Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction! (16 page)

“WHAT
ARE YOU DOING?  THIS ISN’T A DRILL!” I shouted, tugging at his sleeve.

“I
HAVE TO SET THIS INTO BACKUP,” he screamed politely back at me.  I shrugged,
stepped into the hallway and wrung my hair into a puddle.  “THERE,” Bauser
cried.  “C’MON, LET’S GO.”

“WE
HAVE TO USE THE STAIRS.”

“OKAY,
LET’S GO,” he replied, and started to lead me into the lobby foyer and to the
stairway door.

“I
HAVE TO MAKE SURE NORMAN’S LEFT.”

We
raced back to Norman’s cube.  Norman sat transfixed at his terminal.  Bauser
thumped the back of Norman’s chair.  “I’M COMPILING,” Norman yelled.

“NO,
YOU’RE NOT: I SET US INTO BACKUP MODE. YOU’RE COMPILING IN TEMP – IF IT’S NOT
DROWNED,” Bauser yelled.

“Shit,”
Norman said.

“IT’S
OKAY; I GOT YOUR BACKUPS AT HOME.”

Norman
sat up, took the towel off his
head and we left.

We
made our way down the back stairwell, also deluged with showers, through the
lobby and out the doors.  Where a real thunderstorm was raining on our parade. 
I couldn’t see a thing through the torrential mess, so Bauser and Norman led me
by the elbows and under the awning of PizzaNow! across the street.  I wiped my
eyes and blinked.  Once I was out of the pouring rain, I could see.

“Jeez,
Mina,” Bauser blew.

“What?”
I asked.

“Talk
about leading Helen Keller from the woods,” he said.  I squinted back.  I
looked over at Norman.  He had somehow smuggled his laptop out with him. 
Wrapped in hermetically sealed plastic.  Huh.  I didn’t know we had
hermetically sealed plastic.  Which was somewhat surprising since I was in
charge of ordering that kind of stuff.

Bauser
and I looked at him.  “Are you logged out?” Bauser asked.

 “No.”

Their
eyes locked.  I was confused.

“Same
session?” Bauser asked.

“Concurrent.”

“Crap,”
I said.

“You
mean there’s more burning crap?” Norman asked.

“No;
I forgot my stupid purse,” I said.

“Are
you kidding me?” Bauser asked.

“Well,
I can’t drive without my keys,” I began.  He shrugged.  We heard the alarm go
silent.

“We’ll
meet you at your house,” Bauser said.  I looked at him.  Then I looked at Norman.  Norman nodded.

“It’s
early in the day.  I can’t go home yet.  The girls are still here,” he replied
simply. I shook my head.  With my weird pets, odd neighbor and church lady
crowd, who’d have thunk it that my house was any kind of sanctuary?

I
gave Bauser the pouch with the insurance stuff and told him I’d meet him at my
house.  I wasn’t worried about Bauser or Norman having to be let in, since Ma
was camped there.  Then I raced back into our building to the tune of sirens in
the background.  I limped back up seven flights of stairs to EEJIT, opened the
door to the lobby and everything went black.  Again.

I
came to strapped to a gurney being hoisted down the stairs.  Which was probably
why I started screaming like a banshee, which scared the volunteer rescuers. 
They responded by dropping me.  The gurney responded by racing down all seven
flights and lurching bumper-car style out of the building, through the
courtyard and into traffic.  I shot out, clattering and screaming, smack dab in
the middle of Queen Street.

Soon,
a few confused volunteer Fire Police and ambulance workers surrounded me.  Once
they realized I was conscious and irate, they unstrapped me, picked up their
gurney and went home.  I rubbed my head and sat on the curb.  A fella in a trench
coat came up and looked at me, then stared at the building.  “I’m sorry,” I
said, rubbing my head, “but I think all the offices are closed.”

“I
AIN’T NO DAMN OFFICE WORKER!” he raged.  “I’M A BAG MAN!” Then he huffed away.
This bagman was clearly not from Lancaster.

I
tried to stand up but my knees saw double.

“HEY,
MINA!” a voice called from what sounded like very far away.  It was Trixie, and
she was sitting on the curb right next to me.  “Oh boy, you look like heck,”
she said.  Heck?  You see what I mean?  That’s about as edgy as it gets with
Lancastrians.  “C’mon, I’m taking you home,” she said.  I shook my head and saw
stars.

“Ma,”
I bleated.

“I
know,” Trixie said.

