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"What?" he asked, smiling.
"How do you know how much of each ingredient to use?"
"It takes years of experience." He paused and thought. "I suppose they'd call me a mama's boy because I work with her in the kitchen so often."
"My uncle's a great chef and no one's going to call him a mama's boy," I told him That brought a smile to his face.
"Let's have the salad while the pasta cooks," he suggested, and we sat and began to eat. Aunt Zipporah had some of the cafe's special garlic rolls in the freezer. I had put them in the oven, so we had them as well.
"This is really looking like a feast," Duncan said.
As it turned out, he knew how long to cook the pasta better than I did, explaining that most people overcook it.lie prepared that as well and mixed in the sauce.
"I should tell my uncle about you. Maybe you could work at the cafe part-time. You really are good at all this. You're the one who's full of surprises, Duncan, not me."
"I wouldn't have time even for a part-time job. I do a lot more than fix broken faucets at our home," he said. "My mother is very occupied with her mailorder work for the church and the like, so I often do all the house cleaning, make the beds, and I do most of our shopping, too, while she's at a church meeting or something. She won't let me take the car at any other time," he added. "She's very unhappy that I fixed up my scooter. She wouldn't give me the money for the insurance and registration. I had to scrounge that up myself."
"How did you get the scooter in the first place?"
"It was something my father had gotten from some job he was on and left in one of the coops."
"Exactly how long has your father been gone?" I asked him.
"Close to ten years."
"Did he just leave one day and not tell anyone?"
"That's what my mother says. I never saw a note, if that's what you mean."
"And he never called or sent a letter, nothing?"
He thought for a moment, ate some more and nodded.
"There were times when I was about eight or nine that I thought he did call to speak with her, but she never came out and said so and asking about him only drove her into a horrible rant. Sometimes, she became so enraged, I was terrified. Almost
immediately after he left us, she changed her name back to her maiden name, Simon."
"How come your name wasn't changed, too?"
"It was, but I wouldn't accept It's the one defiant thing I've done. Up until now, that is," he added, smiling at me to clearly indicate I was the second defiant thing. "Thankfully, she's stopped harping on it, but she doesn't hesitate to correct anyone who calls her Edna Winning, and if someone refers to me as Duncan Winning, she'll correct him or her as well. It was a problem at school for a while, but it's not anymore. She doesn't have much to do with my schooling anyway. She never went to a parentteacher conference, and my grades have been good enough to keep me from being of much concern."
"You've never been in trouble at school, given them a reason to call her?"
"You can't even begin to imagine what that would have done. I've always been conscious of her expectation that I would get into trouble, and I'm probably known as a goody-goody boy or something because of it. I'm the only one who calls his teachers sir and ma'am, if I don't call them Mr., Mrs., Miss. One of my teachers, Donna Balm, insists on being called Miz Balm. She won't let me call her ma'am either. She says, 'Ma'am is short for madam, and I'm no madam,"' he told me, obviously imitating her. I laughed.
He ate some more and then said, "You'll see when you go to our school."
"See what?"
"How the other students don't trust me, especially the other guys, because I won't smoke in the bathroom, do pot with them or take some of those pills they circulate sometimes. They think I'm some sort of spy for the administration or something. If you hang out with me, they'll treat you like a leper, too."
"I'm used to it," I said.
"Yeah, but you came here to get away from all that, didn't you? You think because no one knows you here, they'll accept you and you'll make friends. I can only make that harder for you."
"Let me decide whom I want and don't want for friends, Duncan."
"I'm just warning you."
