Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 02 - Christmas Bizarre (20 page)

Checks?

“Sure. Two?”

“Yes, please.”

Well. Decidedly not a date.

After some more awkward banter, Heather returned with our checks.
“Gee, it’s too bad you didn’t come tomorrow night.”

“Why’s that?” asked James.

“Wednesdays are BOGO nights. Buy one entrée, get the other free.”

James raised his eyebrows.
“Well, we certainly will take that under consideration, won’t we Mina?”

“Umm… sure.”
I wondered how many times I could wash my hair on Wednesday nights.

We paid for our meals
, with James insisting he leave the tip. I have no idea what that was all about. Then we walked out to the parking lot.

He
held the van door open for me. “Well, goodnight. Thank you for meeting me for dinner.”

“Oh, sure.
Thanks for inviting me.”

And that’s when James leaned
over and kissed me on the forehead.

I’m so confused.
It wasn’t a date, was it? We talked only business, right? And we split the bill, no? Yeeshkabiddle.

I
sang at the top of my lungs and hot-footed it home, determined to make it all the way without incident. My wake-up call from Chef was going to roll around pretty quickly, it was already close to seven-thirty.

At home, I opened and closed the fridge a half dozen times searching for a beverage.
I’d had enough beer and didn’t want any wine. And considering the evening’s fare, was seriously considering going to the store for Tums. I settled on distracting myself with the news. Vinnie settled on snuggling next to me on the sofa.

An extremely flustered post office manager squinted at the camera lights
shining on him.

“So, you’re saying, that the counterfeit stamps did not originate from the post office?”

“No, sir. That’s why they’re counterfeit.”

The reporter looked like he wanted to palm slap himself
and/or the post office manager.

“What should people do, if they find
they’ve purchased bogus stamps?”

“Well, the first thing, is you should always buy your stamps from the post office.
Or online at usps.com.”

The reporter rolled his eyeballs.
“That’s true. But if someone is unlucky enough to have purchased them elsewhere, then what?”

“Report it.
The first thing you should do is report it to your local post office.”

“What will you do then?”

“We’ll ask the person where they bought the stamps, if they have any left, and still have the returned mail bearing the counterfeit stamp.”

“What happens to the shop owner
s who sold the counterfeit stamps?”

The man shook his head.
“Nine times out of ten, these guys think they’re buying discounted stamps they can turn around for a profit. They have no idea.”

“But the stamps help you to track down the counterfeit operation?”

“Eventually. Sometimes. It’s a steady problem. It sure does give us a lickin’.”

The reporter stared at the manager
. He nodded back energetically.

He turned and faced the camera.
“And that, my friends, is how counterfeit stamps are giving the post office a licking.”

Vinnie and I exchanged groans, and the phone rang.

“You’re finally home! Didn’t you get my message?” It was Ma. I frowned at Vinnie, wondering if he’d figured out how to erase my voicemails. Then again, maybe he just forgot to write down the message. Ha, ha.

“Sorry.
No, I didn’t. How’s Ethel? And Ike? And Aunty?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care.
I’m hiding.”

“Huh?”

Ma sighed. “It’s getting a bit chaotic. I’m holed up at
Wired Coffees
.”

“Internet coffee house?”

“Yep.”

“Well, at least you can work a little while you’re away.
You won’t be so bogged down when you get back to the office, right?”

“I suppose.
Right now it feels like those little brats are never going to see the light of day.”

“But she’s not due for another week or so, right?”

“Week. Year. Whatever.”

“Is Ethel
getting a little emotional?”

“Ethel’s fine.
It’s Ike. He cries at the drop of a hat. And your Aunt has OCD. She’s re-folded and re-sorted the baby clothes and toys a thousand times. And every time, she says the same thing over every blessed one of them. ‘Isn’t that sweet?’ ‘Wasn’t that thoughtful?’ ‘Why in the hell did someone buy this?’ You know, the usual.”

I took a breath, and wished I’d
eaten some Tums. A bottle of them. “Well, it won’t last forever.”

“Thank goodness
for that.”

I opted
for a change of subject. “How’s the coffee shop?”

“Café.
And it’s actually rather sweet. Even if it is work. Speaking of, how’s your work going?”

Insert frozen-deer-in-headlights stare here.
“Oh, great.”

“
Please don’t tell me your still doing Santa’s Sidekick shifts?”

“Um
m… a few. But I met with James and it sounds like he’ll have some catering jobs for me. And I had a temp job.”

“A temp job, really? In an office?”

“Yes.”

“That’s wonderful.
How did it go?”

I
counted a beat. “It was kind of a dead end.”

“Well, that’s too bad.
How about Squirrel Run? Don’t they have any work for you?”

“Oh, yes.
Actually, tomorrow morning. I’m helping with breakfast.”

“Breakfast?
Goodness that sounds early. I suppose you’ll have to be there before eight.”

“Actually, more like four-thirty.”

“
In the morning?
”

“Yep.”

“Well. I better let you go then. I’ll call you tomorrow. What time do you think you’ll be home?”

“Hmm.
The breakfast is at five so I’m not sure.”

“Good grief, what are they, farmers?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call you around nine. Not before.”

“Okay.”

“And Mina?”

“Yes?”

