Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction! (4 page)

I
bent my head over my keyboard and tried to think of something to stop convulsing. 
The image that ended up coming to mind was Howard sitting across from me at a
table in a restaurant, eating.  With people nearby.  That worked.  I grabbed a
tissue and blew and walked quickly toward the Ladies’ Room.

I
was just in front of the Ladies’ Room door when How-weird bellowed, “Mina, get
in here now!”

I
apologized to my bladder and moped back up the hallway to How-weird’s office.

“We
are in a lot of trouble here,” he began.  Oh good, I thought.  The ‘we’ was
code that I was going to get HA’d – hollered at.

“Buy-A-Lots’
being sabotaged by arson!” Howard hissed conspiratorially, leaning over his
desk, nose to navel with me.   His breath reeked: it smelled like day-old
liver.  I had to step back
to
keep my eyelashes from melting.

I
exhaled his fumes and took in the data.  Buy-A-Lots.  Sabotage.  Arson.  He
didn’t mention the doggie poop, but I couldn’t help but think of it anyway and
the corners of my mouth twitched.  I looked down at the floor, trying to
pretend I was at a funeral.  Heck, actually being at a funeral would be better
than being here.  At least the dearly departed would have let me go to the
bathroom.  My bladder burbled.

“The
police might be on their way here!  To question us!” Howard squealed.

“Huh?”

“The
cops picked up on the connection with the fires near Corporate and here,”
Howard sweated.  “Now it looks like the Feds may go in on it.” Howard stared up
at me, pretending he had achieved a normal adult’s height.  “Buy-A-Lots is not
happy,” he ended, squinting at me, mostly because the sun was blinding him.

“Okay,”
I said, hoping for closure and an excuse to relieve my bursting bladder.

“Okay!?
Okay!? It is not okay!” How-weird yelled at me in his bold, red, 14 pt. font
voice.

I
sighed.  Howard threw himself back into his executive-like pleather chair.  His
eyes rested just above his desktop.  He waved his eyebrows at me. “Buy-A-Lots
is EEJIT’s biggest client,” Howard said from between gritted teeth.  “If the
police or Feds can prove there’s a connection between the arsons and the
Predict-O software, we’ve had it!  No client will feel safe using our product
if they think for a moment that Predict-O could be used by terrorists!”

Arson. 
Terrorists.  Right.  Uh huh.  Gotcha, How-weird.  Maybe he ought to cut back on
that caffeine…

Howard
rubbed his balding head with his fat hairy fingers.  I winced.  Luckily for me,
Howard thought I was wincing in agreement with his terrorist theory.  Actually,
I bet a lot of people wanted to burn a Buy-A-Lots.  It’s just that very few
people would actually go to the trouble to do it.

Howard’s
phone rang and he immediately leapt to answer it, as usual.  Howard’s
completely paranoid about not answering his phone at all times, in case it’s
corporate.  No matter how many people are in his office for a meeting, we all
know that if the phone rings, we wait.  Manners, schmanners.  I hand signaled
bye-bye to Howard and closed his door before he could motion me to sit and
watch him talk.

Once
I’d finished my visit to the Ladies’, my bladder wasn’t so anxious and I felt
lots better.  I also felt lots more curious.  Why did Howard immediately
conclude it was terrorism through software?

I
looked at the clock.  Happy hour was less than 20 minutes away.  I figured a
cocktail or few would help smooth my edges.  I thought about putting on some
makeup, but decided against it.  I was only going to meet K., for heaven’s
sakes.  I straightened my shirt, and saw I was covered in orange Vinnie hair. 
Then I shook my head, and seed hulls sputtered out onto the floor.  I sighed. 
With my luck I’d meet the man of my dreams.  I hoped he liked pets.
    

I
headed back to my cube, swimming upstream against co-workers taking advantage
of Howard’s door being closed at 4:45 p.m. on a Friday.  The phenomenon was
virtually unheard of.  Howard’s door is always open so he can corner some
unsuspecting programmer and force him to work the weekend.  Even Lee waddled
quickly past me.  At least by shutting How-weird’s door I’d done something
helpful.

