Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 02 - Christmas Bizarre (15 page)

He looked at me funny.
“It’s a boxing club.”

“Oh.”

“You interested?”

“Could you teach me how to protect my shins?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You fighting midgets?”

He signed for the tray and carried it away toward a table set up around the corner with coffee, teas and juices.

“Hey, what do you have there, Cal?”

“Your official member appreciation breakfast.”

“Breakfast?
Where’s the eggs? And the donuts?” another guy joshed.

I exited the door on a wave of good
-natured laughter. I started the van, and leaned out the open window to check traffic.

A couple walking their boxer passed by.
“Pew! Did you close up the bag?”

“Yes!”

My last option was to breathe through my mouth. I checked the directions on the clipboard and signaled to pull out onto the one-way street.

A car pulled behind me and signaled for my spot.
I waved “thank you” in the rear view. A man with a ski cap and large scarf over his face waved back. He was driving a dark green Crown Vic.

What a coincidence.
How many dark green Crown Victoria’s could there be in Lancaster? That said, it is a Grandpa kind of car. And this certainly is the land of the Grandpas. They probably have a union.

I made my way toward Leola,
and an outfit located somewhere off of New Holland Pike.

As I pulled up to a crossroad, I read the directions again.
“This can’t be right.” The only buildings around me were a farmhouse, a barn, and some kind of warehouse distribution center.

I pulled up the long driveway to the farmhouse, hopeful to find someone home and ask for directions.
A Mennonite family looked like they were getting ready to leave for market.

“You delivering manure?” the man asked.

“No.”

I asked for directions
. He gave them.

“Happy to help,” the man waved me off.
I noticed he kept waving his hand in front of his face after I drove off.

It looked like I was going to the warehouse, after all.
I got ready to make a left back onto the road, and had to wait for a green Crown Vic to pass.

WTH? Was there a sale?

I pulled into the warehouse parking lot, up close to the front entrance. A plump, middle-aged woman poked her head out the door. “They’re here!” she hollered back inside the front door.

I pulled out the sandwich trays pronto, and stacked the brownie and cookie tray on top.
I wanted to make sure I got clear of the van’s aroma with food ASAP, for the customer’s sake.

“Oh! You need a hand!” the lady grabbed the cookie tray, while a tall, older man helped with
the other. We went into a makeshift lobby area, complete with a card table, chips, punch and a mini fiber optic Christmas tree.

I looked around while the woman put down the tray.
There wasn’t a logo or piece of marketing material to be seen.

“So, umm… what do you do here?”

“We rent space.”

“For what?”

“For just about anything. You name it. So long as it fits through those doors, we can store it.”

I looked
to where she pointed at a large window that looked out onto a huge, aircraft-style warehouse, complete with a huge sliding door. A herd of elephants could have strolled through, no problem.

“But we’re not self-storage
. Let’s not confuse folks,” the older man chided.

I glanced
at the warehouse. “Sure would be a lot of boxes.”

He chuckled.
“You got that right. No, what we do is mostly commercial storage. Extra equipment, merchandise, forklifts and such. Sometimes containers of retail product.”

“But not if they’re perishable!
Remember that?”

“Sure was a stinker of a problem.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what perished, so I grabbed a signature for the delivery sheet and boogied.

Outside it was drizzling freezing rain.
Driving with the window wide open wasn’t going to be a warm and fuzzy experience. I stopped at a traffic signal, and glanced at the rearview mirror. Behind me sat a Crown Vic with the same bundled driver I’d seen downtown. I wasn’t sure I liked the coincidence, especially after being recently kidnapped for tape. After the light turned green, I pulled over and pretended to look for something in the glove compartment. The car sped past me, sending a shower of dirty, slushy water through the open window. Really?

I wove my way back to Squirrel Run.
Back in the kitchen, it was a cozy 98 degrees and trolleys and people and bus pans careened across the floor. Life was good.

“Here
, next to me!” Hilda shouted across the kitchen.

I dashed to hang up my coat, and quickly stood by her, scrubbing pots and pans like nobody’s business.

She looked at my wet hair. “What happened to you?”

“A puddle.”

“What did you do, swim in it?” She shook her head, then checked her watch and got behind a cart full of continental breakfasts and pushed it into a banquet room.

“Mina, here!”

I whirled around to see Chef waving me over toward the line. My palms got sweaty, and my feet felt tingly. This didn’t look like dishwashing to me!

“Stir this constantly, like this,” Chef showed me, stirring a pot of creamy sauce.
I took the spoon and paid full attention to the Sacred Sauce. Chef jumped to some burners at the end, and began flipping omelets, working his way down the line across a half dozen or so pans.

The sauce was reaching a nice velvety consistency.
“Do you want me to…?”

“Shit!”

“Huh?”

Flames spewed from underneath one burner, and quickly spread to the next.

“Oh my God!”

Chef quickly plated an omelet, then poured salt on the burner.
“Mina, shove the sauce to the back! Come here!”

He continued to cook another omelet at the next burner. I followed his lead and poured salt over the burner to put out the successive fire.
We did this in rotation until the fires were completely out.

