Page 50 of Lay It Bare

Rei

Face mask firmly in place, Rei walked beside Sevastyan through the crowded stalls. The air smelled fragrant with spiced meats from the food truck stalls running at one end and aromatic soaps and flowers perfuming the other. The air itself was like a watercolor painting of everything good.

Sevastyan looked down at the meat skewer in his hand. “It’s not spicy. Tasty, not spicy.”

“You just want Sichuan la de,” Rei murmured, smothering a smile behind his mask.

“I’d take a good taco with some peppers at this point,” Sevastyan muttered. “Doesn’t have to be Sichuan.”

Rei chuckled. “This is the United States of America Midwest.”

“Yes, well.” Sevastyan huffed. “At least this city has a good immigrant population that can cook.”

Rei shot Sevastyan a questioning look.

“There’s a story that some guy and his family were run out of town in the midwest because he put a pinch of pepper in his restaurant’s macaroni.”

Rei frowned. “What is macaroni?”

Sevastyan finished chewing the last bite from the meat skewer and tossed the stick into a rubbish bin. “A dish made up of small, fat noodles stewed in a cheese and cream sauce. It’s usually orange to yellow and sticky. Served in a bowl or piled on a plate.”

“Just pasta and cheese?”

Sevastyan nodded. “Not healthy. If it comes out of a box, the cheese is imitation. The kind that made you sick when we were in Hawaii.”

Rei made a face. That was not a good memory. He’d been sick for days. “I would like to not eat this, please.” He left off the “master,” mindful of the ears around them.

“Sometimes they make it with real cheese and cream. It can be tasty, but it’s usually bland. Better with some green onions, paprika, black pepper, red pepper, and cumin.”

“Is this a central dish?” Rei paused beside Sevastyan as he looked over some jars of artisanal jam.

“Can be. Often it’s a side with turkey, ham, bread, jello, some sort of wet salad.”

Rei pressed his hand to the front of his mask over his mouth. “What is a wet salad?”

“A salad in a sauce. Sometimes there is meat or cream in the salad. It’s possible I have the wrong word for it.” Sevastyan selected two of the jams and paid for them.

As they moved away from the jam shop, the bag of wrapped jam jars in Rei’s hand, Rei murmured. “I thought salad was green. Lettuce, carrots, cucumbers.”

Sevastyan’s smile curled on the edges of his lips. “I do not understand how Americans use the word salad. I was at a dinner once and they served a salad, but it was jello. There was fruit in the jello, but no greens.”

Rei dropped his eyes and shook his head a little. He didn’t dare reach for a phone and look up the word salad. If the Merchari was watching, he couldn’t be seen using a phone. “Perhaps salad is anything they put in a bowl with small pieces?” He gestured towards a stall that was displaying tea. Lisa had reminded him that they were nearly out.

“But then macaroni would be a salad.” Sevastyan acknowledged Rei’s gesture towards the tea but pointed up ahead to a picture advertising dishes that could be purchased at a hot foot stall further down the row. In the photo, a cardboard food boat was filled with half round noodles and smothered in orange sauce. “That is macaroni.”

“Perhaps it is not a salad because there are no vegetables.”

Sevastyan raised an eyebrow. “The jello salad didn’t have vegetables either.”

Rei let his shoulders slump. “Perhaps we should ask.”

Sevastyan winced. “I do not think I dare.”

Rei smiled behind his mask. “Tea, then?”

“Yes, tea. Something civilized.”

Rei chuckled, dropping his eyes to the ground so no one could accuse him of fawning over his master.