The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) Read Online Free

somewhere close to noon. After waking totally, which took some time,
I pulled back the cover; someone had removed the towel and put me in
a white flannel nightie. I lifted the hem and inspected myself, half surprised and half not that everything looked like it had the day before.
When I took my first step I most keenly recalled last night's deflowering, on account of I was tender as a hammered thumb. I stumbled
toward the bedroom door. On the way I discovered no amount of
favouring one side over the other helps when the soreness is coming
from smack-dab in the middle.
    To be truthful, all I wanted was a cup of hot tea and maybe a
good cry, none of which happened because a woman I recognized in
only the faintest sort of way was sitting on the living room sofa, knitting. I thought I recognized her from the night before, but with my
head so fogged up I couldn't be sure.
    "Oh!" she cried, "she is awake! You look so beautiful last night!
You look so beautiful it make me want to cry!" As she said this, she put
aside the knitting and ran toward me so she could hug me and kiss me
and express all the emotion apparently caused by my radiance of the night previous. When finished, she took me by the hand and led me
toward the sofa. She sat me down. Wiping away her tears, she said,
"Oh, my child. Dimitri told me you are orphan? That your mother and
father they die when you are just young girl?"

    I nodded.
    "Oh ... such tragedy. Such sadness we have. But you don't to
worry. Dimitri he ask me to show you how to look after a home. Is all
right I help you?"
    I nodded again, which triggered another attack of tears and hugs
and kisses on the part of this strangly comported woman. "Oh, is such
a happy time. Soon you will have little ones, and I know it not sound
possible but you will be even the more happier."
    It wasn't till later, when we were in the market, and she was
showing me how to thump an eggplant, that Mr. Billetti called goodmorning to her and I realized how I knew her; she was married to Mr.
Nickolokaukus, the baker from down the street, which explained why
she smelled so warm and yeasty. Five minutes later and two stalls over,
with her showing me the difference between good spinach and spinach
readying to wilt, I asked, "Do you use the stems in cooking, Mrs.
Nickolokaukus?" just so I could show I knew who in the hell she was.
    "Oh please," she answered, "why so the Mrs. Nickolokaukus?
Georgina. Please. My name is Georgina."
    Over the next few days, Georgina decided I was pretty strong in
the cleaning department, having done more than I ever cared to do at
St. Mary's, and next to hopeless in things kitchen related, my having
only the dimmest memory of watching my father prepare tortiere and
nettleberry torte. (Have I mentioned he was Canadian French? That
my mother was English? That they were an odd mixture, she being
stony and capable of the darkest moods, he being passionate and on the
speak-your-mind end of things? That basically I'm a mixture of the
two of them, personality-wise?) That week, Georgina showed me how
to braise fiddleheads, how to roast potatoes in garlic and drippings, how to take home a baby lamb bound at the hooves and hold it down,
panicked and bleating, before slicing its throat in a way the flow
doesn't get on your clothing. ("You see, Mary? You must hold knife dis
way....") She watched as I struggled through my first moussaka, as I
charred my first piklikia, as I over-garlicked my first bowl of tsatsiki, as
I put way too much onion in my first batch of spanakopita, and throughout she showed a patience that wasn't merited as I was still suffering
from the gloominess that'd gotten a firm grip on my wedding night.

    For instance-there I was, trying to bake some sticky monstrosity called a baclava, when it caught fire and I started shrieking and
Georgina had to jam wooden spoons into the handles and rush to
the window and shout "Gardyloo" before hurling it to the