Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction! (6 page)

I
got the first batch of eggs scrambled but I didn’t know who was ferrying them
to the warmer.  Ernie’s lined up bowls were there, but he had been going back
and forth with Vito carrying in the hams.  I looked around and couldn’t see
him.  I shut the heat off the pans and looked around for some transportation
help.  Then I heard Vito come back down the stairs with the last ham, getting
cornered by Evelyn.  Eeek.  Since I had to save the eggs, I figured I might as
well save Vito, too.

“Hey,
Vito,” I interrupted Evelyn’s interrogation.  Vito’s face flipped the volume on
the hopeful factor. 

“Yeah,
Cookie?  Yous need a hand?” he asked.

“Or
two,” I said.  Vito grinned back.  Evelyn scowled.  At least it looked like she
was scowling.  But it was kind of hard to tell if it was really a scowl or
not.  She might have been happy, but her eyebrows looked mad.

Vito
lumbered across the kitchen and through the maze of food, supplies, volunteers
and serving paraphernalia.  Once he got within hearing range he whispered, “I
owe you, Toots.”

“What’s
with her this morning?” I asked.

“Aw,
she’s a little sore with me on account of I couldn’t do my errand early this
morning like I planned, and she was my first stop,” Vito explained.   “Anyways,
so I gotta do a little favor now for Evelyn and stop over her house in a little
bit.”

Vito
ferried the scrambled eggs over to the warmers, which were immediately
confiscated by Aunt Muriel, Norma and Ray.  Norma and Ray are a couple in their
late 60s.  The three of them are usually assigned to serve up the breakfast
items.  Which is a good thing since they’re the most presentable looking among
us.  Norma and Ray always looked clean and pressed.  I think they sleep
standing up, like horses.

Once
I got done with scrambling all the eggs, I felt like I’d sweated off ten
pounds.  And Ed, who held the line next to me at the stove, still pumping out
pancakes, was just as sweaty but a little scarier looking – mostly because both
his eyes unfortunately face in opposite directions.  It makes conversations and
wise cracks a little tricky; you aren’t really sure whether he’s talking to you
or the persons on either side of you.

“I
gotta go now, Toots, but I’ll be back,” Vito said, holding his beloved dry
cleaning box next to him.

“Thank
you, Vito,” Evelyn waggled at him.  “I’m sure Ernie can help Mina,” she said.

“Oh
sure, Evelyn; no problems here,” poor Ernie said, snapping a salute at his
peeled egg forehead.  I had a funny feeling it was gonna take a long, long time
for Ernie’s eyebrows to grow back.  Fingers crossed he wouldn’t be tempted to
borrow Evelyn’s marker.

Off
Vito went with his box o’ shirts while Ernie and I kept scrambling.

A
feeling suddenly struck me, and I peered about the kitchen. All at once I was
sure we were missing more than Ernie’s eyebrows.

“Hey,
Ernie,” I wondered out loud, “Where’s Henry?”

Ernie’s
face kind of blanched.  “Umm… I think he had some kind of an accident
yesterday so he couldn’t be here,” he fluffed.  Hmmm, I thought.  Weird.

My
toe started to throb peacefully, so I tried not to think about missing
volunteers.  Instead I began to really miss my Extra Strength Tylenol.  Youch. 
Now it felt like a cozy one thousand degrees in the kitchen.  Everyone was
passing around pitchers of ice water, which was good since I was probably the
only person under 50 there.   The thought of limping from person to person
performing CPR was not particularly attractive.  Not that I was at this point,
either.

We
finally got the breakfast buffet ready and assembled cafeteria-style on the
counter:  scrambled eggs, pancakes, scrapple, sausages, sliced ham, bacon,
French toast, hash browns, grits, fruit, milk, juice, biscuits, and pans of
macaroni and cheese casserole.  And there was more in the dining room for
people to help themselves to:  iced cinnamon rolls, turnovers, pies, layer
cake, muffins, donuts, hot and cold cereals, coffee, tea and hot chocolate.

Each
Breakfast War I would mentally cross myself and pray that there would be no
suicidal diabetics or arterial bypass patients partaking of the complimentary
repast.  It was an easy task, fortunately: we all held hands and said a prayer
before serving.  Jorge, the verger, was always at each breakfast and always led
us.  Today’s prayer ended with, “…and we’re extremely thankful for our
continued blessings from Groceries Galore and especially thankful for the
donation of the many hams from Friends of Vito.”  Huh.  I didn’t know Vito an
organization of friends.  Other than his Breakfast Wars buddies.  At least,
none that I had ever met.

