The promised thunderstorm still hadn’t materialized when the students from the apartment below showed up right at six. “Yay! Mini-term is over!” Brygitta crowed as they came in.
“No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks!” Kathryn and Olivia laughed as they chanted the childhood ditty.
Nick handed Avis a bouquet of mixed flowers, the kind they sell at the grocery store, but they were fresh and colorful. “With all due respect to the principal of Bethune Elementary, who I’m sure doesn’t give dirty looks.”
Avis had to laugh. “You might be surprised.” She smiled warmly as she took the flowers. “Daisies and alstroemeria! Some of my favorites. You didn’t need to do that, but thank you. Come on in . . . Peter’s out on the back porch hovering over the grill. You can go out there if you’d like.”
As Avis rummaged in a cupboard for a vase, she had a sudden pang. Flowers. Oh dear. With the hot weather this week and no rain, the flowers she’d planted out front of the building were probably dead. She should have watered them this morning at least!
“Anything we can do to help?” Kathryn had her thick brunette hair caught back in a fat ponytail, hands stuck in her jeans pockets.
Avis almost said, “Yes, go water my f lowers!” But it was supposed to rain . . . let the rain do it. So she said, “Sure. You can cut the ends of those stems and arrange the flowers in this vase, if you would. I need to take my mac ’n’ cheese out of the oven.”
Nick, Olivia, and Brygitta wandered out onto the back porch, but Kathryn hung out in the kitchen with Avis as she took out the casserole and then tasted the greens. Mm, perfect. The cornbread needed another ten minutes though.
“Did you hear that Bree and I got a job?” Kathryn said, snipping the ends of the flower stems and sticking them one at a time into the vase. “Over at The Common Cup on Morse Avenue. It’s the coolest thing. They wanted a full-time person, but they’re letting us share the job.”
Avis set out a stack of soak-proof, heavy-duty Styrofoam plates, the kind you need if you’re going to serve ribs. “Part-time? That’s interesting. Does that give you enough . . . I’m sorry. Not my business.”
“No problem. We don’t have a lot of expenses since we’re sharing the rent for the apartment, so I think we’ll be okay. Nick and Olivia still need jobs though. To tell you the truth, I’d rather work part-time this summer anyway, because I’d really like to do some volunteer work too—maybe tutoring or even teaching a class at the church about good nutrition.” Kathryn stuck the last flower stem in the vase. “For poor families in the neighborhood, you know. I mentioned it to Edesa Baxter since she’s got her MA in public health, but we haven’t had a chance to really talk about it. What do you think about something like that, Mrs. D?”
Avis stood stock still, holding the stack of disposable plates, glad Edesa had given them a heads-up about this idea at Yada Yada last week. She recovered quickly. “I think talking to Edesa about it is exactly the right thing to do. Here—” She handed the plates to Kathryn. “Would you take these out to the table on the back porch? We’re almost ready.”
Kathryn took the plates but frowned at them. “Are these Styrofoam? Um, no offense, Mrs. D, but these are really bad for the environment. They’re not biodegradable. Can’t recycle them either. Do you have any regular plates? I’ll be glad to stay and wash the dishes, if that’s the issue.”
It was all Avis could do not to let her mouth drop. Of all the nerve! Hadn’t this girl ever heard that when you’re in Rome, you do as the Romans do? Especially if you’re a guest! But again she made a quick choice not to make an issue of it. “Yes, I do have regular plates. The stoneware in that cupboard. We’ll need six of them. But we are going to use paper napkins with ribs.” If that’s all right with you, Miss Opinionated.
“Ribs?” Kathryn got a funny look on her face, but she opened the cupboard, counted out six plates, and carried them out the back door to the porch.
Avis was so flustered she almost didn’t hear the oven timer beeping away. But after muddling around for a few minutes putting paper napkins in a basket and dishing up the greens, she suddenly remembered the cornbread and pulled it out of the oven. Still okay. Lord, You’re going to have to help me here. Because right now I’m ready to sit that girl down and teach her a few manners.
