Meatballs

Chapter 1

Harriet was a small, quiet, watching kind of child who tried to not get in trouble but found that nearly impossible. Just that day, for instance, her teacher reprimanded her for speaking too quietly when she was supposed to answer how many horses would be left after the farmer hitched his team.

She knew some teams had two horses like people who moved west in wagons. But she also knew when the church teenagers went on hay rides at her grandpa’s farm there were four horses. And even though the team was reindeer, Santa had eight regular ones plus Rudolph so his team was nine. But the Christmas carol was about a one-horse-open-sleigh. 

She was trying to ask what kind of team even though she knew Mrs. Anderson only liked plain answers so she was nervous and spoke too softly and that’s how she got scolded in front of the whole class.

And now for supper her mom had made a chocolate cake but Harriet would only get a piece if she ate all of her dinner because her dad hated picky eaters. He said that all the time. She tried to eat family meals but there was nearly always terrible food like chicken legs with sharp bones. Or boiled vegetables like wet cardboard. Or pork chops with gross rubbery fat on the edges.

Her dad would glower, “No dinner, no dessert.” She knew it was going to happen tonight because her mom made meatballs which had onion pieces that looked like slimy vampire fingernails. She hated meatballs. 

That night her dad spanked her for not eating, which he often did, and then the house would get extra quiet. She went to her room where she could hear her big brother in his room scribbling at his homework. She heard her sister talking with their mom in the kitchen while they did the dishes. She couldn’t hear her dad so he was probably already watching TV.

Harriet hated that she hated food but she couldn’t stop it. She had no idea how other kids ate all that stuff. Especially vampire meatballs.

…

High school was easier. Harriet got good grades plus most of the time teachers did not ask questions where the answer could only be right or wrong so it was easier to not get yelled at. However, being small, smart, and shy didn’t make social life easier. She went alone to the first basketball game of the season and sat warily by herself between groups of other kids. 

“Hey, Harriet!” Jason was two rows up and four people away from her and was the kind of boy who didn’t seem to ever mind yelling or getting yelled at. 

Harriet turned to look at him as he kept yelling her name.

She wrinkled her forehead and said nothing but he yelled back anyhow. “What do you call girls who like fat boys?”

She spun her head forward; anxiety twisting inside her. He was going to say something rude and she wouldn’t know what to say back.

Jason laughed loudly as others also started laughing. Jason was popular and the others were eager to joke around with the confident guy. 

“They’re meatball lovers!”

It made no sense but Harriet knew she was now on Jason’s radar so she stood up and, bench by bench, descended back down to the floor and left the gym. Careful not to fall. Careful not to cry. She slipped through people cheering as the team entered the gym, drowning out the kids who catcalled her as she left.

She hurried through the halls to a back door and then pushed it open into the dark cold night. She leaned against the school’s brick wall and then slid to the freezing ground. She wrapped her arms around her middle and huddled into herself. 

That’s when she began to speak to herself aloud which she had never done before. “Okay, I don’t know why but I am easy to pick on so I will have to be careful and take care of myself. Because…” Suddenly Harriet began to swear the cuss words she knew but had never before said aloud. “Because as soon as high school is over I’m going to move away from here and not get yelled at or picked on again. And I hate meatballs, I always will, and it is stupid to ridicule people about meatballs! Damn it!” 

Until that night she hadn’t known that becoming angry could make a person feel better. She hadn’t understood that anger was a kind of power. She stood to stare up at the stars with her muscles clenched until, slowly, her shoulders relaxed. She muttered to herself. “I can talk to myself. I can be my own friend.” She walked home. 

…

In college being smart didn’t get in the way, being smart WAS the way. Harriet pursued a double major, mumbling to herself as she often did now, that one degree would be for the world and one would be for herself. Business Administration so she could someday get a good job. Literature because she wanted to know what other smart and awkward people had to say. 

By her third year she was in an exclusive relationship with William who was a handsome person from a classy family. He told her he was on the law school trajectory just like his father and grandfather. She kidded him once about wearing elegant sweaters when other kids wore flannel shirts. She was skeptical when he called his dad ‘father.’ Once she asked him why he used his full name, “Didn’t you ever just go by Bill or Will?” William had arched his eyebrows and replied that since life is so short one should aim to be always be impressive. A couple times she asked why he liked her and he said because she was blonde and didn’t talk too much. He laughed when he said that. Mostly they were both enthusiastic about sex, he took her to interesting places, and he didn’t cheat on her. He didn’t criticize her and she loved not feeling anxious. Though she wondered why he couldn’t or wouldn’t say why he thought she was the one for him.

Spring of senior year he took her to a sophisticated restaurant in their college town. She was sure he was going to ask her to marry him so she bought an amazing dress that was tight, dark, and had burgundy and gold threads woven into the neckline. 

While she was studying the menu William hailed the waiter to order wine with appetizers of bruschetta and meatballs. 

She furrowed her eyebrows. “I like bruschetta but I don’t like meatballs, which you know. So you can have them all.”

He’d been quiet and now his expression stiffened which made anxiety twist inside her. Her voice went soft. “What? What, William?”

He took a breath, “I have loved our past two years together. We have had good times. But now I’m going to law school in the east and I don’t want to be tied down so I’m telling you, and this is hard, that I want to return to being single.”

She stared. She spoke carefully. “After two years? No conversation? Just you telling me I’m not the one so this is it? I have no say and I don’t even get to understand what you were thinking all this time or what you are thinking now?”

He shrugged. “I hoped we could toast our successful relationship before we go on to the rest of our lives.”

Harriet was stunned. She stared at his attractive face, his handsome suit, his ease in the world even now. He was uncomfortable but he was sure of himself. 

She put her napkin on the table and stood up. She spoke softly but fiercely, “I hate meatballs and soon, I think, I will hate you.”

…

She was proud when she was hired into a six-month internship with a huge investment company in the city. She enjoyed sitting down to the monitor on her desk each morning. When numbers and figures started filling the screen the world went away and she dealt with the tumbling information. Sometimes after a few hours her back would ache or conversations around her would break into her consciousness. Then she’d go to lunch, usually by herself. She’d not been able to break into the company’s cliques. The other interns were easier with the social part of this job. 

She went out with them a few times after work but she hated drinking and the omnipresent fried foods gave her stomachaches. She tried to join conversations but her comments were always a bit wrong, not witty, not easy going. Soon she gave up. She worked hard all day, doing more than most of the others and then went home to eat pasta, her plain lettuce and tomato salads, and sometimes chocolate or strawberry milk. 

After six months each intern met with human resources about their future in the company. Harriet was dumbfounded when the HR woman told her she would not be hired. “You do excellent work and we will give you a strong recommendation. But a large part of this job requires quick and easy communication among the team and, unfortunately, you do not have that skill. I am so sorry. You are a lovely young person and I’m sure you will find a better fit soon.”

Harriet stumbled back to her desk, stuffed her things in her tote bag, and left the building. It was late afternoon and the winter wind was raw against her face. She stared blankly at the city street in front of her, as dazed and confounded as she had ever felt. 

Across the street was a deli she’d never patronized. There was a break in the traffic so her feet, independent of her will which had vanished, took her to the deli. Inside was a greasy sign hanging on the greasy wall behind the counter. 

A young counter clerk watched her standing so still. He spoke, quietly “Hey, Pretty Lady, can I help you decide what to order?”

It took a moment for her eyes to focus on his face. “Um. I’m hungry. I guess I need a sandwich but I don’t like fried stuff.”

He chuckled in a friendly way. “No problem. We make our own meatballs for meatball sandwiches. No frying. We bake them and then we make them comfy in little bun beds with a warm covering of kindly tomato sauce.”

She blinked and then laughed. “I’ve never heard such a sweet thing about any sandwich, let alone meatballs, which I hate.”

He laughed, too. “Well, you won’t hate our meatballs and if you do I’ll take it back and give you something else or your money. Give it a try? It’s Friday, it’s cold out there, and you look like you could use some non-violent protein.”

“This whole day is nearly as awful as my whole life. Why not finish it with a meatball?”

He fixed the sandwich and handed it to her with a complimentary orange drink. He said most people got fries but she looked like the kind of person who would like something sweeter and less complicated.

As she walked out of the deli she realized she had nowhere to go to eat. No desk. No car. She didn’t want to eat while standing on a bus. So she leaned against the brick wall, put the drink upright in her pocket, unwrapped half the sandwich and took one suspicious and tentative bite.

It was fine! It wasn’t awful! She took another bite, slightly larger. The meat had no lumps or vampire fingernails, just a warm taste that rolled around in her mouth nonthreateningly. She could swallow it easily. Nothing stuck and no seasonings flayed her tastebuds. 

She kept eating it, ignoring the noise of the city, ignoring the cutting wind. One bite after another she ate her way through three meatballs on a bun that was sturdy on the outside and soft inside. Just like he had said. A little bun bed. 

The deli’s door slammed next to her. She looked up. It was the guy.

He saw her and stopped, smiling. “Hey, do you like it?”

She beamed while wiping the sauce she could feel on her chin. 

“These are the best meatballs I’ve ever eaten. They aren’t lumpy or filled with slimy onions or so spicy or salty that they hurt my mouth.”

She liked his dark eyes that were lively while he talked. “Well, most people cut up onions and peppers and use stale bread when they make meatballs but my bosses are a husband and wife, and Teresa, the wife, says that takes too much time and causes the meat to fall apart. So we use a vegetable powder plus plain oatmeal flakes which make them stay firm in the sauce. I don’t know exactly how she makes the sauce, but she’s an Italian grandmother who learned from her Italian grandmother, so there’s that.” 

Harriet liked his chatter. “This was a very bad day but here it is, I am 23 years old and I am liking the first meatball of my whole life.”

He was flirting now. “You have a difficult history with meatballs?”

“Yes, I do. I could tell it to you but that would be silly. You need to go home and so do I.” 

He grinned wider. “No I don’t. It’s Friday evening and you say you are twenty-three and I’m only twenty-one and I don’t have plans. Do you? Mulligan’s Tap is right here” He pointed to a bar sign hanging over the sidewalk. “I would love to buy you a beer and then you can tell me your personal history with meatballs.” 

She hesitated. “I don’t like beer.”

He laughed. “Well, you didn’t like meatballs until today either. Have you ever had a microbrewery IPA?”

“I barely know what that is.”