“I need omelets yesterday!” Hilda hurried back in.
“Where are they? Oh, here they… what’s the matter with you two?”

Chef was leaning over the counter.
I felt like all the blood had drained from my face.

“You better get a move on.
Next party’s coming up.”

Chef nodded and dashed to the sauce.
“Crap.”

“What
’s wrong? Did I botch it?”

“Nothing you did. I mean, that I didn’t tell you to do.”

“Is it ruined?”

“Maybe not.”
He grabbed some plastic wrap, and laid it over the top of the sauce, then carefully pulled it away. He looked at me. “If I had stirred, I would have mixed in the skin. That would have ruined it.”

“Gotcha.
What happened with the stove?”

“Don’t know.
There was probably extra grease on the linings. Maybe they didn’t get changed out.”

“Yikes.”

“Yikes is right. We’re both lucky we still have eyebrows.”

“Do you want me to change them?”

“Wait until they cool off. Right now, I need you to grab some fresh basil from the walk-in.”

“Sure.”

The walk-in was jam-packed. After peering around a bit, I found the herbs up high. I noticed a bucket full of stock on the floor. I stepped over the bucket, and reached for the basil. Stepping back carefully, I successfully landed my right foot smack dab in the middle of the bucket.

Shit.

I carried the basil and the bucket of unusable stock to Chef.

“Thanks.
But I don’t need any stock.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have any.”
I put the bucket down, and tossed my soggy sock in the garbage.

Chef stared at the pot and shrugged.
“Stock happens.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. In about a half hour, we’ll have a window to make sure we idiot proof the walk-in and the burners, so we don’t wind up in the weeds.”

“Thanks for being nice about it.”

He went back to his sauce. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“It would be to me.”

“Nope. I’ve done that. This is nothing.”

I stared at him, but he just kept stirring.
I tossed the stock down the drain. It was a shame. It smelled wonderful. “On the upside, my foot smells really great.”

“I never noticed you not smelling great.”

“Huh?”

“Hurry up with that, or we’ll be late.”

“Oh.”

He stirred.

By about noon we’d finished up with the morning’s events, and got the kitchen back under control.

Hilda caught up with me as I pulled on my jacket in the locker area.
“We’re really slammed today. Stop by tomorrow sometime, and I’ll have your check for you.”

“Sure.
No biggie.”

Hilda sniffed.
“Do you smell soup?”

“No.”

I got back home relatively painlessly (thank you, “Ave Maria”) and pulled up the driveway to find a geriatric chain gang stretching from my front door to Vito’s.

The seniors were lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, passing cardboard boxes from my house and into
his.

Oh no.
Oh so very, very no.

“Vito!”

Miriam and Vito whirled around as did Evelyn DiSantos and Ed and a majority of the St. Bart’s crowd.

Vito held up his hands toward me.
“It’s not what it looks like, honest!”

“It’s for church!” Miriam spluttered.

I looked at my own, wide-open front door and his, then rubbed at the migraine growing behind my eyes. “Where’s Vinnie?”

“We got him all tucked up comfy in your room,” Ed said.

Well, that was nice.

Ed sniffed and made a face.
“Hey, didn’t you get your van cleaned last summer?”

“I did.”

“Phew!”

Evelyn walked toward me, and sniffed.
“I don’t smell anything. No wait. I smell soup.”

I flapped my arms and
went inside.

“We’re almost done.
And I remembered to turn your heat down, so we didn’t waste your electricity,” she said.

“Peachy.”
I looked at the thermostat. My home had cooled to a crisp 58 degrees. How long had they been at this?

I made my way past their assembly line and into the kitchen.
The phone rang.

“Mina Kitchen?”

I sighed. “Speaking.”

“Hi.
This is Tory from the HR Department at Countryside Mall.”

My heart fell to the floor.
Were they seriously going to fire me before I worked off the new vest?

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you. But I work for Jane Brubaker. She asked me to call you, to see if you can fill in for Barry at Santa’s Station.”

“What’s wrong with Barry?”

“He called in sick. Honestly, he sounds awful.”

I fidgeted.
“Isn’t there anybody else?” While I could use the extra dough, I could have used a day off. Any more bruises and I’d be direct depositing my paycheck at the doctor’s.

“Sort of.
But he’s a rookie; it’s his first shift.”

“Great.”

“Super!”

“Huh?”

“Can you be here for the one o’clock shift? We need you for the lunchtime crush.”

I looked at the clock
. It was almost twelve-thirty.

“I guess.”

“Thanks! And Mina, make sure you have your vest with you, okay?”

I agreed and hung up the phone
soundly, wondering how I could camouflage the birdie accident and avoid the purchase of another vest.

The phone rang again.

“I’m leaving as soon as I can, really!”

“Mina, that is not a proper salutation.”
It was Auntie. Super.

“Sorry.
I’m in kind of a rush. I picked up another shift.”

“That’s wonderful!
With James?”

“No.”

“The chef?”

“Nope.”

There was a long pause. “You’re not still trick-or-treating as an elf, are you?”

“That’s Halloween.
And I’m not an elf. I’m a Sidekick.” I thought hard for a moment about the “kick” part.