. God no.
In my room, I consider locking my door and refusing to come out but I know if I do that they’ll all come up here to talk me down.
I’m sweating and I feel sick to my stomach. I’ll just tell myself it didn’t really happen and I’ll get through supper without looking at Spencer and then I’ll slip back up here and hope he…they don’t notice.
I have laid out my clothes. I never do that. It’s just jean shorts and a top and some sandals, but I really thought about it. And things are shaved…and plucked. And my hair is up. Thank you YouTube, and that one girl that tells you how to make a lot of braids in the back and pin them up. I redid my toes. And I look like…I’m trying. For what? If Jason comes over, or Mike, they’d better not say anything.
I almost put on the mascara, but I don’t want to go crazy here. So I get dressed really quick because my tomatoes are still in the oven, and even that sounds sexual.
I hurry back down, except on the last couple of stairs I stop and breathe. Then I walk more sedately into the kitchen. First eyes I connect with are Spencer’s because I forgot to casually look at Christine and avoid him.
“Hello,” I say to them…to him, my face getting all heated. Spencer raises his brows and you really can’t miss it when he does that. I almost thought he was going to whistle cause he made that purse-string mouth. If he would have it would be so humiliating, like I’m going to prom. Right off I see he is harder to ignore indoors, even with the appliances around he can’t be…dwarfed. His hair, it’s very thick and shiny and I’ve made it sound like a new car, but it has something to do with taking a ride and I don’t want to think that out now.
I make a racket unhooking my pasta pan from the rack over the butcher block in the middle of the room.
Christine is pimping him. As a professional dater she’s a master at getting information and keeping the conversation going. She’s wearing some perfume that is ruining the smell of the seasoned bread crumbs on my tomatoes. She never quite…blends…Christine. And her jewelry rattles.
“Sarah, did you make all this?” Spencer asks, touching a couple of the pans that are still swinging from where I’ve chosen my favorite one for pasta. He is gesturing to all the food on the island, the appetizers. I nod, but I try not to look at him. It’s obvious I’ve gone overboard. So, so Marie.
When he walks closer and leans against the counter I finish filling the pan with water and carry it to the stove. He’s further away again.
He is…really handsome. He could be in the movies, no lie. He’s more handsome than a lot of the leading men are. I don’t know why I’m thinking of this.
“Did you hear what
Spencer said, Sarah? He brought some beer and put it on the back porch in the tub,” Christine says. Christine so often requires I’m her version of polite.
Mom comes in then. She looks pretty in a deep blue top that only shows a little of her boob crack. She wears the tight jeans. And the noisy flippy sandals.
She gushes over Spencer and strokes his arm a little, asks him how he is settling in, thanks him for ruining our fence-hedge, only she doesn’t say anything about it being ruined, she likes it and he says, “If it’s alright with Sarah I’d like to keep going on it, clear it off.”
“Why in the world would Sarah mind?” Mom says and they are all looking at me as I am adding fresh basil to the water for the pasta and I stare at each before turning away.
I have to take my tomatoes from the oven and that brings Spencer right there, near me, which is always annoying when people close in on me in the kitchen. If it were Jason or Mike I’d send them out of here, but Spencer isn’t as easy to send away. And he seems to always be starving or something. He is a little on the thin side, but very muscular, as I’d seen in the yard…and what he’d seen…of me…and repeatedly…I didn’t want to think about it.
I have two trays of these monsters so I set one on the side of the stove not in use and the other I put on a hot pad on the island along with my dips and veggies and fruits. Then I get my bowl of homemade pesto from the fridge and start to put some in a smaller bowl. Spencer is at my elbow again. “What’s this?”
Mom and Christine are talking about what music to put on, and I put some pesto on a spoon so Spencer can taste it and I am going to hand him the white plastic utensil when he takes my wrist instead and raises the spoon to his lips and takes in the bite. “Mmm, Sarah, my God. That’s really good.” He licks his lips. “And you grow the basil?”
