Spread on the counter space between where she stands and the deep double sink is an arrangement of white bread, seven grain bread, and cinnamon raisin bread; judging by the empty bread box behind it all, these must be the only bread products in the entire place.
"Maybe they're raisin bread and cream cheese people?" I suggest, nonplussed.
"That is just... wrong. There's no other word for it: it's just wrong."
She sighs dramatically and closes the fridge, finally turning to face me. For a heartbeat, she looks taken aback, but her expression soon shifts into a soft smile.
"I like your hair like that," she says.
"Thank you?" I reply, bending the pitch of the last syllable up into a question. It's my turn to be puzzled and pleasantly surprised, because I don't know what I did to deserve this unexpected praise.
"You're welcome?" she replies, copying my tone. "What did you do to it?"
"I brushed it."
"Well it looks good."
When she turns to fill the coffee pot with water, her back to me, I glance at my reflection in the microwave window. Instead of hanging down as straight as it usually does, my hair has almost a wave to it, framing my face. On any other day, I would consider it a nuisance and tie my hair up out of the way. Today though, I think I'll keep it the way it is- because Emily likes it.
"Thanks."
As she scoops some grinds into the filter in the back of the coffee machine, she changes the subject.
"I'm kind of surprised you never said anything about how they don't have a teapot here."
It's true: last night, in order to make my nightly tea, I'd had to heat my water in the smallest sauce pan, which now sits empty and cold on the inactive stovetop.
"I don't know how I could expect them to have a kettle, I respond, putting two slices of cinnamon raisin bread into the upright toaster and pulling down the lever. "It's just Kyle and his dad- really, just Kyle, most of the time. Two guys live here, and they don't strike me as tea drinkers."
That assumption manifests itself more than enough in the inviting and yet still somehow cold amenities all around us- the leather couches, the dark floors and walls. A decorator had tried to make this house a home, but had failed due to the lack of life lived here.
Now that I know about how much time Jonathon spends here, I can see little signs of it here and there- a pair of blue jeans too long for Kyle draped on the back of a chair in the guest room, a senior English textbook on the dining room table. I'm sure that if I'd paid attention, I would have noticed an extra toothbrush in the bathroom.
I'm not sure if it makes me sad or not that Kyle's main caretaker is not his frazzled and never-present father, but the friend whose vehicle played a starring role in his injury; a friend who has a family of his own, but still chooses to assist Kyle as practically live-in help. It irritates me that a man whose son can barely dress himself alone would continue to travel with work instead of staying home to help. I'm sure that if Mr. Johnson were here, I would have trouble resisting giving him the piece of my mind that, like Jonathon, resides semi-permanently with Kyle and his full leg cast.
My toast popping out of the toaster, a little on the dark side, reminds me that it's really none of my business how Kyle's father reacted- none of this is really my business. I'm just a guest, just a friend.
When Kyle comes in as I'm finishing off my toast and Emily is sitting next to me, holding her second cup of coffee like it's made of gold- no less precious than the first- his hair is still wet from the shower and he has the look of someone who begged the night for five more minutes when he broke up this morning.
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
Tea For Two
हास्य-विनोद"Just wondering, Shoemaker. Are you going to tell your parents? Or should I?" When I was little, I was terribly afraid of heights. One day, in a bleak attempt to rid me of this, my father climbed onto the roof of our one story house with me on his b...
