dare y—”
Mika cuts in, “If I may, Stuart?”
“What?” hisses Quasimodo.
Mika gives him a steady look. “Are you currently employed?”
“No!” he snaps. “I was laid off nine months ago and—”
Mika boldly interrupts, “And are you collecting unemployment?”
Something inaudible sputters out of Uncle Stuart’s mouth, which I take to mean a “Yes.”
Mika says in a measured voice, “Well Maddy and I have jobs and we’re not a burden on society.” He shrugs and continues, “No one wants to work at a call center. But some of us just wind up working there, and we try to make the best of it, and Maddy here surely has. She’s one of the nicest and brightest reps, and our callers love her.” He darts me a warm look and announces with great pride, “You may or may not know this, but Maddy recently got promoted.”
Uncle Stuart sneers scornfully, “Who the hell cares? I’d rather be unemployed for the rest of my life than work in a blasted call center. It is just beneath me.”
Mika clears his throat, then continues in a tone that is authoritative and borderline sexy, “Look, Stuart, I’m really sorry that you lost your job, but when you hit a rough patch, you can either choose to be humiliated, or you can choose to learn humility. Perhaps working at a call center would do you some good. You could use a little humility.”
Suddenly, my mom begins flapping and thrashing about in her chair. “Ackh, Kak, Kakh!”
I leap to my feet. “Mom, are you okay?”
“Achk! Kakh!” she hacks and sputters.
A gasp escapes the table as she continues to choke to death, right before our very eyes.
At once, I clap her hard on her back and a cranberry comes flying out of her mouth. It ricochets across the table, clunks onto the white china and spins like a dreidel.
Everyone stops and stares.
A lowly cranberry has never looked so mesmerizing.
“I-I’m fine,” my mom stammers and drains her glass of wine.
It pretty much goes downhill from there.
No one says a word for the rest of the meal; but there are plenty of pinched eyes, pained expressions and tightened lips.
And I know Aunt Benedicta is simply livid with me after my terse exchange with her Quasimodo husband. But try as she might to make a scowling Medusa face, she just looks...surprised.
Constance has her usual hateful smirk pasted on her panda bear face and Uncle Stuart’s Kim Chee expression remains unchanged. He is back to being a pickled cabbage, sulking with his pudgy arms crossed over his barrel chest, glaring at me with his crazy eyes.
How cute! My cross-eyed and cross-armed uncle.
Now all he needs to do is cross his legs and Voilà! He’ll have the whole look complete.
I blow out an explosive sigh and catch Mika’s eye.
He smiles broadly. Holding my gaze, he shoots me a look that says, ‘You go girl!’
I smile back at my comrade. “Mika, could you please pass me the gravy?”
“Of course,” he says evenly.
I reach for the gravy dish and our fingers lightly graze.
We exchange a lingering look, one that seems loaded with potential meaning. And for the rest of the meal, his eyes never leave mine. Sparks seem to be shooting in all directions, and I am no longer aware of my Quasi relatives. I am no longer aware of anyone but the two of us.
Half an hour later, I’m standing on the front lawn, watching Aunt Benedicta and her crazy clan drive off into the stark night.
My mom takes me by surprise when she says, “Sorry honey, I’m taking off too. I’ll see you tomorrow, ‘k love?”
I blink. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes, Kirk works in the ER and his shift ends at midnight.”
“Kirk? Mom, what happened to Vincent?”
“Oh, you were right,” she says with a tinkling laugh. “I am never dating an Ob-Gyn again.”
I stare after her open-mouthed as she slides into her Audi.
“See you kids tomorrow,” she hollers out the window. Then she toots the horn twice and zooms off.
Mika elbows me playfully. “Well that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“I guess it could’ve been a lot worse. And by the way, thanks for standing up to Quasimodo. That took some kahunas.”
He shrugs it off. “Stuart sure is an interesting guy.” After a stretch of silence, he says, “So...what do you want to do now?”
Laughing somewhat deliriously, I manage, “Are you kidding me? After all that drama, I want to do nothing.”
“We can do nothing.” He clears his throat. “We’re all alone now in this big, empty house.”
“Want to go hang out in