They walked into the bar and headed for the back as a few patrons lifted their eyebrows at the aroma of fried food that trailed behind him. They sat at a tall table, she took off her puffer coat, he pulled off his black knit cap which caused his staticky hair to stick up. He tried to pat it down, gave up, and stuck his hand towards her. “Hi, my name is Mason and I am your greasy, staticky person who truly does want to know why you don’t like meatballs.” 

She shook his hand. It was warm and it had been so long since she’d touched another human that it startled her. “Hi. I’m Harriet. It started when I was a picky eater little kid. Still am, I guess. My dad was strict about eating everything on one’s plate so I got in trouble a lot and sometimes I got spanked.”

Their beers came while she talked. She sipped the IPA and then put it down, her eyes widening. “Goodness, it hits the bottom of my mouth like bread. It doesn’t burble and sting the top of my mouth like beer does. Wow!”

He smiled and said nothing. She was talking and he liked her careful way of describing moments that were, he knew, not good. She didn’t blame other people. She questioned herself more than others.

“So that ass… that guy you dated for two years broke up with you while ordering meatballs for himself?”

She looked down at her hands wrapped around the IPA. “Yeah. I wish we had just had a fight or something I could understand. To this day I don’t know how I missed that he did not love me.”

Mason watched her arms pull in slightly as if she needed a hug and had no idea one could get it from others. “Maybe you are one of those people who are on a continuum where you don’t read other peoples’ cues super well. It would make sense, since you don’t trust food very much, either. I think those things go together pretty often.” 

Harriet looked up into Mason’s eyes. “What?”

“You know, everybody talks about it these days. That autism spectrum thing. Peoples’ brains get wired differently.”

She kept looking at him, then tilted her head a little, her mouth opened in surprise. “No one, ever, even once, suggested that to me. And yet I sit here with you, a person I hardly know, and you just say this thing and it makes sense.”

He could see that she was beginning to shiver, maybe from chilly drafts but maybe from surprise. He grabbed her hands from her glass and held them in his. “Everyone’s on a continuum. It’s why they call it that and they don’t call it an on/off switch. Me, I was in trouble all the time in school until I was in sixth grade and I got kicked out for fighting. My mom got me sent to a psychologist for tests. And yes, I have ADHD. I take drugs but also, my deli job works for me. There’s a lot going on.” 

Harriet leaned back. “Wow. I am going to have to think about this. I could call my medical clinic to find out if there are ways to get diagnosed. But Mason?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never had a friend as easy to talk with you are, right now. Can we be friends?”

He leaned across the table to curve his warm hand around her cheek for just a moment, and then he leaned back. “Let’s start there and see where it goes.”

__________________

 

Chapter 2

They walked out of the bar together; Mason still smelled like French fries and Harriet still had no job, but they were smiling as he put his hand at the small of her back and pushed the door open into the cold Chicago evening. 

“I work tomorrow till two but I’d love to do something with you after that if you are free.”

She laughed her quiet laugh. “Not sure if I’ve ever been freer than I am right now!” 

Mason continued, “So I never have a lot of money and whatever you have you need to be careful with, I guess. Want to meet at the Lincoln Park Zoo? It’s free and, well, I like animals. I could bring hot dogs and maybe we can get one drink with two straws?”

“I like animals, too.” 

..

She was on a bench in the lion house when he blew in, swamped inside an oversized parka with the hood pulled up like theater curtains before the play begins. He stopped when he saw her face, as pink as a rose, as she turned towards him. 

He swallowed hard, feeling more than a little off kilter. “Hey, what a nice day to look at animals inside!”

She grinned. “I bet the polar bear will be happy. Those poor flamingos, though, all crowded up inside.”

He chuckled. “Are you hungry? We could eat first and then look at guys until this place closes. I think at five or something.”

They walked to the zoo’s café where wind straight off Lake Michigan pummeled the windows. Few people were visiting the zoo on such a blustery day, even fewer were eating snacks at nearly three in the afternoon. 

He wiped his fingers on a napkin. “Every time I start to say anything you look up right away; you have the most alert eyes I think I’ve ever noticed on a human being.

She was taken aback. “Um, thank you? I guess?”

He grinned. “I know. My mom says I say things no one else would say and I’m sorry if I’m too weird. But, yes, you have a sort of polite expression on your face until someone looks at you. Well, until I look at you, anyways. Then you watch me carefully. I noticed it last night and you are still doing it. Were you maybe a wolf in a previous life?”

She burst out laughing. “Everyone I know always says the same things and I never know how to respond. I mean if someone asks, ‘How are you?’ I usually respond fine and then the conversation is done and they move on. If I’d say I’m nearly always anxious and I hate meatballs, well, that won’t work. But your comments I can understand. I know what you mean. I do usually feel alert inside because I watch to try to make sure I’m not going to do or say something awkward. 

“I’ve been like this all my life. My mom, when I was a kid, would say I was sneaky because I’d be so quiet she didn’t hear me come into a room and then I’d surprise her. Sometimes I got yelled at for that. I spent a lot of time trying to not get yelled at and that was mostly for just being who I am.” 

She stopped a moment to think. He waited. 

She continued, “It's easier when people say unusual things because it means they are commenting on something going on right then so I can think about it and respond if I want to.”

Mason was listening intently. “You know, you’re right though I’ve never noticed it. When people talk in cliches they expect you to know what they are saying without actually saying it. When people say surprising things, they’re actually paying attention to the moment we’re in and that’s easier to figure out, right?”

“Yes. That’s it.” 

…

The polar bears were a long walk to the other end of the zoo. Without noticing what he was doing, Mason walked on the lake side to block some of the wind and it sealed the way they were going to be. He used his hyperawareness to protect her as much as he could. She began to relax as she sensed she was not too weird for this guy. 

Mason wasn’t impressive. He had a low level job, and as they talked she learned he lived in the garage attached to the tiny house his mom bought after his dad died back when he was a kid. After that, she’d taken some business classes and eventually became an assistant manager at the Jewel where she’d worked since high school. She was friends at church with the people who owned the deli where Mason worked. 

Harriet asked more about his mom. Mason tried to explain but then he started smiling which made her curious. She knew so few people who liked their moms.

“A lot of people seem to have iffy moms.” He squinted his eyes. “You know. Moms that either ignore their kids or criticize all the time. I suppose because my dad was gone and she had to work; she didn’t have time to make me as crazy as some of my friends are. I had to become crazy all on my own.”

Harriet laughed.

 The polar bear was diving, splashing, and living her best life. The elephants ambled about kicking a huge ball. The birds were beautiful and smelled awful. Both of them were fascinated by the lizards and snakes. 

He joked, “Isn’t it your job as a girl to be freaked out by creepy crawlies?”

He loved that she stopped to think about it. “Um, when I was really little I saw a green snake in our yard. I pointed at it and then my mom and sister screamed. I remember thinking that it didn’t even have arms so why would people be afraid? I never did understand and still don’t. I mean, I’m not going to adopt a python, but I like animals who stick to their own business. Which is pretty much all of them.”

Guards were ushering folks to the gates; the zoo was closing. 

Mason smiled at Harriet as her bus approached to take her to her apartment. He touched her face again, “I know we are friends and we are going to be better friends and we already know neither of us is rich enough to go out a lot. Think about what we can do tomorrow and text me and I’ll text you.”

She turned as she stepped onto the bus’s first step. “Better than that, I’m going to call you later tonight. Maybe we can just talk and you can say weird things that I want to think about.”

He laughed. “Deal.” 

…

For two weeks Harriet and Mason were just friends. Then better friends. Then best friends. By then both of them tried to not think about how much more they could be.

They were sitting on worn velvet seats in a classics reruns theater while waiting for the start of a movie neither of them had heard of. The evening was perfect; it was half price night, the theatre was warm, people were in good moods, and they were together. 

Then Harriet’s phone vibrated. It was a text from her mom saying she should come to family dinner on Saturday so the family could have a birthday dinner for her. 

She sighed in the way Mason was coming to understand meant she was up against an emotion too complicated to explain quickly. First he quirked his eyebrows and then he raised them alarmingly. “You are having a birthday this week and I don’t know this? Also, why is a birthday dinner at your folks not cool for you?”

She looked straight ahead. “I haven’t told them I lost my job. I haven’t told them about you. It’s going to be tense and I don’t want to go.”

Mason was quiet a moment, “Well then, you have two choices. Say no and don’t go. Or, don’t explain me. Take me with.”

She spun her head to look at him as the credits started to roll. “My family is strict and serious and has all these rules. I mean, they spanked me for not eating meatballs. Who even does that? Why would you come with me?”

He heard the genuine puzzlement in her voice. She really didn’t know how much he wanted to be with her all the time even if it meant enduring people he didn’t care at all about.

He leaned over to mutter into her ear. “Just because I’m scrawny on the outside doesn’t mean I’m not mighty on the inside. I want to defend you with my claws and scales and fiery breath. And I work in a deli; I’ve got lots of fiery breath.”

She started laughing so he took her hand. Because they were friends. 

…

He’d arranged to have Saturday off. He’d also gone into the little clothing store for ladies in his neighborhood. He knew his mom bought things there once in a while, she said the two old women who ran the place had been kind to her when she was a girl. He found one of them and told her he was Maria’s son and he needed to buy a birthday gift for a girl who was his age but not his girlfriend. 

The little old lady looked up, “Yet?”

He laughed. “ Not yet. And I don’t want to scare her, you know?”

She led him across her tiny store to a wall with scarves. “We still order these hand painted scarves from the daughter of our cousin who lives in the old country. Do you think she might like one?”

As carefully as he could he pulled them out, one at a time, until a scarf covered in pink and red roses slid into his hands. It was beautiful and it wasn’t too silky so it seemed like it could keep her neck warm. They didn’t call Chicago the Windy City for no reason. 

The old lady wrapped it for him in tissue paper tied with a red ribbon and when he handed it to Harriet on the train, she was astonished.

“You got me present?”

“Yeah, Harriet. It’s your birthday!”

She sat a moment, as stunned as if he’d walked across a tightrope to her. He started to laugh. “Really, it’s nothing huge or important. But you are my friend and friends get to give presents to friends!”

She untied the ribbon and pulled out the soft cotton scarf. “Oh! I love it. This is beautiful.” She pulled it around her neck and he leaned over, against everything in him that told him not to, and kissed her soft cheek. 

Then they pretended that hadn’t happened.

