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Options! I barked at my brain. Give me options. You can panic later.
I needed to call 911. But Lindy had taken all of the landline phones with her when she’d moved out. My cell phone? In my bag, on the TV table next to the front door. The front door, which was right by the kitchen. That was very poor planning on my part.
I would kick myself later, I promised. OK, I couldn’t call for help. I couldn’t get to my car keys. Could I run? My nearest neighbors were three miles away, but if I cut across the cow pasture that bordered the property, I could make that distance pretty easily. I could run in my pajama pants. It would mean leaving my purse behind, but at this point, I was willing to live without my cell phone and the fourteen Chap-Sticks rattling around in my shoulder bag.
I crept over to the window and tried to shove the sash up. Nothing. It didn’t budge a millimeter. Planting my feet, I tried again, shoving with all my might. Nothing. Being low to the ground gave me proper leverage, but I was also skinny, malnourished, with no weight-lifting regimen.
I leaned closer to the sill. “What the hell?” I hissed. The windows had been nailed shut from the outside. “Who does that?”
Were all of the windows nailed shut? Why would Lindy do that? I considered throwing my nightstand through the single-pane window and making a break for it, but having no idea who was in the house or why, I preferred to get away without calling attention to myself.
I need more options, Brain!
But Brain was ignoring me in favor of regurgitating random soup recipes. Because knowing the exact amount of mushrooms in the porcini bisque special from the previous week was super-useful at the moment. Stupid Brain.
OK, the back door was near the kitchen, which was clearly not a viable route. If I was very quiet, I might be able to sneak past the kitchen, grab my purse, and get out through the front door, calling the cops while I ran for the neighbors’. It was better than cowering in my room, waiting for some unknown intruder to decide whether he wanted to add murder to his criminal résumé.
I listened at the door, unable to hear anything on the other side. I touched the knob with shaking fingers, forcing myself to grasp it and turn. I could do this, I told myself. I was a city girl. And I would not let some hillbilly housebreaker intimidate me. I eased the door open. This was my house, damn it, however temporary. I didn’t let people intimidate me in my kitchen, much less my house. Giving up the relative safety of my room, I took a few resolute steps out into the hall.
I was Tess Maitland, terror of junior line cooks everywhere. I wasn’t afraid of anything.
Except for heights. And sharks. And backwoods burglars.
My bravado deflated to nil as I neared the kitchen. If I could just sneak past unnoticed and slip out the front door… If I could grab my keys and make it to my car, all the better.
My favorite wok—fourteen inches in diameter and carbon steel, nice and heavy—sat on top of a box full of kitchen supplies I’d left in the hallway. I slipped my fingers through the smooth wood handle. Now if he got in the way, the home intruder was going to get a nice, solid whack.
From the kitchen, I could now hear the low hum of the microwave. My arms fell to my sides, wok bumping against my leg.
Who the hell breaks into someone’s house to use their microwave?
Believe it or not, this actually made me feel better. For one thing, someone who was warming up ramen in a stranger’s house probably wasn’t planning the dismemberment of said stranger. And the microwave had probably covered the sound of my approach. As long as I didn’t—>“Sesame Street?” I suggested.
“Yes, Sesame Street.”
“I don’t think Big Bird is a chicken,” I grumbled petulantly.
“Yes, I’m so sorry. You clearly have the expertise in performing figments of one’s imagination. And sassy-mouthing your mentor.”
“You’re going to make me peel potatoes again, aren’t you?” I groaned.
Chef Gamling did not, in fact, make me peel potatoes, as he would have when I made a stupid mistake in school. He gave me several Tupperware containers full of his special maultaschen, a German dumpling dish that he only made for me when I was sick in school.
His eyes softened as I bobbled the containers. “I worry about you, süße.” My throat caught at his rare use of a German endearment. He pinched my cheek gently, as if gauging how much weight I’d lost over the last year. “I don’t hear from you in months, and you show up at my door looking like this? Pale, skinny, big dark circles under your eyes. You look like you’re going to drop at any moment. And George is no good with first aid.”
“You wouldn’t be performing mouth-to-mouth on me in the ‘dropping’ scenario?” I asked, squinting up at him.
He shook his head and hugged me fiercely. “I have heard the foul words that mouth is capable of producing. Lips that dirty shall never touch mine.”
“Hey, you were the one who told the female students that professional chefs ‘often season the food with salty language,’ so we couldn’t afford to become ladylike and offended.”
“Yes, but I didn’t expect you to embrace the concept so wholeheartedly.” He sighed.
And so I was instructed to go home, sleep, eat, and then sleep again. If I didn’t finish the maultaschen within three days, he was going to add malted milkshakes to my “regimen.” Also, I was supposed to meet him at the HMH First Baptist Church the next Saturday. The last time I’d seen the inside of a church, a funeral was involved, so this was not a good sign.
—
George caught me on my way out of the house and gave me a tire-sized chunk of monkey bread to call my very own. I couldn’t help but accept it, because the gesture was so sweet. So very, very sweet.
