Page 10 of Rochelle's Manster


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“You look great,” I say.

“It’s nice to dress up a little after wearing scrubs all day,” she says, looking down. Her cheeks are pink. “Besides, it’s comfortable.”

“That’s good. I was worried about these shoes,” I say, pointing at the fancy ones the department store guy told me I should buy, “but they’re more comfortable than they look.”

“Comfort is important,” she agrees. “I’m starving. What do you like on your pizza?”

I had not foreseen this. I take a deep breath to explain my food issues.

“You look like a sausage guy,” she says. “How about sausage and mushroom?”

I make a face. “Sausage is great, so is pepperoni. But no mushrooms. I’d rather starve.”

Rochelle laughs.

“I’m not kidding,” I say flat out. “No onions and peppers, either.”

“Do you eat any veggies?” she asks, holding the door open for me.

“Green beans. Salad. Broccoli if it’s not overcooked.”

“Peas?” she says, shooting me a sidelong glance that somehow makes my heart beat faster even though we’re only talking about gross green stuff.

“Never.”

“Asparagus?”

I make a face. She laughs. At the counter, she goes ahead and orders us a medium pie with half pepperoni and sausage, half sausage and mushroom, plus two side salads. “Is that okay, Alaric?”

“Perfect.”

I pay for the food; she says she’ll take care of the tip. While we wait, I go ahead and ask her if there’s an SPCA in Rivertown.

“Sure,” she says. “It’s east of downtown on Patterson Street. Why?”

“I want a cat.” I’m a little embarrassed to say that, but not after I see her cheeks go pink again.

“Do you like cats?” She sounds a little breathless.

“I love cats. My own cat died last year and I haven’t had the heart to get another one until now, but,” I shrug, “I don’t really like living alone.”

“Tell me about your cat,” she says, her big brown eyes open wide.

So I tell her about Mango. How I found him lost in the rain, a yowling ball of orange fur. “I gave him a little bit of canned milk diluted with water, just to tide him over until I could go buy him some kitten food, and he stuck his whole face in the dish.” I tell her that he loved his feathers-on-a-stick toy and jumping up to the windowsill to watch birds. I tell her that he lived to be twenty-one, a cranky old man with bad hips who couldn’t jump up anymore so I had to pick him up and put him in the windowsill. I get a little misty talking about him, and I have to look away and sniff.

“Sounds like you were friends a long time,” Rochelle says kindly. “Would you like to come up and meet my cats?”

Ending this day with cat cuddles sounds like a great idea, and I say so. I make her tell me all about her cats, where she got them, how old they are, what they look like, whether they like to chitter at birds from the window. What their names are.

She explains that she didn’t name Bing Clawsby, but her kitten looked as elegant as a queen and Dido just seemed to fit. “Mango is a great name for an orange cat.”

“My mom picked it. I hate mangoes.”

She laughs out loud. “Do you hate a lot of foods?”

I think about it. “Actually, I do.” I explain how I feel about sour foods, really sweet foods, and weird-texture foods.

“So no mangoes,” she says thoughtfully. “What about apples? Pears?”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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