Club Sandwich Read Online Free Page B

don’t want to hear about my brother’s meanderings among the fairer sex. He’s forty and acts like he’s still in college. One day,his private parts are going to fall off, and he’ll come crying to me, and I won’t have a thing to say. I’ll just go up to the medicine cabinet, pluck out some Neosporin, and tell him to keep the tube. The kicker is, he looks ten years younger than his age, possesses an athletic grace, and has hair thicker than a yeti’s.
    So much for clean living. Maybe I should give his lifestyle a try.
    “Anyway. There are chicken breasts in the fridge and some snow peas. I bought a nice bottle of Chardonnay, too. Do your magic.”
    He runs his scarred fingers through his dirty blond hair. “Sure thing. Got some rice?”
    I nod.
    “Basmati?”
    “Actually, yes. Just the Mahatma kind.”
    “That’ll work.”
    One time I left supper already cooked, and my brother, a trained chef who runs our restaurant, reamed me out—pulp, seeds, and pith—with such vigor I wouldn’t dare make
that
mistake again.
    “If there’s any left, I’ll save it for you.”
    “Thanks. You know reception food. I’ll probably be starving by the time I get home.”
    He pulls a face as he slides past me at the doorway and into the house.
    Certainly the same old buffet fare will unroll the length of the table, punctuated by curly endive and carrot curl garnish. Roast beef, baked chicken, some kind of dried-out fish with paprika on it. Green beans almondine, California medley, maybe an overcooked ratatouille. Tossed salad mostly consisting of iceberg lettuce, and some sort of confetti rice concoction complete with wrinkled peas and cubed canned-soup-worthy carrots. Buttered new potatoes withrosemary and parsley? Your choice of carrot cake or chocolate torte for dessert. Some kind of pie. Iced tea, coffee. Cash bar. The flier warned us there’d be a cash bar.
    I may just go straight for the dessert. After watching Glynn Spicer enter the room as though a red carpet supports her fabulous footwear, I’m sure my appetite will flee quicker than Rusty after the singing bug bit him.
    Oh man. Tomorrow’s trash day.
    I head out to the side of the house and wheel the can toward the street. The driveway needs a new coat of asphalt. Is that a pansy planted right smack in the middle? Persy did that. I know it.
    “Ivy!”
    My neighbor. Mr. Zachary Moore.
    “Hi Mr. Moore!” He’s doing the same thing I am. But with his arthritis, it’ll take five times longer. I hurry over. “Let me.”
    “Now, child. You don’t have to be doin those things for me.” His deep brown eyes crinkle in his deep brown face. I rub my hand along his sweatered arm. Hard bone under knit.
    “Course I don’t have to. But I want to. Is that okay?”
    “Well, I surely wouldn’t want to deprive you of a blessing.”
    Mr. Moore loves Jesus.
    I walk slowly, letting him keep pace. The reunion can definitely wait.
    “Now where you headin’ all dressed up so fine?”
    “My high-school reunion.”
    “Lord bless you.”
    “I know. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it much. Just curious, I guess.”
    “You know what curiosity done for that cat.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
    We chuckle together. I love Mr. Moore. He took care of his own mother for years and years and still found time to bring over soup and bread and whatever else he cooked up in his kitchen when my grandma got so sick. He’s an incredible bridge player. Had his master’s points by the time he was thirty.
    “Well, you have yourself a good time anyway.”
    “If it’s possible.”
    He scratches his bushy eyebrow. “Oh, it’s always possible, Ivy. Just not probable. I guess we decide which way we want to go. As for me, two tables of bridge right here tonight would make me a happy camper. I do miss your grandparents. Fine card players. Shame the way life never stops changing.”
    “All you can do is go with the flow.”
    He chuckles. “I do believe we’ve just gone and