Mom Over Miami Part 10

It took a full three seconds for Hannah to realize that her aunt expected an answer. "What question?"

"Dietary needs?"

"You want to know if I'm on a diet?" She folded her arms over tummy.

"Or have allergies or have any special restrictions, preferences or dislikes. Not just you, but the whole family. If I am going to be cooking for you I need to know."

"Cooking?" She unfolded her arms and dropped her feet to the floor with a thud.

It boggled the mind to imagine what exotic dishes Aunt Phiz might concoct. And how her family might react to them. What if they actually liked Aunt Phiz's Roasted Rack of Yak or Cream of Octopus Soup? Hannah couldn't even flip a decent flapjack, much less start off each morning serving up crepes flamingo flambe. Hannah didn't even know where to get a flamingo in Ohio!

"That's so sweet of you to offer, Aunt Phiz, but I think we should stick with my brand of simple but nouris.h.i.+ng style of cooking for the family."

"I've seen your handiwork." Even partially obscured by soft, crinkly skin, the older woman's eyes still sparkled.

Hannah raised her head. "I manage."

"And your family? They like these cakes with s.p.a.ckling for frosting?"

"No. They like..." They liked liked eating out. In fact they vastly preferred it to Hannah's effort in the kitchen. "Look, Aunt Phiz, I know I'm not the world's best cook but that doesn't mean I don't want to learn, that I don't want to get better at it." eating out. In fact they vastly preferred it to Hannah's effort in the kitchen. "Look, Aunt Phiz, I know I'm not the world's best cook but that doesn't mean I don't want to learn, that I don't want to get better at it."

The senior tented her plump fingers over her chest and leaned forward. "I'm listening."

"I've waited so long for the chance to do just that, to take care of my very own family." Hannah gazed into her secondhand mug and swirled the dregs of her coffee around. "Surely you understand?"

Her aunt lifted her teacup and sipped her aromatic, anise-flavored tea. Her eyes searched Hannah's face for a moment before she set the cup back on its saucer with a decisive click. "Not only do I understand, but I think I know precisely how to help you realize that very thing."

"Help?" she asked weakly, when deep down inside she wanted to fling open a window and scream it. Help! Help! Help! Help!

"Never fear, Hannah, my darling. Aunt Phiz is here, and she is going to teach you to become a first-cla.s.s gourmet cook!"

Cooking lessons. She guessed she could squeeze those in, somewhere between mothering, writing, running the nursery and...

Aunt Phiz pushed up from the oversize floral wingback. Everything from her hair to her boot laces swung into the action as she waddled off to the kitchen, her precious teacup in hand. "Get the kids ready. We are going shopping!"

Who knew?

All these years everyone teased her for being a lousy cook when they should have teased her for being a lousy shopper!

Okay, it wasn't quite that simple, but standing in her own kitchen now piled high with a s.h.i.+ny new collection of pots, pans and gadgets filled Hannah with a soaring sense of unlimited potential.

She could study the recipes in her new cookbook.

She could listen and learn and do her aunt Phiz proud.

She could make...meat loaf!

"Turkey meat loaf." Aunt Phiz waved her hand over the ingredients strewn along the cluttered countertop.

"Turkey? You sure about this?"

"Considered a healthier alternative by some."

"Some as in someone whose name rhymes with Shyllis Shamaryllis?"

"Humor me." She slapped the meat, wrapped in bright white paper, into Hannah's palm. "And get cooking. We're burning daylight."

"Okay, but do me a favor. Don't use the words cooking cooking and and burning burning in the same breath around here." in the same breath around here."

"You'll do fine. Just follow my instructions."

CHAPTER 8

Subject: Nacho Mama's House column To:

Last week the hardest questions I had to answer were: "How do you know when the meat loaf is done?"

"Do you want extra cheese on that pizza, lady?"

And "Why, when Aunt Phiz said she came here to help us, do we have to wait on her?"

The answers: "You can always tell when my meat loaf is done by the sound of the kitchen smoke alarm going off."

"You're asking Nacho Mama if she wants extra cheese?"

And- "Because, son, your foster mommy is a wimp."

Oh, for those simpler times when the only thing anyone expected from me concerned the Aunt Phiz factor and the proper way to dispose of flaming turkey meat loaf. I'm afraid those days are long gone.

The days of the DIY-Namic Duo have begun.

Sort of.

Let's just say that they've begun to begin.

We've moved the cribs and rockers and toys into the fellows.h.i.+p hall. It's a short-term thing-meaning I've come to terms with having my meager authority usurped, but if the sisters don't move things along I'm going to get a little short with them.

Especially if they don't stop asking me questions like "Runners or puzzle mats?" I said runners. I have no idea what they were talking about, but as a longtime wearer of panty hose I have some experience with runners. On the other hand, while I don't know this Matt fellow, I have no desire to sic the sisters onto the poor man with the express purpose of puzzling him.

Kidding. Honestly. Don't write to explain that runners are strips of carpet and puzzle mat is spongy safety flooring. I do know the difference. If you have to write to offer your help, please, please, tell me how to encourage two highly enthusiastic women that actions speak louder than words. Even their words.