They got off the train at the suburban station midafternoon on Saturday and that is when her life split into two eras. There was Before and now there would be Now. 

Her mother took a step backwards as Mason stepped forward with his hand out to shake hers. “Hello Mrs. Bishop. I’m Mason Conti. Harriet’s told me so much about you and Mr. Bishop. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

Beulah Bishop winced as Harriet leaned forward to kiss her mom’s cheek. “Hi, Mom. Mason and I are good friends. He said he’d come with as my guest so this would be even more fun for me, plus this way we can go back into the city tonight together. I know you sometimes worry about me then.”

“I thought you would stay overnight like you usually do.”

Harriet smiled brightly. “Nope, not today. Thanks, though.”

Her mother’s face was unhappy but she was polite.

“That’s true. I will worry less.” She looked at Mason and smiled more comfortably. “Probably. Well, the car’s over here. Hans and Jade are coming, too. Francie can’t come because Mike has to work and Madison has a cold.”

Mason immediately stored the names in his head. Skills of a short order deli worker. 

They pulled into the driveway of a house with an attached garage that seemed bigger than Mason’s mom’s whole house. As they walked in the kitchen door Harriet could see Mason was uncomfortable. She admired how he breathed deep and kept going. When he handed his big coat to her mom, Harriet chuckled. 

He looked at her. “What?”

She mumbled. “Your coat is clean.”

He chuckled, too. “I washed it last night. Took forever to dry. I was afraid it was going to shrink it but then realized that would just make it fit. It was my dad’s and now you know he was bigger than me.” 

A large man with jowls like saddlebags stepped forward. “Hello, I’m Harriet’s father, Elijah. Can I offer you something to drink?” 

Mason reached his hand out to shake Harriet’s dad’s hand but Elijah did not reciprocate; an affront all of them noticed. Mason tilted his head to look up at the man and politely responded, “A beer would be nice.”

Harriet started to chuckle in a strangled kind of way Mason had never heard before. He caught her eye and smiled slightly. He knew, because she’d told him, her parents didn’t drink. He was baiting her dad. Probably a poor choice, but interesting.

“We do not imbibe alcohol in our family. Harriet should have told you that before she brought you here.”

Mason broke into his most dazzling smile. “Actually, she did, so I guess I’m just being a jerk. Wouldn’t be the first time. Sorry if I offended. Water would be great and Harriet’s also told me you are a hunter. Did you shoot any deer this season?”

They moved into the living room as Elijah explained he shot at two deer but didn’t get either because some other hunter shot first and nicked the animals which then ran. Mason didn’t ask what happens to wounded deer because he knew, and so did Harriet’s father who pretended he had not just exposed the shoddy ethics of guy who thought not drinking made him morally superior. 

They conversed a bit. Her mom asked Harriet how her internship was going. She said it was over and “How sick is baby Madison?,” which shot her mom into criticisms of “modern mothers who put their children in daycare.” 

It was a reprieve when Harriet’s brother and his girlfriend, Hans and Jade, arrived. After that everyone talked about sports except Harriet who was glad to say nothing. Jade seemed cheerful about meeting an unrelated person; she asked Mason about his job. He said he worked at a downtown deli. Harriet’s parents blanched again although Jade, obtuse to the dynamics in the room, squealed that she knew that deli. When she said how much she liked their Italian beef, Elijah picked up the remote and turned on a football game.

Mason was amazed at how uncomfortable he was. He was wearing new jeans, a new plaid shirt, he barely smelled of fried food and even his hair was gelled flat against his head rather than hovering like it usually did. But what made him most uncomfortable was that Harriet, right next to him on the huge sectional sofa, was blankly staring at the TV screen. Her discomfort moved him and he wanted to fix her world for her.

He leaned over and whispered into her ear. “Knock, knock.”

She turned to look into his face, already smiling. She whispered back, “Who’s there?”

He started to whisper “Knock, knock” again but her mother was watching them. “It’s not polite to whisper in a group setting.”

Mason leaned back. He’d been a problem child so many years that this was nothing for him. “I was conspiring with Harriet over a knock-knock joke. Knock-knock, Mrs. Bishop!”

The room was silent except for the sports announcer. Jade broke the tension. “Who’s there?”

Mason smiled gratefully at Jade, “Well, I was going to do the ‘orange you glad I didn’t say banana’ one, but here we are. I guess I’m a bit confused. Isn’t this a birthday party for Harriet?”

Hans looked at him and started to chuckle. “Yes, it is, but in our family we celebrate each other by doing whatever dad would like to do.”

The family room became amazingly quiet for a microsecond that lasted about half an eternity until Beaulah Biship grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. “Let’s have dinner.”

Jade and Harriet were supposed to set the table. They pulled dishes and silverware together as Mason, once again, cheerfully made his way into a fray of his own making. 

“I thought I smelled meatballs. Seriously, this is what you’re serving for Harriet’s birthday dinner?”

Harriet’s mom glowered, “Yes, do you have a problem with this?”

He beamed, “Harriet and I have only been friends a few weeks but even I know she despises meatballs. Why would you make them now?”

Her dad was so angry his face was flushing, “We don’t even know you, young man. You just show up at our house and repeatedly offend us. I think you better leave.”

Harriet went still as Mason turned to her. “I’m fine leaving but I’m wondering if you would like to come with me. You don’t have to. I will be your friend no matter what, but this really does not seem like an adequate party for a person as lovely as you are.” He locked eyes with her and whispered, “Harriet, you deserve better than this.”

Her shoulders trembled so hard that her scarf shifted. He reached out to straighten it. 

She looked up at her mom and dad. “Mason is right and I am learning from him every day that it is okay to expect that people who say they love me should not make me feel like shit.”

Her parents jerked as if they’d been slapped. Her mother opened her mouth but Hans jumped in first. “Harriet’s right. She’s been put down in our family since she was little and I never knew then and I still I don’t know why, but it’s true. Jade and I will drive her and Mason back to the train station. No one’s breaking up this family. We will all be back sometime, but not today.”

…

Harriet and Mason arrived back into the city train station before it was even dark. They stood a moment at the doors where they needed to split so he could catch a southbound bus and she could take the El north.

She took a breath and then spoke a faster than she usually did. “When I get home I’m going to make my very favorite dinner which is pancakes and an egg. If you would like to share my birthday dinner with me after all, well, you are invited.”

He looked back at her and, dangerously, cupped her cheek again. “If we go to your place I will not be able to keep my hands to myself. I just know it. So if you don’t want me to get closer that way, it’s probably better if I go home.”

She looked into his eyes, then smiled and leaned forward to kiss his soft lips with her own. He felt her hand move to his face and then slide into his hair while she kept kissing him and all his rational thoughts moved to Borneo.

The pancakes had chocolate chips in them once they got around to making them. His favorite part of the evening was when she wore the scarf with the roses and nothing else. Her favorite part was when he removed it with his teeth, while growling, making her laugh so hard. 

They also slept a little. In the morning sunshine poured in her window and they were snuggling against each other when his phone rang. 

It was his mother. “Hi, Ma. What’s up?”

Suddenly his face stiffened. “Oh shit. Tell Amanda to wait if she can. I will be there within the hour.”

He hung up then sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands.

“What is it, Mason? Do you have a girlfriend? A wife?”

He took a big breath and turned around to face her. “Worse than that. Amanda is my probation officer.” 

_______________________

 

Chapter 3 

Mason rushed to leave, then stopped in his tracks and turned towards Harriet. She was her bathrobe, her arms wrapped around herself, her face stricken with confusion and fear. 

He touched her cheek. “I should have told you but I never could because being with you has been the best two weeks of my whole life.” He looked at her, emotions churning in him so deep he could barely breathe. “I didn’t want it to end so I pretended it wouldn’t.” 

He shoulders hunched as he talked quickly. “When I was eighteen I gave some of my Adderall to my best friend Mike. I didn’t know he’d been doing heroin cut with fentanyl. He was always crazy but it’s why I liked him so much but that day he had that smack in him, then my Adderall, then we smoked some weed and drank scotch he’d snitched from his grandma.”

Mason stopped talking to wipe his hand across his eyes. “Mike just collapsed. I called 911 but it was too late and he died. I was arrested and was in jail seven months until my trial, when I was sentenced to five years for manslaughter. Six months in a prison drug treatment program and parole after that.”

He stopped to breathe. “I miss Mike all the time.” He smiled at her through the fear and misery in his face. “He would have flipped out just to meet you.”

His face completely crumpled. “This is the real me, Harriet. I love you, but I’m a fuck up. You don’t need to contact me again. I know I’m not in your class but believe me, I also know when I’m with you I feel whole and strong which is crazy good. Don’t let people put you down. You are amazing.”

He turned to open the door but she grabbed his arm.

“Don’t you dare just say all that and then vanish. I’ve got stuff to say, too. Call me later. Or send me your mom’s number or give her mine. We are NOT done yet.”

They stared at each other and then he pulled her face to him and they kissed each other deep and fast. 

Harriet watched the door close, listened to his steps running down the stairs, went to the window to watch Mason jog to the street, turn right, and disappear.

Her life shattered around her like teacups in an earthquake. She stood in the middle of her studio apartment; arms still around herself, the bed still warm when she collapsed onto Mason’s side. She smelled French fries and his warm skin. He’d forgotten to grab his undershirt when he pulled on his clothes; it was still tangled in the bed so she pulled it to her face and breathed it in until grief choked her. She looked up at the print they’d bought at the Art Institute on the free day they’d gone there. Both of them had responded so strongly when they saw this abstract by a painter who’d lived in Europe during WWII. There were slashes and blocks the colors of a sky before a storm and the painting felt saturated with threat. Did they know without knowing that they weren’t safe?

Harriet curled on her bed under the threatening poster, looking around, wondering, scared. Mason had talked about himself last night. Private things he hadn’t shared before. He said his mom was a lot overweight and also a hoarder which made him sad and was confusing to live in which is why he built himself the room in the garage. He also insisted that his mom was one of the kindest people on earth and he loved her very much. He said, his hand over his eyes, that he knew her life had been hard and he made it harder. 

He talked about the English teacher who made him stay after school one day; he thought he was in trouble for cutting up in class. When he got to her classroom she stunned him by saying he was one of the brightest students she’d ever taught and he should make plans to go to college. 

Harriet asked him why he didn’t.

“My life got complicated and I couldn’t.” 

