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“Sounds promising.”
“Except I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Nonsense. If you can read, you can cook. Where are your recipe books?”
“I don’t have any. We usually just pick up something already prepared and throw it in the microwave.”
“Then perhaps I can be of help. Let’s see what you’ve got here.” Mark lines the groceries up on the counter. “You picked some nice things here. Shouldn’t be too hard to pull something together. I assume you have a fry pan and a pot.”
“Right here.” Heidi quickly opens a nearby cupboard.
“Okay. What do you think of garlic chicken with honey and rosemary over a bed of steamed rice?”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“It isn’t. Come on, I’ll talk you through it.”
“Seriously?” Heidi asks again.
“I swear, there’s nothing to it. You’ve got all the ingredients right here. And I see you bought blueberries, so how about we finish the meal off with some blueberry bread pudding? You have some day-old bread?”
“Is there any other kind?” Heidi asks, grateful when her question elicits another laugh from Mark.
“Should we get started? And yes,” he adds before she can speak, “seriously.”
—
The blueberry bread pudding is in the oven and the garlic chicken has been browned and drizzled with honey and lemon juice, waiting to be put in the oven for a final five minutes before being garnished with rosemary and served.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Heidi says for what must be the tenth time in as many minutes. “I can’t believe you have all that information at the top of your head.”
“Well, there’s not a whole lot else in there,” Mark demurs. “When does your mother-in-law get here?”
Heidi checks her watch. “She’s picking up my husband from work in about an hour.”
“Then what do you say we have a little something to help you unwind?”
“What do you mean?”
Mark opens the palm of his right hand to reveal a fat, hand-rolled cigarette.
“Seriously?”
“Just a little something to take the edge off situations such as this,” Mark says.
Heidi glances nervously toward the front door, then down at her watch, then back to the joint in Mark’s hands. “You’re on,” she says, leading him into the den and plopping down on the small navy sectional.
He lights up immediately, taking a deep drag and then passing the joint to her.
Heidi lifts the cigarette to her lips and inhales, feeling the smoke fill her lungs and a welcoming calm almost instantly fill her head.Just what the doctor ordered,she thinks, releasing the smoke slowly into the surrounding air.
“Just what the doctor ordered,” Mark says out loud.
She smiles and takes another toke before returning the joint to his waiting fingers. “I really can’t thank you enough. You saved my life.”