“Yes,” I remember to say.
He lets go of my wrist, folds his arms. “I saw you walking the past two nights.”
What can I say? It’s what I do…I walk at night and look for bad guys.
“Maybe I could take a turn with you…or for you,” he hastens to say. “I mean…it’s my block too now, right?”
I don’t know about that. It may be where he lives…but it will never be anyone’s like it’s mine. But that’s too heavy and ancient to try and explain. So I don’t. I shoot him a look and I’m adding some olive oil to the water.
I always walk alone now, ever since Cyro lost his leg. I always walk alone.
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Six
Game Night Two
Gundry likes to eat. He is interested in all the flavors. He chews with his mouth closed, sometimes his eyes closed and he savors.
Mom and Christine don’t know this, but I do. Mom and Christine talk and eat, but I can see he’s like me, he wants to remember. And one thing at a time is enough if you’re really letting it bombard you.
But Mom and Christine are…multi’s. Not multi-taskers, they are that, they’re teachers’…aids, but they are multi…a lot…a lot. They are the big birds skimming over the water, wings beating fast, then dipping and dipping for food, but not too deep, mouths…wide…open.
Gundry though…he’s something different. I think.
And I’ll bet he’s not unpacked because…I’ll bet he’s not. And I haven’t seen the boxes on the curb.
But he has been playing his guitar and he did cut down a patch along the fence. Damn him. But I’ll bet other things aren’t done. And that’s not because we’re alike, because I always finish certain things. It’s because he doesn’t want to do them. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t, and then he ends up playing his guitar.
What I’m saying is, he’s not a loser. He’s just having a season of being a loser. That’s my guess anyway.
Or better put--he’s fallen into an alternate universe. And here we are. We live in his alternate universe. Which means he also lives in mine.
Mom and Christine are on either side of him, like the stereo speakers hooked to Mom’s turntable. I try not to think about the twerking sandwich. That will come later during the dancing. I figure I’ll give him a good meal then he’s on his own.
Mom nudges Spencer with her elbow and says something like, “So how you settling in over there?”
Christine says, “See any ghosts?” and when Christine says that the room hic-cups us into a place I know very well…a wt-bleep place.
But they answer all his questions about my food. I am anxious. I think those are my questions. But they seem ready to answer them for me, a long habit, so I don’t have a thing to say, but the food is good. If not for the texture of the sauce it would be great. But according to everyone else it is great.
So I finish eating and go in the living room to check on Merle and Pearlie. Others come and go, but Merle and Pearlie stay for twenty minutes or so. Merle is tall and white-haired and his whole life is Pearlie. Merle dyes Pearlie’s hair a deep flaming red like she is a burning match. He must see her this way…his exotic, flaming Pearlie. The rest of the world might see a short black woman with large teeth.
They are having pie. I made that with Leeanne’s apples. They tell me it’s very good. I tell Pearlie I liked her yellow Jell-O with the grated carrots. But now I bring her purple carrots and she loves to make it using those. Merle tells me how good they feel with the neighborhood watch going strong. He’s been telling me this for seventeen years, but if he didn’t say it, it would drive me crazy. So now that he’s said it I go to the front door and look over at Cyro’s. Nothing.
“Jason bringing him over?” Merle says. He means Cyro, is Jason bringing his dad.
But you never know. I don’t. Jason has spurts between girlfriends where he brings Cyro over. But lately, Cyro doesn’t want to come. And I leave his lunch on the porch because it’s the only time we can get him out of his chair cause he even pees in a mason jar.
“I might go get him,” I say.
“I like the purple carrots,” Pearle says, beautiful smile. Merle pats her hand. Pearle is on a delay and it’s not old age, it’s always been that way.
I go outside, head down the porch stairs and across the street, and try not to remember Spencer’s song with the two verses he sang for me when he watched me cross the street the other day. Leeanne is walking toward my house carrying a bowl. I know it’s kale chips. We don’t wave because she knows I see her.