He’d sounded so sad. Then, suddenly, he had whooped and turned over her and kissed her hard while tickling her and making her laugh until they lost the conversation. 

So now she knew how his life had become complicated. And what he was trying to tell her but couldn’t. 

She was trying to find motivation to get up and do anything, when a thought came to her like a comet coming into view on a dark night. Mason had told her so many times that she was amazing. At first she thought he was flirting with her, which of course he was. But he was also insisting that she should regard herself with more respect. She should pay attention to what she wanted, and liked to do, and go for those things instead of trying to be good enough that people would stop criticizing her. 

What if she believed him? What if she really was the person Mason said she was? What could she do right now?

She thought. She should be ready for his mom to call so she should take a shower and get dressed. Maybe she could figure out where online court records were in case any of it made sense to her. And also, damn it, she needed a job. She could only live on her credit card another month. She got up, took a shower, got dressed with Mason’s t-shirt under her sweatshirt. 

…

She worked at the end of the utility table she’d bought when she first moved into the city. Her laptop was open. She’d already enrolled in online employment registries and had done two phone pre-interviews which she’d bombed. Talking on the phone to strangers was not her forte. 

She’d decided in the previous week to check out the HR departments of the fifty largest companies in Chicago and she was already a dozen companies into the list. She’d look at what positions were open, then send a cover letter and resume tailored to that job. It was incredibly stressful and boring at the same time but she kept going. She mumbled to herself like she did in high school. “Looking for a job is work and it’s fine. Mason said to believe in myself so that’s what this is.” 

It was late afternoon when her phone finally vibrated with an unknown number. She answered on the first ring. A quiet voice asked, “Is this Harriet Bishop?”

Harriet breathed deep. “Hi. Are you Mason’s mom?”

“Yes, dear. He asked me to call you. He’s been taken away by his PO and is now back in jail until she decides what she will do. He would not tell her your name and he told me to keep you out of it, too. So I will. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Harriet realized she was trembling. “Mrs. Conti. I only knew Mason two weeks but they’ve been the best weeks of my life.” She grabbed the edge of the table. “I’m not good dealing with people I don’t know, so I apologize if I am saying this awkwardly, but last night he talked about you. He said you are the kindest person he knows and that he wishes he didn’t make your life so hard. This was last night, before this morning happened. I didn’t know what he meant, though I guess I do now.”

“Oh Honey, he’s always been a handful but I never wanted any son but him. He will come through this and still be a blessing to the world. He just has to get out of jail first.” 

Harriet wondered what it would be like to have a mother who was proud of you even when you were in jail. 

“Have you told his bosses? What will happen if he can’t go to work?”

Mrs. Conti sighed, “Teresa and Hal are wonderful friends of mine from church and they hired Mason when no one else would trust him. But they need someone so I guess they will have to hire someone else now.”

Harriet smiled her first smile of that long, awful day. It wasn’t a grin, but any crack of a smile helped. “What time do they open in the morning?”

____________

 

Chapter 4 

Harriet swayed in her seat as the El car rattled towards downtown Chicago. It was exceedingly early and she was trying to reduce her anxiety by thinking about places she’d like to visit someday. Paris. A savanna with zebras. Angkor Watt with its monkeys. Yosemite. And yet, she told herself, here she was right now in a place she’d never been before. Riding the El before dawn. Most of these commuters had dark eyes, dark skin, and tiredness etched into their faces. She realized it was pretty naive to want to meet foreign people in foreign nations when so many so-called “foreign people” were right here right now, going to work in an American city before the sun came up. Swaying in their seats just like her as the train rumbled into the city. Trying to get through another confusing day. 

…

She was politely loitering outside Della’s Deli when the older man walked up. 

“Are you Hal?”

He turned to look at her. “Yes.”

“I’m the new friend in Mason’s life and I think I’m the reason he’s back in custody and I’m extremely sorry about that. I would be happy to try to do his job the best I can this morning to maybe help you until you get better help. I talked with Mrs. Conti yesterday.”

He stopped a moment, key still in his hand, as he looked at her from head to toe and back up again. “You’re even smaller than Mason.”

She smiled a little. “Yes. He told me you called him Peanut Butt but that you weren’t mean about it and he kind of liked it.”

Hal laughed. “Okay, that tells me you really know him. Come on in. Let’s see what we can cobble together. Teresa will be here soon; she stopped for the buns.”

The morning flew. He didn’t call her Peanut Butt but he did call her Olive. She knew he’d forgotten her name but after that he just kept calling her that. And like Mason said, somehow it didn’t offend. It was like getting nickname from Santa.

Lunch hour was nearly three hours long and was the fastest she’d ever worked while standing up, in her life. The front counter was crowded, customers’ chatter plus clatter from the kitchen ricocheted off the tin ceiling. Harriet leaned forward just to hear customers while tapping the order screen. She worked fast and fearlessly even when she recognized some of her previous coworkers. Tellingly, none recognized her with an apron tied twice around her waist and a Della’s Deli cap pulled low on her forehead. 

When the lunch rush finally ebbed Harriet was sure she’d never felt so tired in her life. She walked to the kitchen, saw a stool in the corner, climbed up on it, leaned against the wall, pushed her hat up, and sighed so loudly her bangs moved.

Teresa turned to her with a smile on her face. “It’s not nothing, is it, working on your feet all those hours?”

“Oh my God, this is worse than CrossFit. Not that I’ve ever done CrossFit but one of my old coworkers went on and on about how tired it made her and I always wondered why she did it if it made her whine so much.”

Teresa laughed. “I never try to understand people; I just try to sell them sandwiches with a large soda because our biggest profit is in the sodas. So did Hal set you up on the computer so you can sign in and everything?”

Harriet sat up a little. “Um, no ma’am. I just started working. I figured you and he would have to decide if I am a solution to your current loss of Mason.”

“Gah, you work as hard as that boy worked. Figures the two of you somehow, in a world of eighty billion people or whatever, you would find each other. You remind me of him.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, you are little like him though you are way prettier, of course. But when it gets busy, you just dive in and work. I saw some of those times you didn’t know exactly what an answer was but we were all flying so you made up your own answers. I like that. He did it, too. You get what we are doing here. Selling fast food fast. Not being perfect. If people are upset, give them a bigger soda or more fries.”

Harriet was giggling now. “He gave me a free orange soda the first time I came in here.”

Teresa laughed, too. “See! He made us a repeat customer.” 

…

Mason was remanded to Cook County Jail for a month. Harriet and Maria set up regular visits on different days, doing their best to support him through incarceration. 

It was intimidating to sign in, get patted down, then walk through metal detectors with other family members, usually women. Eventually they walked through clanking doors into a room filled with tables that had an inmate and a visitor or two at each one. It was hard to sit across from Mason, pretending things were fine, digging for upbeat stories from the deli, never touching.

“You don’t have to come here, Harriet. I keep saying it and I mean it. You hung out with me two weeks and we had that one amazing night together but you never signed up for this. I feel shitty that now you even know all this exists. I should have thought. I’ve always gone too fast and then things fall apart and it’s my fault.”

Harriet closed her eyes. He was right, she didn’t have to be here. She could just walk away from all this.

“And then what, Mason? I give up being your friend and go back to my empty apartment with no job until I run out of money and then go live with my parents? Have meatballs on my birthday every year for the rest of my life? I do hate it in here and I wish I had known and we could have avoided this. Though you are also right, Mason. If I’d known this about you from the beginning, there would have been no beginning.” 

His face was drawn; hers was stricken. 

She dug for something meaningful to say. “So we can spend our hour telling each other how awful we feel. Or maybe we can make a plan. I know you’re under supervision almost two more years. What CAN you do? Can you go to college?” 

He smiled wearily. “I don’t know. It’s kind of too much to think about. I’ve been getting exhausted just peeling and boiling the hell out of potatoes, you know?”

She tilted her head. “Yes, I can imagine. But I also think this isn’t regular you and it won’t last forever.”

Guards were announcing that visitors had to leave. She looked into his eyes as intensely as she could muster, trying to break through his despair. But she couldn’t. 

…

Teresa was quietly swearing at her desk at the end of the deli’s kitchen. Harriet, walking past, stopped.

“Is anything wrong?”

“Gah. I love making food, I like people, I like our employees, but I hate keeping track of all the numbers we have to keep track of. I didn’t like it when we had ledgers and adding machines but I hate it even more now with computers and e-this and insta-that.”

Harriet smiled more confidently. “It’s the end of the quarter. Are you figuring out your quarterly tax payment?”

Teresa looked up sharply. “You know about this stuff?”

“Yeah. One of my college majors was Business Administration.”

Teresa just stared at her. Then she yelled, “Hal, come here right away!”

He walked over to Teresa as she looked up at him in mock astonishment. “Did you know this girl right here, our Olive, went to college to study how to run businesses? And she says she knows how to prepare quarterlies?”

She narrowed her eyes at Harriet, “What else do you know how to do?”

“Well, I know it is important that this business to be an S corporation. Is it?”

Hal furrowed his face. “Yes, we paid an accountant and a lawyer so much money we have gone out of our way ever since to not go back to them. You know about this stuff?”

She grinned. “Yes, I do. I also have my resume right here on my phone. I could send it to you right now if you want to see it. So far dozens of Chicago’s major corporations have not cared a bit about it.”

Hal’s eyebrows were up and Teresa’s mouth was still slightly agape. “Yeah, Olive, show us.”

Within the next hour she became the parttime, as needed, bookkeeper and tech explainer for Della’s Deli. At a significantly higher hourly wage for however many hours it would take, than taking orders. But a whole lot less than a lawyer. 

Harriet face flushed as she realized what had just happened. “This takes me from not making quite enough to now being able to pay my rent and college loans. You have no idea how you just improved my life!”

Hal looked at her speculatively. “So I don’t want to lose you as a counter clerk but I can always hire someone else. In the meantime would you like to do work like this for other small businesses?”

Harriet was excited. “You mean, I won’t have to wear suits or chitchat with people I don’t know? Just do accounting and management work as needed for people like you?”

“Yeah, I belong to a small business organization here in the loop and I also know people in my neighborhood. I can think of three other guys, well, one is a woman, right off the bat, who would probably be relieved to hire someone like you. Someone who would do this work for modest wages and no one needs to get their knickers in a twist about it.”

