I nodded as he set the coffee cup in front of me and affirmed, “I was really out of it so actually, no. I don’t remember anything.”
He watched me for several seconds then he dipped his head to the coffee cup and asked, “Do you take cream?”
“Cream?”
He grinned. “Yeah, Duchess, cream. You got that in England?”
“We don’t call it cream.”
“What do you call it then?”
“What it is. Milk.”
“All right, you take milk?”
“Yes.”
“Sugar?”
“One.”
“One what?”
“One sugar.”
He was still grinning but he shook his head and went to the fridge. He pulled out a gallon jug of milk and set it on the counter by me. Then he pulled out a huge, unopened bag of sugar and, if I wasn’t wrong, I bought that bag in Denver too. Then he set that next to the milk. Then he opened a drawer and got me a spoon. Then he turned to his bacon.
I opened the bag of sugar while I said, “I don’t think I could do bacon.”
“Bacon’s for me. You’re getting oatmeal.”
“Oh.”
He cracked two eggs into the side of the skillet with the bacon and the bacon grease and I stared. Then he walked to a cupboard and pulled out a box of instant oatmeal.
I spooned sugar in my coffee and then I stared at the gallon jug of milk. Then I looked at my mug. Then the milk. Then back.
How was I going to get a splash of the milk in that huge gallon jug in my mug without making a mess?
Then I heard, “Honey, you gonna will it to pour itself in your cup with your eyes?”
I looked at him and asked, “Do you have a little pitcher?”
He threw his head back and burst out laughing, that was deep and gravelly too.
I stared again. What was funny?
“What’s funny?” I asked when he got control of his hilarity.
“Don’t throw many tea parties, Duchess,” he told me still smiling like I was highly amusing.
I wasn’t sure I liked him calling me “Duchess”. Okay so, the way he was saying it now was kind of sweet in a weirdly familiar and even somewhat intimate way. The way he said it two days ago, I wasn’t so sure. It was almost like he was making fun of me except now it felt like he thought I was in on the joke.
“Maybe you could stop calling me ‘Duchess’,” I suggested.
“Maybe I couldn’t,” he returned, came toward me, picked up the gallon jug, splashed a huge dollop of milk in my mug, making coffee and milk plop up and out on the counter then he turned back and poured, without measuring, a bunch of milk into the instant oatmeal.
“My name is Nina,” I told him.