Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction! (9 page)

I
smiled stupidly and said, “Yes.” Geesh.  Was this embarrassing, or what?

“You
might want to get that looked at,” he said, producing a business card while
addressing Auntie, who giggled uncharacteristically and took his card all too
enthusiastically.  Gack.  I might have been bonked by my next uncle.

“It’s
no biggie,” I said, crawling around on the tent floor on all fours, struggling
to get up.  “I’ll just have them check my head when they amputate my foot.”

I
staggered up onto somebody’s arm and let myself get led to a seat.  Everyone
was being very, very nice to me. But then again, they were all from Lancaster.  I felt around my pocket for a stray Tylenol and munched on one.  I still felt
the Somebody’s hands on my shoulders, and hunched around to take a gander.

OH-MY-GOSH-IT-WAS-MR.-PERFECT!!! 
Wow.  And all it took was a little brain damage for a proper introduction!  I
struggled to look up at him, attempting a demure gaze.  What I think I pulled
off resembled more of a facial tick.  Which was probably why he stared at me. 
I gulped.  Well, now or never I thought.

“Hi,
I’m Mina.  I think we’re neighbors,” I stammered.  Great. Maybe I could
attribute stammering to having my brains used for Shake ‘N Bake.

“Of
course! I thought I recognized you!” Mr. Perfect beamed.  “I’m your neighbor!
Bruce! I walk David by your house every day!  I live at the other end of the
lane, opposite your dead end. Reg, Marshal, come here, look – a neighbor! At
polo!”

Several
painful feelings registered all at once, besides the ones banging my head and
my foot.  One:  I prefer to think of my house on Clovernook Lane as being in a
cul-de-sac, not a ‘dead end’.  Two:  I thought it a bit callous to begin
introductions to strangers while my forehead was still pregnant.  Three: 
Bruce? Reg? Marshal?  Arghhhh.  It was all perfectly queer to me now.  No
wonder he looked perfect.  He probably has longer morning ablutions than Aunt
Muriel or Ma.  And certainly more than me.

Reg
and Marshal came over dutifully and feigned attentiveness at me.  Which at
least didn’t hurt.  Reg refreshed my ice cube baggie so my forehead wouldn’t
hatch prematurely, and Marshal shucked up an Appeltini.  Not my all-time
favorite drink, but desperate times require desperate drinking.  Especially
since the remaining wine was warm.  Which was mostly because all the ice cubes
were on my forehead.

“So
you’re Bruce,” I repeated stupidly.

“And
his Goliath is David!”  creened Marshal.

“You
should have brought him, Bruce,” chided Reg.

“Well,”
Bruce began, “I would have, but he’s so afraid of air horns.”  Air horns?  Oh. 
That’s what the large blasts of noise were.  “They use them here to mark the
end of the chukker.”

So
Bruce and Reg and Marshal told me what they knew about polo, and how they all
worked in different restaurants, which explained why I usually see Bruce
walking his Goliath – sorry, David – at lunchtime.  “We haven’t come up here in
ages,” Marshal confided, “but it’s Bruce’s birthday, and this is what the
birthday boy wanted!” he sang happily.

I
sighed.  Well, it was nice to make some new friends.  Even if they couldn’t
scratch a dent in my love life.  Well, at least K. would be thrilled when I
tell him about his expanded social circle.  I looked around for Aunt Muriel.

Aunt
Muriel spotted me – or, more precisely, my Appeltini – and good ol’ Reg drudged
up one for her, too.  I looked over at Auntie and saw she’d pushed her hair way
up past her forehead.  This was odd.  I looked closer and realized her bangs
were singed right off.  All that was left was a charred fringe.  Well, I guess
putting out cigars in pitchers of martinis is a bad thing.  Luckily she was
unaware.  So I figured this was a good time to leave.  “Uh, Aunt Muriel, I
think I’ve had enough party, okay?” I hinted.

“Of
course! Our poor lamb!”  she gushed, petting the top of my head and peering
intently toward the polo playing physician on the field.  Luckily, Reg, Marshal
and Bruce were close by, and offered to pack up and carry Auntie’s tailgate
party.  I gratefully accepted for her.

We
left the field and entered the climate cooled calm of Aunt Muriel’s Lexus. 
This of course was when acute nausea set in.  “Aunt Muriel, pull over,” I spat
calmly, prepping to toss my cookies.

“Nonsense,
dear, there’s nothing here but fields!” Aunt Muriel sang brightly.

