“Right, right,” I said, walking farther into the room. My imagination ignited so powerfully that I felt nostalgic, as though I were remembering a past rather than planning a future. My inner set dresser placed phantom film posters on the two window-less walls, a bed with a folding screen at the foot, a hot plate and coffeemaker, a cluttered desk with a bra slung over the back of the chair. Months’ if not years’ worth of compressed longings unpacked themselves to fill the empty space.
Using my cane for security on the unfamiliar floor, I crossed to one of the windows and touched it with my fingertips. It had been a long time since I had been awakened by a sunrise, and I’m one of those rare people who adores it. I love a day I haven’t screwed up yet.
“It’s not furnished,” said the last rational part of my brain before it stopped waving its arms and drowned.
“We have an air mattress and an extra chair or two you can use until you make other arrangements,” said Caryl. “Would you like to see the kitchen?”
Suddenly I was ravenous. Caryl held the door open for my exit and then locked up behind us as the one-eared cat skittered back into the bathroom. I fought an irrational surge of possessiveness when Caryl slipped the key into her pocket.
She led me downstairs and took a right toward the grand piano, then another right through a framed opening into a quaint dining room complete with dark oak china cabinets. A third right through a narrow doorway brought us into a clay-tiled kitchen with an island in the center. There, Song and two others sat on bar stools, watching a young man cook.
The chef had the chiseled, dark-browed beauty of a telenovela heartthrob, but his hair was dull as tar and cut to hide his face. I guessed him to be in his early twenties, despite the practiced, almost presentational way he handled the kitchen equipment. When he glanced my way, I noticed the shadows under his eyes. He smiled, quick and devastating.
“Six plates or five?” he said, his gaze lingering briefly on the more severely scarred side of my face. Until that moment, I had forgotten what I looked like now. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Will you be eating?” Caryl prompted me gently.
“At some point,” I said. “It’s kind of a regular thing with me.”
“Another wiseass,” said the dark-bearded white guy next to Song. “She and Teo will get along fine.”
“That is my hope,” said Caryl.
A soft ohhhh of understanding rose from everyone but Teo. Teo just turned and looked at me again, more penetrating this time and a lot less friendly. Finally he muttered a bitter “Fan-tastic,” and turned back to his cooking.
“Mateo Salazar,” said Caryl politely, “allow me to introduce Millicent Roper. Millie, this is Teo. You will be working together.”
“Charmed,” said Teo in a tone that meant the opposite.
“Don’t mind Teo,” said a cloying, high-pitched Southern voice. “He’s a Grouchy Gus.” The woman on the other side of Song leaned around mother and baby to look at me.
She was a blonde dressed in business casual. I was so disoriented by her accent—North Georgia, if I wasn’t mistaken—that it took me a moment to process that she wasn’t quite four feet tall. She was pretty despite an overlarge forehead; her bare feet dangled above the floor, where a delicate pair of beige pumps rested beneath her bar stool. “I’m Gloria,” she said.
“I, uh.” My brain felt like a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam.
“You’ve never met a little person before.” She giggled, in that cute way Southern women do instead of punching you in the teeth.
Pretty blond Southern girls had tormented me all through high school, but I just nodded and smiled, knowing she’d mistake the reason for my instant revulsion.
Teo, bless him, chose that moment to start plunking down plates of gnocchi on the tiled island. He put down six, so I took one, but I elected to hunch over the counter instead of sitting. The first bite made my fork hand go limp with pleasure.
“Sweet Jesus,” I said, earning a frown from Gloria.
“Good thing you like Italian,” growled Nameless Bearded Guy. “It’s all he ever makes, and the rest of us can’t cook for shit. Sorry, Gloria,” he added, though whether for the language or the slight on her cooking I couldn’t tell.
“Sometimes I do Chinese,” protested Teo, “or Jamaican. I’d do Indian more often if Phil didn’t make a point of bringing back Wendy’s every time I did.”
“Would it kill you to make a burger?” grumbled Bearded Guy.
Mexican was my favorite, but there had to be some reason that particular elephant was shuffling unmolested around the room. So I just shut my mouth and ate my gnocchi, trying not to make pornographic sounds about the oily-smooth Gorgonzola cream sauce.
“Should Song start getting your room ready for you after lunch?” said Caryl as she settled down with her own plate.
Song gave me a smile. Now that her baby was finished drinking from her boob, it was dozing comfortably in the sling.
I looked back at Caryl. “Do you live here too?”
“I don’t, though I often dine here.” That got a grin from Teo.
I said nothing, just gave Caryl a look that said, You’re leaving me alone with this menagerie?
My expression must have been transparent, because Caryl said in as close to a reassuring tone as she could manage, “Song will look after you.”
5