“Your Aunt’s going to quiz you
about some paint swatches she sent you.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“You’re welcome. Besides which, I sent you some I’m sure you’ll like much better.”

I
pounded my noggin gently against the kitchen cabinet. Then we said our bye-byes and hung up.

I went upstairs, tucked Marie in, washed up and headed for my jammies.
The phone rang again. I considered not paying that bill just to shut the darn thing up.

“Sorry, Toots.
Miriam and me’s got a question for you.”

“Shoot.”
Well, at least Vito had called and not invited himself over to ask my advice dans le boudoir, ha ha. Sheesh. I’ve got to start cutting back on reading French cookbooks…

“The thing is, Miriam and me realized we can’t enter the
peanut butter, pretzel and bacon thing, on account of bacon’s not so kosher.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yeah, it should’ve been second nature for us. We got too caught up in the moment, getting excited about the Concord glaze and all.”

“At least you realized it now, before you entered.”

“Are you kidding? Boy, would that have been humiliating.”

“I’m not so sure about humiliating, but you
definitely would have been disqualified.”

“We figured hanging around with the St. Bart’s gang got us immune to bacon, what with all the breakfasts and all.”

“I can understand that.” And I could. I once worked my way through “The Joy of Butter” and eventually became so accustomed to using copious amounts of the stuff that cooking with a couple of sticks butter became
de rigueur
. That was, until Auntie’s eyebrows flew off her head once she understood how much I’d infused in a béchamel. I was then instructed to keep the butter to my brioche and not much else, as far as her consumption was concerned.

“So, the thing is, we’re trying to figure out something else.
Keeping the kosher food in mind, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But the other thing is, Miriam’s got the Concord glaze thing down. And it goes great with ham, bacon, shellfish – all the food that’s not kosher!”

“That’s a
problem.”

“I’ll say!
We were hoping you could suggest some substitutes?”

“Hang on.”
I headed downstairs to quickly check my cookbooks. I cringed at the idea of assisting, but winced more at the thought infusing lifelong repentance onto some unsuspecting orthodox judges, through no fault of their own.

After discussing the pros and cons of turkey bacon, imitation crab and the like, we decided the safest route would be for Vito to
purchase his supplies at Kosher City, a retail grocer in Lebanon.

“That’s great, Mina!
It’s a swell idea! Miriam will love it! We can even buy some Lebanon baloney while we’re there!”

I’m pretty sure
the Lebanon baloney Central PA knows and loves is not prepared in a kosher fashion. But who knows? I was impressed that Vito was becoming a one-stop shopper.

I headed back upstairs, jumped into my jammies, and settled into bed with Vinnie and my “Dictionary of Culinary Substitutions” book, now that my interest was
piqued. I set the alarm clock, flipped the pages toward, “bacon” and hunkered down for a good read.

Someone sneezed.

“Bless you.”

Another sneeze.
I looked at Vinnie but he was sound asleep with his paw over his nose.

A third sneeze.

I leaped out of bed and a hand grabbed my ankle, hard. I went crashing down.

“
Ow!
”

“
Quiet!
I’ll hurt you a lot worse if you don’t shut up!” Dexter struggled out from under my bed, pulling at my ankle with one hand, and holding a gun in the other.

I stared at the gun and
feared I would tinkle. “What are you doing here?”

“What am
I
doing here? When the hell were
you
going to be here? Does your phone ever stop ringing? I’ve been lying under your bed rolling around in cat fluff since five-thirty, waiting for you to get home.”

“Right. Sorry.
I mean,
huh
?”

“Shut up and stand up.
Careful like.”

I did as I was told.
“How did you get in here?”

Dexter gave me a dirty smile.
It was dirty. It looked like he hadn’t brushed his teeth in a month. Yick. “Through the garage, of course.”

“But I didn’t leave it open!”

“You didn’t need to. I have my own garage door opener.”

“But I never had another opener…”

He waved me off with his pistol. “Let’s just say I got a universal remote. After I watched you drive off and close your garage door a few times, I finally got the entry code. All wireless. Sometimes it takes a few tries. But eventually I get in and out of anywhere I want.”

Vinnie came up behind him on top of the bed, and head-butted Dexter’s side
affectionately. Just my luck to have a cat who likes psychos.

“What the?”
he swung around and slapped Vinnie soundly across the jaw. Vinnie went flying to the other side of the room.

“Stop it! He was only being friendly!”

“I hate cats.” Dexter took aim at Vinnie, while Vinnie shook his noggin and tried to get his bearings.

“Don’t shoot
him!”

He
pointed the gun at me. “You scream one more time, the kitty will get it, understand?”

I nodded and gulped and tried to keep from crying.
I’d comply. But I doubted Dexter was a man of his word. I prayed Vinnie would get back to his normal self and scram.

“That’s better.”
Dexter took aim again at Vinnie.

“
NO!
”

“You scream again, and he gets it, got it?”
Dexter kept his gun on Vinnie. Vinnie, in his usual style, sat in the corner and began grooming his whiskers.

“What do you want from me?”

Dexter grinned. “You’re real excitable like. That’s fun. It’s a shame I can’t off your cat in front of you, it would be fun to watch. But you’d make too much noise. We’re going to make this look like an accident.”