So Much More(63)

She looks a little rattled, calmer than I would expect for a stranger bum rushing her home, but still a touch rattled. “Maybe Mrs. Lipokowski has butter.”

I pat her on the arm as I walk quickly past her to the front door. I don’t know who Mrs. Lipokowski is, but I need this woman to come through for me, so I’m talking to her like I’d talk to someone who works for me. It’s a flurry of pep talk mixed with get your ass in gear. You don’t give people time to think when you need something, you just tell them what they’re going to do. They usually never question it. Couple that assertiveness with my desperation and it’s a volatile mix that anyone would be crazy to challenge. “Good thinking. You run and get a stick of butter from Mrs. Lipokowski right now and bring it up to apartment three.” I’m talking fast, but watching her eyes to make sure she understands the importance of this mission.

“Okay?” she says it like a question.

I clap my hands, and she startles at the sound. “Come on. Chop chop. I need your head in the game. Mrs. Lipokowski. Butter. Now. Go.” I’m a coach barking out orders.

She walks out the door and I pull it closed behind me.

“Apartment three!” I yell at her retreating figure.

I race back up the stairs and leave the front door open so the butter can easily find its way in.

A few minutes later, the neighbor appears in the kitchen with a stick of butter. She’s out of breath and hands it off like a baton in a relay race before she drops into a chair at the table.

I accept it like a baton in a relay race, remove it from its wrapper, drop it in a mixing bowl, and stick it in the microwave. I look at her, because if she didn’t fail me with the butter, maybe… “Do you know how to bake?”

“I bake pizza sometimes.”

“Frozen?” I question. Warming a frozen pizza isn’t baking. Because frozen pizza isn’t really food.

She nods.

Damn.

I pick up my phone off the counter and tap the screen to bring up the recipe and hand it to her. “Do you think you can make this?”

She accepts the phone, and it takes longer than I’d like for her to read the recipe, but when she stands and starts opening the tubes of Pillsbury biscuits on the counter, hope erupts within me like Mount Vesuvius.

We take our time and when the Bundt pan is in the oven, I look at the woman I’ve been working with for the past thirty minutes and I extend my hand in celebration. “I’m Miranda.” I don’t say thank you because those are words I use sparingly. Most things we do during the course of a day are trivial, or are meant to propel our existence forward, they don’t require thanks. People do—it’s how we get through the day. It’s how we persevere. No thanks are needed for doing.

“I’m Hope,” she responds. She’s awkward now that we don’t have a task to focus on. Or maybe she was always awkward, and I didn’t notice because I was all hopped up on daydreams of monkey bread. She won’t look me in the eye.

“Do you want something to drink, Hope?” The monkey bread has to bake for thirty minutes, and I don’t want her to leave until I know if an emotional meltdown over dough is needed.

“You got any iced tea?”

Her incorrect grammar makes me my teeth grit and my eyes squint. “Do I have any iced tea?” I correct.

“Yeah, you got any iced tea?” She missed the correction.

“No. I have orange juice, Pellegrino, milk, or Coors Light.” I don’t care if she did just potentially save my ass, I’m not offering her my wine.

“Orange juice.”

I pour her a glass and then sit at the table with her. She fidgets like a child. Her mannerisms are all childlike. I wonder what her story is. I’m usually not interested in people personally, but she’s odd and it’s intriguing. “How long have you lived here, in your apartment?”

She thinks it over and then answers, “A long time.”

“One year? Five years? How long is a long time?” I press.

“I came when I was eighteen.”

“How old are you now?”

“Forty.”

Shocker. I would’ve guessed her ten years older. I want to tell her about dermabrasion, and chemical peels, and Botox, but I don’t think those words are in her vocabulary. And then I have an idea and run to the bathroom to retrieve my bag of tricks.

When I return, I hand her a hair elastic. “Put your hair up.”

She’s good with commands. I like that. She gathers back her long, tangled blond hair into a ponytail.

I do the same with mine.

Then I turn on the hot water in the sink until it’s steaming and wet two washcloths and wring them out. “Now tip your head back. I’m going to put this on your face. It’s hot, it will open up your pores.”

“Pores?” she questions.

“Just do it. Your skin is screaming for attention like a middle-aged woman in the front row at a Bon Jovi concert.” After I put the washcloth on her face, I do the same with mine. When it starts to noticeably cool, I remove them and set them on the counter. Hope flinches when I smear the mask on her face. “Sorry, I know it’s cold.”

“What is it?” she asks.

“It’s a mask. It contains lactic acid and beta glucan.”

“Huh?” I’ve lost her.