“And
Aunt Muriel. And Vito.  And Bauser, and I think Norman… oh my.”

“What
is this, a convention? C’mon, you can’t keep sitting here on the curb. 
Somebody’s doggie will piddle on you.” Made sense to me.  “Although you might
not smell too much worse.  What in the world happened to you?”

I
sighed and gave Trixie the punch list about Flower, tomato juice, a pound of
bacon, and perfume.  Trixie sniffed.  “Well, you do smell mostly like bacon, at
least,” she admitted.

We
got up – or that is, Trixie dragged me up, and I wobbled.

“Where’s
your purse?” she asked.

“Purse?”
I parroted stupidly.

“THE
THING YOU KEEP YOUR WALLET AND YOUR KEYS IN,” she said loudly.  Apparently
Trixie was confusing being concussed with being deaf.  I shrugged.  Trixie
shook her head, got me up, and marched me back toward EEJIT’s offices.  After
accosting several policemen, EMTs and an off-duty nun (by mistake), Trixie gave
up on my handbag.

“The
officers said they’d keep an eye out for it,” she said.  Her eyes got slitty.

“You’re
not gonna use this as an excuse to get in touch with Appletree again, are you?”
I winced.  I couldn’t take Trixie’s on-again, off-again romance. It wasn’t so
much because of the other woman thingy.   I just couldn’t handle the lack of
continuity.  And her breakdowns always made me nervy.  If Trixie could get
broken down that easily over a romance, I didn’t stand a water ice’s chance in
Central Market in summer.  That is, if I ever weathered another romance.

Trixie
replied, “I’m a taxpayer.  Not using available police resources is wasteful.”
She looked off dreamily into the distance.  I winced.  Yeeshkabiddle.

Because
I didn’t have my handbag, I didn’t have my car keys.  So Trixie drove me home. 
We pulled into the driveway behind Ma’s and Aunt Muriel’s respective cars. 
Bauser’s car was parked in Vito’s driveway.  A few other cars parked at the
curb.  The way my skull was thumping I really hoped all the other cars belonged
to the neighbors.  Or Jehovah’s Witnesses.  It didn’t really matter, just as
long as they were attached to persons who were not inside my home.

Trixie
put her Jeep into park, pulled heavily on the emergency brake at the foot of Mt. Driveway, and shut the engine off.  I saw the door to Vito’s house open, and out popped
Mike Green and Red.

“Hey,
Trixie, lookit,” I said, pointing my watermelon sized forehead toward Vito’s. 
Trixie paused checking her lipstick and stared.   “That’s Mike Green, the U.S.
Marshal who was in Howard’s office,” I said.

She
considered, then said, “He’s cute.  For a Marshal.  I guess.  What was he doing
in Howard’s office?”

“Well,
at first I thought it was because of Howard’s dry cleaning, because the redhead
who’s with him was Mrs. Phang’s substitute the day I was supposed to bring in
Vito’s dry cleaning and just picked up instead.”

“Wait
a minute, wait a minute,” Trixie said, “you mean those two aren’t a couple?”

“Nope.”

Trixie
applied more lipstick, fluffed her hair, adjusted her cleavage and hopped out
of her Jeep quicker than you can say, “Date night.”  A guy in uniform – even a
suit – is like the pull of the moon on the ocean to Trixie.  She just can’t
help but make waves.  I sighed and thought about banging my head but someone
had just done that for me.  I scrunched down inside the Jeep, closed my eyes
and wished I was someone else.

“HEY,
VEEE-TO!” Trixie sang out, waving her arms akimbo and galloping across my
driveway to Vito’s and up the front porch in two gazelle-like strides.  Green
and Red swung around and stared like raccoons caught in a dumpster while Vito
poked his head outside the front door like a genuine culprit.  Trixie stared at
Mike Green and grinned. It made her look like Bloody Mary from ‘South
Pacific’.  Mostly because she forgot to check her lipstick and her two front
teeth were smeared with ‘Blind Date Burgundy’.

Red
stared at Trixie’s teeth and Mike Green stared at Trixie’s cleavage.  Typical
reactions from some not so typical visitors.  Vito saw Trixie, exchanged stares
with Red and Green, shrugged a ‘whaddaygonnado?’ with his shoulders and slunk
out onto the front porch.

“Hey,
Trix. How’s tricks?”

