Chapter Forty-Four
5:30AM.
Why did I have to wake up an hour early? Oh right, something about Rose being tested for strep throat. Maybe we picked up germs at her apartment, too. Never mind. It was a dream. Again. I rubbed my eyes. How could eyelashes be so loud? We left more than two hours later, Puck walking out the door with a flourishing…
“I’m as warm as a pine needle!”
The exhaust from the pick-up in front of us in the round-about smelled like pasanky egg dye. On another bright morning stuffed with sun.
8:30AM.
Joe put the kettle on the stove, then remembered something…
“Mom? Waffle House is having candlelight dinners for Valentine’s Day, too.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah… I might just have to take myself out on a date.”
“Bring a stuffed animal,” I suggested.
“And Instagram it,” Carrie-Bri added, marching through the house for some light exercise, head phones pressed over ears for a daily lesson in Arabic.
Puck found a package of red chocolate wafers in the Puck and Grandma box. Melted with cinnamon flavoring for a plate of spicy hearts. Before dropping Carrie off at work, Joe offered a few pick-up lines for the upcoming holiday…
“Are you a double quarter pounder? Because you look very delectable tonight.”
Linnea wasn’t happy about the orthodontist appointment. Not for braces. Somehow she and Rose had managed to skip that unnecessary, painful, and expensive Medieval torture. So far. But rather to consult about the five baby teeth that just wouldn’t come out. Puck found my first violin…
“I just want to stare at it. It’s just so pretty I can’t stand it. If it’s too small for you, I’ll take it. But you still treasure it, and I’ll treasure it too. Mom, if you treasure it, I’ll treasure it. No one else can keep it except you and me.”
Francis decided to take a break and remove the oven hood in preparation for Carrie to install the new and improved stainless steel version. Joe helped with the installation. They were practically hugging each other trying to attach the whole apparatus into the small space below the cabinet. Brownie points with the girls. And by girls, I mean Mom and Carrie. This provided Puck the opportunity to play around with the old charcoal-filled grate of the original 27 year-old oven hood. He was pretty excited about that. Charcoal hands and chocolate hearts. Then Joe worked deeper into Photoshop tutorials while Francis drove Puck around on the tractor because I was… cooking egg sandwiches for him again. I felt like a little Elvis while I worked at the stove. Linnea returned in a foul mood. She needed braces and was mad at the orthodontist…
“He just wants money to buy more baseball jerseys. Have you ever been in there? Have you seen th… they have an Olympic torch!”
I looked up and it was about ten batches of fake chocolate and five hours later. So. To revive me from lethargy, I joined Mom and Carrie on a Costco run. After I had also teamed up with Puck to clear the wind-blown bits of trash from the back corner of the yard – his idea – and assisted in establishing his dinner picnic on a dog-chewed gray blanket in the damp grass beside the patio, strewn with tiny pieces of stick-able charcoal.
Costco. Yes, I picked up a four-pack of bacon, a box of turkey provolone pretzel melts, shredded seasoned chicken, frozen medley of pomegranates, strawberries, and blueberries, and a 21-pack of chocolate chip cookies.
When we drove back, Joe and Puck were biking an obstacle course in the driveway, Joe on the $35 white Target bike with the yellow-green tires and Puck – somehow – on the old plastic tricycle. Carrie leaned over the counter staring out the window while she prepped the griddle…
“Man, I don’t want to get sick tomorrow.”
“Why would you get sick?” I asked, forgetting her scheduled flight.
“The wind’s supposed to be high; gusts up to 30.”
“What’s the limit on wind speed before they cancel the flight?”
“Well, there’s what the manufacturer recommends… and then there’s what Charlie says… ‘Aw come on, kiddo. They don’t know what they’re talking about.’”
We played hooky from the Protestant version of the Ash Wednesday service. Mom and Dad took an early V-Day date at El Maguey while Linnea-Irish had volleyball practice. Carrie and I picked up Culver’s and drove out to Roses’ for the 1950 “House on the River” and discussion of Dean Jagger’s heresy trial here in the 1980’s. We are very holy folks.
“I’m going to release – The Cragon,” Rose announced, inching open her bedroom door where Stinkerbelle came springing out towards us.
She’s not the most congenial animal.
“Well, I’ll be flying over your work tomorrow,” said Carrie as we packed up to go. “I’ll tilt my wings for you… It won’t be on purpose, but…”
“Hey, you should write me a message or something. Bring black spray paint and write ‘stinky’.”