Their lots and lots of words.

Especially when those words are aimed directly at me, asking me the kinds of questions that I am totally unprepared to answer.

NOTE TO SELF: FINISH COLUMN BEFORE SENDING "Canary or k.u.mquat? Canary?" Jacqui pulled one four-by-four-inch square slowly back, then whipped a second one up and demanded, "Or k.u.mquat?"

Hannah blinked at the two paint-sample cards held inches from her nose. She chewed her lower lip, trying not to let the pressure steer her toward the wrong answer. She felt the way she did at the optometrist's office when he said, "Better like this? Or better like this?"

But at the eye doctor she only ran the risk of getting the wrong prescription and spending the next year trying to look at the world through gla.s.ses that she didn't really need. Flub this choice and who knew how many infants might spend their Sunday mornings in a nursery that could fail, as Jacqui put it, "to stimulate their minds and generate feelings of creativity and security."

Yikes!

At least she only had one DIY sister to deal with on this. Cydney had staked her claim in the toddler room and at this very moment stood sketching a mural of Noah's Ark on one wall of the adjacent room. At least Hannah thought the rough pencil lines would eventually represent Noah's Ark.

Though she had to admit she got that idea more from the singing going on in the next room than from anything Hannah saw on the wall.

"C'mon, Sam." Cydney's voice carried through the partially opened door between the two rooms. Loud as she spoke, it could have carried through walls. "One more time, but this round give it all you've got. Throw in a little oomph! oomph!"

Sam obliged, belting out at the top of his lungs, "'The Lord said to Noah, There's going to be a floody, floody...'"

"Hannah!" Jacqui snapped her fingers.

The song faded to a background buzz.

"Canary or k.u.mquat?"

Hannah studied Jacqui's face for some hint of what she expected. Finding nothing but intense antic.i.p.ation, Hannah finally sighed and blurted out, "Um, Canary."

"Canary?" Her voice cracked.

"Did I say Canary?" Hannah glanced at both squares again. Squinting, she pushed her fingers through the fringes of red hair that had escaped her once neat little ponytail. "k.u.mquat. Definitely k.u.mquat."

"You don't think it's too...?" Jacqui crinkled up her nose, exposing the deep lines in an otherwise flawless face.

Hannah involuntarily crinkled her own nose. She squinted, trying to determine the problem with the deeper tone of the two colors. But she couldn't see it. "Oh, no. Absolutely not."

Jacqui held at arm's length the color sample Hannah had chosen. "What about Lemongra.s.s?"

"What about it?"

"Do you like it?"

"As what?" She'd had nightmares like this. Where people spoke to her and she had no concept of what they meant or of what they wanted her to say.

"A color." Jacqui darted to the paint-spattered tarp bundled against the wall, seized another small card and flipped it around to show Hannah. "How do you like it as a color?"

Hannah shook her head. "I don't know."

Jacqui exhaled in a short, sharp blast.

No one could describe either of the sisters as tall or, upon first glance, physically commanding. But when one of them wanted to get her point across, she had the presence of a giantess. And the gestures to match.

"Lemongra.s.s. It's a color. A very lovely color. I showed it to you last week." She bent at the knees, arched her back and waved her hand over her shoulder to indicate the past.

"Last-" Hannah waved, too, though weakly and lacking any real direction, much less conviction "-week?"

"We thought it veered too much to the green." On the word we we, she made a circular motion, as though some unseen committee had come to this conclusion.

Hannah copied the movement Jacqui had made with both hands but used only one finger in a very halfhearted whirl that ended with her finger pointed to herself. "We did?" did?"

"Too inst.i.tutional." Jacqui bobbed her head as if nodding for the whole invisible team. "We opted for something that trended toward gold."

Hannah struggled to recall such a discussion.

Flooring? She remembered that.

Window treatments? Yes. She'd even made a bad pun about needing treatments to get over the trauma of looking at all those window treatments.

But trending toward gold?

She tipped her head to one side and winced. "Gold?"

"Not Goldenrod or American Heritage Mustard, not that deep of a hue. More of a hint of gold. Kissed by gold, as it were."

"Kissed?" Hannah rubbed her forehead.

"That's what you you wanted. A vibrant, warmer tone." wanted. A vibrant, warmer tone."

"I did?"

"Yes, you you did. did. You You wanted a warmer color. So I brought warmer colors." She raised the sample squares. "Now wanted a warmer color. So I brought warmer colors." She raised the sample squares. "Now you you tell me you can't decide?" tell me you can't decide?"

Got it. Hannah exhaled. Message received. In Jacqui's eyes, Hannah clearly had created all the problems. And she knew just how to fix that. "Okay, I can decide right now."

"You can?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful. So which is it? k.u.mquat? Or Canary?"

Hannah s.h.i.+mmied her shoulders in triumph and smiled, ready to accept her accolades as she said decisively, "Lemongra.s.s."

Jacqui threw up her hands.

The paint samples somersaulted through the air.

k.u.mquat, Canary and Lemongra.s.s dotted the floor at her feet.