by Mindy Klasky
* * *
Melissa didn’t have any Triple Chocolate Madness, but she brought along the next best thing—an entire pan of Butterscotch Blessings. The creamy flavor of the butterscotch blended into the oatmeal base, and the chocolate drizzle over the top provided a perfect bittersweet balance.
I ate half a dozen of the things.
But anything eaten in a hospital doesn’t count, we all decided, as we kept Gran company in her room. Personally, I was just pleased that I had set aside the temptation to chew my fingernails to the quick. That Sephora nail polish really did work wonders.
Melissa passed around the pan of Blessings one more time before she leaned back in her chair. “So, ladies,” she said. “This whole hospital thing is not the worst thing that has happened this weekend.”
Clara’s eyes widened. “What could be worse?” she asked. She and I had fallen into a respectful, mutual silence. I needed to think about what she’d said. Not the part about the black tourmaline cleansing—that was total hogwash. But the rest of it would take some time for me to process.
Melissa grinned. “My date last night.”
I laughed out loud. For years, I had been regaled with Melissa’s tales of dating woe, but Gran and Clara were in for a treat. My best friend spread her hands out in front of her, as if she were presenting a tray of perfect drop cookies. “Last night was one for the record books.”
“He was a FranticDate?” I asked, but then I laughed at the confusion on Gran’s face.
Melissa nodded, taking a moment to clarify: “It’s a website, Mrs. Smythe. I filled out a questionnaire, and a bunch of guys filled out the same questionnaire, and a computer matches us up with our soul mate.”
Gran snorted. “A good square dance at the church did better for my husband and me. We didn’t need any computer.”
“Maybe I’ll add square dancing to my list,” Melissa said. Honest to God, I didn’t know if she was kidding.
“So?” I said. “What’s this guy like?”
“According to the computer, he’s a doctor.”
“Ohhhh,” we all said, as if we’d just excavated some sacred relic from an ancient civilization.
Clara asked, “What else did you know about this man before you met him?”
Melissa ticked points off on her fingers: “Doctor. Prefers city loft to mountain cabin. Prefers Chinese food to burgers and fries. Reads Popular Science, not People. Favorite color: Yellow.”
“Melissa…” I said. I thought I could see where this was going.
She shook her head and held up one more finger. “Oh. And he’s five feet, six inches tall.”
Melissa was five feet, six inches tall. In her stocking feet. Not that she was a stickler for height in a prospective mate, and not that she spent a lot of time walking around in stiletto heels, but all the same…
Clara asked, “So, how does this work? The computer spits out his name and you just call him up and invite him over for dinner?”
Melissa shook her head again. “Not quite. We exchanged email a few times, using anonymous email addresses that the computer set up for us. You know, in case he’s an axe murderer. Then we talked on the phone. He sounded like a nice guy—really interested in giving back to the community, energized by finishing up medical school. We agreed to have dinner down in Chinatown. At Eat First.”
Gran looked confused again. “It’s a Chinese restaurant,” I explained. “With a menu that goes on about a thousand pages.”
Clara said, “And? How was the charming doctor?”
But Melissa was not one to be rushed. “I got there first. Jane, you’ll appreciate this. I actually changed out of my work clothes. I had on a jersey skirt and a cable-knit sweater. I brushed my hair. I even put on lipstick.”
That told me more than Melissa would ever convey to Gran and Clara. She had put on makeup for this guy. She had liked him. A lot. I nodded, to let her know that I understood what she was telling me.
“I got to the restaurant first,” she repeated. “They seated me, and I started to look through the menu. I’d had a busy day at the bakery, and I hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch. I was starving.” In honor of Melissa’s suffering, I helped myself to yet another one of the Blessings.
“Three different men came up to my table. Who knew that Eat First could be so popular for first dates? For first blind dates. The third guy seemed nice enough, and I almost decided to say that I was Penelope, and that I did, in fact, play the piano, and that I was—surprise, surprise!—waiting for George. But that wouldn’t have been right.”
We all shook our heads. It wouldn’t be right. Even if it was the perfect fodder for a sitcom.
“Then, Michael-the-doctor came in. He walked directly over to my table, and he sat down before he said hello. He held out his hand across the table, and he said it was a pleasure to meet me.”
“And?” I asked. I felt as if I were on a roller coaster, and the car had ratcheted its way up the steepest hill.
“If he was a half-inch over five feet, that was because he was wearing elevator shoes.”
“No!” Gran gasped.
“Cross my heart,” Melissa said. “His body was strange—sitting at the table, he was normal height, but standing up, he was just about eye-level with my, um, chest.”
Gran shook her head, determined to be the voice of wisdom in these things. “But surely you wouldn’t let a little thing like height get in the way of an otherwise perfect romance?”
“It wasn’t the height,” Melissa said. “It was the lying about it. And even if that wasn’t enough, the real fun started when we got ready to order. No beef, because he doesn’t eat red meat. No seafood, because you can’t trust any restaurant’s refrigeration. In fact, no meat at all, because it could be cross-contaminated—yes, that’s the word he used—contaminated.”
“Well,” Clara said. “There are lots of good vegetarian options in Chinese restaurants. I frequently enjoy Chinese because it helps me to keep my aura balanced. The harmonic—” She caught herself and swallowed hard. “So what did you order?”
