Daisies

...𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝐴𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔

 "'Ay! Anybody 'ome?" Kiran's voice rings through the house as he steps inside. My hair, still damp from the shower, is sticking to the back of my shirt. "Hi!" I say, and give him a hug. Kiran is like my stand-in dad, sort of. Since I don't have one.

"What time is it?" Kiran asks, squinting at the clock.

"8:02, as usual," I say, sitting on the kitchen counter while he gets stuff out of the pantry. "Oh good," he says briskly. "I thought I might be late. There was a sale goin' on at the minimart. Fifty twinkies for only 'ive bucks! Couldn't pass it up." He puts a plastic grocery bag on the counter next to me, full with plastic-wrapped twinkies.

I start to reach into the bag, but he swats my hand away. "No telling your mom 'bout this, got it? If you want some, you gotta get down from the counter. I told you, I'm no good with blood. If you went and hurt yourself, I'd faint deadaway before I even reached my phone."

"Okay!" I hop down onto the tile and tear open a package. I suppose brownies are out, unless I can find a way to incorporate 50 twinkies into them. Twownies?

Mouth full of spongy cake and creamy filling, I ask Kiran a question that had come to me earlier. "Kwat d'lou ju bfohr hworkd ksheer?"

"Cindy blue who, I am many things, but I cannot understand you when your mouth is full. Swallow, please."

Cindy Blue Who is what Kiran calls me, because my favorite Christmas movie is 'The Grinch' and mom named me after a blue gemstone. Kiran thinks he's really hilarious. His ego was much larger when he first started working for us, but I took it upon myself to keep it in check, so he's slightly better now.

"Okay, try two," I say, swallowing. "What did you do before you worked here?"

"That's a good question." Kiran glances at me, and then keeps stirring the pasta he started to boil. "When I was a kid, I wanted to be a soccer player."

"Soccer player? YOU?" I glanced at him to make sure he was serious.

"That's exactly the reaction I got." Kiran looks down at the foggy pot of water. "That's another thing. Never let anyone tell you that you can't achieve something, Blue."

"Okay. So...what then?" I ask, turning the heat on the stove down.

"Well, then I wanted to be a politician. That's another thing: apparently they don't accept American people pretending to be Scottish." Kiran rubs his face. "I really don't get it. My ancestors were Scottish, I swear!" I laugh. "Then what?"

"Then I went to become a librarian. Another thing, who doesn't let people play Mozart in a library? It's so calming! Then I went to culinary school. That's another thing, don't kick people out for adding a sprig too much parsley!" He was talking faster now. "So then I became a mechanic, that's another thing, cars are confusing, so then I worked at Walmart, that's another thing, grubby hands get all over the televisions, and then I got a second chance at being a cook, that's another thing, hold onto your friends; and then I ended up here. That's another thing: because the mac and cheese is done."

"Oh, thanks." I sit down at the kitchen table, and drink out of my can of Izze. "Kiran, what if you want to be a botanist?"

Kiran is uncharacteristically silent. It's odd. He's usually always talking.

"Kiran?" I ask, unsure. "Did you hear me? What would you do if you wanted to be a botanist?"

"Well, Cindy Blue Who," Kiran said, sliding a bowl of mac and cheese in front of me. "I'm afraid that's another thing."