by Susan Tepper
“I can’t French you with that stale odor of cigarette smoke. Makes me feel weird.”
“You are weird.”
“We’re both weird. Weird but good salad tossers.”
Dasha pouts then offers a smile. Her dimples thrill Kit.
“I want to make love.” She pounds a fist on the table.
“Right now?”
“Yes. This instant. Why wait until the sun goes down.”
“But we just ate.”
“And we drank wine and I’m feeling good. So what of it? You’re not feeling good?”
Dasha shrugs. Kit tilts her head.
“I feel great,” says Kit.
Holding hands, the girls head towards the sofa in the lightly furnished living room. Cheap reproductions adorn the walls. Copies of Van Gogh and Basquiat. Kit once pointed out that they were an odd combination. Dasha told her that it depends on one’s perspective and that she never liked Warhol.
By the sofa, Kit removes her blouse. She’s not wearing a bra. She pushes down her skirt, bends over to gather it from around her ankles. Standing over her, Dasha says, “What is that on your back?”
Kit tosses the skirt over Dasha’s shoulder.
“They’re called tattoos. They were done by the tattoo lady. She tattooed a menu to my back, so I’d never forget her. They’re the names of all the dishes she taught me how to cook for her.”
“Go, lie down on the sofa. Titties to the cushions.”
Kit jumps on the sofa, drapes herself across the cushions.
Sitting beside her, Dasha fingers the letters and names. “How very cool,” she says. “They’re so glowing, slick. I want to lick them off.”
“I have a very cool tattoo lady.”
Dasha massages Kit’s neck while poring over each tattooed item.
“I would like to order the sweet and sour cabbage dish, madam.”
Kit’s voice is low and muffled. “You’re getting cold borscht, honey.”
“Come live with me, darling,” Dasha whispers in Kit’s ear.
Kit smiles and turns her head to the sofa.
12.18pm
Chinatown, New York City, NY, USA
Lunch on the Run with Eggroll
by Walter Giersbach
The rain leaked dismally from a leaden sky as he left his publisher’s office and stepped onto Canal St. He was being soaked by Heaven’s tears of grief, the city’s wounds, the world’s suffering. God was crying over something.
He should have known a legit publisher didn’t have offices on Canal, even if it was a single room. But Saltzman was the only one who’d accepted his manuscripts and boards. The only one who’d risked publishing a debut work. The reviews were golden, the sales lackluster.
Walking into the rain was less depressing than hearing Saltzman say, “Mikey, you pitched this Lucy Dingo theme and it didn’t sell. I’m left with two-goddamn-thousand books. Come back with something new.”
“I never got my royalty check for March.”
Saltzman scribbled a check. Mike looked at the number in disbelief.
“Take it. Save me a stamp. Look, don’t get mad. Just come up with some new …”
Screw Saltzman. There had to be other publishers. At worst, he could work at his friend Ralph’s graphics firm, lay out corporate brochures, design coffee mugs.
The royalty check was barely enough to buy food for a week, or he could splurge on a really memorable lunch. Hong Fat’s on Mott Street was just around the corner. Maybe hot tea, crispy rice soup and something stir-fried would take the chill away.
A finger tap-tapped his shoulder.
“Lunch? You’re buying, of course, to show that you forgive me.”
He whirled to face Calliope withdrawing her finger. She grinned, as though she were selling toothpaste. Her black hair ought to have resembled seaweed in this rain, but there was a natural wave. Super Sta-Hold hair lacquer, he decided. Acrylic that could also keep your head connected to your shoulders. Apparently she had also gone home to change the blue dress for black jeans and a black leather jacket. Tight jeans made her legs exceptionally long and curvy.
“Forgive you? You broke a plate in the sink.” Good-looking women always thought they deserved a free ride. Be nice to them and they’d turn into praying mantises dancing over the bodies of genuine guys after biting off their heads.
“I know.”
“From my mother’s wedding set. It was irreplaceable.”