After
the blessing, Norma, Ray and Aunt Muriel lined up in their latex hospital
gloves to serve the masses.  Although Aunt Muriel replaced her diamond cluster
rings over her gloves.  Is she a class act, or what?

I
spied the dirty pots and pans and sighed.  Usually I stay and help with the
cleanup, but I’d kind of had enough for one hot sauce/mangled foot morning. 
But Vito was MIA with the Evelyn errand.   Then Vito’s head popped into the
kitchen.  “Pssssst, Toots,” he hissed.  I looked at him and hope returned. 
“C’mon,” he waved and ducked back up the stairs.  I hopped out and hoped I’d
slide under the radar.  I hopped right into Evelyn.

“Hi-iiiii!”
I beamed from under my sweat soaked orange bandana.  Evelyn looked a little
earnest, even though her eyebrows were scowling.

“Thank
you, dear,” she said.  “I know how uncomfortable you must be.   Please make
sure you have yourself looked at. Oh, and by the way, Mina, Vito mentioned the,
ummm… splatter on your floors from the accident.  Be sure to use salt; it’s
marvelous for removing stains.” Evelyn patted me on the arm and walked by me,
cleaver and all.  Wow.  Lancaster folks sure have this nice stuff down to a
tee.  And they’re also very up to date on stain removal, too.  Useful, yes?

I
limped back up toward the street and was relieved to feel the temperature drop
instantly. Vito had the Towncar running and the AC blasting.  Hurray for Vito! 
I got in the car and looked at the thermometer.  Now, at about half past ten,
it was only 102 degrees with 92 percent humidity. I didn’t even want to think
how hot the kitchen must have been to make this weather feel cool.

“Boy
am I glad you got back when you did,” I said.  “My dogs are barking.  And so
are their puppies.”  I slid my toes up onto the dashboard.

Vito
shook his head.  “You’re gonna get that looked at, right?” he asked.

I
looked at my toe.  Then I saw the big gash on the top of my foot.  “I’ll see
how it goes Monday,” I said. Vito shook his head again.

We
drove home in amicable silence, sailing through green lights all the way
through town.  Typical.  Maybe I had some kind of red light magnet attached to
my van.

Once
we were home, Vito pulled into his driveway.  We both got out of the car and I
was just about to shut the door when I saw Mr. Perfect jogging around our
cul-de-sac with Marmaduke.  I stood there with my hand on the door handle,
frozen.

Mr.
Perfect rounded the circle with his hound and stared right at me and grinned. 
“Hey,” he greeted with a wave and jogged on by.

Hey,
he said.  That’s friendly, right?  So maybe I didn’t look so bad!  I grinned at
that thought – and then caught my reflection in Vito’s side view mirror. My
face was slick, shiny and red, topped by the drenched orange bandana and lots
of sweaty strands of hair poking up over top.  I looked like a Muppet on acid.

“Hey,
he seems like kind of a nice guy,” Vito said.  “Dunno about the dog, though,”
he added thoughtfully, and ambled toward his front door.  I stood in the
driveway and hung my head.

“Hey,
Mina, you alright?  Could I get ya something?”

I
shook my head.  “No thanks.”

I
shuffled up to my front door and re-entered the Fright Night II set that was my
home.  Ugh.  I did not feel like housecleaning, much less deep boiling hot
sauce stains – or possible blood stains, judging by the gash in my foot – out
of rugs. But since I was a mess already, I shook it off, munched some Tylenol,
and went to work.

I
scrubbed the floors and Swiffered them.  I felt guilty Swiffering behind Vito’s
back, but I figured he’d have more turns later in the week.  Once I was done, I
treated myself to a hotdog, a couple more Extra Strength Tylenol and a beer.

Of
course, fridge-rustling sounds are a dinner gong for Vinnie.  He sauntered up
from the basement, stretching and yawning.  Smart cat.  He’d stayed completely
out of the way while there was anything resembling work being done.  I patted
him on his head and gave him his leftover Aspic Yick from the night before. 
Then I took a piece of bread up to Marie.  Finally it was my turn to get out of
my sweat soaked clothes and into the shower.

