Sal guffawed. “Tell her to be happy they ain’t higher.”
I looked at Joe for help.
“Tell her to write a letter to the town supervisor,” he said, pulling out a backscratcher that looked like a hand and shoving it down the back of his shirt. “That’s assuming she knows how to write.”
I fielded complaints about leaves from neighboring trees blowing onto people’s driveways, gophers trapped under sheds, how to dispose of old appliances, and even if there was a good Japanese restaurant in town. Someone actually called about their too-hot breakfast tea at Brew Coffee. Another wanted to know how to find the best handyman with low rates.
One old lady wanted us to send someone out to fix her leaky sink; another had lost her cat. An old man called because there was a torn-up green couch outside across the street where kids sat at night to smoke.
“It’s the ugliest damn couch you ever seen,” he told me. “Can’t stand looking at it another day.”
Joe somehow managed to eavesdrop on every phone call while simultaneously listening to his friends grouse about how deep the potholes were on Emmett Lane, and yelling at Wes every few minutes to wake the hell up.
“Well, I hear Stan the Man’s Plumbing is good,” I told a resident who sounded elderly.
“Ya can’t recommend any company!” Joe hollered at me while I was still on the phone. “That’s showing favoritism.”
“I’m sorry, but it seems I can’t make recommendations,” I told the woman apologetically.
I took another call from someone who needed a trash removal company.
“I can’t give out any names,” I told him.
“Well then, what am I supposed to do?” He sounded genuinely out of ideas as to what to do.
“Have you looked at your neighbor’s garbage bins?”
“That’s still recommending a business!” Joe busted out. “What did I tell you about that?” He waited for an answer.
“Not to do it?”
“That’s right, chicky, don’t do it.”
There was a round of laughter from the peanut gallery.
Other people called about what to do with their old TVs, where could they get a marriage license/library card/register their dog/ how to read their water meter/where was their water meter/could I go out to their house and help them find their meter.
And this was all before lunch.
At 1:00, Joe released me for my half-hour lunch break. Thankful for the three-minute commute, I drove home and found Penny sleeping in the same spot on the kitchen floor, still waiting for me.
I scooped her up and held her in my arms while I ate peanut butter toast over the sink to avoid dropping crumbs.
“I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” I told Penny. “I’m as tired as Wes.”
19
“So, I signed us up for some spring classes,” Eddie announced one night over wonton soup.
“What, now? Told you I’m not making any more jewelry. That beaded necklace debacle still haunts me.”
“Yeah, you sucked at that,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “We really should have started you out slow—some earrings, or maybe a brooch.”
“No more jewelry, Eddie.”
“OK, no jewelry. We’re going to try some cooking classes,” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly. “How do you feel about meatless burgers?”
“Blech.”
“Try to keep an open mind, honey,” he said. “It’s not exactly healthy to live on a bucket of pasta and meatballs all your life.”
“What’s a burger without meat? Is it even a burger?”
Eddie pulled out the continuing education catalog from the local high school. Over the years, besides the ill-fated jewelry class, we’d taken Mahjong, Pickle Ball, Tai Chi and Finding Your Animal Spirit, in which, interestingly, we’d both turned out to have the spirit of a fox.
Eddie had gotten on a financial planning kick one year and we sat through “You Never Think About It, But You Need Life Insurance,” “Estate Planning: Not Just for the Wealthy,” and my personal favorite, “Steering Through the Winding Road of Retirement.”
This time, he was going to make me cook.
“Meatless burgers made from lentils, quinoa and kale, and black beans,” he read off. “They’re bursting with garlic, gluten-free and aromatic. And if that’s not enough, we get to take some home with free Kaiser rolls.”
“Sounds pretty good,” I said, reaching for another egg roll, suddenly hungry again. “What else?”
“Winey Chicken.”
“What?”
“You know, chicken marsala and chicken piccata with white wine. And no, they probably don’t let you drink the wine during class.”
“What fun is that?”
Thursday night’s meatless burger class was in the high school cooking lab, which we used to call Home and Careers. Walking the long, dim school hallways with Eddie made me feel fifteen all over again, from the scuffed linoleum floor to the scratched yellow lockers.
“I remember when I was a confused freshman wandering around looking for the B-wing,” I told Eddie. “I had a map drawn on the back of my hand, which I thought was a pretty smart idea, but then it smudged, and I had to resort to asking other people for directions. They all sent me the wrong way. I was late to every class.”
“Yeah, when I was there, we loved to make it hard on newbies,” Eddie laughed. “I remember Laura Voss coming into English lit crying because she had gotten turned around and ended up finding our room just before the bell rang and class ended.”
“Laura cried all the time. She cried in earth science when we had to gut a worm. She cried in gym when a dodge ball barely swiped her leg. She was just a crier.”
“Wonder what ever happened to her? Anyway, here we are,” Eddie said, opening the door for me.
Clustered around the stoves were four twentysomething couples either holding hands or with their arms around each other. The guys were wearing black jeans and the women had cat eyeglasses and braids in their hair. These were the trendy kids in high school, all grown up.
I looked at Eddie. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Free Kaiser rolls,” he mouthed.
The cooking teacher, wearing violet yoga pants, handed out written instructions.
“Any questions, just holler,” she said, sitting back down