Harriet’s careful smile bloomed across her face. This was something she could do. Own her own small business and run it from her apartment. Spend some time talking with other hardworking people. Spend a lot of time concentrating and making order out of stuff that confused others. Not schmoozing.

And, she told herself, this started with Mason. Without intending to do any of this, just by being himself, he created a path for her into a less intimidating world.

“What?” Teresa was watching her. “When you think, Olive, you go somewhere the rest of us don’t go. I was asking what you will name your new business? Bishop’s Accounting?”

Harriet shook her head immediately, “No, not that.” She started to walk away and then spun back, “Olive Likes Numbers.”

Hal laughed outright. “You can’t have a deli without olives.” 

She giggled. 

Hal kept chatting. “When are you visiting Mason again? Maria says our bright and lively Mason is not doing well.”

Back to earth. “I’m going tonight after I leave here. She’s right. I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s not the guy I met. He’s enduring in there but there’s not much energy in him.”

“Oh God. Jail is such a shitty place.”

_______________

 

Chapter 5

It was a gray spring morning when Mason walked out of the jail. When Harriet and Mrs. Conti hugged him he smiled and hugged them back but there was no light in his eyes. 

Once they found the car, Harriet climbed in the back seat so Mason could sit in front by his mom. He tilted his head, unsure of himself as he realized the dynamics of his relationships had changed while he was incarcerated. His mom drove silently and carefully; she wasn’t comfortable in loop traffic. A quiet half hour later, as they finally turned onto their street, Mason turned to Harriet, “You’ve been to my house?”

She turned her head away from the window and towards Mason. “No, I’ve not been here before. Your mom and I talked on the phone a few times to plan our visits. Last night your mom invited me to help meet you and then come back here with you. I’m sorry if this is awkward for you, I can just take the El home and skip this if you would like to be alone a while.”

He smiled politely, which scared her. “No this is fine. Just, like I probably said, it’s not a home like your folks’ house.”

She responded with a quiet snort. “I sure hope it isn’t.”

He’d told her that one night they spent together that his mother was probably a hoarder. He hadn’t exaggerated. Every surface was piled with shopping bags, plastic bags, Amazon boxes, plastic tubs with lids that didn’t quite fit. The carpeted walkways through the little house were filthy. Only one side of the kitchen sink was empty enough to rinse a cup. Garbage overflowed, more bags of pizza boxes and kitchen rubbish leaned next to the trash can. The house smelled of dust and garbage.

Maria looked scared as she realized what her home must look like to a stranger. Mason’s face was both angry and stricken. He tried to find a soda for Harriet but the refrigerator was too crammed to see into. The three of them stood in silence a moment; there was nothing to say. Harriet felt her heart race; she wondered if she could faint from anxiety. She hadn’t meant to make his homecoming this difficult. She inhaled a deep breath, reminding herself that he’d told her that she was amazing. If he were right, now would be a good time to use her amazingness. 

She walked to Maria who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. “Mrs. Conti, your house is a mess, yes. But you are not a mess. You are one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. You didn’t even know who I was but because you trust Mason you helped me know where he was and what to do. I’ve felt comfortable calling you when I had questions and then last night you welcomed me to help to get him today. I want you to know that I’m thankful and that you helped make this easier for me.”

Maria’s eyes watered as she reached to hug Harriet. It was as if the two of them had moved a mountain in the past month and now the mountain was finally home with them.

Maria’s voice cracked with feeling. “Mason’s room in the garage is better than this. Go with him there.” 

The kitchen door opened to a small breezeway that led to the side door on the garage. Harriet followed Mason as he unlocked that door. It had been a one-car garage so it wasn’t a big but it was tidy. The bed, covered with a faded quilt, was against one wall and opposite it was a large TV. The room had green walls and the floor was covered in beige carpet remnants. In the corner was a tiny bathroom with a door and next to it was a counter with a microwave and mini fridge. Shelves held ordinary kitchen items; there was a tiny table with a folding chair tucked under it.

Harriet was impressed. “Mason, did you do all this by yourself? This is really nice.”

He was looking around, too. He walked Into the bathroom to run the tap, then flushed the toilet. He seemed to be taking stock of the condition of his small domicile. 

“I paid for the materials and I did most of the work but one of my mom’s church friends, who does construction for his job, helped me a lot. He helped me figure out what I could do, then he helped me draw up the plans and then he showed me how to work on most of the parts of it. He got another guy who’s a plumber to help bring the water out here and another friend of his, who is an electrician, to help me run electricity. I couldn’t have done it without Manny.”

“How did you begin?” She stopped. “I mean, I should probably leave. I didn’t mean to make this day be complicated for you. Though I am impressed with how much you must have had to figure out to do this.”

He shook his head, “No, stay. We’re friends and I need friends now. I’m not sure if I can ever be your boyfriend again but I don’t want to lose you from my life if you’re okay still hanging around with me.”

She tilted her head back at him. “I don’t know what we are either but like I said to your mom, I don’t have that many people in my life who know me and choose me. I don’t want to walk away from you or your mom; I’d miss you way too much. And I do want to know how you built this. Also want to know what the rules are now. I know you’re on ankle bracelet.”

The both glanced down at the ugly black plastic contraption just above his shoe. “Yeah. I’ll have this two to six months, I guess. Depends on how well I do.”

“What does that mean?” 

“I can get a job and go to it and then come back home. Other than that, I have to be here. Oh, I can go to church if I want, which I don’t.”

“Why not? It seems like your mom’s church friends are nice. If you go to church, it will keep those people in your life and maybe, I don’t know, maybe it would help your mom worry less.”

“That’s a good point.” He pulled out his only chair for her, and she sat down. He sat on the corner of his bed. “You really do like my mom, don’t you?”

“Yep. I admire people who are kind. I also like Teresa and Hal. I even like whoever Manny is who helped you build this space.”

He chuckled a little. “Manny would like you, too. He’s married and has kids and grandkids and was always on the phone with one of them, telling them how to do things. Then he’d finally finish talking to whoever it was and he’d hang up and then he’d tell me I had to make sure to find a good woman because, therein, he actually would say therein … Made me laugh. ‘Therein, Mason, lies the secret to a fast and happy life. Why just about last year I was as young as you are now.’” 

She smiled. Mason was, at least in this moment, his energetic self.

But when he glanced around at his room, she saw the shadow come back into his eyes and she felt whatever this weight was that he was carrying. “You must be tired, Mason. I’ll leave. I’ll text tonight to see if there’s a way we can spend time together.”

She stood up so he did, too. Without thinking she went to him and wrapped her arms around his torso and he pulled her into a hug. When her head was tucked under his chin she smelled his skin and nearly cried. She was right here inside his arms and yet, she missed him.

…

She walked into the kitchen to say goodbye to Maria. Maria was bent over throwing something into a garbage bag. When she straightened up, the sleeves of her sweatshirt were wet.

“Are you cleaning, Mrs. Conti?”

The older woman smiled wanly. “Call me Maria and yes, I don’t know how I can ever make this place better but I thought I’d try a little.” 

Harriet slung her purse strap over the back of a kitchen chair. 

“Let me help.”

“Oh honey, you don’t have to do that. This mess isn’t your stupidity, it’s mine.”

“Well, I don’t think what’s going on here is stupidity. Maybe it’s related to being anxious about making mistakes, or grieving, or something like that, but this isn’t stupid. I don’t have to be back to my apartment at any particular time. I can help for as long as I’m actually helpful. Where are you starting?”

“That’s part of the problem. I never know where to start.”

“Oh. Well finding a beginning point and then going forward a bit at a time; this is something my brain can do. So maybe you empty the kitchen sinks and then wash them. Are there dishes in the dishwasher?”

“No, it broke years ago. So now there is moldy stuff in there.”

“Can I just empty it all into the garbage and carry it out to the bins?”

“You would do that?”

“Sure.”

They worked nearly two hours to clear the sink and the counters around it. Harriet was amazed at how awful the stuff in the dishwasher was, including the bugs, but instead of freaking out she distracted herself by asking Maria ordinary questions. What was your husband like? Mason said he died on a road construction crew on a rainy day. What kind of classes did you take to be able to become a manager at the grocery store? Who were some of you favorite employees over the years? 

Time flew. By midafternoon Harriet washed her hands, remembered her purse, and took the El home to a very long shower. She made an egg to eat on a toaster waffle. After that she worked for hours. She organized a logical bookkeeping system for a small beauty salon that hired some of its employees, plus rented chairs to several other part-time stylists. 

The next morning she woke to a phone call from Mason. 

“Hey, Olive.”

Harriet giggled. “I love being called Olive.”

She heard the laughter in his voice, too. “It suits you. Small, not too spicy but not sugary, either. Can roll alone or with others.”

As she stretched she noticed the sun was shining brightly and it was the middle of the morning. “I worked late last night and I’m just waking up. What’s up?”

“Well, thanks to you and the Instant News About Mason Network, I got a call from Hal last night so I’m at work this morning and I already informed PO Amanda. I’m street legal to work and I wanted to thank you for keeping this job warm for me while I was gone.”

“Oh Mason, that’s awesome!”

“I was so out of it yesterday. I just crashed asleep when you left my room and that was the best sleep I’ve had in a month. This morning, I saw the cleared sink and counter you helped my mom with yesterday.”

“Yeah, that was both gross and satisfying. Was it that bad when you were a kid?”

“No. She never was into super neatness but it didn’t get that out of control until a couple years after my dad died. Sometimes I tried to talk to her about it but it would just make her feel worse and still nothing changed. It was easier for both of us once I moved into the garage. I don’t make enough to totally move out plus I like my mom, you know?”

“I could come against tomorrow afternoon. Would that be good or just more stress for everyone?”

“I only work the morning since it’s Saturday. I’ll be home by around one and my mom almost always works the weekends. I’ll talk to her this evening to see if she’s okay with this. It’s a lot of stress for her to get rid of things; even things that seem like trash.”

“Well, let me know. I get it that this is not laziness, this is something else.”

“Yeah.”

_________________________

 

Chapter 6

Harriet stood on a stepstool to pull faded Lucky Charm and Froot Loops boxes off the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard. 

“Are these from when you were a kid?”

Mason looked up from bottles of random cleaning solutions jammed in a broom closet. “Oh shit, yeah. That stuff is at least ten years old.”

Harriet pulled away a few more boxes and then squealed. “Whoa! What are these?”

From behind the cereal she pulled antique cranberry glasses etched with designs that sparkled under the fluorescent ceiling light.

