Hailey Abbott

All she wanted to do was leave this inferno of a room, pour herself a glass of iced tea, and lie on the porch chair with a fan aimed directly at her face.

But she couldn’t, so instead she poised her knife as she had seen David do, and brought it down on one of the eggplants with a resounding whack. The vegetable split into two pale halves, which lay in front of her on the cutting board, rocking slightly. Maddy leaned forward to examine them. All sorts of little seeds were suspended in some sort of spongy, stringy stuff in the middle. What did you do with those? Could you eat them? She shrugged and chopped four others into halves and the halves into pieces. That should do it. It looked like kind of a lot, but there were five people eating.

The fennel was even more daunting. Eat the tops? Cut the tops off? Eat the thing raw? Cook it? Finally, she just sliced the whole thing up, feathery tops and all. The tomatoes were easy, although two had worms in them, which was revolting. She accidentally dropped some pieces on the floor and then stepped on them, which created tomato slime all over the place that she had to stop and mop up.

The peppers were the nicest looking—dark green, slender, and shiny. The onions, though, made her eyes tear. While she was blundering to the sink to splash water on her face, she knocked the entire cutting board, heaped 204

The Other Boy

with sliced vegetables, onto the floor. Damn it! She forgot her stinging eyes and knelt quickly to gather up the scattered pieces. What David didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She picked the biggest pieces of dust off the pile and then put the spill out of her mind. It was already twelve thirty. How the hell had that happened? The only lunch in sight was a battered pile of raw vegetables. She flashed on the image of David standing at this very counter, his knife flashing like magic, transforming a pile of olives into tiny bits, chatting effortlessly the entire time. Well, you’re a beginner, Maddy, but you can do it. Just think of his face when he realizes you cooked this whole lunch. She wiped her arm across her forehead, grabbed a large pot out of the cabinet, dumped every last piece in, and then turned the burner on. There. Now, what went with cooked vegetables? Well, she knew how to make pasta. And they could spoon the vegetables over the top. Maddy searched through the pantry but couldn’t find any of the familiar blue-and-red boxes. She shut the door and stood tapping her fingers on her cheek, thinking. They’d had pasta just the other night. Maddy remembered seeing a pile of it on the counter. In a flash of inspiration, she opened the refrigerator door. There it was—a plastic bag of noodles sitting right in the front. She grabbed it, filled another pot with water and set it on a high flame.

The smell of smoke distracted her from the pasta 205

Hailey Abbott

water. Damn! She peered into the vegetable pot. Some of the veggies were burning and stuck to the bottom of the pot, but other pieces still looked alarmingly raw. Maddy grabbed a long wooden spoon and poked at the mess. Maybe she should take it off the burner and switch to the microwave or something. Before she could do that, she was interrupted by a splashing, sizzling sound. The pasta water was ready—boiling over, in fact. She turned down the flame and dumped in the noodles. They looked strange—soft instead of stiff. But, it was twelve forty-five, and she still had to set the table. She thought again of the long table set among the cool green leaves of the field. Well, she wasn’t doing that. The table out on the lawn would be fine. The kitchen was like a circle of hell right now. There was no way they could eat inside. Maddy pulled a stack of plates down from the shelves and added silverware. Paper napkins would have to suffice—it was just lunch. If anyone ( David) didn’t think that was classy enough, tough. Except there weren’t any napkins—at least, none that she could find, and she didn’t know where her mother kept the cloth ones. She grabbed a roll of paper towels. Why had she ever thought that this little enterprise would improve her foul mood?

She banged out the back door and across the lawn. It wasn’t much cooler outside, and the picnic table at the rear of the lawn was baking in the sun. Maddy didn’t 206

The Other Boy

really have time to think about it, though. She hurriedly dealt out place settings for five and dashed back across the lawn.

The kitchen smelled ominously of burning, and smoke was beginning to wisp from the vegetable pot. Crap! Maddy realized she’d forgotten to take it off the burner. She quickly set the vegetables aside on the counter and peered anxiously into the pot of noodles. Something wasn’t right. Instead of the nicely al dente strands she expected, the surface was covered with broken-up pieces of noodle, and the water was all cloudy. She looked at the clock—she hadn’t screwed up this time. It had only been eight minutes since she put the pasta in the water. So why did it look so weird? She stabbed a fork at the mess, but only succeeded in breaking up the depressingly mushy noodles into even smaller pieces. It looked years overdone. Lovely. Just lovely. Maddy stood staring at the pot, breathing in the smoke that hung in a little cloud around the kitchen ceiling until she heard her mother’s voice on the porch.

“Need any help?” She turned around. Her mom was peering through the screen door.

“No!” Maddy leaped at the door. “Go sit down outside. I’m almost ready. . . .”

“Oh, good. Dad and Fred are back and they’re starving.” Her mother trailed off. Maddy turned her attention back to the more urgent tasks at hand. She gingerly tried 207

Hailey Abbott

to pick the noodle pieces out of the water with two big salad forks and managed to transfer most of them to a bowl, though they were dangerously fragile. The vegetables looked completely bizarre. For the most part, they were an indistinguishable, blackened stew, but for some reason, the onion stood out in big, raw-looking pieces. Maddy scraped it all on top of the noodles and, in a pitiful attempt to make the dish attractive, picked a sprig of Mom’s fresh basil from the pot on the windowsill and stuck it in the middle, where it looked garishly green in contrast. Maddy picked up the giant bowl and a serving spoon and headed toward the door. Damn. Drinks. She set the bowl down and opened the fridge. The tea pitcher was about an inch full. The entire family had drunk it by the gallon all summer and Mom had picked today not to make any? Maddy looked around wildly and spied a packet of Crystal Light sitting on the counter. Mixedberry flavor. Fine. She filled a pitcher and dumped in the powder. It turned the water a thoroughly unnatural red. Maddy loaded the whole business onto a tray. This is the lunch she was going to win David back with? One bowl of mush and red-40-laden water. She gritted her teeth and pushed through the screen door toward the table on the lawn.

208

Chapter Twenty-four

!

Everyone was already sitting around the table. Maddy tried not to notice David’s figure at one end. The lawn seemed very long as she bore her tray in front of her like some ridiculous offering. She looked like hell, too—dirty, smelly, and unshowered. The thought occurred to her that she matched the food— totally unappealing.

She looked everywhere but at David as she set the tray down on the table.

“What’s this dish called, Maddy?” Fred asked. He looked very different in his neatly pressed slacks and sport shirt. She’d never seen him in anything but jeans.

“Ah . . . Eggplant Surprise.” She sank down into a chair and sneaked a hopeful glance at David. He was 209

Hailey Abbott

staring at the empty water glass in front of him, a studiedly casual expression pasted on his face. Maddy turned her gaze to the table. It looked dismal. The sun was beating down on everything in sight. Her father had almost sweated through his shirt. Maddy’s mind flashed on the image of her birthday dinner, the gracefully set table, the platters of luscious dishes, the glasses and china glittering in the flickering candlelight—and David’s proud, smiling face. She almost had to shut her eyes against the scene in front her. Before her sat a hurriedly set table in the harsh glare of the noon sun, complete with one roll of paper towels and a lonely bowl of vegetables. Fred lifted the pitcher of red liquid. “Can I pour anyone some . . . Kool-Aid?” He paused quizzically on the last word.