Quilt As Desired

there's hope eventually we will be.'

'I wouldn't hold my breath. You caught me in a weak moment, that's all.'

'Yeah, right. Don't kid yourself. You wanted it as much as I did.'

Harriet pulled her hands from his grasp and pushed him off and onto the floor. Standing, she retrieved the two bowls and started picking up bits of broccoli and beef. Aiden rose and brushed smashed rice off his jeans.

'Go downstairs and bring the yellow sponge from beside the sink and paper towels from the rack under the cabinet,” she ordered and continued collecting the bigger pieces of remains and putting them into the bowls.

Aiden returned and began wiping up what was left of the mess.

'Did you see Randy while you were down there?'

'No, but I can guess where she is. She always goes low. She'll be under a bed or sofa somewhere.'

'I'm sorry Fred attacked her. I've never seen him do that before.'

'That's okay. I'm sure Randy will be fine after a few years of therapy.'

'The bad news is that dinner is ruined, and all I have here are salad makings.'

'Don't worry. I'll call Jorge and see if he can whip up a batch of nachos for us, if that's okay with you.'

'That sounds great.'

Aiden made the call, and they both went down to Tico's Tacos to pick the order up.

'The white cup in the bag is guacamole for the senorita,” Jorge said, and looked hard at Aiden. “The boy doesn't share too well,” he explained to Harriet.

When they returned, she held the kitchen door open for Aiden, who carried their bag of food and the two bottles of Dos Equis Jorge had thrown in. Randy sat on the floor below Fred, who was studying her from the kitchen table.

'Looks like they've patched things up since we left.'

'I'm sure Fred remembered his manners and apologized.'

'Naw, Randy made the first move. She's like that.'

Thankfully, their second stab at ethnic dining went better than the first. The nachos were crisp and cheesy. They were smothered in beans and shredded chicken, and topped with onions, jalapenos and chopped tomatoes.

'I may never eat again,” Harriet said, and threw her crumpled napkin onto the ottoman near the nearly empty nacho platter.

'Jorge is definitely a good cook,” Aiden said in a lazy voice. He set the plate on the floor, where Randy cleaned up the remains.

'So, you went to school with my brother. Now you've met my sister and me. And your aunt and my mom were best friends. What about you?'

'What do you mean, what about me?” She felt her full stomach tightening.

'I'm just getting to know you. If we're going to be that kind of friends we need to get better acquainted. You know a lot about me, and the only thing I know about you is that you have a mean cat, broke my brother's young heart and you've been widowed.'

'You have some nerve,” she said with a smile. “Fred will probably need years of therapy to recover from his visit to Foggy Point. Your brother was a stalker who needed to be reined in. We are not going to be ‘that kind of friends,’ and my marriage is none of your business.'

'Okay, we'll start with the basics. What about your family. Where do your parents live? And how did you come to be living with your aunt?'

'I'm not certain where my parents live,” she said, and realized that fact no longer bothered her. “I heard my father took a job in Singapore.'

'You don't know?” Aiden said, his shock apparent in his voice.

'Well, I read a Time magazine article that said he'd taken a job in Singapore, so I suppose that means they moved there. I'm sure Time checked their sources before they printed the article.'

'Wow,” he said and leaned back against the cushion of the sofa. “Are you not speaking to them? Did you have a fight or something?'

'Nothing so dramatic. They have their lives, I have mine.'

'That's pretty harsh. How can you not talk to your parents?'

Harriet stiffened. “How can you pass judgment when you know nothing about the situation?'

He reached for her hand. “You're right. I'm sorry,” he said. “I've just never known anyone who didn't talk to their parents.'

She pulled her hand free. “You keep saying that like I have a disease.” Her voice was hard. “It's not that I refuse to speak to them, or that they refuse to speak to me. It just never comes up. I talk to them whenever they bother to make contact, which is admittedly not often. They relocated several times when I was in college, and once I was twenty-one their secretary quit updating Aunt Beth as to their ever-changing contact information. When they call, I talk to them.'

'Are they some kind of spies or something?'

Harriet looked at him. “You've got quite the imagination. No, it's nothing that interesting. My mother is a physicist who invented something that has to do with particle acceleration years ago. I think she might do something with nuclear fission, too-I've never really known, to tell the truth.

'My father works in genetics. He was on the team that cloned Dolly the sheep, and now is doing stem cell research. At least, that's what the article said. It's hard to pursue their kind of research in the United States, so they have almost always worked abroad.'

'Wow, that's kind of cool,” Aiden said. “Your parents are famous.'

She looked at him without smiling.

'Your childhood must have been exciting. Where did you live when you were a kid? Before you came here, I mean.'

'Do we have to talk about this?'

'I'm just trying to understand who you are,” he said and smiled.

'You're just trying to get in my pants, and I can save you some trouble. It's not going to happen.'

He looked hurt. “I want to get to know you. I'm evolved-really.'

'Yeah, right. If you must know, I didn't grow up anywhere. I was born in London. My parents were living there while one of them was doing a fellowship.'

'You have dual citizenship? Cool!'

'After London my parents moved to Switzerland then Japan, I think, then Scotland. It's hard to remember. In any case, I was sent to New York with a nanny. If they wanted to be parents, they sent for me. When they got tired, I went back to New York. When I was school age, New York and the nanny were replaced by boarding school, sometimes where they were working, sometimes not. Aunt Beth intervened when I was eleven and she and Foggy Point replaced boarding school.'

'That must have been better,” Aiden said.

'It was great. Do you have any idea how odd you seem to the rest of the school children in Foggy Point, Washington, when you're fluent in four languages and passable in three more? How do you relate when the other kids are trying to learn the capitols of Europe and you've ordered room service in most of them? I was a freak. Plus, I came and went a few times on top of everything else.'

'You speak seven languages?'

She gave him an exasperated look.

'So, what movies do we have?” he asked, finally letting her off the hook.

It turned out that it didn't matter-he fell asleep before the opening credits. She covered him with the fluffy afghan. At the end of the first movie, she took Randy downstairs and let her out into the yard. She did her business and came right back.

'Good girl,” Harriet said. The little dog waggled her body.

She made it to the first break-up between the hero and heroine in the second movie before she, too, fell asleep.

Grey light was streaming in the window when she woke.

'Aiden, wake up,” she said and shook his shoulder.