Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold (30 page)

Slowly, the water began to drain. Of course, that also let a quantity of grounds slip through.
Creative science often includes compromises
.

While he was solving the thick-filter problem, the toast began burning. Before he could deal with the toaster, rising smoke activated the ceiling detector and a terrible piercing beep commenced. Fortunately, he put down the ice pick before he covered his ears.

Find stepstool!
Hall closet.

Anyone who’s ever silenced a smoke detector knows two hands are needed to cover the ears and both are also required to disable the alarm. Since few humans come equipped with four hands, fundamental decisions must be made. First logical choice was to cover one ear and use one free hand to rip out the battery.
Nope.
Battery connection harnesses are manufacturer-certified to require two dexterous hands to remove them. Sacrifice both ears!

Amanda had begun moving down the hall on the alarm’s first painful shrieks. Now she tried to whack the detector device with the foot of her left crutch, since her injured right wrist helped steady her stance. All she actually accomplished was to bludgeon Jason’s knuckles, but she apparently felt the need to remain involved.

It was no use yelling at her to stop whacking, because neither of them could hear anything but the piercing alarm. Jason finally wrestled the battery out of the detector and then slumped down onto the stepstool. Amanda kept her crutch poised in case the device reactivated itself.

Jason rubbed his ears and moaned softly. Then he massaged his bruised knuckles, realigned his karma, and nonchalantly greeted the patient. “Morning. Coffee coming right up.”
Alarm?
What alarm?

———

Amanda took stock of the kitchen. Three pieces of burned toast and a puddle of brackish hot water around the brewing machine. Small streams of coffee already dripped over the edge of the counter to the floor.

Noticing her look of horror, Jason got up slowly. He tossed some paper towels to the floor and tamped them with his foot. Then he did the same on the counter with his hands. “Have a seat and I’ll bring it over.” After trying several cabinets, he located two cups and began pouring coffee.

Amanda couldn’t see his activity because he faced the other direction, but she heard paper tearing a few times and a spoon stirring noisily.

Jason brought Amanda’s cup to the couch where she’d just gotten settled. “It might be a little dark.”

He was modest; it was triple strength. When Amanda took a sip, it drew in her cheeks. She made the
kahh
noise twice.

“Oh, and I already sweetened it.”

“How much
sweet
did you put in?”

Jason had to close his eyes to remember. “Two of the yellow packets.”

That’s enough to sweeten the entire pot!
But she didn’t say anything. Amanda took another sip.
Kahh!
“I might need to add a skosh of water in mine, to take the edge off a bit.”

“Want me to do it?”

“No, thanks. But would you mind getting my left slipper from the bedroom? My bare foot’s in a draft.”

“Sure. Where?”

“Probably my closet.”

Jason went to her bedroom suite to search for the solo slipper.

While he was gone, Amanda poured her coffee into the soil of the potted plant near the television. The rising steam looked a bit like a gauzy mushroom cloud from a miniature atomic bomb. She left one sip of liquid in the cup, along with about half an ounce of grounds which had escaped filtration.

Jason actually produced the right-foot slipper, but its broad-toe design would also accommodate her other foot. It just looked odd — like she was about to turn a corner. “Thanks.”

“You want me to add that water to your coffee now?”

“No thanks, I already finished it.” She held up the nearly empty cup.

He took it. “Want some more?”

“No! I mean… no, it feels like I’ve already had three cups. Plus that smoke alarm kind of woke me up anyhow.”

“Yeah, that was awful. Probably a defective battery.” He pointed to the source of the smoke. “You want any toast?”

“No, thanks. I’m trying to cut back on my charcoal intake.”

Clearly, he still didn’t catch her sarcasm. “How about a scrambled egg with cheese mixed in?”

Normally that would tempt her, but Amanda pictured at least one egg on the floor, some raw egg sloshed on the burner, and a solid clump of cheese being added too late. “No, thanks. I’ve developed a yen for those rice cake crackers. Maybe I’ll chomp on those for a while.”

