South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [13]
When she returned to 26 Bessel, Gladys had transformed the kitchen into a food factory and Arbutus was sitting at the table in her bathrobe. She beamed at Madeline and Madeline smiled back. She resolved to be pleasant to Gladys for Arbutus’s sake.
“You’re Up early,” she said, straightening the collar of Arbutus’s robe. Arbutus looked rumpled somehow, as if her journey out of bed had been rocky.
“I smelled the cooking. Glad came in and helped me.”
“Okay, but be careful. I don’t want any accidents. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
Arbutus’s eyes seemed full of Understanding. Probably Gladys had told her about their little scuffle. “We can manage getting me around on our own now and then.”
Madeline decided not to argue, but she knew she should have been there. “What’s all this?” she asked, nodding at the table spread with mixing bowls and cake pans and cookie sheets, eggs and milk and flour, canned tomatoes, onions, a whole chicken and a bag of ground beef that appeared to be frozen solid.
“I’m low on sugar.” Gladys glanced at her, seeming to gauge her mood. “And I need more eggs. Also ketchup. And pimientos.”
“It’s a little early in the day for pimientos, don’t you think?” Madeline went to get a second cup of coffee, squatted down to scratch Marley’s head, then stood near the stove to dry the chill out of her bones.
Arbutus had watched their exchange and her eyes were sparkling. She seemed to find life very amusing. Well, probably it was amusing if you could just look at it from the right angle and maybe Madeline could learn that skill while she was here. It was Arbutus, after all, who had clinched this deal. Madeline tried to think of that word again, the one that meant one of the pillars of the world. She couldn’t, but it didn’t matter. Arbutus was there, right before her, seeming to hold some vital knowledge about life that Madeline hoped to learn.
“They’re for the meat loaf,” Gladys said, bringing her back to the pimientos. “I need you to go to the store.”
“After yesterday?”
“Not that store, don’t be foolish. No, you’ll have to run down to Crosscut.”
Madeline gave Gladys a look over the rim of her coffee cup. Crosscut was thirty-two miles away! And it was grim: empty storefronts, dilapidated houses, a pall of poverty. “Come on. You can’t go to Crosscut every time you want a bottle of ketchup.”
Gladys’s eyes snapped Up from her recipe and she surveyed Madeline over the top of her glasses. “Watch me.”
Madeline couldn’t help feeling that stab of admiration for Gladys again. She slid Gladys’s shopping list around in front of her and perused it: 1 doz. large brown eggs, 5 lb. sugar, lg. bott. ketchup, 3 jars pimientos, 10 lb. flour (Gold Medal, no off-brands!), 5 lb. hamburger, 2 gall. whole milk, 4 lbs. butter, half doz. green peppers (if decent, not soft), 2 hds. cabbage, 2 bags carrots and celery, whole cardamom—it went on and on. “This is a lot of food. What are you Up to, anyway?”
“Cooking.”
“You expect the three of Us to eat all this?
“It’s not for Us.”
“No?”
“We’ll take a pan of meat loaf and some molasses cookies to Mary Feather, she loves those I know, and something for Randi Hopkins, she’s got that child to think of, and Emil of course. Although the only thing he’d really want is a pint of Old Grand-Dad and I’m not getting that.” Gladys flashed a rare sunny smile, and Madeline could see that she was truly happy. Because she had a plan, maybe. Because she was doing something. “If you leave right now, you could be back in time for me to get done by afternoon.”
So, a journey of more than sixty miles round-trip for some flour and ketchup. It might have been more sensible