Salad, Sandwiches, Dainties and Punch

Chapter 2

It was the kind of Saturday afternoon where all the garage doors up and down the back lane were open and the men of the houses were tinkering and wandering around with no real purpose except to be out of the house. A little group of them had congregated at their neighbour's open garage including the neighbourhood train wreck, Randy. "What kind of grown man rides a bicycle?" Teresa scoffed as they pulled into the alley behind their house. Bill laughed, "Randy must have lost his license again."

Randy was in his mid thirties, at least, and here he was with one foot on the ground and one foot on a pedal chatting away in an undershirt and a cigarette. The other men stood around with their button up shirts and their thumbs in their belt loops. "Bill, Teresa," the men greeted them as they got out of the car. "Good day," Bill said cheerfully as he walked over to join the group. Teresa stood by the car door as she said hello. A radio was on quietly somewhere in the garage.

"It's supposed to rain," Bill slipped his thumbs into his belt loops and the other men nodded agreeing. Randy spit a stream of brown liquid onto the ground. "Randy, are you chewing?" Bill asked, looking at the lit cigarette in his hand. Randy ashed his cigarette on the ashtray that he had attached to his handlebars and saw that he had already gone through two cigarettes. "Well I can't smoke properly when I'm pedaling now. Can I? Saving this chew for when I'm in motion." He took a long drag of his cigarette like this was supposed to be obvious. "I suppose not," Bill chuckled. At this Teresa decided it was time to go inside and leave these men to their riveting conversation.

On Saturdays Teresa let Bill take care of his own lunch. He could handle making himself a sandwich once a week. Teresa knew exactly what to eat. She was a creature of habit, but her habits were seasonal so as not to get into too much of a rut. She spooned out three tablespoons of cottage cheese into a glass dessert bowl and topped it with half a peach sliced and fanned perfectly on top. Her kettle whistled as she worked and she made a pot of earl grey tea. She'd have a second cup during the game.

Teresa had a commemorative blue jays collectable spoon for her sugar, and her daughter always teased her. "Measuring your life out in little spoons there J. Alfred?" Teresa didn't get it, and she never asked what she meant, until Rachel told her it was a poem. "Ever heard of it?" Teresa had just shrugged, but had written the title down so she could look for it next time she went to the library. It was a bit long for a poem in Teresa's opinion, and if she could recall it was maybe about a cat watching someone get their appendix out? It didn't matter, she suspected the poet was maybe 'reaching' a bit and that he would probably never really take off.

Rachel had gone to college to become a nurse so she wasn't sure why she was bothering with poems anyway. What on earth did that have to do with being a nurse, maybe because it was about appendicitis? The thought left her head as quickly as it had entered it. Teresa was so proud of Rachel, her daughter, the nurse. Teresa thought it was the perfect career for her bright young daughter. "With a nursing degree you can work anywhere you want," Teresa had told her many times. Anywhere you want turned out to be anywhere but home. Teresa was resigned to the fact that she had lost her daughter to the city.

She looked out into the backyard to see what Bill had gotten himself up to as she washed her dish and spoon, but he was nowhere to be seen. Teresa had spent many hours watching her kids play back there from this spot and smiled at the memory. She looked at the clock. Just enough time to vacuum the living room she thought as she finished the last sip from her first cup of tea. "I'll be back," she said to her cup as she set it beside the sink.

Teresa started in the far corner of the room. She held the cord in one hand and methodically passed the vacuum over the carpet in a w pattern that would leave the desired result as she moved backward across the room. The carpet was already clean so there were no tinkling noises of crushed snacks, or sand from the cuffs of kids pants. She used to find the sound of sucking up these messes so satisfying. As she reset the pattern in the carpet today all she heard was the whirring of the vacuum motor.

She stood at the edge of the living room carpet surveying her work, wrapping the cord around the vacuum handle. It was a shame she was going to have to walk in and disturb it, but thought if she tiptoed in at game time, she could preserve the aesthetic. Looking at her watch, she hurried as she ditched the vacuum and repoured her tea. Tip toeing into the living room and tucking her feet up under her on the couch she reached for the remote to turn on the tv.

As the picture on the screen came to life something out her front window caught her eye. It was Janice. Teresa immediately shrunk down fearful that somehow Janice would have seen her through the window. "That's just what I need," Teresa said as she turned down the volume on the television just in case she could hear it from the street. She was glad that it was early afternoon and that the lights were off.

Teresa could not help but to steal another peak at the notorious Janice. She was reluctant to call her a neighbour. Janice lived three houses down and across the street from Teresa, and nobody up or down the street was safe from her. She wasn't dangerous, per se, but she was a nuisance. This afternoon she was on an electric medical scooter with a white plastic bag wrapped around one foot. She was parked on the sidewalk kitty corner from Teresa's and she could see that she had dropped a metal cane with the four feet on the bottom. "Oh Janice," she shook her head, "What are you up to now?"

The medical scooter was a new stunt. Like a train wreck Teresa found herself not being able to look away. It was still a few minutes before the game started. It was probably best to keep an eye on the neighbourhood. The scooter lurched back and forth on the sidewalk across the street. Teresa could not help but laugh as she realized that Joan was stuck on the curb. She tried using her weight to lurch the scooter back and forth and in the midst of her rocking back and forth her cane went clattering to the street. Janice with her white garage bagged foot, slid off the scooter hopping, bending, huffing and puffing before returning to the stranded scooter to wait for some poor sucker to rescue her.