No doubt Jason remembered those crackers only too well. “You sure? I don’t mind cooking.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” She was totally certain. “Thanks anyway.” It was only later that Amanda remembered no eggs or cheese were even present in her household.

Jason poked through the items which had been on the dining table since Thursday. The partly stale saltine crackers evidently seemed most promising of that lot, so he finished the entire sleeve.

The remainder of the morning went similarly, though without additional smoke alarms.

With apparently sincere motive of helpfulness, Jason ascertained the contents of the dishwasher were clean by smelling the inside of every single glass — a redundant test Amanda had never found necessary.

Putting away clean dishes is usually considered helpful, but
help
is a relative term. Everything involving any cabinet seemed to involve nearly
all
of them. Evidently Jason had a concentration deficiency. If he’d just seen the location for glasses about twenty seconds before, he immediately forgot that portal if he’d held a bowl in the meantime. Yet he didn’t catch on that all the glasses could be put up within the same short time span and then he could move on to bowls.

By the time Jason finished putting away the dishes, Amanda figured she’d scream if she ever again heard, “Where does this go?”

Once the dishwasher was empty, Jason ran the hot tap full blast for nearly fifteen minutes as he rinsed the few dishes in the sink. A single swipe of the sponge would have dispatched whatever he’d identified in or on each dish, but he apparently figured several minutes of full-bore scalding water was a better solution.

After their torturous rinsing, those few dishes were dumped into whatever portion of the dishwasher struck Jason’s fancy. His single pattern seemed to be no pattern, since no two similar items ended up anywhere near each other. It goes without saying that several top rack items were tossed into the bottom. Amanda made a mental note to rescue them later if the
Tasmanian Jason
ever went to sleep.

When the kitchen activity finally ceased, water soaked the counters and had splashed to the floor all around the dishwasher. No doubt Jason observed those conditions but evidently concluded it was a natural state for water-related kitchen areas to have
standing
water.

He got another cup of coffee and sat on the couch next to Amanda, who was watching yet another movie. Jason took a sip.
Kahh!
“Maybe I should’ve made that allshitz acorn stuff. This is a little stout.”

“No, I’m all out of acorns. This was okay. Next time, though, you might hold back a bit on the sweetener.” She didn’t want to sound too critical. “Uh, maybe not as many grounds, either…”

———

Jason felt pretty validated. All that kitchen drudgery had been mildly therapeutic and it brought to mind a serious topic he’d wanted to discuss with Amanda. He looked in the direction of the television without observing any programming content whatsoever. It was the archetypal scene where the strikingly handsome man realizes he’s wronged the gorgeous woman and urgently wants to make up. “Is this show at a crucial part?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Not really. I’ve seen this movie. They’re just about to kiss and jump into bed together.”

“I think they all have that scene.” He shook his head briefly. “Had a question about all that cure-scare stuff Christine designed — I read about it on the blog. Everything was a pack of lies, right? Flax and hemp and cushaw?”

“No, those are legitimate foods.”

“What about the cable guy, analog conversion, maids, therapies…” He paused to remember everything. “The A/C glitch, Greek funeral, and the back-order part they loaned you. All that was baloney?”

“All fabricated, Jason.” She shrugged. “Did you actually believe any of that?”

“I didn’t have any reason to think you’d lie to me.”

“I’m sorry I lied. That was totally wrong. But some of it was so preposterous that we figured you’d just have to realize it was a sham.”

Jason shook his head. “You two really had me going. I believed everything, even the stuff that was completely unbelievable. I guess I’m about the dumbest guy in Verdeville.”

“No, you’re not dumb. You had no way to know I’d been convinced to conspire to make you miserable.” She faced him but didn’t meet his eyes. “Everything that happened was designed to jar you out of causing me all that extra stress during my Hell Weeks. But you never seemed to catch on. It was astonishing.”

Jason felt wounded. “It would have been easier to run me off by just being direct and honest.”

She delayed her reply to lessen the residual anger. “I tried direct and honest. I told you I was swamped at work and you should stay in your own apartment.”

“But I didn’t think you meant it.”