“Nothing’s irreplaceable, you nostalgic jerk.” Her hands akimbo on her hips, she looked like a demented crossing guard.
“People are irreplaceable!”
“Well, that’s debatable.” She took his arm, a Virgil guiding him down the steps to Hong Fat’s restaurant, although she might be escorting him to Dante’s first circle of Hell. “People? My madam always finds me another date if one has a heart attack or his airplane crashes.”
“You are so cynical!”
She smiled broadly. “Cynics are simply idealists with experience. I’ll have a Sprite and some chop suey.”
“There’s no such thing as chop suey. That was invented by cooks stir-frying all the leftover crap in the kitchen for the miners. Like salsa puttanesca Italian chefs whipped up when the hookers came in off the streets. Maybe that’s more familiar to you.”
“Sounds great. I’m just a glutton at heart.”
He described the plates when their food arrived. “This is cold hacked chicken, these are steamed shrimp, beef lo mein, and this is stir-fried watercress. Start with the shu-mai dumpling.”
She ignored him and began forking food into her mouth.
“Slow down! There’s soup coming later.”
Was she starving? Mike watched in fascination and she shoveled food into her mouth, slurping soda, and then turning to another platter for more. This woman was case history from Abnormal Psych 101. Maybe a runaway from Freaks Anonymous.
At last, she breathed a deep sigh, belched politely with a finger to her lips, and wiped her mouth, smearing the last of her lipstick on the white napkin. “That was marvelous. I have to learn this stuff.”
Mike nodded. Without makeup, she looked as though she had taken off a mask after a Japanese Noh play. “Eating is the one vice you can do three times a day until you’re too old to swallow.”
Calliope leered in return. “If you’re a woman, there’s another vice …”
“Does everything have to be about sex?” He tossed his chopsticks onto the plate. “Don’t you have any deeper thoughts?”
“Well, yes, I’ve been thinking about you – existential thinking.” She looked at him under lowered eyelids. “You wander down the mean streets of New York, but you’re not really mean. You saved me and would have confronted those hoodlum kids, so I know you’re not afraid and your soul is unblemished. That’s nice. Rare. You’re a common man, but you’re unusual. Maybe a man of honor. Even rarer nowadays.”
“What a nice speech. Thanks.” He thought of their ping-pong conversations. “I mean that. Sincerely.”
“So why are you so depressed? So,” she shrugged, “filled with despondency under the surface?”
“That’s a personal question.”
“Yes, but since you saved my life I think it’s fair to ask.”
“I didn’t save your mixed-up life. I saved your ass from the zombies and creeps that troll the streets after midnight. So you wouldn’t get senselessly mugged and end up as roadkill on Hester Street.”
“Maybe you did save my life. Maybe you should ask me some of those personal questions. Maybe I was going to kill myself last night, so now you’re really and truly responsible for me.”
“You’re making me crazy! Can’t you act normal without trying to take my life apart?”
“Actually, I was considering it. Killing myself. Some really bad guys are looking for me. I overheard a conversation when I was with a john. Remember the death of that mobster under the Brooklyn Bridge last week? Well, Johnny Four Fingers didn’t accidentally run hi
s BMW off the pier to go fishing.”
“Jesus!” He exhaled.
“Apparently, he was double crossing someone for the Philadelphia mob. I just got a teensy bit drunk, wondering what to do.”
Was it true or had she cribbed it from a TV show? “I think you ought to find a better class of john, someone with a positive career outlook.”
This Calliope was a Typhoid Mary of destructive energy, someone who’d shed her problems like cat hair on everyone she came in contact with. Not content with being depressed, did she work to baste everyone she met with gooey unhappiness the way you’d slather a wine reduction over a piece of beef?
He threw down a bill, the same hundred she had tossed on his breakfast table. “This’ll take care of the tab. I’m outta here.”
He scraped his chair back. A mélange of anger, regret and disappointment stirred in him like a bouillabaisse of rotten ingredients.
