Extreme Vinyl Café Read Online Free

hung up.
    He jumped out of bed. He grabbed his robe on his way out of his room. He was heading for the bathroom. He was heading for the bathtub, about to have the first bath he had ever really wanted in his life.
    Dear Stuart,
    Last Sunday night we went over to my mother’s house for dinner and, as usual, before the night was done, she brought up the time someone demolished her entire stash of homemade jerky. This was like twenty years ago.
    She used to keep the jerky in a tin on the counter in plain view and I was only sixteen at the time and starving, so I don’t think I am to blame.
    But I feel guilty and wonder if it is time to fess up. Everyone I ask tells me that I should totally tell, but they don’t know my mother, or at least they don’t know her when it comes to jerky. Anyway I know you used to date her when you were at camp, and I thought you might have an idea.
    Sincerely,
Elizabeth Watson
    Dear Elizabeth,
    How nice to hear from you. I remember your mother well, or rather, I’ve had some trouble forgetting. I had an unfortunate incident with her jerky too. If I were you, I wouldn’t approach her. Not in person, anyway. If you really feel strongly, I would suggest you have a third party there. People can be very prickly about food. I have attached a cautionary tale you might find interesting.

THE BIRTHDAY CAKE
    T hey say love is blind. We all know they’re right. And there is no end to the mischief a myopic heart can hatch, no end at all. But you don’t have to be lovestruck to stir up trouble. Those lesser emotions can be just as dangerous.
    No one would ever say Bert Turlington loves Dave. But Bert wouldn’t deny that he feels a certain fondness, he might even say affection, for his neighbour. It is not love—more the accumulation of feelings that bind people together when they live side by side for many years, the small kindnesses and courtesies of their “arranged marriage.”
    So you could forgive Bert his neighbourly heart when he blurted out his invitation to Dave that night in the park.
    You might. But Bert’s wife, Mary, didn’t.
    “You what!?” said Mary.
    Bert had invited Dave and Morley to drive with them to Montreal for Harold Buskirk’s sixty-fifth birthday.
    “And to stay with us?” added Mary. “In Rene’s house?”
    “It just came out,” said Bert. “Unexpectedly.”
    Dave had said something about how he and Morley weren’t sure if they were going to make it to the party. They hadn’t made hotel reservations and … you know.
    And Bert thought.…
    “No,” said Mary. “Don’t use that word. You didn’t think. There wasn’t any thought involved.”
    Harold Buskirk, who used to live up by the park, was turning sixty-five. Pretty much the whole neighbourhood was going to Montreal for the party. People had been working on sketches and speeches and songs.
    Mary had been working on the cake. And not just any cake. For Harold, she was creating a masterpiece—a Frangelicosoaked chocolate fudge cake with white chocolate fondant and an orange buttercream and truffle ganache filling. It was Harold’s retirement as well as his birthday. Mary was going to decorate her cake so it looked like a golf course—complete with little buttercream golf balls and a marzipan foursome standing triumphantly on the ninth tee.
    Bert and Mary were driving to Montreal. They were staying at Rene Gallivan’s house. Rene Gallivan is Mary’s boss. Rene was in Florida, or Palm Springs. One of those places.
    “You said it was a mansion,” said Bert. “I thought there would be plenty of room.” There was that word again. Bert was talking to himself. Mary had stormed off.
    T hey left on Saturday morning, just after breakfast. Not that anyone actually ate breakfast. They were supposed to leave before breakfast and take a break on the road for brunch, but Mary had a moment with the fondant, and amid the last-minute cake flurry, brunch was lost.
    There they were, on the road, two in the afternoon and