“Ribs are ready!” Peter called out. “And I’m starving! Let’s eat!”
In a few minutes the glass-topped table on the back porch was full of food—a heaping platter of pungent ribs, the creamy macaroni and cheese, the steaming dish of greens, hot cornbread, honey, butter, and a frosty pitcher of sweet iced tea. Avis had planned to use disposable plastic tumblers, but she brought out tall glasses at the last minute. The paper napkins, however, were going to stay.
Peter asked Nick to say a blessing, which the young man did, and Avis was touched that he prayed “for these good people who have been so kind to us.” Well, yes. She was going to be kind if it killed her.
“It’s nice out here.” Olivia settled into a wicker chair with her plate, on which she’d put a dainty serving of everything. “We haven’t used our back porch yet. Everything’s still covered with tarps or something. You can see quite a bit of sky from up here on the third floor. And I like all the flower boxes on those porches over there.”
Avis enjoyed having a place to sit outside too, though the view wasn’t anything to rave about. Just the paved alley behind the garage and the garages and back porches of the buildings across the alley that faced the next street over—a mixture of two-story homes, two-flats, and three-flats—though a number of backyard locust trees and flowering magnolias helped “green” the alley. Right now, billowing white thunderheads towered overhead, taking over the blue sky. But Olivia was right—many of the porches across the way already had flower boxes hung on the railings, full of petunias and trailing vinca vines and ivy. Something that would have to wait at the Douglass household until school was out next week.
“You like flowers, Olivia?”
“Oh yes!” The pale blonde was quite pretty when she smiled. Took away the deer-in-the-headlights look she often wore. “When I have my own home someday, I’m going to have hanging baskets in every window. But right now I’m taking care of Mrs. Candy’s violets and other indoor plants. I like it.”
Peter was serving up the ribs as the others filled their plates at the table. On a whim Avis said, “Hm. I could use some help with my flowers. The ones I planted in front of the building, I mean. Seems that I forget to water them when it doesn’t rain.”
“Oh, I’d be glad to do it!” Olivia beamed, a touch of pink coming into her cheeks. “In fact, I’ll confess. I saw that they looked a bit wilted this morning, so I watered everything. I hope that was okay.”
Avis chuckled. “Very okay. Thank you, Olivia.”
“What? No ribs?” Peter was saying. He’d stuck his barbecue fork into a nice rack of ribs and was offering it to Kathryn.
But Kathryn shook her head. “No thanks. I’m sure they’re good. But I don’t eat red meat. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll take that,” Nick said, holding out his plate. “Everything looks great.”
By the time they were all served and sitting in the wicker porch chairs, Avis noticed that Kathryn had only taken some cornbread and macaroni and cheese. Good grief. What was wrong with the greens? . . . Oh, right. The smoked neck bones. Avis supposed that was on her no-no list too. It was all she could do to keep from rolling her eyes.
But Nick was obviously enjoying the food. “You make your own sauce, Mr. Douglass? You wouldn’t consider sharing your recipe, would you? . . . Hm. Didn’t think so.” Nick grinned as Peter slyly shook his head. “But let me tell you, I don’t get to eat like this living with three women!”
Everyone laughed, though Avis realized that Kathryn had disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing a few moments later with a glass of water.
Avis made a concerted effort to keep the conversation light, asking about hometowns—Brygitta was from Detroit, Olivia from Minneapolis, Nick from Portland, Oregon, Kathryn from Phoenix—and areas of study. She was surprised to learn that Olivia had another year before getting her BA in sociology. The girl seemed too timid to go into social work. Maybe she’d do something else—research?
“Yeah, I don’t graduate until January,” Nick was saying. “I, uh, still need to do an internship, and I have a couple more classes to complete for my master’s in divinity.”
“He was actually hoping to do an internship at SouledOut,” Kathryn piped up. “But—”
“Kat. Don’t.” Nick glared at her.
“But—”
“Kat.” There was a warning note in Nick’s voice.