“I guess that’s part of our relationship we should’ve worked on: clear speaking and plain understanding.” Her delivery had more tenderness than the words themselves conveyed.

“I’m sorry I was so dense. It just never occurred to me that you’d deliberately make things awful just to get rid of me.” He sighed heavily.

“I really am sorry. It was cruel. I see things more clearly now. At the time, I was swept up in the momentum. Christine can be a powerful force sometimes. Like a tornado.”

“More like a witch. At one point I thought she had you under a spell.”

“No, I was just being selfish.” Amanda’s eyes watered. It may have been the guilt that she’d allowed him to suffer so much… or the pain in her toes.

Jason tried to comfort her, but he felt self-conscious with his arm hanging over her shoulder. So he put his hand on her thigh, but that was awkward in a different way. Finally he just held her uninjured left hand. But he couldn’t hold her hand very long; it seemed odd not to touch other parts of her. So, shifting physically and topically, Jason offered to wash Amanda’s clothes.

———

Amanda nearly shrieked. After a brief panic attack, she gently talked Jason out of laundry duty. Amanda could imagine the effects of wrong cycle and hot temperature on her best wash-and-wear garments, and it gave her chills.

Jason must have thought she was cold, because he retrieved a clean bath towel and draped it over her shoulders.

Though Amanda had begun this reversal with a rather stony attitude problem, she had already witnessed that Jason truly was compassionate — though he expressed it clumsily — and not nearly as shallow as she’d thought. He was still considerably inept around the household, but those were skills which conceivably could be acquired with dedicated tutelage. Jason’s newly-manifested compassion was an innate quality, however, and one which Amanda suddenly realized she valued highly.

At about 10:45 a.m., noting the cupboard was bare of almost everything besides a few staples, Jason volunteered to make a grocery run.

“Are you going to punish me with the same kind of awful garbage Christine fed you?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Amanda.” Jason hugged her left side briefly. “No human, vegans included, should have to eat hemp and flax… and tofu.”

Amanda squinted into his face. She suspected he would just purchase his own favorites. “I think I’ll tag along.”

“No need to. Just tell me what stuff you like.”

“I need the fresh air anyhow. I’ve been cooped up here since I left the hospital Wednesday, except for that visit to the doctor’s office.”

Jason sighed so heavily Mrs. Yodel probably heard it next door. He likely figured this grocery run was about to slow to a crawl.

Amanda ignored his furrowed brow. “I just need to use the bathroom and I’m ready. Will you grab my purse?”

Since she hadn’t shaved her legs in three days, she really wanted to change from her cargo shorts to jeans, but there wasn’t time and it would hurt her toes. Plus, she didn’t figure anybody would notice her at Verde Grocery anyway. Since her hair was ratty, Amanda grabbed a baseball cap, gratis from a local veterans’ group which had received a grant due to her recommendation.

She made it to his pickup just fine — much easier with the crutches at the proper height. Partly because of her injured right wrist, it was awkward getting into the truck, so Jason helped. Amanda buckled up and began writing her shopping list as soon as her driver backed out of the parking slip.

Clearly, Jason noticed her list was growing quite long. He sped up. When he drove faster, she wrote faster. When he slowed for traffic, she wrote slower.

Parked in the grocery lot, Jason seemed about to bolt from the car, but Amanda clutched his forearm. “Before we go in, we ought to talk about expectations.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve never been grocery shopping with you before, so I’d like to know what your expectations are.”

“Expectations?” Perhaps he’d never heard that word in the context of groceries. “Simple. Zoom in, hustle to the racks with whatever I need, and zoom back out. Stop and pay, of course.”

“Of course. Well, I kind of figured you’d have the commando approach. So, I wanted to brace you. Shopping for nearly two weeks’ worth of groceries and supplies involves strategy, scheduling, and maneuvering.”

“Why do women have to make everything hard?”

Amanda ignored his obviously unintended double entendre. “It’s not about being difficult. It’s about practicality and economy, saving time and gasoline. With the commando method, you have to shop nearly every day and sometimes twice in the same day. With that mad dash approach, a shopper tends to forget things or overlooks components of a particular meal.”