Page 48 of Love Undecided
She sits back on the couch and sighs. “I don’t want to make soup.” She sounds as though she may start crying at any moment. The dogs jump up beside her and paw at her lap, whimpering.
I look at Ethan; he raises his eyebrows back at me.
She continues, “Oy vey iz mir. I’m tired, I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I just want it to go away. My son is dead. My husband is dead. Mybubulais too busy with her grapes to care for me. I have no one!” She falls back against the couch and throws her arm over her eyes, the move is very dramatic, but also effective.
The dogs start to whine louder, hopping back and forth over her lap. While Ethan and I both immediately start making promises to her of visits, making soup, mowing her lawn, trimming the big tree. She looks up at us with big blue eyes.
“Youboychikswould really do that?” She blows her nose with a soft honking noise. Ethan and I are both nodding our heads enthusiastically, not caring that now we are both boy chicks.
I kneel next to her and place one hand on her knee. Clyde, or maybe it was Stella, begins to lick my hand.
“Mavis,” I say. “When we get back to the station, I’m going to make you some chicken soup. Then I will bring it back here for you. And, one of us will check on your periodically to make sure you are okay.”
“Ohdanke,danke.” She blows her nose again. “But I’ll need it to be matzo ball soup you know. That is the cure for everything. People think the cure is chicken soup, but a good Jewish woman knows the difference.” Her voice is suddenly much clearer than it was a minute ago.
I smile at the request. “Matzo ball soup it is,” I tell her. We move to leave, Ethan steps outside to call in our status to dispatch.
Mavis surprises me with a quick hug. “You’re a realmensch. You’re too thin, but you’ve got a nicetuchus. Are you married?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Mavis.”
“Right, Mavis. No, Mavis, I am not married.”
“Well, you should be,” she says. “If I was still amaydl, I’d give you a run for your money.”
One of the dogs yips in agreement. She pinches me on the butt when I turn to walk out the door. The move surprises me and I jump with a little yelp, Ethan looks over at me with a questioning look on his face. I motion him toward the truck and follow quickly behind him.
“Danke, boys,danke!” Mavis yells after us.
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
Her voice is back to throaty and congested.
Ethan and I get back in the truck at the same time.
I turn to him. “Dude, she pinched my ass!”
“She called me a boy chick,” he says. “Multiple times.”
“She said that to me too,” I say.
“Once. She said it once to you.”
“At least she didn’t comment on yourtookusand pinch it.”
Ethan just laughs. “You do have a way with the ladies. If things don’t work out with Kat, at least you’ll have a back-up.”
“Haha,” I say, dryly.
As we head back to the station, I realize I need to figure out what the hell a matzo ball is.
