That I Would Be Good

Chapter Fourteen

“This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea that I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone.” ― Chuck Palahniuk

Eleven months later…

      I walked down the street, holding a bag of groceries in each arm.  Unfortunately for me it was pouring rain and my car was in the shop so the only way to getting to the little grocery store was to walk.  It wasn’t far from my apartment, but with the rain pouring down it made the short ten minute walk feel like an hour long. 

      Splash!  A wave of water hit me, drenching me more than I was already, and here I thought it couldn’t have been possible.  Cursing after the driver who decided to splash water from the street onto me while driving by, I trudged on.  Only a few more yards and I would be at the warm apartment and I could shower and get into a sweater and comfy sweats. 

     With the thought of warmth going through my mind, the rest of the walk went by fast.  Before I knew it I was shoving my key into the apartment door and shoving the barking white terrier -- named Stewie-- off of me with a foot. 

    “Dolores, I’m back!” I hollered to my practically deaf eighty-year-old roommate.  Okay, she wasn’t exactly a roommate but we lived together in the same apartment. 

    I worked for Dolores.  She needed someone to run all her errands for her since she was too old to leave her extravagant apartment, and she also needed someone to clean and cook for her.  The person who helped her just so happened to be me. 

     In return for running her errands, cooking and cleaning I got to live in the fit-for-a-king apartment, free food, and a small salary.  It was a good job.  At least for someone who didn’t want to be found and didn’t have a degree of any sorts. 

    “I’m back here!” Dolores’s raspy from age voice replied.  “Put the groceries back before you come back here!  Last time you forgot to put the milk in the fridge and then it tasted all messed up.”  I rolled my eyes and mumbled under my breath that the milk tasted just fine.  It was only out for a good ten minutes.  But Dolores had a certain way of wanting things done.  If you didn’t do it to her liking she’d throw a hissy fit and demand you to completely redo it or go back to the store and buy milk in the pouring rain even though you bought some just a few hours before.

    Calling Dolores OCD would be an understatement.  She was just controlling.  But I suppose that’s what made her so good at her job.  A writer.  To be a writer, she told me once, you have to be control of the story, the characters, everything.  If you aren’t then everything will turn out sloppy and nobody wants to read a sloppy book.  Especially Dolores.

     Grumbling under my breath some more, I made my way into the oversized kitchen.  I know most women would say there is no such thing as a kitchen being too big, but for what this kitchen was used for, it was.  The only cooking that got done in here was: ramen noodles, peanut butter and jelly, Campbell’s soup, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, and the occasional tuna salad.  Dolores was picky about what she ate, and those seemed to be the only things I made that she would eat without too much grumbling about the way it was prepared. 

     The kitchen was a full kitchen that any gourmet chef would be more than happy to cook in.  Stainless steel appliances, high-tech electronics, every type and size pot and pan you could possible need.  It had everything.  But what was this kitchen used for?  Making damn pb&j.

     Putting the milk in the back of the fridge on the third shelf up, right where Dolores claimed it became the perfect temperature I glared at it menacingly.  Because of the stupid milk I had to go out in the rain and get more groceries because if the milk was bad, then all the groceries must be bad too.  Some days I wanted to throw Dolores’s typewriter out the window.  Today just happened to be one of those days.