Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction! (46 page)

We
walked up to the Citizen Kane-like front doors and stood staring at the huge
entrance.  K. tugged at the giant cord that served as the front door bell. 
BING-BONG.  We jumped a bit.  We always did.

“Don’t
you always expect Lurch to answer?” K. whispered.  I nodded.

Instead
we were greeted by Ophelia.  That is, Ida Rose in costume.

Ida
greeted us in the front doorway, fluttering in gossamer fairy skirts with
shoulder caplets, with her hair done up in ringlets, all in a dusty blue.  Her
costume that is, not her hair.  Her hair was its usual jet black.  Ida sparkled
in a cloud of fairy dust.  Then she sneezed, which sent more fairy dust billowing. 
I wondered which of Aunt Gladys’s long-ago social dresses Ida had dug up for
this occasion.

“Gracious
me, do come in,” Ida drawled.

K.
and I held each other’s gaze in sympathetic unison.  Ida Rose’s favorite moment
from way-back-when was when she played Blanche in her high school’s production
of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.   She usually resurrected this when she was
feeling a bit blue.  Her costume was clearly evidence that she was in
‘Streetcar’ mode.  Someone needed to break the spell.  I stared at the ceiling.

“Ida,
dear, the dinner is in NEW YORK, darling, not TARA,” K. teased, holding up the
hem of her fairy skirt.  Ida sniffed.  Not good.  I rubbed the back of my left
calf with my sore pinky toe, to stop its whining.

“Are
those new sandals?” Ida screeched, pointing at my pulsing feet.

“Yes,”
I said demurely.

Ida
loves footwear and has wonderful taste in shoes.  Which goes nicely with her
humungous shoe budget and shoe closet.  So, if Ida Rose admires your shoes,
you’ve done very well indeed.

“Where
did you get them? Whose are they?” she demanded.

K.
looked beseechingly at me.  We were using up valuable Walter-loading time: we
both knew it would take luck and a crane to settle Walter into the car.

“Oh,
I’ll tell you on the way,” I said, smiled, turned and did my darndest to sachet
and not limp toward the car.

“Leaving
now, Aunt Gladys – byeeee,” Ida whooped, snatching a dusty-blue sequined clutch
from an outstretched servant’s hand (Lurch? Really?) and floating toward the
car.  K. did a multitude of nervous bows from his waist to an invisible Aunt
Gladys and departed backward.

Ida
Rose sat happily in the middle of the backseat.  K. looked relieved.  Clearly,
he was worried that Ida might have wanted to ride ‘gun’.

“Oh,
Ida Rose, dear, thank you so much. I hope you don’t mind sitting in the back,”
K. said.

Ida
raised her eyebrows a few stories above her ringleted forehead.  “Mind?” she
asked.

“Not
sitting in the front,” K. explained.

Ida
Rose giggled, all Blanche Dubois like.  “You are a card, my dear K.. Why,
Auntie dearest would never condone our sitting up front with the chauffeur; it
would be considered vulgar.”

I
looked at K.  K. frowned at Ida.  I counted one-Mississippi.

“So,
in other words, you do want to sit in the front, so long as we switch seats
before we drop you back home, so your Aunt Gladys doesn’t see you not sitting
in the back?” I asked.

“Precisely,”
Ida whispered, nodding enthusiastically.

I
pulled Vito’s Towncar out of the mansion’s driveway, making a right onto
President’s Avenue.  We drove into the islanded residential area just before
the intersection of President’s Avenue and Harrisburg Pike.

“Oh,
I just LOVE this neighborhood!” K. said, as he had a thousand times before as
we drove through it.  Ida Rose and I chirped in agreement.

“Oh,
look what they’ve done now! I just love that Tudor-bethan,” Ida said happily,
sans Blanche Dubois.

“What
happened to Blanche?” K. asked.

Ida
frowned.  “You are becoming worse at this.  It wasn’t Blanche; it was Maggie
from the ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’.” She pouted.

“Oh,
you are much more appealing than Maggie, dearie,” K. said.

Ida
looked pleased.  “Really?  Well, so glad I found some hidden party duds then,”
she said, patting her dress.  Little clouds of non-fairy dust poofed about the
backseat.  Ida coughed.  K. became resourceful and used the automatic window
openers to open all the windows, switching the AC onto full blast to help with
the proceedings.

