While she’s got a freakishly good handle on my food and alcohol preferences—but who wouldn’t love everything on this menu?—she’s wrong to think that I have friends here. That I’m not entirely alone. It’s been ten years since my family has lived in Wake. Any help with the house or car is surely the result of my mother paying someone.
But when I step outside and take in the exceedingly quaint view of the street in front of me, I cannot help but feel hopeful. I mean, my God, this street defines cuteness.
I stop into Finley’s Minis, a shop that only sells treats in tiny sizes—mini cheesecakes, mini doughnuts and cookies, tiny scoops of ice cream in little cones, cupcakes the size of a shot glass, Nutella brownies that could fit on my thumb. I am so enchanted that I have the owner, Jackson Finley, fill a large mixed container for me. Even given these mini sizes, the amount that I leave with for one person is silly. But I couldn’t resist.
After I walk back to the car and drop the pastries, I head back into the heart of Wake, resolving to make quick work of my grocery shopping so that my minis don’t fall apart in the heat of a sealed car. I mean, they’reminis, so I assume they have a short survival rate in any kind of heat. To be sure, I crack open a few windows as though I were keeping a golden retriever from overheating.
When I get to the small grocery store, I snag a cart. For the first time in my life, I realize that I have never shopped to fill up a fridge.
Oh God. What kind of adult am I?
Well, fine, I’m a partial adult who has eaten takeout or a delivered meal for as long as I can remember, yet I barrel ahead and decide to wing it. I’ll just buy a bunch of food based on the index cards. It’ll be fine.
Five pounds of vegetables later, I find myself at the meat counter. After spending ten minutes looking for aspatchcockchicken, per that recipe card, and only seeing whole chickens, I reluctantly ring the bell to flag down the butcher.
A man with a name tag that readsRayarrives moments later. “What can I get for you, new girl?” he asks with a smile before taking a step back. “Or return girl! You must be Callie. Heard you might be in. I’m Ray. Probably don’t remember me. But I remember you and the lopsided ponytails you used to have.”
I’m so taken aback that I cannot make eye contact. I nervously look all over the place and blurt out, “I want to make a spatchcock chicken. Do you have those?”Smooth.
He squints in confusion, leans over the counter, and asks loudly, “A spatch WHAT?”
I die a little inside. I might not be shy, but I’m not about to fill in the blank here. “Spatchcock,” I say weakly.
“SpatchCOCK?” Ray practically screams.
I nod slowly.
He frowns and turns to the guy behind him. “Dougie? Have you ever heard of a spatchcock chicken?”
I’m sure that all of Minnesota heard him.
“A spatch WHAT?” the fellow butcher asks.
“SpatchCOCK!” Ray hollers again.
“SpatchCOCK? Nope. What in the hell is that?” Dougie throws up his hands.
Ray leans across the counter. “We’re lost. What exactly is it that you want, sweetheart?”
While blushing furiously, I fumble for my phone. “I can Google it. There are a million recipes for…spatchcock chicken.” A stomach-sinking mix of panic and desperation and horror increases inside of me. “I’m not making this up.” Shit, my voice is all wobbly and shrill, and I can feel myself blushing.
No one has searched for anything faster than I am right now.
“Aha! Google says spatchcock chicken is a thing!” I am way too victorious while waving my phone around. “Google says it’s a thing! See! It’s not me being all insane! I didn’t make up that spatch word. Nor, you know, that other word following it. That’s been around for ages.”Lord, why can I not stop talking?“Spatchcock! It’s a thing where, you know, you cut the chicken in half, and roast it flat, and get more flavor…and then…” I’m gonna die.Get me out of here.
I weigh the benefits of leaving my full cart and bolting, but Ray leans in and squints at my phone.
“OOOHHH!” He thumps the counter and devolves into laughter. “Abutterfliedchicken!”
Good God. Yes.Butterflied. Dammit, I’ve seen this less salacious term in other recipes.
“Yes,” I say calmly. “Yes, that’s it. Same thing.”
“Yeah.” He’s still trying to breathe normally. “No problem, Miss Callie from Cali. One minute.”
I casually fiddle with my bag of parsley while I wait. And sulk a bit.I’m not from Cali. I’m from Wake, Vermont.
I look away and mumble, “Thanks,” when he hands me the chicken, and I rush through the aisles to get the rest of the things on my list.