I
shut down my computer and slunk out behind Norman – and then Howard’s door
opened.  Norman turned and stared deer-in-headlights back at me.  I shook my
head and motioned for him to escape.  As Howard came out, I stepped around to
block his view, offering Norman his route to freedom.  I’m a bit protective
about Norman.  He got married for the first time recently; he’s in his mid-50s,
and the gal he married has three teenage daughters and four horses.  This means
Norman spends a lot of his at home time in the barn or the basement.  Except
this weekend the girls were visiting their dad.  I’d hate it if Howard ruined Norman’s weekend by asking him to work through it.  Again.

“Everything
okay now, Howard?” I asked innocently, swaying from side to side to block his
view of Norman’s exit.  Howard jumped up and down, trying to look past me, but
probably only got a good view of my tummy.

“Oh,
sure,” he sneered.

“Well,
so long as everything’s okay…”  I replied, and drifted toward the door.

“Everything’s
just hunky-dory!” he said, throwing his paws up in the air and stomping on his
little feet back toward his office.

“Okey-dokey,”
I said out loud to no one and made a quick exit, stage left.

I
left the garage and drove happily along toward the House of Happy, hoping for a
parking spot within walking distance.

The
House of Happy’s ‘Snappy Hour’ involves a jazz combo and a lot of gay men,
making it my friend K.’s favorite Friday night spot.  K. is my very dear
friend, and yes, K. is really his name.  He actually changed his name legally –
for unknown reasons and an unknown sum – to the letter K. With a period. Sadly,
‘K.’ in conversation is usually mistaken with ‘Kay’, which is a weird name for
a guy, even a gay one.

Most
Friday evenings, K. and I flip a coin about where to meet, since meeting a lot
of gay men doesn’t exactly improve my love life.  Although it should have
improved my walls.  But, maybe this Friday night would be different.  Maybe
I’ll meet an enthusiastic house painter.  I smiled.  Things might be looking
up.

I
quickly parked the Doo-doo, then strolled cheerily to the House of Happy on Queen Street (K. once proclaimed, in all seriousness during a very unsober moment, that this
would be the street where he would meet the man of his dreams). As I began to
climb the steps of the brownstone where the bar was, I stopped and palmed
myself in the forehead. I’d forgotten all about Vito’s dry cleaning.

I
reached the top step and met Miss Marianne at the hostess podium.  Miss
Marianne is about 90 years old and has worked at the House of Happy since the
first horse and buggy pulled up.  She knows my friends, and more importantly,
she likes me.  I asked her to let them know I’d be back.

“Sure,
hon.” She winked at me from beneath teased magenta hair and large pink and
black leopard patterned eyeglasses.

I
squealed off the corner lot, cursing myself for not remembering about the
stupid dry cleaning before I left work. Then I could have simply walked across
the street. Now I had to drive all the way back.  I re-parked in the garage,
and hurtled across the road with Vito’s gym bag of dirty duds to Lickety-Split
Laundry.

I
plopped Vito’s gym bag onto the counter, and Mrs. Phang, who couldn’t have been
more aptly named, took the bag and unloaded it beneath the counter muttering
something in Vietnamese that did not sound complimentary.

She
frowned at me. “You have ticket?”

I
sighed and began to dig through the dumpster known as my purse, piling stuff on
the counter.   I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had found one of Mrs.
Phang’s relatives living amongst the rubble. Finally, I found my wallet without
piercing my finger on the lost pin I discovered.  I smiled, and Mrs. Phang
snarled back.  I quickly opened the wallet and several hundred receipts plopped
out along the mess.  Mrs. Phang smiled, and with surgical precision picked out
the receipt bearing her logo so I could ransom the laundry I’d dropped off for
Vito last Monday.

Mrs.
Phang brought Vito’s box of shirts out, and placed them on the counter, keeping
a hand on top of the box.  “You know, shirts weddy Weeeensday,” she scolded me.

“I
know, Mrs. Phang, but I really couldn’t pick them up until today,” I sighed.

“Shirt
weedy Weeensday, you pick up! No wait ‘til Friday!” she instructed. Yikes.  I
might actually have to break down and get a BlackBerry after all, just to keep
up with Vito’s dry cleaning schedule.

I
went through our usual ritual of trying to pay for Vito’s shirts, and Mrs.
Phang continued her ritual of putting me in my place.  “No – Vito regular
customer!  We get check!  You take!”  Like I said: Vito is a dry cleaning
junkie.  And he’d definitely found his source.