“I’m
going to puke!!”

“Here?
But you can’t! There are no rest rooms!” she said.

“IF
YOU DON’T PULL OVER I’M PUKING ON YOUR LEATHER SEATS!”

Auntie
pulled over onto the edge of a cow field in a cloud of dust and pebbles. If the
combination of wine, Appeltini, konk on the noggin and EEJIT neurosis wasn’t
going to make me puke, the stench of Amish fertilizer would.  I lost my
offending contents at lightning speed hurl.  A pack of tissues immediately
appeared in front of my face.  “Here,” Aunt Muriel offered.  “Wipe,” she
commanded.  I pawed at my mouth.   “Here,” she said again, producing a
baby-size bottle of spring water.  “Rinse, spit,” she instructed.  I rinsed,
spat, and felt a little better.  So did the several cows who’d lumbered up to
the fence to see what all the ruckus was about.

“Come
along, Mina.  We’re being stared at,” Auntie sniffed.  Stared at?  There wasn’t
a soul in sight.  Who was staring at us?  Amish pot roasts?

I
kept my eyes closed until we climbed up my driveway.  We pulled up to see Vito
standing in the middle of his garden, happily deadheading his overgrown Shasta
daisies.  Vito smiled at us, bridge and all, waving.  I shot back what I hoped
was a smile but felt more like a grimace.

I
started to unbuckle my seatbelt when Aunt Muriel put a hand on my shoulder. 
“Stay right here, Mina,” she ordered.  The way I felt, not a problem.

Auntie
got out of the car and she actually went over and talked to Vito voluntarily. 
I saw Vito nod his head up and down and pull out a bunch of keys. He fingered
one and handed it to Aunt Muriel.  Aunt Muriel took it and started for my front
door, nodding over to the car, and me.

Vito
lumbered over to my side of Auntie’s car as fast as his fat feet could carry
him.  “Heya, Toots. How about I give yous a hand?” He frowned at me.  “Heard
you got a good shot to your noggin,” he said, escorting me up my own front
walk.  Aunt Muriel waited for us, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Vito
was performing the chores she’d assigned him.  She had just put the key in the
lock, when I realized Vinnie was out and about the house and I was afraid he’d
scoot out the front door.  But Vito was ahead of me.  “Hey, Muriel, hold on to
Tootsie here,” he said, smiling.  “Sometimes her Vinnie boy gets a little
enthusiastic about open doors,” he explained.

Vito
went inside.  Aunt Muriel helped me follow.  Standing in my hallway I saw my
back door standing firmly wide open.  This was about when Marie shrieked from
the curtain rod and dive-bombed into Aunt Muriel’s hair.

Have
I mentioned that Aunt Muriel has an inordinate fear of birds?  Actually, she’s
mostly afraid of them nesting in her hair.  This became pretty obvious as I
dislodged Marie’s feet from Aunt Muriel’s well hair sprayed doo.  “C’mere,
Marie,” I screamed affectionately to the crazed cockatiel.  I managed to get
her on my finger and hastily went upstairs to put her back inside her cage.  I
wondered how she’d got out – but my thinking was kinda slow at the time, which
was understandable what with the Tylenol and Appletinis and konkings and such.

I
came right back down, and Vito shushed me.  “Hold on, Toots,” he whispered. 
“Muriel, close the back door,” he directed.  Vito, directing?  Go figure.

Vito
moved silently and agilely downstairs to the basement.  It was then I dimly
grasped that maybe Marie hadn’t let herself out of her cage.  Maybe someone was
in my house.  And maybe that someone was still in my house.

After
what seemed like forever, Vito came back upstairs. He looked a little pale. 
“No one’s down there, Toots,” he said.

“Well,
that’s a relief!” I breathed.

“No,
Toots.  No one’s there.  Including Vinnie.”

I
ran to the back door, opened it and screamed, “VINNIEEEEE!” a few hundred
times.

Dusk
set.  So did my hopes of ever seeing my cat again.  It was bad enough my house
had been broken into.  Stealing my pet was a whole other realm of horrible.  I
sat down on the deck steps to think.  Which was why I cried.  Vito lumbered
over through the shrubs.  “I looked alls over by my place, Toots.  I don’t see
him nowhere,” he apologized.

“Thanks,”
I sniffed.