“Oh,
fine, Vito, just fine,” Trixie beamed. She was clearly triumphant that
flouncing up the porch steps had yielded some good bosom bounces.  I made a
pact with myself not tell her about her teeth later.  “Oh, so sorry, Vito! 
Didn’t see you had company!” she lied.  She might not have been from Jersey, but sometimes she could sling it with the best of us.  No wonder we’re buds.

“No
problem, Trix, no problem,” Vito said. But he looked a little stressed, like
there was a problem.  “This here’s, uh…”

“Mike
Green.”

“Oh,
a pleasure I’m sure.” Trixie pumped his hands with both of hers, face beaming,
as she held them momentarily captive between her breasts.

“And
this here, is, uh,” Vito began.

“Annie
McMay,” Red said.

Trixie
turned all slitty-eyed again and glared from Annie to Mike, and then turned the
Death Stun Stare on Vito.  Vito knew better.  “Annie’s my, uh…”

“Niece,”
Annie said, extending a hand toward Trixie.  Trixie did all but snarl.  She
looked like a Doberman with lipstick.

Vito
tried again.  “And, uh, Mike… he’s Annie’s, uh…”

“Co-worker!”
Mike Green exclaimed a la K., his wrist immediately going limp.  Trixie
winced.  She shot a rocket glare at Vito.

“Nice
to meet you,” she lied to Mike and Annie.  “Catch you on the flip side, Vito. 
Gotta get Mina inside.” And with that she hastily flounced back to the Jeep.

I
cringed for Trixie.  Clearly she hadn’t encountered the crush-on-the-gay-guy
thing too often.  She swung open her door, threw herself in the seat and
rummaged around for a cigarette.  “Stupid queers,” she muttered, finding a half
crushed butt in the ashtray, and shoved the lighter on.

“K.‘s
gay,” I responded automatically.

“K.
doesn’t count.  K. never tried to date me,” Trixie said.

“You
just met the guy! How does that qualify as trying to date you?”

“Well
he might have.  If he hadn’t tried to fool me.”

“How
did he fool you?”

“He’s
wearing straight wear.”

“Huh?”

“Two
mismatched socks, tie has barbeque and/or chili stains on it, should have had a
haircut a week and a half ago, and definitely does not have his nails done,”
Trixie snipped while puffing her cigarette stub and rearranging her boobs back
into their June Cleaver position.

“Geez.
You got all that from a handshake?”

“Sure. 
Appletree was good for something.”

I
gulped and made a vow not to become neurotic about the kind of information
Trixie gleaned from me on a day to day basis. Yeeshkabiddle.

“C’mon.
We really should get you inside,” she said.  “You don’t look so good.”

I
stared ahead at Ma’s and Auntie’s cars, and turned and stuck my tongue out at
Trixie.

“Back
at you.  But I’m going in with you anyway.  Besides, I want to find out why
maybe-not-so-gay Mike Green and Annie McMay are still gawking at you.”

I
looked up. She was right.  But then again, what with my skull embolisms, skunk
stinky smells and forehead hickeys, getting gawked at was hardly a surprise.

Trixie
had me up and out of her Jeep almost as quick as she’d rearranged her boobs. 
She hauled me out the passenger side door, suspending me by my right arm.  
While she partially dislocated my armpit I thought Trixie might be taking her
kick-boxing classes a tad too seriously.  Which was probably why I held her
nose and yelled, “OWWW!” at her, which got me dropped like a sack of potatoes. 
That was how I ended up sprawled on my keester in the middle of my driveway.  I
looked up and saw Mike Green, pseudo gay guy, transfixed by Trixie’s boobs,
while Red and Vito looked at me with long suffering looks usually worn by
pictures of patron saints in museums.

“OH-MY-GOD-THERE-HER-IS!
IS-HER-ALRIGHT??!” K. creened as he came bounding out my front door toward me,
with ever a backward glance or three toward Mike Green.  Clearly, K. hadn’t
missed any of Vito’s introductions from my living room windows.  I heard Trixie
begin to snarl.

And
so began my not-so-comfy public humiliation session, as a goodly portion of my
tribe thundered out of my abode: Ma, Aunt Muriel, Bauser, Bauser’s three-legged
dog Jim, Norman, and – lo and behold – my sister Ethel, her husband Ike and
their two Yorkies, Hansel and Gretel.  While my sister’s peers were into their
kids, Ethel married into a canine version of the Von Trapp family.  When she
and Ike talked about having a big family, it was in reference to adopting
canine brothers and sisters for Hansel and Gretel.  Go figure.