Lori Avocato - Dead On Arrival

In a short time, we’d be dining together at his house, and then I was somehow going to manage to snoop around.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Jeremy had asked me to play a game of cards to pass the time, so he, Jennifer, Marty-another EMT-and I played Texas Hold ’em poker, with me winning the fake jackpot.

Soon the shift ended, everyone said their goodbyes and I walked out the back door.

“See you in a few, Nightingale,” Dano said from behind.

Exhausted, I waved my hand in the air. “Be there around sixish.” I wanted to turn around and see him, but told myself I needed to go home, unwind and get the food or else die of embarrassment when I arrived empty-handed.

I should have arrived at Dano’s empty-handed. Dying of embarrassment in front of a hunk would have been a welcome relief, as opposed to sitting in Stella Sokol’s kitchen-and getting the maternal third degree.

And no one, no one, did the maternal third degree like my mother.

“So, Pauline, why two dinners?” My mother turned away from the frying pan, which held the fantastic potato delicacies, and waved the spatula at me as if ready to use it. “And I still don’t understand why you can’t stay and eat with us. The family that eats together stays together.”

“That’s prays together,” I mumbled, and then shook my head, sipped my tea to buy time (mom’s tea bags were so fresh, I think she grew the herb and made them herself). “I’m…I’ll need them for leftovers. You know how I love the pancakes with eggs the next morning. So does Goldie.”

She spun around and turned the golden brown potato pancakes over. “Goldie. What kind of name is that, and where are my boys?”

“Both working, Ma.” She hated when I called her that but now I was so tired and crabby from her questions that I did it on purpose. I did have to smile at the way she called my roommates “her boys.” I’d grown very protective of the two of them, and was always thankful that someone like my mother could be so accepting of them.

“Working. Like you should be,” she said, taking the first batch of pancakes out and setting them on a paper-towel-covered dish, which she then stuck in the oven.

“You don’t have to keep mine warm.” I got up and made myself another cup of tea. I’d be in the bathroom all night, but that might be just the excuse I’d need to get away from Dano in his own house. “I won’t be eating them right away.”

She shut the oven door and looked at me. “Yes, they need to be kept warm anyway, and you ignored my statement about working. You should be working at Saint Gregory’s Hospital, like Miles. There is a nursing shortage, Pauline.”

“There’s been a nursing shortage, Ma, since the days of Clara Barton.”

She clucked her tongue at me.

I had to say, watching Stella Sokol work her magic around the kitchen was like watching Donna Reed in color. Stella even wore the button-down housedresses, aprons, and sensible shoes that were so popular in the fifties. She seemed to draw the line at pearls though, which she only wore on special occasions, like weddings and funerals.

Why anyone tied those two together, I never knew.

I shook my head as I stuck my mug into the microwave and realized I’d never seen my mother in pants. “Do you own a pair of pants, Mother?”

“Women should dress like women. And who makes tea in a microwave? Use the stove to boil the water.”

“I hate my tea so hot, and I do work, Ma.”

“Stop calling me that.” She ladled spoonfuls of pancake batter into the hot oil. A crackling and sizzling sound filled the kitchen, along with the delicious scent of the potatoes and onions to which she always added just the correct amount of salt.

Now the nostalgic aroma had me leaning against the peacock-blue Formica countertop and remembering my childhood, which was damn good considering Stella Sokol raised us kids. As a matter of fact, when she wielded the spatula at me, I had another déjà vu kinda moment. Mom always waved some kind of kitchen utensil at us kids to make her point, but she never actually hit us. She left that up to the wooden-ruler-wielding nuns. I figured mom’s weapon of choice always came from the kitchen because that’s where she spent her entire life.

“Okay, Pauline, we are back to my original question. Why two meals, and don’t give me any malarkey about leftovers. You never liked leftovers. Even as a child you were finicky about eating something that was made on a different day.”

I felt myself shrink down to the age of five. No, make that seven. The age of reason, when I realized there was no reasoning with my mother. “That was before the dawn of the microwave. Now I love leftovers,” I lied.

“Baloney. Why two meals?”

“I have a date!” flew out of my mouth in the most childish voice.

Mother swung around, sending a drip of grease flying onto the sparkling black-and-white-checked linoleum flooring. While she vigorously wiped it up, she said, “A date. A date? A date!”

I shook my head at her excitement. Or, was that her amazement? Damn. “Don’t sound so surprised, Maaaaa.”

Once again she waved the spatula at me, but this time she quickly wiped it with the paper towel first. “Stop that, or I won’t feed you.”

My favorite uncle, Uncle Walt, walked in. “Not feed her? Yowza, Pauline. What the hell did you do?” He and I chuckled.

Mother gave him a stern look. “Don’t use such language in front of her, Walter.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I won’t get fed tonight.” Then he winked at me, kissed me on the cheek and hurried out.

I guess he figured he’d better get the hell out of Dodge, or she really wouldn’t let him eat.

“Ma, Uncle Walt’s language is fine.” I wanted to say she should hear the guys I hung around with curse, but thought better than to share that. I really wanted my food soon. She finished taking out the rest of the pancakes from the frying pan, and I went to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “I do work, Mother. You know I’m doing very well as an insurance investigator. We’re needed too. People cheat the companies out of millions and that makes the premiums go up for everyone.”

I decided to go for broke, so I told her about Angie, the baby, and no insurance. Before I finished, my mother was making the sign of the cross and saying an Our Father for Angie and her family.

Now I had her.

“So, let me package up mine now. I have to get going.”

“Where?” She took out a plastic container and lined it with several paper towels.

“My date. I told you.” I got out a bag from the cabinet and the applesauce and sour cream from the fridge. Both went great with my mother’s homemade potato pancakes.

“Yes, you did say a date.” She carefully laid one pancake atop the others as if making a gift basket. “But, Pauline, you didn’t say-actually I think you are trying not to say-where.” She swung around and glared at me. “Are you having a man over to your condominium?”

Age seven started to resurface again, but I held my head up and said, “Nope.” Then I stuck the rest of the applesauce and sour cream back into the refrigerator. “Okay, Mom.” I kissed her cheek. “This is great. It all smells great. I appreciate it. Great. Great. Great.”

She grabbed my arm. “His house? You are going to a man’s house?”

Even though I’d never been good at reading body language, mother’s eyes were wild, accusing, sneaky and probing. Before I knew it, I’d be telling her that I’d had sex with ER Dano! So, telling her I was going to his house was mild in comparison. If I stuck around though, she’d have me confessing he also might be a murderer. I had to pull my face away so she couldn’t use her motherly interrogation techniques on me.