“Wowzer,” Isabel said, surveying the decapitated spatula.
“Wowzer is right,” Amy said. “Remind me not to get on his bad side.”
Isabel threw the spatula in the trash. “I guess that’s why they’re usually sold with rubber-bands around their claws.”
“So, after the race, are you going to eat him?” Amy asked. Jeremy was totally engrossed in the book and not stirring. She poked him with her elbow. “Keep stirring.”
“Depends on if he wins or loses the race,” Isabel said, looking down on him. “His performance will affect my life. If he places high I should reward him with life, don’t you think?”
“You could take him to the beach and free him,” Amy said.
The front door slammed, announcing the arrival of Chad with the coconut milk. Amy panicked. He was the last person she wanted to see. She was about to sneak out the door when Chad appeared, blocking her only exit. “Hello, my little love button.”
Amy gritted her teeth and looked at Isabel, sending her telepathic messages. Isabel caught on and came to her rescue by saying, “You better get that coconut milk in the Saag Paneer because it has the consistency of wallpaper glue.”
Chad quickly began tearing the top of the container. “How much do you think?”
Isabel shrugged. “Don’t know. Never made the stuff. I have a spastic colon.”
Chad noticed Jeremy reading and snatched the book away from him. “No one was supposed to see that, you idiot.”
“Hey, I needed entertainment. Stirring is boring.”
Chad poured in a tiny bit of the coconut milk. Jeremy had to use both hands to stir the thick gunk. “Keep stirring,” Chad ordered.
Isabel grabbed the carton of coconut milk out of Chad’s hands, saying, “Let me help. You men are useless.” She poured a little at a time into the pot while Jeremy continued stirring.
Chad leaned up against the counter next to the sink, affecting a pose that Amy supposed was calculated to look like a male model. He tossed Amy his famous wink. She didn’t bother to catch it.
Chad changed poses, leaning on one arm, crossing his feet and pooching out his bottom lip. Amy supposed it was his sultry look.
“Where are your pink shoes?” Amy asked.
Chad’s smile disappeared. “They were stolen. I couldn’t believe it. Who would steal pink size 12 men’s shoes?”
“A clown?” Isabel said.
Amy snickered.
Chad ignored the insult. “Do you know how hard it is to find a shoe like that?” he said, petulantly. “And now I’ve got to do it again. But you should see all the adorable kid Converse shoes. You know for when we’ve got little ones,” Chad said, raising his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx.
Amy might have decked him if what happened next hadn’t happened.
Chad’s face turned red and he screamed. He plucked his hand up off the counter by the sink. The lobster was dangling from his finger! The lobster had a death grip on his forefinger with one of its enormous claws. Chad jumped up and down, spun in a circle and then banged the lobster on the edge of the counter. The lobster sailed across the room, splashing into the pot of Saag Paneer.
Jeremy yelped and jumped back.
Isabel screamed, “Save him!”
Amy said, “I’ll save him!” She rushed to Chad who was now spurting a stream of blood from his hand.
Isabel shook her head. “Not him! Save the lobster!” Isabel pushed Jeremy back and whacked the back of the pot. It turned over, emptying out the green lumpy stuff and one seriously dizzy lobster onto the floor. The lobster scurried away.
Jeremy put his hands over his ears, screaming, “Will somebody please turn off the alarm?”
“That’s not an alarm. It’s Chad screaming,” Amy shouted. “The lobster bit off his finger!”
That seemed to be news to Chad. He looked down at his hand and, for the first time, saw that he was missing his index finger. He stopped screaming. His eyes rolled back into his head, his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor.
“What kind of doctor faints?” Isabel said.
“One that just lost his finger,” Amy said.
“He’s bleeding an awful lot,” Isabel said. This observation kicked Amy into gear. She grabbed a dishtowel and kitchen shears. She cut the towel into strips. “Snap, snap, you two,” Amy said, gesturing to the floor, “find the finger. The lobster probably dropped it into that green goo.” She tied the strips to Chad’s hand, fashioning a tourniquet.
Jeremy and Isabel knelt on the floor, searching the globs of Saag Paneer with their bare hands. They looked like two kids making mud pies. Green mud pies.
“How do we know which lump is it?” Isabel asked.
“Just find a lump that looks like a finger,” Amy said.
“They all look like decapitated fingers,” Jeremy said.
Amy said, “Get them all, we’ll sort it out later.”
“I found it!” Isabel yelled triumphantly. She held the finger up for everyone to see.
Jeremy gently pinched the dismembered digit between his thumb and forefinger and dunked it in the sink of water, to rinse it off. “Isabel, get a baggie. Fill it with ice.”
Isabel leaped up and got a baggie and ice. Jeremy dropped the finger inside. Isabel put her hands on her hips and looked at the kitchen floor. “Gross. It looks like Linda Blair was here.”
Satisfied that the tourniquet was working, Amy turned her attention to waking Chad up. She slapped him across the face. He didn’t move. She slapped him again, harder.
Chad’s eyelids fluttered. He opened his eyes and smiled at Amy. “I knew it. I knew you cared.”
She gave him one more slap just because she could.
Indy 500
Isabel was driving her Jeep Cherokee with Jeremy riding shotgun. Amy sat in the back seat with Chad’s passed-out head in her lap. Amy couldn’t believe this was happening, although she had to admit that this was far more exciting than the evening Chad originally had planned.
Isabel had the accelerator mashed to the floor and weaved in and out of traffic with a steady hand. Jeremy and Amy held their breath each time Isabel cut in front of another car.
“Did anybody turn off the stove?” Isabel asked, not slowing through a yellow light.
“Shit,” Jeremy said. He sat up straighter. “Did anybody catch the lobster?”
“Shit,” said Isabel, taking the corner on two wheels.
“So we have an open gas flame and a killer lobster on the loose in our house?” Jeremy said. “Could this day get any more weird?”
“I’mmalesbian,” Amy blurted. Wowzer. She didn’t know that was going to pop out. The words were out of her mouth before the thought was even formed. Or maybe the thought had been formed for a long time and it escaped her head once her guard was down.
Isabel looked at Amy quizzically in the rear view mirror. Jeremy turned in his seat and looked her up and down before turning back around. Finally he said, “Well, that answers a lot of questions.”
“It does? Like what?” Amy asked.
Jeremy shrugged. “Why you were kissing that hottie in the paper. Why you hate Chad.”
Isabel laid on her horn and swerved around an old man walking his dog across a crosswalk. “Is it because of Chad?” Isabel asked. “Because that’s a little extreme, isn’t it? You don’t have to change your sexual orientation just to make him go away.”
“No,” Amy said. “It’s not because of Chad. And in my own defense, plenty of women hate Chad and they’re not all lesbians.”