Lard had tacked his poetry assignment on his bulletin board. It seemed a perfect, though an admittedly flippant way, to follow Mary Oliver’s opening lines, One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting…Dr. Chu required everyone to finish the line.
Lard had written, Sure I could shout back if I wanted to and be louder than everyone else because I’m bigger and could shatter a wine glass with a sneeze if I wanted to but I just don’t care that much anymore about what people think of me.
Bones took out his journal and chewed on the end of his pencil. He’d never come up with anything as real as that, and not just because he still cared too much about what people thought of him. He’d never known anyone as comfortable in his own skin as Lard.
…Voices around you kept shouting…Bones knew only too well about voices. They’d been running the same circles inside his head for years, starving little dogs trapped in a boneyard. It was time to let them out to explore the neighborhood.
One day you finally knew what you had to do…Instead of finishing the line, he got up and went to the window and began shouting until his ears rang and his throat was raw and the voices were little more than a leaky valve. He smiled to himself, then laughter kicked in. He laughed so hard he was coughing up fur balls of irony when Unibrow stuck his head in the doorway.
“This is no-joke Tuesday,” he said.
Bones dabbed his sore eye with his sleeve.
“Er, just kidding.”
“I figured.”
“Gumbo says dinner’s in the kitchen tonight,” Unibrow said. “Don’t be late.”
After Unibrow unplugged his bulk from the doorway, Bones hit the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. Instead of weak, pale, and helpless, he thought the shiner made him look like a formidable fighter. A great yearbook picture.
Dinner in the kitchen could only mean one thing: Dr. Chu wanted to evaluate their cooking skills. If anything he was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner and hoped the recipes wouldn’t be too complicated. He passed through the dayroom, catching up to Sarah and Mary-Jane, strolling with their arms linked. He wondered why girls were always doing something weird with their hair. Sarah’s bangs were spiked, like porcupine quills.
“Who won the fight?” she asked.
Bones knew she meant his black eye. He stepped in front of her and opened the door to the stairs. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
Mary-Jane stalled, her knuckles embedded in a mass of hips. “What’s wrong with the elevator?”
Bones took a stutter step; the word elevator was loaded with meaning. “I bet you’ve never gone this way,” he said.
“Why would we?”
“Because it’s against the rules,” he said.
That was good enough for them.
“Dr. Chu probably wants us to document our relationship with a dead animal before and after eating it,” Sarah said like she’d rather lap gravy from a pig trough.
Mary-Jane panted, taking the stairs slowly. “Maybe it isn’t about cooking.” Clearly the idea was beneath her. “Maybe it’s some sort of art project. We made gingerbread men in kindergarten. Stupid Harry Pitts bit the head off my cookie.”
“Psycho.”
“I cried.”
Lard met them at the door to the kitchen in a puffy chef’s hat.
“Nice look,” Sarah said.
“You’re about to eat your words,” Lard said.
Teresa stepped up in a floral sundress. “Welcome to Chez Kowlesky.”
The kitchen could have been a four-star restaurant—if it weren’t for the counters, sinks, cupboards, stove, ovens, fridge, and blinding fluorescent lights. Bones wondered if anyone else noticed there didn’t seem to be any cooking going on. The stove was off. No pots or pans or the usual steamy chaos. No messy bowls or whisks lying around. And the room was fifteen degrees cooler than normal.
“Think I’ll make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and call it a night,” Mary-Jane said.
Lard hung out by the door greeting Dr. Chu, Nancy, and Unibrow. The latter read the room quickly and excused himself with a Neanderthal grunt. Dr. Chu fingered his tie. “Is dinner being delivered?” As if Lard would order take-out.
Elsie and Nicole came in, short of breath. “Sorry, we forgot we were meeting in here.”
Lard opened a cupboard and reached for a stack of plates. Chip-free china, not the usual scratched plastic. He lined everyone up in front of the counter. Bones was sandwiched between Mary-Jane and Nicole. He knew he should’ve been nervous about whatever was about to happen—something out of the ordinary obviously. But he took a plate like everybody else, trusting his roommate.
Before anyone could make another smart-ass remark Lard opened the dishwasher, lunging backward when steam poured out. “Dr. Chu?” Lard handed over a pair of tongs with a flourish. “Please take your dinner out of the dishwasher.”
Dr. Chu squinted skeptically at packets of foil winking at him from the top rack. Each one had a name on it. The others fell over themselves laughing before taking turns with the tongs. Bones busted up too. Lard had actually done it.
Bones knew dinner wasn’t about Lard showing off what he’d learned in the kitchen. He could’ve poured ketchup over tater tots and the girls would’ve dropped to the floor and kissed his boots. But Lard wanted to do something special for his friends.
“Each packet is its own meal,” Lard explained. “Prepared according to your own individual nutritional requirements. All natural, steamed in their own juices.”
Mary-Jane chewed the end of her braid and eyed her packet skeptically.
“Come on, this is supposed to be fun,” Lard said. “You can’t fuck up foil. Just rip it open.”
“He’s right.” Dr. Chu opened his packet with the care of a surgeon. His dinner glistened in its own salty gel. SPAM. “You’re not being graded.”
Bones unfolded his foil giving the salmon and garden vegetables the admiration they deserved. He may not have been the first person to get the significance of what was happening, but he was the first to say it.
“Do you realize what we’re witnessing?” he said. “Lard’s a guy in an Eating Disorder program who’s more focused on cooking than eating. Seems like such a person should be ready to go home.”
Dr. Chu said, “Or well on his way.”
Lard shrugged, embarrassed. He told everyone how he came up with the idea. “No added calories, like stir-fry for instance, which uses oil,” he said. “And no oil splatter-burns on your clothes. I used full cycle. No soap.”
Nicole, Sarah, and Mary-Jane ate their pork tenderloin silently like three starving refuges. Elsie ate like a three-hundred pound bouncer.
“Stir-fry only takes a few minutes,” Sarah said. “Our dishwasher at home takes forty-five minutes. That’s a long time to wait when you’re hungry.”
“I’m working on that,” Lard said.
“You can recycle the foil,” Teresa said.
Bones couldn’t help but think about Alice. She would’ve loved this more than anyone. He knew the others were aware of her absence and missed her snarky remarks. They had to be worried about her too. But talking about Alice right now would be a downer. Besides this was Lard’s show.
Bones finished his salmon thinking about her treasonous body and reckless mind. He thought of warm days and stolen nights on the roof. He thought of driving down the Santa Monica freeway with the windows down and music cranked. He thought of his hands on her and her hands on him and ten blissful minutes in the elevator with all its hopes, dreams, and promises.
He thought that it was just all so amazing and wonderful and unreal and he knew he’d never let it go.