Auntie
came up behind me.  “Mina, I’ve been in every closet and under the beds,” she
said.  I sighed.  If Vinnie hadn’t been missing, a huge wave of housekeeping
paranoia would have swept over me.  “I couldn’t find Vinnie inside anywhere,
dear.”

Vinnie
was gone.  Really gone.  “Uh huh,” I said, wiping another puddle of salt water
from my cheek.  I looked at Vito.  “You think someone took him?”

“Chrissakes,
no, Mina,” he said.  “There’d be a note,” he added nicely.  I shot a worried
look at him.  “Aw, Vinnie would’ve bit them on the nose,” he said.  This was
true.

“Mina,
dear, we do need to call the police,” said Aunt Muriel.

“Police?”
I asked dumbly.

“Mina,
your home has been broken into.  Anyone can see that,” she said.

“Well,
uh, Muriel, do you, uh, think that’s a smart move?  For Vinnie’s sake, I mean?”
asked Vito.

“Whatever
do you mean?”

“Alls
I’m saying is what with patrol guys and all, crawlin’ all around, dontcha think
that might scare the kitty off?”

“He’s
not here, Vito.  Mina, we have to report this.”

“Maybe
Vito’s got a point,” I said.

“Mina!”
Aunt Muriel warned.

“Girls,
girls,” Vito said, holding up his hands and waving settle-down motions at us. 
“Look,” he said, “why don’t Muriel and I go through the rest of the house, just
to see if anything major is missing?  You know, like jewelry? Or cash?”

I
did the only sensible thing I knew, and cried.  “Yes, there’s something major
missing,” I snuffled. “Vinnie!”  Vito and Aunt Muriel stared at each other and
ducked into my house.  Clearly nobody was safe, or dry, with me.

So
I had a good sob, and beat myself up for not leaving Vinnie in the basement as
usual (who steals anything from a basement?) Bad enough imagining him lost, or
hurt.  Worse yet – what if he’d managed to get out onto Millersville Pike? 
Christ – deer get flattened out on that drag and no one even bats an eye!  And,
of course, even worse case scenarios hummed in the back of my mind.

These,
and a zillion other comforting thoughts kept me sniffling on my back steps.

The
screen door opened behind me and I looked around hopefully.  Vito stood there
holding a roll of paper towels in one hand, and Vinnie’s bowl of Kitty Cookies
in the other.  He put the Kitty Cookies on the step next to me, and handed me a
paper towel. Then he took one for himself and blew loud.  I looked up at him –
his eyes actually looked red-rimmed. Wow.  I guess he liked Vinnie more than he
was scared of him, after all.  Either that or Aunt Muriel’d scared him.

Aunt
Muriel came back out.  She grabbed a paper towel and dabbed at her eyes and
blew her nose.  Politely, of course.

“Well,
at least whoever did this to you didn’t expose your bird to the elements. 
Which would have been far worse.  Hawks are very prevalent in Central
Pennsylvania,” she said.  Vito and I stared at her, then each other.  “Oh! Oh,
my dear!  Vinnie is much too big to be carried away by any hawk!” she added
hastily.  Vito and I looked at each other and sulked.  Clearly Auntie hadn’t
seen some of the hawks out our way.  Sometimes I was afraid for my neighbor’s
beagle.

So
the three of us copped a squat on the back steps.  An unlikely trio if ever
there was one.  Except for how we appeared in church.  Waiting for Vinnie. 
Past dusk.  Past a sliver of the moon.  Past the first star.

Aunt
Muriel’s hand touched my shoulder.  “Mina, I don’t think anything of any
genuine value was stolen,” she said.

“Except
Vinnie,” I said glumly.

Ya
know, Toots, if that’s what yous thinks, maybe it’s better to call the cops
in.  They might have an MO on these guys,” Vito added hopefully.  I nodded.  At
this point it couldn’t hurt to post an ABP for a white and orange molting
mini-mountain lion, with one crossed blue eye.  You’d know him the moment he
bumped into you.

The
phone rang, and Aunt Muriel went inside and answered it for me.  I heard a lot
of ‘uh huhs’, so I got hopeful.  Then she hung up and stuck her head back
outside.  Funny: while she held the door open to talk to me, I had to squelch
an automatic response to tell her to close the door to not let Vinnie out.  It
was a moot point now.

“That
was Beatrice,” Aunt Muriel explained.  I nodded.  I knew that she meant
Trixie.  “I told her what’s happened.  She asked if it was alright to come
over, and I said yes for you. I hope that was alright?”