“At first, I thought I’d try the General Tso’s Tofu. But I was informed that it would be a nightmare for my arteries. No, not just a nightmare. I was treated to an entire discourse on arterial plaques and the demon that is the American diet. That ruled out fried rice and lomein. And don’t even get me started on the Buddha’s Eight Treasures.”
“What?” I asked. “He has a problem with water chestnuts?”
“Baby corn. You can never be sure that child-labor laws weren’t broken in its harvesting.”
I leaned back in my chair, feeling utterly defeated. “So what did you end up with?”
“An order of steamed cabbage wontons and a side of brown rice.”
I laughed. “At least it couldn’t take you very long to eat. You could make it back home with plenty of time for a real dinner in the peace and quiet of your own kitchen.”
“And that, my dear best friend, is where you would be wrong. Michael-the-doctor is a proponent of natural digestion.”
Even Clara was taken off guard by that one. “Natural digestion? As opposed to what? Swallowing a bunch of enzymes and jumping up and down?”
“Nat-u-ral di-gest-ion. Chewing each bite fifty times.” Melissa took on a tone as if she were reciting the good doctor’s words. “Complete chewing promotes the release of hormones, digestive enzymes, and gastric juices specific to the food being chewed. Chewing also lets the food become covered with saliva.”
“And you actually made it through a plate of cabbage wontons?” My fascination and horror were blended in equal amounts.
“I made it through three.”
“Three plates?”
“Three wontons. I couldn’t, um, stomach any more.”
“What a horrid little man!” Gran exclaimed.
“But why did he choose Eat First, if he had so many problems with their menu?” I asked.
“Can you think of any place he might have liked more?”
/>
Clara started laughing. “And let me guess. Your part of the dinner bill—”
“Came to eight dollars and twenty-three cents. Tax and tip included. Ten percent tip, because they stopped filling our water glasses after the first hour.”
“The first hour!” I whooped. “How long were you there?”
“Three and a half hours,” Melissa enunciated grimly.
We all exploded with laughter. Three point five hours, one order of cabbage wontons, and a bowl of rice. Plus waiting. Plus lying over height. Plus the lost opportunity to pose as piano-playing Penelope for George. “This may be your best blind date story yet,” I said.
“You are a cruel and heartless woman,” Melissa countered. She glanced at her watch. “Look, I have to get going. There’s always a rush at the bakery on Saturday afternoons.”
Clara stood and stretched. “I’ll walk you out. I want to get a bottle of water. Anybody else need anything?”
Gran and I demurred, gave our goodbyes to Melissa and then were alone in a room that was suddenly too silent. After an awkward moment, I reached toward her. “Can I shift that pillow for you?”
“It’s fine,” she said. I tugged at it anyway. “Jane,” Gran said, and I knew that her warning tone was about more than the pillow.
“What?”
“She’s trying.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can see how impatient you are with your mother. It’s written across your face, every time she says something.”
“Most of the time, she’s saying something weird!”
“She’s every bit as nervous as you are. She wants this to work.”
“She’s got a strange way of showing it.” I knew that I sounded like a brat, but I couldn’t help it. I tried to think of something a bit more mature to say.
Fortunately—or not—Gran filled the conversational gap. “Make me a promise, Jane.”
I sighed. “What this time?”
“Promise me that you’ll come up to the Farm.”
The Farm. A Connecticut farmhouse just outside of Old Salem. It had been in the family for years. Gran’s sister and two brothers always got together there the third weekend in October. They brought their kids and grandkids; the place absolutely swarmed with aunts and uncles and cousins. There were two huge rooms in the attic, a “Girls’ Room” and a “Boys’ Room,” and assorted outbuildings were pressed into service as guest cottages.
“Gran, you know I hate the Farm.”
“You loved it when you were a little girl.”
Of course I did. When I was a little girl, we spent the entire weekend running around, playing practical jokes on each other. We ate apples that we picked fresh from the trees in the yard. We lit a giant bonfire. We stayed up talking until the darkest hours of the night, pretending that the thumps we heard from the boy’s dorm were ghosts haunting the hallways.
Now, everyone was settled down. The last time I’d gone—seven years before—I had explained to thirteen different relatives that Scott and I were going to get married some day. Some day soon. He loved me. We just weren’t ready to settle down. But we would be. I knew we would be.
I could hardly face all of them now. Alone. Still unmarried after all that time. Without a likely candidate on the horizon.
“Gran—”
“Jane, I don’t make many requests of you.” She didn’t? What world did she live in? “But your mother is going to be there. And I want you to come too.”
I looked at her, pathetic in her hospital bed. They had dressed her in one of those embarrassing cotton gowns. An IV needle threaded into her arm, and her papery flesh looked bruised. Plastic tubing draped around her neck like some avant-garde excuse for a necklace. A machine by her head pulsed a bright red light every time her heart beat.
“Okay, Gran,” I sighed. “I’ll go to the Farm.”
“You can bring along a friend.”
Like that would help. Melissa had to run the bakery. And Neko…. Let’s just say that he wouldn’t quite fit into the Farm esthetic. Still, I managed a smile. Gran was trying to make this easier for me. “Thank you. I’ll see if I can think of anyone to ask.”