Mud Caves & Fried Cheesecake

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Collette and Puck took a walk around half the neighborhood that afternoon. Rain was in the air but hadn’t yet arrived. The retired gardener was watering his flowers in the front lawn.

“Want some tomatoes?” He called to them.

Collette carted Puck and stroller into the kitchen to pick out eight ripe tomatoes: red and yellow. Maybe there would be more okra later too. It had been a hit at the house. Carrie had fought Joe for the last spoonful.

After the tomatoes had been placed in a bag and returned home to the red bowl on the kitchen table, Collette and Puck resumed their walk. Puck loudly sucked on his fist watching the passing action from his stroller. He looked like a little pharaoh lounging on his barge down the Nile.

His eyes were changing. They reminded Collette of a deep sea trench in the big old blue: the quiet of the deep, soft whispering sea grasses, waving red sea fans, methodic glow of silent swimming monsters, glitter and wreckage of ancient trade ships’ lost battle to Poseidon by the light of St. Elmo.

Wednesday brought more thoughts of rain. Collette and Puck were greeted over at the house by Rose:

“Hi, Fluffy!”

Rose didn’t want Puck to “get a complex” by being called “Squishy”. Thus she named him “Fluffy”.

Rose was in the process of planning her trip around the world.

“I’m gong to Laos, Germany, Morocco, India, Israel, Greece, and Spain.”

She sat on the couch in a swamp of travel guides. A pile of archeology magazines, National Geographics, CLEPs, and devotionals lay on the coffee table in front of her. Wherever Rose went, her library followed.

In another part of the world, Elazar had been interviewing for positions in Sydney. After having interviewed with Australia’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve, he opted for a position in the United Bank of Switzerland. And only 21.

Inside, Frances was sharing tales:

“The Scouts on our last camp out were talking about the mud cave at Beaumont. Two boys went back there around the time of World War II. They had a lamp with them and someone told them that Mrs. Beaumont was buried there. So, yeah, when they went back, one of the boys found a bone and they were on their way back when the lamp went out and one of the boys fell and got a concussion. They never got back out. Yeah, it’s pretty sad. They blocked off that part of the cave. If they were telling the truth. I don’t really know. I’ll find out next time.”

In the kitchen, Linnea was hanging a butterfly net on Pumpkin’s head.

“It’s Pumpkin Lantis!” She said to herself.

Collette browsed through the creme wafer rolls and what was left of the bowl of candy bars in the pantry from Joe’s party, over Shirley Temple’s biography. Joe went to class feeling rather ill. And Carrie, Frances, and Linnea all wrote papers for class. Linnea spun herself around on her knees on the wooden floor.

“I’ve never done this before. This is fun!”

Carrie was preparing two pans for the oven for lunch: chicken teriyaki rolls, cheese ravioli, potato boats, beef rolls, and bacon-wrapped prime rib while the radio announced the continued disappearance of the millionaire Wash-U grad balloonist. There was also a box of fried cheesecake and white apple strudel brownie.

“So much for diets.” Carrie said. “When Elizabeth and I were at work, Tony said, ‘Want some fried cheesecake, girls?’ And we were like, ‘Curse you, fried cheesecake!'”

Meanwhile, Carrie also looked up gaucho trails in Uruguay past Mayan ruins and quiet fishing villages in between dying Rose’s hair as Rose read Mark Twain. Carrie listened to the instrumental tracks of MUSE with a Camelbak platypus on her back, crafting Mohawks out of the colored goop of Rose’s hair. And Mom took Linnea off to her first day of choir. Collette read an article of Roman curses. And while Rose’s hair set, she took Puck on a photo shoot on the front porch. He pulled the usual giggles and hair tuggings, taking cute attempts at swiping at the camera. Later, Rose gave him an apple to hold, which he gladly took and began to gum to death.

Dad had come home just in time for Collette to realize that Carrie had also dyed Rose’s eyebrows.

“I though you weren’t supposed to do that.”

Carrie shrugged, spinning herself in circles on the bar stool.

“You look like Groucho Marx,” Dad told Rose.

Rose ran to the mirror by the front door.

“Aaaaaaah! I look like Joe!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” said Carrie.

“Psssh.”

Later, Rose held Pumpkin near Puck so that he could amuse himself with the wonderment of the fat black blob. He took several baby tugs at the clipped paws and laughed. He lunged with both arms flailing. Pumpkin was not pleased with Puck’s attempt to be cute, but was nonetheless patient with the young giggling darling until he was finished learning about cat’s paws.

On the way home that late afternoon, the fields were spread out in white grass. The skies were perfect, full of tumbling gray. It was blue where it should be blue, gray where it should be gray, white where it should be white.

At home, as the rain began to pour, Puck ate the couch, staring out the window listening to Sigur Ros and asking questions about the wind – all in great wonderment.

During the rest of the evening, Collette read here and there on Islam and OLeif prepared the Sunday School lessons for the high school on world religions.