Page 22 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
“These are all rescues,” Ellery said, her fingertips grazing a potted plant as she walked past. “I’ve never met an orphan I didn’t want to take home.”
“I had no idea you could rescue a plant,” I said, feeling stupid.
“Duh, Tulip!”
That familiar comeback made me smile. “Do they call out for help? Look at you with sad eyes?”
“You know what? That is exactly what they do.” Ellery picked up a small pot from the desk. “This one, for example, I found growing out of a crack in the garage. I had to, uh, sort of widen the crack to dig it out.”
I’m torn between laughter and shock. “Are you saying you desecrated the property to rescue a…common weed?”
“The little guy fought so hard to be alive, I thought it deserved a hand.” She stroked a leaf with obvious affection and put the plant down. “I have a soft spot for hardy little fighters. Take a seat anywhere. Want a drink?”
I looked around, wondering where to sit. There was one chair, in front of the desk, a love seat, and the futon bed. After some consideration, I chose the love seat.
“I’ve got orange juice or coffee,” Ellery said from the fridge. She opened the carton of orange juice, sniffed, and made a face. “Okay, I only have coffee. Or water.”
“So many choices.”
“I know, right?”
“I’ll have water. I can’t have coffee past noon, otherwise I won’t be able to fall asleep.”
“Whaaat? Isn’t your country called Java? Are you even Indonesian?”
“Good point, Bellery. I suppose I’ll have my Indo card taken away from me soon.”
“Yeah, if you’re not careful.” She handed me a glass of water and flopped onto the futon bed.
The sound of me drinking sounded painfully loud. Oh my god. What am I doing here? She probably wants me to leave now.
“What are you having for dinner?”
“Oh, um. Probably just leftovers. We don’t get catering on the weekends.”
“Leftovers? Screw that. Ooh, we should cook something.”
The only time I’d picked up a knife was to slice a cucumber up for a salad. “I don’t really know how to cook.”
“Neither do I. That’s why it’s going to be awesome.” Ellery jumped up from the futon and went to the fridge. “Let’s see what we’ve got…Ooh! Leeks and potatoes. We could make leek and potato soup.”
I’d never had leek and potato soup and, in all honesty, that combination sounded pretty sad to me, but of course I was never going to say that to her.
“Come on, sous chef. You’ve gotta give me a hand.” Ellery plopped a couple of leeks onto the kitchen counter.
I poked at a leek. “What do I do with these?”
“Tulip, have you never cooked before?”
I shook my head. Maybe I should’ve felt stupid, but the way Ellery said my nickname made it feel like I could never go wrong with her.
“To be fair, the only thing I’ve cooked is grilled cheese,” shesaid. “I only happen to have leeks and potatoes in the fridge because I grew them.” She pointed at the balcony, where there were massive pots of plants I didn’t recognize. “These will go to waste if we don’t do anything with them, so we gotta be brave, Tulip!”
“Okay, Bellery. If we fail, it’s on you.”
The next fifteen minutes or so we spent hacking the leeks and potatoes into misshapen, ragged lumps. Ellery had one kitchen knife, which was dangerously dull, so she chose to use that herself (“Kids shouldn’t play with knives.” “Still not a kid.”) and handed me a butter knife to slice the leeks with. In the end, our arms were aching from gripping the dysfunctional knives, but we had a pile of sliced leeks and potatoes. I consulted the one cookbook that Ellery had.
“Heat some oil and stir-fry the leeks for a bit.”