“Don’t you want to take the leftovers home in a doggy bag?” she scolded. “Hey, you forgot your fortune cookies. They’re cheaper than therapy.”
He wanted to leave her with one cutting insult, but a clap of thunder made the statement for him.
11.00am
Cherry Mountain, Texas, USA
Al’s Kitchen
by Jonathan Levy
Hey, Cara, listen. I gotta tell you something. Now, you know we get some real characters coming in here every once in a while: people convinced we spit in their burgers, or swearing the antique something-or-other they just bought in Fredericksburg is worth a million, oh and of course all the locals who go on about how their own dear Texas should secede from the Union. But you’ve been working here only, what, ten months as of this past Monday? So you haven’t met Howard Fletcher.
Howard was here this morning for breakfast – you may have seen me serving him. Friendly-looking old man. Wore a tweed jacket, got all this uncombed white hair sticking out the side of his head. Anyway, he’ll likely be back for lunch around noon, noon-thirty. I’m telling you this now in case you interact with him, alright?
So let me tell you about Howard Fletcher. He ate here for the first time with his wife, Maggie, oh, about fifteen years ago. Just after he retired. They came in for breakfast, and Maggie liked the food so much, they came back for lunch that same day and then again for dinner. They’ve done that – eaten all three meals here – every year on this date, April 24th. It’s Maggie’s birthday. They drive up from Comfort, which is only 25 minutes south of here on 87. They spend the whole day in Fredericksburg – shopping, museums, maybe some live music – but still, she tells me every year that eating here is the best birthday gift. Real sweet lady, huh?
So I’ve always been their waiter. They’re our most regular regulars, and I want to make it special for them. Not that, you know, if you served them, good looking gal like you and all … Anyway, last year on this day was the last time I saw them both together.
Now Maggie was always a small, sprightly looking gal. Sure, I saw her age a bit, but it’s like her hair turned more silver than gray. And she had these bright blue eyes, and the wrinkles around them were so subdued I could still see her face as a young girl.
Well, last year Howard shuffled in here in the morning arm in arm with a woman that made me do a double take. She was so tiny and shriveled I was surprised she could stand up, even with his help. Every step was an ordeal – she couldn’t even step her heel past the toes on the other foot. And she was completely bald.
My first thought was that this woman was Howard’s mother, who would’ve been at least 100 years old. I greeted them all smiles near the entrance, and then froze: there was no mistaking Maggie’s blue eyes.
Howard and I helped her to the booth, and then they ate breakfast, same as always – two eggs, sunny side up, buttered toast, and a glass of OJ each. Maggie barely touched her plate, and they didn’t even make it in for lunch or dinner. And that was the last time I saw Maggie Fletcher.
Anyway, Cara, here’s the point. So Howard comes in this morning – 7:30, right when we open. He’s alone, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know what that means. I greet him near the entrance, as always. I say, real quiet and serious, “How are you, Howard?”
“Oh fine!” he says, so chipper I flinch. “Can’t wait for another special day at Al’s Kitchen!”
I watch him as he walks to the nearest booth and swear he’s muttering to himself.
Anyway, so I go over to him and say, “Start you off with an OJ?”
He says, “Two OJs, Al. No need to change things just because she’s eighty.”
I just stare at him and finally say, “No reason at all, Howard.”
Now you’re probably thinking what I was at that moment. He’s gonna drink one down for his old lady, a sort of toast. So I say, “Get those right out for you.” But he reaches out his arm just as I’m turning around and says, “And we’ll get the usual, too.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Two orders of the usual. You know, two eggs and some toast.”
“Alright.”
So I go back to make the eggs. Spread some butter on the grill. I turn around to glance back at Howard; he looks like he’s talking to himself again, hand-gestures and all. I’m worried the poor guy’s gone loony since Maggie passed. I crack four eggs over the grill, add a couple pieces of bread, pour two glasses of OJ, and head back out there with their, um, his drinks.
