Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories (8 page)

Edna finished getting the dishes ready while the aliens chittered over the utensils. She knew they were also sneaking glances at her hands but that didn’t worry her. Even with a touch of arthritis they were still shapely for her age, not like Sherri’s poor hands gnarled like tree roots. The casserole was still slightly warm so she popped it in the oven for a quick reheat. Luckily she had made the cold salads and the dessert earlier in the day, so they were all ready to eat.

This time the third alien—the middle one—came over to help. He looked more alien, more jaundiced yellow instead of the sunny yellow of the other two. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he might be older. The other two seemed to defer to him. He seemed more excitable, the kind of person who flew into tempers if not humoured properly. He was happy enough right now, and peered at her in a short-sighted kind of way,
as if he needs glasses
, Edna thought. She took a serving spoon from the jar beside the stove and stuck it into the potato salad, handing him the bowl. Glasses took it delightedly, sniffing with what must be his nose, a protrusion between orange eyes and grimacing mouth, but tilted so far up, Edna could stare right into the two air passages. She turned away, feeling like she was seeing something she shouldn’t. Glasses took the bowl over to the table and came back for the green Jell-O salad and then the red. The lime wobbled with carrots, celery and green pepper. The red was sweeter with peaches and pears and mini marshmallows. Both were moulded into wreaths. Edna herself brought over the teapot and the mugs.

Edna Calhoun sat down at her kitchen table with the three aliens. Spread out on the orange and white checked cloth were the three salads, the cat and mouse shakers Katie had sent her ages ago, the teapot and mugs, utensils and a butter knife. Edna sighed. “Old age is making me forget me manners. I’ve forgotten half the meal.” She went back to the cupboards and brought out the plates. She went into the pantry and brought out a jar of dill pickles and a loaf of bread. Edna used to make her own dill pickles, never as fine as Ruth’s but with a respectable crunch, but she had let the garden go after the kids had left. The store-bought were tasty and cheap.
Not much point into going to all the trouble of pickling for two
, she had said to Jonno. No point at all just for herself. Finally she went and got the margarine out of the refrigerator.

Edna settled back into her vinyl chair. The aliens looked at her, smiling with all those teeth. Edna smiled back. “Well now. I don’t hold with no prayers or anything, so let’s all just help ourselves to this good food.”

Edna pushed the potato salad towards George, who was sitting on her right. On her left, Auntie Simmons touched her forearm gently. Edna was surprised. Their skin didn’t feel like the rubber yellow glove—more like peach fuzz. Edna looked at Auntie. Auntie turned to Glasses. Glasses, Auntie and George linked their hands and took Edna’s. She liked the feel of their skin—soft and warm like a baby’s. Together, the aliens chittered briefly in sing-song voices as they smiled at each other. Edna smiled too. They sat their quietly, enjoying the moment. To Edna, the room seemed to shrink and expand at the same time, After a couple more moments, they dropped hands and Glasses said awkwardly, speaking for the first time in a voice as textured as his hands, “Thank you.”

Edna tried not to blush as she said, “You’re welcome.” Her voice came out funny. She felt like she did when Jonno smiled at her when they woke up beside one another in the morning. She stared at the tablecloth as she pushed the potato salad towards George. “Help yourselves.”

Everyone did. Edna opened the bag of Wonder Bread and offered it around. The aliens were very excited by the plastic bag, with its yellow, red and blue dots and stripes. They gestured for her to repeat its name. Edna said, “Wonder Bread. You get it at Valu-Mart, the grocery store.” The aliens sat for a moment then broke out into the laughing noise. Edna smiled too, although she wasn’t sure just what the joke was. Wonder Bread. How much English did they understand? “I guess it does sound kind of strange.”