Mason looked up again. “Oh wow! I remember those!”

His face broke into a smile. “When I was little, before my dad died, sometimes relatives came over at holidays. I remember sitting on his lap while he was drinking something from one of those glasses. It was some kind of alcohol and he let me have a taste and everyone laughed.”

Harriet climbed off the stool to take the glasses to the sink to wash. “They’re really pretty but they look very old. Do you know where they came from?”

“Not really, though I know some of ancestors on my dad’s side came from Bohemia. Maybe they’re from there?” 

An odd expression came into his face and in the tone of his voice.

She stayed quiet a few moments, curious about what he was remembering. 

“Did you like your dad?”

He blinked. “Yeah, I loved him. I was in fourth grade when he was killed and that turned our whole lives upside down. My mom had been working at the grocery store since she was in high school but that’s when she realized, I guess, she would have to earn a lot more. So she took those classes and started working fulltime.” 

“Who took care of you when she couldn’t be around?”

“Well, I was nine so I came home from school by myself and watched TV. Most of the time my mom was home by supper.”

“Was she sometime out later?”

“Yeah, at first she’d arrange for me to go to the neighbor when she worked late. But by the time I was in middle school, I stayed home alone. The hoarding was really kicking in around then. I’d try to clean things but I was a kid, not all that motivated, and I couldn’t keep up.” 

They were quiet again. 

She looked up from washing the glasses. “By the time I was in high school my mom was working fulltime and my sister and brother were already in college. Those after school, before the parents got home hours were the best hours for me when I was a teenager. No one was watching me.” 

He chuckled softly. “We should have known each other then, huh?”

“Yeah.” She hesitated. “I would have become a different person if a guy like you had wanted to be my friend back then.”

Right then a mouse scurried from one side of the kitchen to the other and she shrieked. He laughed but also with revulsion. 

“This is really gross, Olive. You don’t have to be here.”

She shrugged. “The sink and counters are now clear. The fridge is usable. I’m almost done emptying expired stuff in cupboards although it’s weird that she has enough plates and glasses for fifty people. This is daunting but look at you! You are a really nice human being. She raised you. She’s not a failure.”

Mason threw a half dozen empty spray bottles in the trash and then turned to look at her. “Thanks for continuing to say I’m a nice person even though I’m just out of jail with nearly two years left to serve on a felony that lead to the death of my best friend.” He shuddered and closed his eyes. “It’s a lot to be and it’s a lot to say. But I know I wouldn’t do this cleaning if I wasn’t stuck in the house. I love my mom but it’s crazy she let herself get this crazy.”

Harriet took a big breath. “I’ve been reading about depression on the internet so you know this is the ‘absolute truth’ …” She stopped to make air quotes with her fingers. “But here’s a thing I learned. Depression runs in families, and also, not always but often, depression is associated with people who are above average intelligent and above average sensitive.” 

He was listening until he laughed. “So my mom’s a genius. Probably.”

She tilted her head to look at him. “And you are totally coping with your life, right now Mason?”

He wrinkled his brows and stared at her.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this. I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t think the two weeks when we met and had all that fun and you made me laugh and feel good about myself .. I don’t think that was unusual you. I think that was your regular personality. But what’s going on now with you being this quiet and this hard on yourself, I think this might be the way you are when depression sort of takes over.” 

He took a step backwards as if she’d slapped him. “You’re a therapist now?”

She felt her shoulders stiffen. This was not easy, “No. I’m not even close to a therapist. But, remember, you figured out a big piece of my personality within twenty minutes of meeting me. You noticed I might be on the autism-obsessive continuum even though not one other person had ever mentioned such a thing to me. So because of you I contacted my clinic and set up an assessment that I will have in a couple weeks. I listened to you and now I am the one saying the uncertain thing. And as we both know, one of my superpowers is sticking to a subject.”

She rolled her shoulders, trying to be at ease. “So I stuck with reading about depression and hoarding and I’ve read more than any sane person would. So my question to you is - what was going on around that terrible time when Mike died? What else was happening around then?”

Mason just looked at her a moment. “Holy shit. There’s a question I never expected.”

She kept talking. “Do you remember back then?”

He turned back to the closet but picked up nothing. 

Harriet stood at the sink watching him. 

He swore as he answered quietly. “As a matter of fact, I do remember. Nothing huge was happening. Just the regular crap of me being myself.” 

She took in a big breath. “What do you mean? You’re thinking about something specific.”

He laughed hollowly. “You may have noticed. I’m short and skinny so of course in high school I got teased a lot. Lots of short guys get teased so it was so stupid that I let it get under my skin. But senior year I liked this one girl. Christ, I can’t even remember her name now, but she was smaller than me with pretty blonde hair and a nice smile - maybe I’ve got a type - and I’d talk to her after class when I could. 

“Then once during lunch hour I left the table of guys I usually sat by and walked over to where she was sitting with some of her friends and I said hi. Immediately, these guys who were jerks noticed me making my big suave move, and I don’t know, for whatever reason it became their sport after that to call me Lowrider. 

“I hated it and I suppose they knew that because they just kept at it. Until one day I was behind one them who was chanting ‘Lowrider eyed her, tried her, couldn’t glider.’ God, it’s all these years later and I still remember that. I got so angry that day that I grabbed that guy’s backpack and pulled it so hard he fell over backwards and hit the back of his head on the floor. His buddies jumped on me and, of course, I got all beat up and of course, they said I started it. I wasn’t about to repeat that stupid taunt to anyone, so I said nothing. 

“He ended up with a concussion and I got expelled from school for a week. Then when I came back is when that teacher said I should go to college; just one more piece of information I didn’t know what to do with. And also, because my mom had just had covid for a couple weeks and the grocery store didn’t pay her while she was off, we were broke and I wasn’t eating much. I could have eaten free school lunch but by then I didn’t want to go in the cafeteria. So I just wouldn’t eat.

“And then that day, Mike came over. It was such a relief to have a friend with me in my house, not out there where all I could do was be harassed and be in trouble. Plus he knew how dirty it is in here in my house and he didn’t care because, unlike at his house, no one was going to beat on him.

“He already done the smack that I didn’t know about. We did my Adderall and then the booze. And then he died.”

Harriet stood silently, absorbing the unbearable tragedy of Mason’s story. She turned to the faucet, poured two beautiful glasses of water, and took them to the table and sat down. He pulled out a chair and sat also. He looked at his hands wrapped around the glass some old relative had brought across the ocean from a different century.

His voice was so quiet. “I wonder if my great-grandparent who brought this was also depressed. So yeah, that time for me was already pretty awful and then Mike died.”

They both drank quietly. 

After a while she asked, “Did you tell your lawyer all this?”

He snorted. “No. She was court appointed and had a zillion other cases besides mine. Plus no one asked and even if they had, I don’t think I would have said. I’m already scrawny. The last thing I want is for the world to know I blew up when a jerk bullied me, you know. Like, that’s just weak.”

She nodded and then she got back up, crossed the kitchen, grabbed some of the black garbage bags they’d filled and took them outside to the growing collection by the garbage bins.

When she came back in she asked an easier question. “How are we going to get rid of the garbage? It’s too much for regular pickup.”

He looked up. “I already called Manny last night. He said he’ll come by sometime during a workday when mom isn’t here. He knows it’ll trip her up to see stuff being hauled away. I asked how much and he said it’s only a small amount to dump it where he dumps construction stuff so not to worry about it. He’s got it.”

He chuckled. “He actually said I’m a stand up dude and, get this, he said ‘It’s not my place to tell you I’m proud of you but in case it makes a difference to you, I am.’”

Harriet smiled. 

 “So what happened to you in jail?”

He was startled. “I thought we were done talking about me. In fact, I welcomed the reprieve, Investigator Olive.”

She chuckled. “It takes me a while to get my thoughts together but eventually I know what I want to know. That’s always the place to go next.”

He leaned over to pretend sock her shoulder. “You’ve got so much going on in your pretty head. But I don’t want to talk about any more hard stuff today. Don’t you have to go home and organize someone’s business?”

She angled her head at him. “Yeah, actually I do. I’m going to the hair salon tomorrow to help the owner figure out how to use what I gave her. She’s nice. She asked how much it would be for me to come over again to explain her the program I made for her.”

Harriet grinned. “I told her my hourly fee. But I offered that if she could give me one fairly good referral to another business that could be my payment. She says she know someone!”

“That’s awesome, Harriet!”

“So I can come back here in a couple days and if your mom isn’t here, I’ll probably pester you about jail so be ready to stonewall me. If that’s what you want to do.”

He tucked her hair behind her ear. The sensation tumbled through the both of them.

“I’ll think about it.”

______________________

 

Chapter 7

By the time she got back to her apartment, ate a sandwich, and took a long shower to erase the vision of the scurrying mouse, it was late evening. She closed her blinds and pulled shut her blue curtains printed with flying parrots. Her studio was so small that her mattress filled a corner, the striped comforter she’d had since high school was askew, a tumble of bed pillows were covered in random pillowcases from the Goodwill in her neighborhood. Her favorite featured the Magic School Bus. Someone in college had asked her if she had a spirit animal, she’d thought a minute, then answered Ms. Frizzle. 

She’d been scolded so often as a kid for not making her bed. Now, on her own, she loved skipping what she didn’t care about. Breakfast and dinner plates were stacked the sink. Her six pack of IPA’s was on the counter next to the fridge; she left them unrefrigerated because she didn’t like cold teeth. 

She pulled a beer from the pack and then sat, one leg under her butt, on the ergonomic office chair she’d bought just that week. She rolled close to her utility table, stretched her back a moment, then opened her laptop to pull up her latest job; preparing a business plan for some Pilsen artists who created useful items from found treasures. Coat racks made from wood found in city alleys. Benches and stools assembled from logs and hubcaps. City bird feeders made from plastic cartons, wrapped with slices of the indestructible soles of lost gym shoes, with twig perches. The feeders came with adorable bundles of extra twigs “in case of theft or breakage issues.” The junk was free, the costs for the business were tools, time, and imagination, and it created intriguing challenges for Harriet. When she looked up again it was long past midnight so she brushed her teeth, tumbled into her tumbled bed, collapsed onto Ms. Frizzle, and fell asleep. 

She woke to persistent knocking; her heart raced as she heard her father’s voice loudly calling her name. She pulled herself up, grabbed the decrepit plaid bathrobe she’d also bought at Goodwill, and stumbled to the door to open it. Both her parents barged in.

“Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?”

They stood in the middle of her small room like angry swans surveying a dirty chicken yard. Her dad attacked first. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning. We raised you better than this.”

Her mother crossed the room to pull open the curtains and the bright light made Harriet squint. Her mother looked her up and down critically. “What are you even wearing? Does that bathrobe belong to your fry cook boyfriend?”

Harriet stood a moment. This was what Mason had talked about. This was weird, mean, and she didn’t have to answer their questions. She took a breath, found words for herself, not for them. Don’t apologize, Harriet. There’s nothing you can win by arguing with them. You can only lose. 

She took another breath. “I was up until three working on a project. All my clothes are mine. No, Mason is not here but why are YOU here?”

Her parents started to take off their coats and her dad pulled out her office chair. She froze. Nothing to win here. Just keep yourself for yourself.

“Mom and Dad, please do not sit down. Please do not make yourself comfortable.” 

Their facial expressions exploded into the fury that had terrified her as a child and she wrapped her arms around herself. “If I’d known you were coming I could have prepared but you didn’t call and I’m working on a project. It’s complicated and I don’t want those files on my table to move even an inch. There’s a coffee shop two blocks up the street. Go there and I’ll join you in twenty minutes.”

“This is rude.”

She breathed in. Nothing to win, nothing to lose.

“Yes, but the rudeness is going two directions here so if you want a conversation it’s either there or nowhere.”

A half hour later, her hair still wet, she walked towards the booth where her parents were finishing their breakfasts. 

“Hey, thanks for waiting for me.”

“Stop it. We are here because we heard from Barbara Crandell who heard from her daughter Bailey, who works at SBR, that you were fired. Is this true?”

The server was standing there. Harriet smiled her widest smile because Mason said good folks always smile at servers. He said he could tell right off the bat when taking orders at the deli who was going to be difficult. “They never acknowledge you until they’re pissed about something.”

So Harriet smiled up at the tall guy with tattoos and piercings. “Hi! I’d like a small pot of tea and a large strawberry milk shake.”

Her mother gasped, “That’s junk food!”

Harriet shrugged. “A day’s worth of calcium and more protein than an egg.”

Her dad glowered. “So did you get fired?”

She sucked in a big breath. “No, I didn’t get fired. Yes, my internship did not evolve into a position at SBR but they were nice to me. The HR woman said I worked faster and made less mistakes than most of the others but that I am not good at impromptu socializing and much of the job requires fast sales skills. She said if I ever want a reference she will give me a great one and that I’m a textbook example of why they start with internships. Really talented college graduates like me, yes, she said ‘really talented’ - sometimes don’t solve their needs but it allows them to consider my work. I got valuable experience plus that reference if I need it.”

There was silence. Then her mother asked, “Why don’t you socialize more appropriately? How hard can it be to be polite?”

Harriet sighed. “It’s not about being polite, Mom. It’s about being quick in conversations with a great deal of fast changing information about SBR’s business status on the stock market. I was supposed to be able to communicate that quickly to coworkers as well as explain and sell the info to customers; and many of those customers simply intimidated me. I’m not good at schmoozing. I was not the only intern who was not hired into the company.”

“So how are you living? Why didn’t you tell us you were without income?”

“I’m not without income.” 

They stared at her. She stared back. 

“Well, Harriet. What is your job now?”

“I started my own business. I do quarterly tax prep, financial reports, accounting support, and other numbers related stuff for small businesses.”

More silence.

“My business is called ‘Olive Likes Numbers / Affordable Business Support for Small Enterprises.’ I have a website so if you actually want to know more, start there. I’ve been at this over a month and I already have eleven customers, and I’m making almost as much as I was at the internship which was intentionally low paying because big companies can get away with that. I’m still careful with my money but I’m doing okay and this will grow.”

Her father snorted. “This is ridiculous. You do not have the skills to run a company. You are young and still wet behind your ears.”

Harriet took her glasses off, lifted them towards the light, looked through them. Amazingly, they were clean. She wondered how that happened.

“Dad, there are so many answers to your rude comment that I think I’m going to say nothing at all. Other than that I know you started your business when you were in your twenties with a large loan from Mom’s family. Maybe we should talk again in a month or two when you’ve had more time to digest this.”

Her mother shook her head. “Why is the company named Olive? Why not use your actual name?”

Harriet looked into her mother’s eyes. “Olive is a nickname given to me by people who actually, if you can imagine, like and respect me. They realized I’m good with numbers, accounting, and recordkeeping so first they hired me and then they suggested I do it as a business. I’ve never been more interested in the work I do.”

… 

After they left, Harriet stared out the diner’s window while slurping her milkshake. The tattooed server startled her when he asked if she needed anything else. She came out of her trance and looked up at him. “My parents don’t approve of me today. Actually, I’m not sure if they have ever approved. Any advice?”

He laughed. “Oh Honey, welcome to being young in a city. None of our folks, as far as I can tell, ever approved of us so now you start your scratch art.”

“What? What’s scratch art?”

He glanced around the room to make sure no one was flagging him, then perched on the edge of the seat across from her. 

“I love art and I’m trying to create a life as an artist though right now, obviously, here I am. Anyways, remember when we were kids and we did scratch art in school? The kid colors a piece of paper really hard, uses lots of crayons, just scribbles and scribbles and covers the paper. Then they paint the whole thing back. Then when it dries the kid scratches designs or whatever into the black paint which reveals the rainbow colors underneath. 

“That’s how you live now. You’ve got your rainbow but it’s probably mostly covered under all that negative shit. So now you scratch to find what’s underneath. Find the stuff you like and want to do. Find the people who will be your people. Scratch the surface and find your rainbow.” He laughed at his own bumper sticker philosophy of life.

Harriet stared at him, shook her head just a little, then started laughing. “You are amazing This is actually really helpful.” 

He stood up to go back to work. She handed him a business card, told him about the artists who were creating things with found stuff. He was interested in their enterprise and also clearly intrigued that, for modest payments, she could help people with the business ends of their dreams. 

She went back to her apartment, made a pot of hibiscus tea, and called Mason.

“Can we talk? I need to scratch off some of my black paint.”

“What?”

“Listen to my day so far.”

He did. 

They’d been talking more than an hour when Maria came into his garage apartment to say that she was back from church and lunch afterwards with friends. Harriet heard Mason say her name and then she heard the cheerfulness in Maria’s voice when she replied. Harriet loved hearing her name bandied about so easily.

 “Well, tell Harriet I say hi and that I am forever thankful that my kitchen is better. That girl is a treasure.”

Mason chuckled. “You know she can hear you.”

Maria laughed, “In that case let her know that I told my friends that as far as I’m concerned, she hung the moon in the sky.”

Harriet laughed. “What a crazy day. My parent drive into the city to tell me I’m a failure but then your mom says I’m great. Very confusing, but next time I pick parents, I’m picking your mom.” 

He chuckled, too, as he said goodbye to his mother who was leaving his room. When Harriet heard his door click shut, she scootched further into her snaggle of pillows. “So this whole day is odder than I could ever have expected. Might as well ask you again. What happened in jail?”

The phone connection went absolutely still for a few seconds; then she heard Mason sigh. She heard a creak as he leaned back in his chair. “Because you asked and then you keep looking at me with that question in your eyes, I keep thinking about it, too. I don’t want to think about what happened. I’m not happy when I think about it. But I don’t think it’s even done yet so there’s that.”

She was quiet. She could almost hear his thoughts churning like laundry tumbling in a laundromat. 

She asked, “Does anyone besides you know what happened?””

A moment. “Yes. Amanda knows. It’s partially how I got out earlier than the release date she had set at first.” 

“I’m listening, Mason. If I thought this would be easy I would have bugged you harder. I don’t expect this to be a neat story all tied up with a movie ending.”

“Well, start with this. When Mike died and they put me in jail to wait for my trial. That was seven months and I hated it but it was doable. So now I know jail is like everything else. Depends on the luck of the draw. Depends on who’s incarcerated along with you. Sometimes it’s a lot of schmucks like me. Sometimes it’s guys who are dangerous. This time there were dangerous guys.”

The story unrolled. She listened, saying nothing more than an occasional “Oh, Mason.”

“There are lot of people in the Cook County jail, like, thousands. You get escorted in wearing wrist and ankle restraints, get assigned to a cell, probably get assigned to a work crew. I got kitchen crew because I know about working with food. Though jail food, in case you were wondering, is about as far from Della’s Deli as the moon is from Jupiter. Whatever.”

He took another moment. “Long story short, this time there were these three guys who hung out together. I noticed them right away because they were always looking around. In jail you go out of your way to not stare at other inmates; it’s part of staying safe. Don’t stare. So guys who stare are either crazy or dangerous or both. 

“These guys, another guy tells me, are Rockwell guys. I never heard of them before, they probably belong to some bigger gang, I don’t know. But at meals they were always looking around and I’d only been there a couple days when one of them is saying pretty loudly that he’s feeling horny. Then he says, just as loud, that he needs someone like his girlfriend who is small with shiny dark hair. Oh Christ, I’m a chipmunk in a lion’s cage. He looks at me but I look down really fast.

“Nothing happens right then. I go back to work in the kitchen. One of the guys I work with is this Asian guy. I don’t even know what country he came from; it’s not like we’re celebrating cultural heritage, you know. But he’s shorter than me and has shiny hair, and once he said he only had eleven days left. He got caught on the outside passing something illegal from one guy to another. He shrugs and says his dad says this is bad but not as bad as being killed, which happened to people where they came from. 

“That night I heard screaming and the next day he’s not on kitchen crew. Someone tells me the Rockwell thug got to him. At night it kind of depends on which guards are around, how safe you are. That night his floor had one of the guys probably on the take, or lazy, or both. 

“A couple days later I hear the thug at dinner, same shitty remark. Horny. Wants a little guy with shiny hair. I don’t look up but I feel his stare anyway.

“That night right before cells are locked he slides into my cell. My cellmate is not stupid, he leaves. The guy moves at me; I grab under my mattress for my three lousy Adderall pills. It’s not much, but I thought this day might come at me so I’d been palming my daily pills. I did magic tricks a lot in fifth grade; who knew that would come in so handy, you know? 

I turn back to the guy and say, ‘If you rape me, I’m out of here tonight. If you leave me alone I can get these for you every day for weeks. And that sort of worked.” 