I
gulped some beer and set the bottle down on the bathroom sink.  I was about to
get out of my clothes when I caught myself in the mirror.  Yikes!  Much, much
worse than Muppets on Acid.  More like Meth Muppets.  Maybe I was having an
allergic reaction to the hot sauce?  The thought made me feel squeamish.  I
thought about the 1980s remake of ‘The Fly’ with Jeff Goldblum.  Was I really
becoming Brundle-Rash?

I
tossed the thought aside, and my sweaty gear along with it, and climbed into
the shower.  When I was done, I slipped on a soft T-shirt and some old
lightweight jammie bottoms.

About
then I decided it was half-past naptime.  I hopped into bed and dozed and
dreamt about buffets and kitchens and cats (oh my).  When I woke up, Vinnie was
curled up against me and the clock read almost four. I considered it, got up
and sidled downstairs.  I poured a glass of water and raised my glass to
Vinnie.  “Well, here’s looking up your address,” I said.

After
toasting the cat, I went upstairs to feed Marie and apologize for not bringing
her down for TV later.  It was tough enough going up and down the stairs with
my mangled foot, much less carrying the triceps-shaping cockatiel cage.

Back
downstairs, I went through the usual dinner routine with Vinnie and held out
his menu.  “Okay, do you want ‘Chicken Lips’ or ‘Edible Entrails’?” I asked. 
Vinnie purred his face up to the tin of slivered lips: we had a winner.  I
plopped the contents down into a clean bowl for him and shivered.  Yeesh.  And
I thought Scrapple was what they squeegeed off the killing room floor.

By
now it had cooled down outside to a tolerable 80-something degrees.  I put on
an old Tom Waits record, scratches and all.  I opened the screen door from the
dining room, so the music could stretch out to me on the deck, and Vinnie could
check out the nature channel safely from inside.  Then I opened up a new box of
red wine, poured some into a coffee mug, and sat outside in my lounger and
sipped.

There’s
a saying about the bluebird of happiness, and may it fly over you, yada yada.
In my family we use this as a curse.  Because we all know what birds do.  They
do doo-doo.  Which one did, right into my mug o’Merlot after I drunk my first
swig.  Shit.

It
was also the harbinger of more dirty stuff falling out of the blue.

“Psst,
Mina,” Vito hissed through the bushes that separated his yard from mine.  I
sighed.   For a second I considered pretending I was asleep, but Vito toddled
over through the shrubs.  I fantasized about planting roses, barberries or
anything else with thorns that would discourage future neighborly visits.

Tom
Waits tucked into ‘Jersey Girl’ so I motioned shhh at Vito.  He held both paws
up to me in complete understanding and plopped down with his diet Coke in the
other chair.  As the song started to end, so did my peaceful evening.

“Mina,
I hate to ask ya this,” Vito said.  “But I really got to get some stuff back
from Lickety-Split Laundry, lickety-split, like.”

“Huh?”

“I’m
missing something I really need, and I gotta get it before they close tonight
at six.”

“Okay.”

“Great!
So you’ll help me!”

“Huh?” 
I asked.

Vito
gulped and took a breath and I swear I heard the gears in his head shift to Big
Fat Lie mode.  “You see, the thing is,” Vito began, “Mrs. Phang kinda likes
yous, and she really hates me.  She always gives me a hard time.”

“Are
you kidding me?” I shrieked politely. He looked at me. 

“Well
the thing is, I really need to get a particular shirt tonight on account of
because I’m going out somewhere… yeah, yeah, that’s it! I’m goin’ out
somewheres and I need this particular shirt what Mrs. Phang’s got ready for
me.”

Vito
smiled at his massively fabricated whopper.  But being my usual schnooky self,
plus having had a Merlot and Extra Strength Tylenol cocktail, I let my guard
down.  “So what you’re asking me to do is to go downtown and pick up dry
cleaning for you – again,” I emphasized, to make sure the guilt thing hit home.
After all, guilt can be highly profitable.

“Well,
when ya put it like that …” Vito said.

“Yeah,
I am.”

“Oh.”

We
stared at each other Mexican Stand-Off Style.  I had to hand it to him.  He
might have retired to Lancaster from Philly like he said, but he had all the
tenacity of a Jersey guy.  Huh.  Go figure.