While the aliens were tasting the salads, Edna got up and took the casserole from the oven. It smelt as good as it always did. She should have served it at the same time as the salad, but “better late and hot than early and cold.” That’s what Jonno always said when she started to fret about food being ready to serve at the same time. He said it too, when he’d had a late time fishing and would try and sneak his big burly body into their bed so she wouldn’t wake up and be angry. But she was always awake, wondering if the sea had gotten him, if this was the night, and her anger only covered her relief. Jonno knew that and would only say
better late and hot than early and cold
as he threw his arm around her so they could laugh together. She’d been lucky in the end, people said, with him dying neat and clean in the living room of a heart attack instead of out there on the cold sea with the fish to find his bones. But she’d have preferred it if the sea had taken him, the sea he loved, rather than sitting at home with the life gone from him.
He was dead before he died
, she thought bitterly.
The damn government took that when they took back his fishing license. No more cod. As if we hadn’t been telling them high muck-a-mucks that for years, and they’d taken no more notice than a child notices a mosquito. Jonno’s heart went out with the tide every time he got a cheque instead of a fishing quota, and it never came back, either.

Edna shook herself. Thinking about Jonno like that with company here. She didn’t know what got her thinking so sad. At least Jonno had gotten a good forty years on the sea, like his dad and his granddad. It was Stan who’d only gotten to taste it. Poor Stan, lost in the big city, hanging out with all those strange radio people. She brought the tuna melt casserole over to the table and sat back down. Auntie Simmons smiled kindly at her. George looked at the casserole and at Edna’s face and leaped up with a chitter of glee to dash into the kitchen and take a serving spoon from the jar. He stuck it proudly into the casserole. Edna had to laugh. “Thank you, George, guess I was forgetting again. This is a tuna casserole. Won second prize at Bonavista Festival last year.” Edna was very proud of the casserole. Edna had created it herself and hadn’t told anyone her secret ingredients that made it the richest and tastiest around. She’d improved it since the fair, and this year she knew she’d take home the first.

Edna tried to explain Jell-O to the aliens. They hadn’t asked in so many words, not having said anything in English since Glasses said “thank you,” but simply kept looking at the Jell-O salads then at Edna until she felt she had to say something. Edna wasn’t sure herself how to describe it. She was talking about hot water and many colours when the front doorbell rang. Edna was astonished. “Why, that hasn’t rung since . . .” Her voice faltered.
Since the ambulance came to take away Jonno
, she thought. Auntie Simmons and George had funny expressions on their faces. George let out a squeaky chitter as they both turned to Glasses. Glasses made a gesture with one yellow hand and looked directly at Edna. Edna looked into his orange eyes, then at George and Auntie Simmons. She got up heavily from the table. “You just sit tight and keep on eating. Don’t ye worry.”

Edna had to pull hard to open the front door once she got it unlocked. She tugged it open a few inches and looked out to see two men in suits on the tiny front porch of her bungalow. The older one looked very formal, grey hair slicked smooth on his head, like he’d never been in a head wind his whole life. The younger man, skinny and tall, had very curly brown hair that didn’t know which way to go. He looked excited.

The older man spoke in a clipped mainlander accent. “Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Calhoun. We’ve reason to think there is a dangerous offender in the area . . .” He paused briefly. “. . . from St. John’s. We’re just doing a routine check. Have you seen or heard anything out of the ordinary today or tonight.”

The young one broke in: “In the woods, have you heard any noise or seen strange lights in the woods?” The older man shot him a mean look and Curly subsided.

Edna stared at them, thinking. Government folks. Suits. At her front door spouting about Danger. Danger. It was obvious they wanted the aliens. Would almost smile if she were to stand aside and motion towards her kitchen. Edna was not a brilliant woman, but she was shrewd. She could see how hungry Curly was for a taste of the aliens. On the verge of the highway, she could make out dark shapes of cars. She could see Sherri’s front light on—they must have a couple of men over there too. The suits must want them bad. Wanted to take them away and act like they know best. The same way they knew best when they resettled all the folks from Kearley’s Harbour, closing down a whole community just because they said so. They never stuck around long enough to see the results either. Her Aunty Gwen moved after her whole life on the water. Within the year in St. John’s she’d gone blind and died. She may have been seventy-one but they were long livers in her family, nearing ninety most of them. Standing just behind her front door, looking at the contained arrogance of the men, Edna was suddenly furious, furious as she’d ever been. Furious in a way she had lost in the tidal wave of grief she’d felt looking at Jonno keeled onto the carpet, gone from her for good. Opening the door wider, Edna drew herself up as stern as her rounded body allowed, solid as a lighthouse. She glared at the men.