A sudden gust of wind blew some of the paper napkins out of the basket, and Avis felt a drop in the temperature. “Uh-oh. I think that thunderstorm is finally here. We better move all this food inside.”
The next ten minutes were a bit hurry-scurry, as everyone grabbed dirty dishes and the bowls and platters of food. Fat raindrops started to spatter on the porch railing just as the sky lit up with a lightning flash, followed several moments later by a loud crack of thunder that made everyone jump. But they managed to get everything inside before the heavens really let loose with sheets of rain blowing over the porch.
“Whew. That came on fast.” Kat started scraping the plates over the food disposal in the sink as Avis stuck two Bakers Square pies in the oven.
Nick grinned. “Yeah. I like it. Not like Portland rain, which is mostly a wet mist that just hangs around for days. Uh, what can I do to help?”
“I’m washing dishes. You can dry.” Kat had already run a sink full of sudsy water and now ran hot water into the second sink for rinsing.
“Kathryn, we have a dishwasher.” Avis pointed. “Just rinse the plates and load them in there.”
“I don’t mind. It saves water if we just wash them.” Kathryn plunged the stack of dishes under the suds.
“Actually, it doesn’t, Kathryn. Our dishwasher is a new Energy Saver and uses less water than you’ve already drawn in the sink there. But since you’ve already started, go ahead this time.”
“Oh.” Kathryn hesitated. “Uh, well, electricity then.”
Focus on the positives, Avis told herself as she put leftovers away and got out pie plates and dessert forks. At least the girl is helpful.
When the dishes were done, Avis took the pies out to the dining room table, followed by Nick and Kathryn carrying the pie plates and forks. In the living room Peter was showing Brygitta and Olivia his Software Symphony website on a laptop. “You should come see this, Nick.” Brygitta waved him over. “You know more about computer software than we do. It’s really cool.”
But Kathryn stopped by the family pictures clustered on a bookshelf between the dining room and living room. “Are these your other daughters?” She picked up a photo.
Avis glanced up from the blueberry pie she was cutting. “Yes, that’s Charette, my . . . our oldest. That’s her husband, Tom, and their twins, Tabitha and Toby. They live in Cincinnati.”
“And this?”
“Our youngest, Natasha. She lives and works in Washington, D.C.”
Kathryn picked up the photo of Rochelle and Conny. “So Rochelle is your middle daughter and lives here in Chicago, right? She’s beautiful. Surprised she’s not married.”
Avis was taken aback. Where did this nosy girl get off presuming Rochelle was single? Probably assumed she wasn’t married when she had Conny. Well, she’d correct that. “She was married to Conny’s father,” Avis said, tight-lipped. “But the man was abusive. She had to leave for safety’s sake. So, yes, she’s a single mom now.”
“Abusive?”
The look on Kathryn’s face seemed horrified. Avis raised her eyebrows. “Yes. It happens, Kathryn, even in the best of families. Most of us have situations, either in our immediate families or extended families, that are less than perfect—”
“Yes, I know,” Kathryn murmured. “About that less-than-perfect part.”
Avis blinked. Was the girl dealing with some pain in her own family? She usually came across so confident, so . . . together. Avis’s irritation softened. “Yes, well, fortunately God is still in the redemption business, so we keep praying for Rochelle’s ex. But at least Rochelle and Conny are safe from him now.”
Setting the photo down, Kathryn was strangely quiet as the others came to the table. Avis served up the warm pies. “Blueberry or apple?” She put a thin sliver of both on Peter’s plate. The occasional dessert didn’t hurt. “Anybody for à la mode? Peter, will you do the honors?”
Several plates were slid toward Peter and his ice cream scoop.
“Uh, no thanks,” Kathryn said. “Actually, I need to go.” She abruptly headed for the front door. “Please excuse me. Something I forgot. Thanks for having us, Mrs. D. Bye, Mr. D!” And she was gone.
“Kat?” Nick got up and started to follow, but Brygitta pulled him back into his chair with a shake of her head.
Peter sent Avis a questioning look. She gave a slight shrug. What was that about?