Mason’s voice becomes softer. “It was crazy, Olive. If they caught me palming my meds, I’d be sent straight to prison. If I didn’t, I was going to get raped. And of course, without the Adderall, I’m feeling even more anxious and hyper than I always feel. I kept talking to myself all the time. Like you today, reminding yourself there was nothing to gain by arguing. I muttered my way through the days. I hummed. I thought of you and my mom and Manny and getting back to the deli someday. 

“And then, damn it, I see another short guy get set up and that night I hear him scream and then he’s gone, too. So I called Amanda to please visit me as soon as she could because I’m not safe.

“She’s one of the good ones. There are lots of them. She came the next morning and I told her what was going on. She said the PO’s know there’s violence in the jail and it’s hard because what else is there? So if she writes up our interview for gang division, will I sign it?

“I know what she’s saying. It will help in the short run but it can make my life more dangerous if or more likely when, those guys, and their buddies on the outside, figure out who I am. And they might. 

“But I think of Manny. He’s like my go-to macho guy, you know? He has a wife and kids and grandkids and he says back when he was in the army, there were really dicey times, but nothing was ever as hazardous as trying to take care of people you love all the time every day. And then he says this thing which stays in me all the time. Taking care of people you love takes courage, Trying to watch out for people you don’t even know, that’s where the shit hits the pavement. Yeah, he said shit. He is pretty real.

“So I think of guys more vulnerable than me, who are getting raped by a specific guy that I know and can identify. So I say yes, I’ll sign it. And that’s how I got out early.

“And that is why I am not sure of anything. I hope I’m okay. I hope they don’t find out where I live or work. But I’m not sure. 

“So I’m still unsure of everything and maybe I just saved my own butt while putting others in harm’s way. Amanda gave me her the phone number she has on a phone that’s not her work number but related to it, for, she says, high priority calls. She says she never leaves it or turns in off so to call it if something happens. I gave the number it to my mom, and to Hal and Teresa. So now, I guess, I’m giving it to you. Just in case.” 

Harriet was quiet. Then she spoke slowly, thinking as she talked. “There is a lot of black paint to scrape off the surface of your life, Mason. But underneath you are the truest of true blue.” 

_____________________

 

Chapter 8

A few days later Harriet stopped at the deli after an afternoon meeting. Hal, Teresa, and Mason all looked up when she walked in the door. 

Mason grinned, “What can I get for you this afternoon, Ma’am?”

She laughed, “I’d like an Italian beef, not dipped, and maybe three smiles on the side?”

Hal chuckled while Teresa made a shooing gesture towards Mason. “I’ll get her sandwich while you check out and take this lovely girl home with you.” Then she stopped to sputter, “I mean if that works for you both. I didn’t mean to presume. I just got used to thinking of the two of you together but of course that’s your business, not mine.”

Harriet smiled. “I like the way you think because I was wondering if I could get invited to spend some “alone” – she made air quotes - time with Mason, um, decluttering his mom’s house.”

Mason leaned over the counter to barely kiss her cheek as he joked, “I’ve been dreaming of you standing next to stacks of newspapers taller than you are. My mom was not a lazy hoarder.”

Hal shook his head. “You two do have a unique story.”

…

The kitchen was now workable with cleared countertops, cupboards in which one could find clean dishes and unexpired food, and appliances that were functional. Harriet had spent hours just cleaning beneath the sink where there’d been tipped over cleaners going back five presidential administrations. She’d safely tossed most of it and then cleaned the dank space. She’d put back a dozen products including the toxic degreaser she’d used on the stovetop, the oven cleaner she’d applied three times in two days to clean inside the oven, bleach, ammonia, and a few less lethal soaps and cleaners. Maria had laughed her shy laugh when she first saw the tidy space. “Even my super-duper clean friends have messy under-the-sink cupboards. I’ve never seen anything like this.” 

So the kitchen was done enough. Mason and Harriet stood next to each other in the archway that opened from the kitchen into the small living room. 

Mason sighed. “This is going to be something.”

Harriet sighed, too. “Well, it took years to get this overwhelming. We’ll take our time bringing it back. Did you tell your mom about those hoarding disorder support groups?”

“Yeah and she says thank you. All of this is hard for her but she says if I’m going to work this hard on straightening out my life she will try to do the same for herself. She knows a lady at church who has a brother in a group that meets not far from here. That woman and her brother took her to her first meeting a few days ago. She says it was so helpful she’s going again tonight, though, interestingly, the brother was picking her up at work, then they go to the group, then he will drive her home.” 

Harriet smiled. “That’s cute and that’s really good. It’s too hard to change lifelong habits all by one’s self. And like I keep saying, she’s not lazy. This is not because she’s a failure; this is the way some people cope with their lives. It will be easier to change if she knows more and meets people like herself.”

Mason also took a big breath. “I suggest we start by the front window and move, however many weeks it take, clockwise around the room.”

Harriet nodded. “I’ve barely seen a newspaper in years since everything’s online. But here’s your mom with what, a thousand Tribs and Sun Times? How old are they anyways?” 

“Old. My dad used to bring them home from work. He’d sit in his chair and read them while my mom finished supper. It was a nice time of the day.”

Harriet nodded again. “That sort of explains how the newspapers got stuck here. They’re like a souvenir from when her life felt safe and good.

“Wow, I never thought of that. Well, what should we do with them?”

“Maybe keep a couple but ask Manny to recycle the rest?”

“That works.” 

They were nearly two hours into plowing through the piles when an enormous black pickup pulled in front of the house. Mason noticed it before it even came to a full stop.

“I don’t recognize that truck.”

Harriet looked at Mason whose voice had become quiet and serious. They both watched as two muscular men started to climb out of the massive vehicle. One had a red baseball cap on backwards, the other had a ponytail. Both wore sunglasses even though it was nearly night. 

Harriet murmured. “The doors are locked; I checked a while ago.”

He muttered back, “I saw you do that. I’m calling Amanda. You call 911.”

The men sauntered up the sidewalk, bulges under their hoodies as Mason and Harriet, phones to their ears, pushed the sofa in front of the door. 

The men knocked hard; the sound ricocheted through the house. Harriet darted to the kitchen where, flooded with adrenalin, she pulled the refrigerator in front of the side door while bottles and jars clanked as they fell over inside. Her mind raced as she tried to think what else she could do. And then she jerked open the doors under the sink. She grabbed two cans to jam in the back pockets of her jeans, then stuck the ammonia and bleach containers in one arm. She dropped to the floor to peak around the archway. 

Mason was crouched in a tiny space between the end of the sofa and piles of newspapers when gunshot blasted the front window into a hailstorm of shards. The ponytail man knocked shards from the frame with the butt of his gun as he began to climb through the window, combat boots first. 

Harriet rolled the oven cleaner and industrial degreaser across the floor to Mason; in the chaos of that moment the guy didn’t see Mason lean forward to spray both cleaners into his face. He screamed and grabbed his face just as the second guy started climbing in and Mason sprayed him, too. The second guy tried to shoot his gun but he could not aim; the bullets went upwards and everywhere but not into Mason or Harriet.

Harriet turned quickly towards Mason, “Pull away the sofa. We’re leaving.” 

It only took a few seconds for him to do that as she uncapped the bleach and ammonia bottles and then tipped them between the men who were trying to see and trying to get up. 

Mason and Harriet erupted out of the house as the chemicals became toxic chloramine gas. They ran towards squad cars squealing down the street.

A huge officer in full tactical gear squinted down at small Harriet who was explaining what she’d done. He wrinkled his forehead at her. “What? What is chloramine gas?”

She shook her head, talking fast, “Not mustard gas but, depending on how long people are in it, it’s about that toxic. Your guys should put on masks.”

They did. After that they pulled the cuffed, shackled, and shrieking men out of the house to the ambulances that had just pulled up.

…

It was a long night. Mason called Maria to tell her to not come home and while he was talking he heard the man next to her say she could stay at his place. In the middle of that terrifying night, he chuckled. Good for his mom.

The house would be off limits until the police investigation was complete, which Mason and Harriet were informed, would definitely be hours, and might be days. Amanda was sitting in the interview room while detectives began to talk with them. They asked Harriet how she knew how to do what she did. 

“I took high school chemistry, Sir.”

He chuckled as he began to ask more questions. Harriet politely waited for the man to stop speaking.

“Sir, we really want you to help you but right now I’m worried that someday they may come back at Mason and me to sue or whatever for whatever’s going to happen to their eyes. Mason and I need a lawyer before we speak with you.”

Amanda sat up. Mason arched his eyebrows at Harriet. The detectives sighed. 

She squared her shoulders. “I’m sure this isn’t convenient for you, but it is what it is.”

Hal and Teresa were surprised to be called, just as the evening news came on, about how to find a criminal defense attorney. Hal did not sigh or laugh; he immediately agreed that he and Teresa would do what they could do. 

Mason and Harriet sat next to each other on a bench in the hall where officers were going back and forth all night. Eventually Harriet gave up, pulled up her feet, rested her head in Mason’s lap, and went to sleep. Mason leaned against the hallway wall, his hand smoothing her hair. It was an odd place to finally achieve such trust and intimacy.

They sat up abruptly the morning when a small woman dressed in a black suit with a black silk shirt stopped in front of them. “The real estate attorney of a Mr. and Mrs. Dell contacted me to come here for Mason Conti and Harriet Bishop. That you?”

She advised them very carefully to explain, under questioning, exactly what they saw but not to talk about what they felt other than to acknowledge that yes, they had felt terrified. If they couldn’t be precise, she warned, say nothing. She sat with them through hours of interviews and then after the officers finished and left them, she informed them that the Dells were covering this appointment. If she were needed later they could negotiate at that time. 

They called Amanda. Where should Mason go since he couldn’t go home and it was too much to go into work. In a moment he didn’t expect, Amanda laughed on the phone and asked what his ideas were. He looked at Harriet who was looking back at him. “Hey Olive, can I move in for a while?”

She nodded. He pulled her against his chest, kissed her hair, and an hour later they walked into her apartment. They took showers, made breakfast, and then made love the way they would live the rest of their lives together. With trust, laughter, and very few apologies for who they were. 

He moved fast; she thought things through. He made her laugh; she made him slow down and consider. He intuited; she planned and carried through. He went to college and became a high school counselor. She never ate meatballs.