“Really,
K.!” Ida and I both shrieked.

“Really,
windswept is not a hairstyle statement,” Ida Rose complained.  “Besides, I hate
that loose free feeling,” she added.

K.
sighed.  “I know, dearie,” he said, “but really, we can’t have you posing a
health hazard in an eating establishment, coming in just as if you’ve crawled
out of a vacuum cleaner.”

Ida
Rose waved her fingers pointedly at K. as if she were casting a spell on him,
smiled successfully to herself, and then the windows rolled up.  Well.

By
this time we had crossed Harrisburg Pike and Manheim Pike and came to
Fruitville Pike.  Yes, another Pike.  A visiting friend once asked me why Lancaster has ‘pikes’ and not ‘roads’.  Dunno, was my response.  Still is.  Just go with
it.

I
weaved along toward Oregon Pike.  During all this Ida Rose and K. played their
usual ‘I Spy’ game which in particular focuses on drivers and passengers of
cars around us rather then settings.

“I
spy nose-picking,” Ida Rose said.

K.
looked about.  “Yick, who doesn’t?”

We
drove past the Gass-up! gas station, and made the next immediate right into
Armand’s McMansion development, and pulled up to his front door.  I have to
say, once we entered Armand’s neighborhood, my feeling of dread began to lift
and I began to feel kind of tingly and excited – the way you get when you’re
anticipating going to a happy event.  Armand’s neighborhood was a bit on the
cookie-cutter side, with a definite tendency toward taupe.  But I found this
soothing.  Everything was neat and usual; no surprises.  Although I put myself
in check, realizing that perhaps I was suffering subconscious reactions from my
crazily colored walls.  However, I also realized that certainly, if Armand
thought this little eatery expedition was worth the trip, we lay eaters were
sure to be impressed.

But
even with my barking feet, I was not about to miss a chance to enter Armand’s
foyer.  Entering Armand’s foyer is like entering onto a Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers movie set.  K. followed at my heels.  He loves Armand’s foyer, too.

We
stopped and looked back at Ida Rose; she was still sitting in the backseat,
waving a fan (how did she fit that in her sequined clutch?) and talking to an
imaginary stranger.  We shrugged and walked up the path toward Armand’s house.

Armand’s
foyer has a lovely cathedral ceiling with a crystal chandelier, a marble floor
and curved staircase that leads up to a sort of mezzanine.  Also, Armand’s home
is spotless.  But K. and I suspect that is largely due to his widowed mother
and widowed sister moving in with him a few years ago.

Apparently
Armand was looking forward to our epicurious adventure, too.  He opened the
door, dressed in Calvin Klein blacks, and gestured for us to enter.  His mother
and sister, both clad in black wool, hovered along the walls behind him.

“Good
evening, please.” Armand gestured us into the foyer.

K.
and I attempted to enter at the same time and wound up walking shoulder to
shoulder together through the double front door.

We
stood in the midst of our Forever Foyer and sighed.  We drank in the
lily-scented cool air, tinkling music and glimpses of exotic flowers placed
carefully in a crystal vase standing in the middle of a round walnut table.

“Please,
please, you come?” Armand’s mother questioned us, motioning us past the foyer
and toward the inner sanctum.

K.
and I immediately brightened.  Neither of us had been allowed beyond the foyer
before.  In fact, we made it a secret challenge between us to see who might be
the first to gain access.

“Mama,”
Armand said quietly while kissing his mother on the cheek.  She sighed and
shrugged.

His
sister cast furtive glances and landed on my sandals.

“Oh,
beautiful!” she cried, pointing toward my feet.  I shut up my throbbing toes
and reminded them it wasn’t how the felt, it was how they looked that mattered.

“Thank
you,” I said, blushing.

Armand’s
mother said something to Armand’s sister that did not sound remotely
encouraging.  His sister sighed.  “My mother reminds me that I am still in
mourning,” she answered simply.

“How
much longer?” I asked sympathetically.

“Just
six years!” she said brightly.

“We’ll
go shopping,” I whispered toward her.

