Rolling Boil

 

“DO YOU THINK this is hot enough?” Dad asked, lifting the pot’s lid and peering inside.

“Is it boiling?”

Steam fogged Dad’s glasses. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sort of.”

“Is it a rolling boil?”

“That sounds like an infection,” Odette said from her nook. “A really gross infection. A case of the rolling boils.”

No one heard her.

“If it’s not a rolling boil, the pasta won’t cook well.” Mom’s voice sounded like at least a simmer.

“I don’t know, Liz, it looks good enough to me.”

“Good enough to you isn’t necessarily good enough,” Mom said.

Odette looked across the Coach to the big bed in the back, where Rex sat cross-legged, ears covered by the massive headphones he insisted on wearing instead of earbuds, his thumbs twitching across the keys of his Game-X. He looked totally oblivious to the thunderstorm of energy in the kitchenette.

But you never could tell, with Rex. It could seem like he was off and away, spiraled up tight like a roly-poly bug, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what was going on.

Dad thrust the spaghetti sticks into the water, apparently tired of waiting for a rolling boil. Mom’s shoulders clenched up tight, something Odette knew she herself had inherited.

The whole inside of the Coach felt like that pot, and they were the spaghetti sticks. Pushed together, too tight, too hot.

Suddenly the water boiled and foamed up, spilling over the sides of the pot, hissing and splashing as it met the electric coils.

“Careful, Simon!” The irritation in Mom’s voice made the whole Coach feel even smaller, even tighter.

Odette hopped down from her nook and headed outside. Georgie yipped and tried to follow, but Odette shoved her back inside and closed the door.

 

LATER, THEY ATE overcooked spaghetti and sauce from a jar. They sat jammed tight in the little booth because outside a swarm of wasps circled hungrily.

“It’d make a great name for a band,” Rex said suddenly, twirling his fork in his bowl.

“What would, buddy?” Mom asked.

“Rolling Boil,” Rex answered. Both Mom and Dad laughed, too loud, Odette thought. Her joke had been way better, and no one had said a thing.