I set the OJs down in front of Howard and he says, “Thanks, Al,” and then – I swear it, cross my heart – he pushes one glass across the table, picks up the other, and looks right across that table, right into the empty space opposite his seat, and says, “Happy birthday, dear. May you have many more.”
Funny thing to say to a dead girl, you know? So I say, “Howard?” He looks up: “Hm?” And I just can’t follow up, don’t know what to say. He says, “Maggie, do you know what it is Al is trying to say?” Then he laughs.
“Are you alright, Al?” he says. Imagine that!
Finally I just say, “Get those eggs right out,” and I leave.
As the eggs fry, I steal some more glances at Howard. He’s having a conversation with his dead wife!
I don’t know why, but the whole thing just … I smash the yolks with a spatula, press them so they ooze yellow all over the grill. Then I butcher them, turn them into a giant scramble of hardened yellow and white and mucus-y looking stuff. Meanwhile, I’ve forgotten all about the bread, which is burned on the bottom. I flip them over and slap some butter onto the burnt side, then smash the goddamn butter and the bread with it.
I’m sorry, Cara, I shouldn’t … I … Where was I?
Oh, yeah, so I bring the food out, say to Howard, “Hey, sorry, hope you don’t mind them scrambled.”
He says, “Maggie, is scrambled alright with you?” In the silence my head bounces between Howard and the empty space like I’m at a tennis match, till he nods and tells me, “That’s fine.”
I say, “Enjoy the eggs, Howard.” I don’t know what came over me, Cara, but then I say, “You, too, Maggie.” As if she’s right there!
Her eggs don’t get eaten of course, but I can’t help but laugh later on when Howard asks me to box them up to go.
Anyway. Cara. One more thing. It’s that … I just feel so damn bad for the guy, you know? Here he is, been with the love of his life for about sixty years, and now he’s all alone. I guess this is how he copes, but … dammit, it’s not real! He talks to her, but no one talks back; reaches out to touch her, but there’s nothing there. Not like, you know, this wall. This wall is right here and it’s real and look, I can touch it and my hand doesn’t go through it. This picture of Willie Nelson is real; I can see the image. And you, you’re standing right here, so close I can touch you, and you’re real. Everything about you: your hair and your eyes, all real; your body, your legs, all real. Your lips … they’re real. You. You’re standing right here and you’re real and I am completely and madly in love with you, Cara. And there’s nothing
more real than that.
5.40pm
a suburb of Manchester, northern England
Two Plus One for Tea
by Gill Hoffs
He’s pleasantly surprised by Alan’s flat. Bright yellow walls, colourful rugs, and barely a whiff from the Chinese takeaway below. As the boy shows him to the living room-cum-kitchen and points out the bathroom door a tabby of monstrous proportions jumps off the sofa with an audible thump then slinks round Alan’s ankles and yowls. The boy picks it up and the cat immediately clambers onto his shoulders, peeping at the visitor with milky orange eyes.
“This is Clarice. Clarice, this is … what’s your name?”
“Bert. Bert Humphries.”
He’s never been introduced to a cat before.
“Clarice, Bert. Bert, Clarice.”
“How do.” He hopes he’s not expected to shake her paw or owt daft like that.
“Clarice is getting on a bit and her eyes are going but so long as you don’t surprise her she’s fine.”
“What happens if I surprise her? By accident, like?”
The boy pulls the sleeve of his t-shirt back from his wrist, showing tattoos marred by the parallel red furrows of a cat scratch. “She doesn’t mean any harm by it, she’s dead soft really, but if she gets a fright she’s all claws and teeth.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” And stay the hell away from her if she’s going to do something like that, he thinks.
“Well, I need to get on with dinner so make yourself at home. The TV goes on with the green button on the remote and you’re welcome to watch what you like, or stick on a DVD,” he points to several stacks by the wall, “read the paper or come and help me, if none of that appeals.” He bends at the waist, letting the cat walk down his back then jump from his rear end to the couch. Straightening up, he smiles before walking behind the breakfast bar into the adjoining kitchen area.