Linksshifter II

Stir Up, Shake Down

Whong! The metal pitcher bonged and skittered off the tiles, and Becci dove after it before it picked up a real dent, the towel flying off their shoulder and ending up in the gunk at the foot of the oven that was always so hard to clean up. This was not a good day for hand-eye coordination, they thought. No, that wasn't quite right: this wasn't a good day for not dropping things all over the goddamn floor.

"Becci! Are you all right?" Addie stuck her head around the doorframe from the laundry room, taking in the mess that her partner'd just sprawled all across the kitchen floor.

Becci picked themself up, and checked everything to make sure. "I... I think so. Well, I'm all right – the pitcher's not in such good shape." They held up the pitcher; it had picked up a huge ding after all, and the bottom was so crumpled now that it wouldn't sit up straight.

"As long as you're okay, quieride," Addie said, frowning. "The pitcher doesn't matter – I can take it over to Carlos on my way home from work tomorrow, and get it hammered out, or we can buy a new one. But I hear things falling over like that, and I get worried about you, you know."

Becci shook their head. "No, it's all right, I can take it over to Carlos now. I know you're busy; I was meaning to go to the market after I finished up washing these, and he's right over that way. It'll just be a minute." They laid the pitcher down on the counter, on its side, and picked up the towel, snapping the dirt out of it, to finish washing up the pots and pans that were left.

Carlos was happy to get some work – there was a motorcycle repair place around the corner that had started doing general welding, and it was cutting into his business – and the conversation about these new kids cutting in on his turf drew out the process of hammering the dents out of the pitcher. It was good Carlos was right there, and so cheap and good (there were a couple flakes of enamel missing on the outside, but Becci wasn't positive those hadn't come off on their kitchen floor), but his insistence that they wait for him to finish, and take a cup of coffee leaning against the acetylene tank meant there probably wasn't enough time to get over to the supermarket, so it was going to have to be the chino on the next block, on the way back.

Ning looked up from behind the counter, where she was stacking something in underneath, as the door jingled behind Becci. "Bechara, hello, how you doing?"

Becci nodded. "Just fine, Ning; I'm just back from Carlos', getting a pitcher fixed." They held it up out of their shopping basket, the surface nearly smooth, the hammer marks barely showing. Ning nodded and went back under the counter; Becci turned back to look down the produce aisle.

For fresh vegetables, as long as you didn't mind getting a little unconventional, the chino was as good as the DIA; Becci picked out the least-wilted head of bok choi in the bucket and two bundles of the thin, leafy Chinese broccoli. These would go fine with the roast tonight, and as long as they were here, there wasn't any harm in picking up some noodles so they could make ramen with the stock from the bone later in the week. Becci went down around the endcap full of Panini cards and looked over the noodle packages next to the rice on pallets, trying to find that Korean brand Addie really liked, and then came up to the register through the liquor section.

That was really strange, sticking out; a stack of gleaming bottles packed out of a cardboard prawn-cracker box, a big red construction-paper starburst taped to the rack – special, 20 pesos the bottle, three for $50. What? You could hardly get domestic wine for that. Becci stopped and picked up a bottle, turning it over in their hands. An adhesive sticker rimmed in silver almost melting into the glass, a white shield set with a blurry reproduction of an old painting of some guy with a moustache, and on top of that a red bar with Slavic-styled white letters spelling SOBIESKI; a Polish vodka – and it looked legit. This would make up for the time and expense fixing the pitcher, and they'd probably saved almost enough on the vegetables by shopping here to pay for it. Ning was already up behind the register, but Becci held up a hand for her to wait a second and went to go see if they could find some lemons; they had tonic water enough at home already.