Armand’s
mother muttered something that sounded a lot like a curse.  I mentally tossed
salt over my shoulder, and was relieved that we had our resident pixie in the
backseat of Vito’s Towncar to remove spells.

As
we walked toward the car, K. said, “I’m sorry about your brother-in-law
passing, Armand.”

Armand
sighed.  “He died in 1999.  My mother made it a condition of immigration that
my sister remain in mourning until her stateside matchmaker could find her a
suitable husband, or the year 2016, whichever come first.  I have a feeling my
sister, she will hold out,” he said.

K.
patted him on his shoulder.

Ida
Rose smiled as Armand opened the back door to sit beside her.  “Oh my, this is
almost like a gentleman caller!” she teased.

Armand
stared at her.  “Glass Menagerie or Hot Tin Roof?” he asked simply.

“Menagerie,
of course,” she replied normally.

Armand
nodded and sat beside her.  K. resumed navigator position and I resumed driving
– very grateful to not be standing on my already very sore feet or sat in the
backseat with Laura and her gentleman caller.

The
atmosphere in the car grew festive as Ida and K. managed to elicit more than a
grimace from Armand.  Actually, by the looks of it, Armand was excited, too. 
Well, as excited as Armand could appear.  He nodded a lot, while both Ida Rose
and K. prattled on about gourmet menus they’d read about and how they’d manage
the wine pairings.  This was where Armand became animated and actually offered
more than his usual mono-syllabic answers:  “Syrah.”  “Bordeaux.”  “Pinot.”

I
led us back downtown via Lititz Pike to Prince Street, and made a left on Lemon
toward Walter’s high rise apartment building.  Geographically, it would have
made sense to gather Armand last, as he lives so close to entrance to 222 and
therefore Route 76/Pennsylvania Turnpike.  However, as Walter is gravity
challenged, and I didn’t want to risk a visit to the ER and Trixie, I decided
we’d pick up Walter last.  All of us.

Walter
lives in one of the few high rise apartment buildings in downtown Lancaster.  K. went up for him.  K. returned without him.  I looked at K.

“The
elevator’s weight capacity does not include guests,” K. said simply.

I
shook my head.  We love Walter and he has a big heart.  But he has an even
bigger appetite and we all worry about when said big heart will need replacing
with a new one.

Walter
emerged from the lobby and into the summer swelter.  He stood panting on the
front walk.  Armand and K. leapt out to help him.  Hovering on either side of
him, they walked with him toward the Towncar.  Armand opened the door for
Walter to climb in.  Ida Rose leapt outside to offer Walter more room.  Or
maybe to not be sat upon.

“Wow. 
Sure is hot out here!  Got a lot hotter since April…”

Unfortunately,
or fortunately, Walter is a freelance writer and literally, not virtually,
lives on the internet.  His major claims to fame have been ghost writing and
editing cookbooks, parapsychology magazines, self-help books (not dieting),
commercial website content and some comic books.  He doesn’t leave his
apartment unless he absolutely, positively must.  He’s managed to find local
grocers and drycleaners and beer distributors that deliver.  I am equally
amazed and worried by his resourcefulness and his inertia.

Walter,
too, had decided to dress for the evening.  While most persons of Walter’s
girth might try to subdue their bulk with dark or neutral colors, Walter
prefers a livelier palette.  Tonight he sported miles and miles of fire engine
red and white vertical stripes in a cotton short-sleeved shirt, which he tucked
into a matching pair of fire engine red slacks, which were hemmed in with a
wide white canvas belt.  He accented these with white canvas sneakers.  All in
all, he looked like a pizza delivery man.

Walter
eased into the backseat, and I felt Vito’s Towncar sag.  K. scoped out the
remaining real estate in the backseat, and took Ida Rose and Armand to the
exterior of the car for a quick huddle.  I looked in the rearview and saw Ida
Rose nodding understandably. Then she climbed in petitely next to Walter and
exchanged pleasantries.  Meanwhile, I watched as Armand and K. performed ‘Once!
Twice! Three! Shoot!’ fingers.  Apparently K. lost.  He handed his maps to
Armand and wedged himself in on the other side of Walter.  Armand climbed into
the front seat next to me with all the social graces of a hockey mom.  I was
glad he didn’t have a whistle.