“Who d’ye think ye are? Disturbing me in my house with nary a warning? What’s yer talk about lights and bad people? In this place? We’d be lucky if we get a drunk from Bonavista on the highway. What are ye thinking of? Disturbing an old woman with scary talk. Get away from me now. Get back to where ye came from.”

Mr. Formal looked startled. “It’s simply a public service . . .” Edna glared again. He shot Curly a rueful glance that implied “typical newfie” and pulled a business card smoothly from his coat pocket. “If you hear or see anything out of the ordinary, call right away, although I’m sure you’re right. There is nothing to worry about.” Edna took the card ungraciously.

“Nothing to worry about?” she snapped. “I’ve got plenty to worry about. No cod. No more summer berries. Storms one day and a drought the next. A pension that gets smaller every month. Everybody leaving like Maberly died and was left out in the sun, stinking. What’s left in this place ’cepting worries and memories, boy? You leave us be with your big city talk of bad people. Everybody here knows where the rotten apples are.” Edna thought she saw Curly’s face turn red as she struggled to shut the door.

She stood for a moment behind the shut door, her heart pounding against her chest. Edna hadn’t yelled at anyone since she was young. She felt ashamed of herself, screaming at strangers. Screaming at human strangers, to protect the alien ones in her kitchen. She took a deep breath.
What’s there to feel bad about, Edna dear? It’ll make a good story to tell the girls tomorrow, and however much they purse their lips, you know every woman there will wish she’d done the same. I won’t tell them about the aliens, though. Don’t think they’d understand that part.
She tried not to think about how she didn’t understand her behaviour either. They were aliens in her kitchen after all, strange no matter what names she called them. She was probably betraying all of humanity by closing the door on the suits. She didn’t care. Edna realized the tension she’d been feeling in herself all evening was now gone. She no longer believed the aliens would hurt her. She sighed, knowing they’d be leaving like all the come-from-aways, leaving her to live her days alone. Edna shook her head.
As if you’d be going anywhere but the cemetery
, she told herself.
I’d never leave this place. It’s in me bones.

Edna looked at the business card Mr. Formal had given her as she listened to a car start up and move away. It was plain white, with only a name and the Government of Canada symbol in the upper left hand corner. She left the card on the side table in the living room as she walked back towards the warmly lit kitchen.

The aliens looked as if they hadn’t moved since she left. Frozen into positions around the table, it didn’t even feel like they were in the room. Edna made her feet louder as she walked in and settled back into her chair. “Without Jonno to play his fiddle, guess the government has to provide the entertainment too. Don’t ye worry. They were just looking for an escaped criminal.” Edna looked at Glasses. “I told them there were none of those here in Maberly.”

Glasses smiled gently as the three of them seemed to unfold a little and relax. Auntie Simmons reached over and stroked Edna’s arm, leaving it warm. “Well, I think it’s time for dessert.” Edna went over to the fridge and brought out a pink and frothy angel food cake. “Now this is a Betty Crocker cake mix. I don’t know who she is, exactly . . .”

After the meal was finished, plates scraped clean and mugs of tea polished off, Edna and the aliens sat contentedly back in the white vinyl chairs. The aliens had coaxed Edna into telling the ingredients for all the recipes as well as the best stores for value. They repeated the occasional word back to her in their funny deep squirrel voices. She showed them the packets of Jell-O and mini marshmallows and the cans of tuna in her pantry. The aliens chittered excitedly. She even broke down and told them the secret ingredients of her tuna casserole. French’s prepared mustard, two egg yolks and pesto sauce that Kate sent up from the city. “Why not? I know you won’t tell anyone in Bonavista.”

The aliens left after helping her do the dishes. George and Auntie Simmons had washed and dried and put away under her direction while Glasses stood in her pantry and stared at the cans of tuna. As they all stood by the back door, George, Auntie Simmons and Glasses touched Edna’s heart, her hands, their own mouth and their middle. Then they each bowed and said a halting thank you. “Thank you for welcoming. Enjoyed. Not forget. Thank you.” George added, “Tuna. Very fine, very fine,” and winked.