Chapter Twenty-Five
Puck tapped my shoulder at 7:18.
“Good morning, chubb-chubb.”
“Good morning,” he grinned. “I’m really hungry, Mom. Can you make me a bagel for breakfast?”
Turns out Francis, revving up the flight simulator with Puck for another round, was also interested in butter-panned bagels. I pictured two cowboys around the campfire, red spackle enamelware 1950’s style. The Bear dropped in on his way to work, and then class.
“What’s wrong, Linnea? Are you worried about something? What is it?” Mom asked.
Linnea sat frowning at the table above her math books. Joe sat across from her and just grinned…
“She’s worried about… UFOs!”
The banana went flying through the air towards Linnea.
Smack!
“Joe!” she wrinkled her nose.
“Stop throwing things, Joe,” Mom scolded, but didn’t care all that much.
The banana went over his back to the floor…
“Heh heh heh.”
Puck’s largest achievement of the morning – after swinging a plastic grocery bag outside with a red permanent marker angry face sketched on it – was labeling a banana with the same red marker with Joe’s name and another angry face. He thought this was pretty funny.
Francis took Puck to Home Depot and Walgreen’s. While they were out cavorting, I helped Mom sort a few more boxes in the basement. Old choir lists from way-back old days before Relevance and Snuffy graduated. Impossibly tiny mathematics work pages from my community college pre-calc class…
“Mom! There’s cupcakes!”
He handed me a tiny red velvet one. The kid knows what I like. He offered Joe one of the pink frosting with candy heart confetti next. It was already time for lunch. Francis begged three partially burnt quesdadillas. I fried them black on the stove.
“Now that smells like a properly cooked quesadilla,” Francis announced
A rolled pair of canary yellow socks sat in the middle of the living room…
“Are those from the hospital?” I asked Francis.
“Yup. Grandma was going to try to convince me to give them to Zuñi for Valentine’s Day.”
He looked a little scared. Puck was digging in a bag of white gravel on the couch. Friday evening was a grab-bag this time. Joe had a date at The Sheldon with the Punch Brothers, where Magnus and Cassidy also had tickets.
“I decided not to third-wheel it,” Joe grinned.
Joe had also decided to take Puck on a man-date to Vanbuskirk’s. Home Depot with Mom and Carrie for bead board and trim and stuff for the foyer. Shop ‘n Save with Carrie. [Mom had to stay behind with the stuff until Francis came to fit it in the van.] As Carrie landed potatoes and lemons in the cart, a tall man with a stogie perused the cruciferous vegetables. Carrie mad-rushed back to cook up kale and sausage soup and breadsticks and brownies for Grewe and her mom, who had just had another biopsy. Puck also had a surprise for me waiting on the counter in the form of a pear and goat cheese truffle, which was very good.
“It’s a nut!” Puck declared loudly, crashing on a pound-cup of chocolate ice cream.
The remains still circled his mouth.
The Bear was taking me to “Les Miserables”, so Puck was getting a double-decker spend-the-night. What did I say about this kid living the life? Gloria picked him up at six. The whole family rattled off suggestions for our own dinner, including Rose who had dropped in with her half-ton backpack, excepting Carrie who was delivering the dinner. We settled on Francis’ regularly suggested Max & Erma’s. In a shopping complex still festooned with little white light drenched trees outside all the shops. The Bear ordered the Garbage Burger. And the movie theater. I guess “Les Mis” had been out longer than I originally thought. There were only three couples besides ourselves, one of which left halfway through. And the film glitched up at the very beginning. But not badly enough to warrant “free popcorn for everyone” as one of the guys suggested to the girl who informed us of the technical difficulties.