I get to Cyro’s and take the stairs. I cup my hands around my eyes and look in the door. He’s in his chair. “Want me to take you over?” I call.
“No.”
“He coming?” I mean Jason. I really mean is Jason getting off in time to bring Cyro, or is he on a date, or does Cyro want to come, or is he being morose? That’s Marie’s description--morose.
Cyro waves like I should leave him alone.
So I do. But if he doesn’t come I always send a plate.
Two things happen as I’m re-entering my house. Jason gets home from work and pulls in Cyro’s drive-way, and Aaron Heinz pulls a low to the ground shiny car in front of my house. I know it’s Aaron because his hair is one of a kind hair and even though he gets it cut in different ways and he likes to wear hats, it’s still his crazy Aaron corkscrew hair. I know at the office they call him Shirley Temple, but I can’t remember if they do that in front of him or just behind his back.
I hold the door for Leeanne and she says, “You were short on cauliflower again.”
“I only had five,” I say. She has the produce for the Saturday morning market. She thinks I make this stuff in an oven or something.
“Only God can make a tree, Leeanne. Read Kilmer,” I say.
I go on in and try to get my face right for seeing Aaron. I never, ever want to see someone here from work.
And voices are coming from Mom’s bedroom. Mom and Christine and Spencer are laughing in there. Spencer’s laugh with their laughs is like change left in the dryer. What I mean is, you know it shouldn’t be in there so it’s just annoying.
I look in the
re because Aaron is here and I don’t want to answer the door. I need her to come out and greet Aaron.
But the three of them are lying on their backs on Mom’s king-size. Spencer is in the middle. They all have their ankles crossed, and they’re holding bottles of beer against their stomachs, and they’re looking up at the ceiling.
“Sarah, this is amazing,” Spencer says soon as I show. “You’re a Renaissance woman!”
One second ago I was mad, but now that’s bent into…Renaissance woman? A cliché and something so new for me so is it a cliché? Yes it is.
I don’t know why I am so mad…well I do…there are many reasons.
“Mom you have to come answer the door. And Mom, Merle needs coffee,” I say in the hope of shaming her out of that bed with Spencer cause Merle….. She needs to help me.
“Are you ready?” Mom says to the others as if I haven’t spoken. She reaches onto her nightstand and turns on the cylindrical lamp there and stars take over the room, a slow, steady explosion of them, they’re everywhere and they move around the painted ceiling, my almost, and embarrassing masterpiece, and the walls and furniture, and on us, the same stars over and over, sliding on me…sliding on Spencer. He’s watching them, on me, his head still lifted, he grins and watches.
Aaron’s knock pulls me out of it. “Mom, Mom,” I say again more urgently cause Merle is also calling me to come get the door.
Spencer’s head is still lifted. He looks from me to Mom and that makes Mom lift her head.
“We should…Sarah needs….” He says this.
Mom starts singing some crazy hippie opera from the sixties, letting her head drop on the pillow. She quotes that old stuff all the time, well hardly ever, but enough. God.
“What was that?” Spencer laughs.
Mom continues to sing more loudly.
“Mom’s on a drug-free acid trip,” I explain to Spencer, but I say it like I’m ready to slap a hippy.
I leave then cause Mom is so embarrassing.
I go in the living room and Aaron is standing there holding the binders I don’t want. Merle let him in. “This fine young man says he’s your boss,” Merle says. He is tying a scarf under Pearlie’s chin. It is hot outside, but Pearlie doesn’t make heat anymore. She’s already wearing a sweater. They will go home now. I’ll put his coffee in a paper cup. So Aaron follows me into the kitchen and I’m pouring the coffee and I hold up my finger, not the one I want to hold up, but the pointer, and I take the coffee to Merle. He takes a sip and nods like I got it right, then he holds the door for Pearlie and they toddle out.