I
scooped up my mess and shoved it back into my handbag as I pretended to ignore
Mrs. Phang’s laser beam glare at my forehead. Then I grabbed the shirt box and
left.  As I stood on the corner and waited for the light, I considered wimping
out and going home and sautéing some onions and garlic and mushrooms in olive
oil with rosemary as the base for some kind of recipe.  I could always call
Miss Marianne and she’d explain for me, maybe.  Then I reconsidered.  K. would
never forgive me.  And he’d probably confiscate my grocery bonus card, too.

So
I trundled the clean-shirt box and myself back into the van and chugged back to
the House of Happy.  I walked up the steps into the martini bar and ‘Snappy Hour’,
and what I hoped was the beginning of a halfway decent weekend.

But
no one was there.  Not even a mouse.  Or a K.  I sighed.

An
oh-so-brightly-expecting-a-large-tip bartender came up to me.  “Hell-ooo!
Aren’t we in a festive mood!” he sang at me.

“Actually,
not so much,” I replied honestly.

“I
know a fan-TAB-ulous Cosmo that will change your spirits!” he gushed.  He
really was determined to get that tip.  I sighed.  He was right – at least
about the drink.  Mostly because any beverage at House of Happy comes in a
seriously fan-TAB-ulous glass that I swear makes your drink taste better.

A
few minutes later, I gratefully accepted my Cosmo, fan-TAB-ulous glass and all,
and it was pretty good.  I started to feel my spine untwist itself out of its
weekly spiral.  Then K. walked in.

“It’s
been that kind of week? Again?” he teased, pointing accusingly at my Cosmo
glass – which stood empty.  Huh.  I guess I was a lot thirstier than I’d
thought.

“Again!
Times two!” K. laughed.  We got our Cosmos, and ‘tinged’ our fan-TAB-ulous
glasses to TGIF.

Armand
sauntered in, and my spirits lifted higher.  Armand is also a good friend, and
definitely not gay.  In fact, he doesn’t even look remotely happy.  And tonight
he looked especially sullen.  But that was because it was a Friday.  Fridays
are supposed to be the Mondays of Armand’s work week.  Armand makes his living
– and a very good one at that – as a very silent headwaiter at one of Lancaster’s very uppery eateries.

But
for Armand, waiting tables is about much more than monetary compensation.
Waiting is Armand’s passion.  He disdains those who do not have a true interest
in the Waiting Profession, and abuse the privilege of serving the dining public
by participating in this endeavor for a mere paycheck.

As
it turned out, last week Armand encountered a scheduling ‘mix-up’ at work.  In
other words, his manager was annoyed with him, and so he rescheduled Armand
from profit bearing weekends to tip-barren weeknights.  Apparently, the new
schedule was still in negotiation.

I
smiled widely at Armand.  Armand glowered back.  “Wodka!” he commanded the
bartender.  Three smallish frozen vials of expensive vodka appeared on the
granite bar, before the bartender skittered to the far corner to escape
Armand’s glare.

We
‘tinged’ to working weekends for Armand, non-working weekends for me and my
cronies at EEJIT, and to the health of  K.‘s very solvent interior design
clients.

The
bartender continued to placate us with more frozen vodkas, sliding them before
us and darting back to his corner.  Other patrons arrived and crowded the bar. 
Smoke, gossip, jazz and a jovial crowd hemmed us safely inside Snappy Hour. I
chatted, got jostled and generously shared my drinks with the shoes and elbows
of those around me.  Life was good.

There
was a lull in the music when the penny dropped.

“Supper
Clubs! Oh yes! We must!” K. said effusively.

“Huh?”
I asked, drifting back from my happy planet Wodka.

“I
heard about this from my friend Gillian,” he said. “What you must have, my
dear, is an entree-VOUS… Understand?”

“Nope,”
I answered.

“Well,”
K. began, “it’s like a speakeasy, but for fine cuisine!  Apparently enough
haute cuisine chefs and gourmands are done with the highbrow, linen-tablecloth,
silver service thing.  So now these people invite you to their private
residences for fabulous food at great prices. It’s like a big party, with
everyone sitting at the same table.  It’s a true gourmet experience!”