just plucked from the garden the carrots, broccoli, and baby corn, glazed them, and sent them out of the steamy kitchen. She scanned the table for a fork and only saw chopsticks. Everyone at the table wielded them like they’d grown up with chopsticks on their highchair trays, but she’d never used them. Her heart kicked up to the next gear, the nervous gear, as she was coming to think of it.
The tiny waitress appeared with a water pitcher, and Janie’s heart settled. “Excuse me. Could I have a fork, please? Sorry.”
“No forks.” The woman topped the glasses and left.
Stella reached for the Mu Shu serving spoon, shook off a couple of bamboo shoots, and without calling attention to Janie’s plight, set it on the edge of her plate. Janie took a sip of water then casually picked it up and half smiled at the child-feeling of digging out a shrimp with a giant utensil. It was a day at the beach. She shook her head at her own silliness and took a bite of the sweet and sour. She sighed. The tang and crunch was so delicious she wondered what body part would perk up during dinner. “If I’d known the food was this good in Vancouver, I would have had a bathtub breakdown years ago.”
Stella stopped eating, and Janie felt everyone at the table turn their attention her way. Her heart stopped. Maybe Stella was one of those magically wise older women who would say the one thing that would make her feel fully prepared to go back to her life. She watched Stella reach for her glass, take a slow drink of water, and set it back down. “I once loaded the kids in the station wagon and went back in the house.”
Janie waited. What? What insight came to her? What epiphany? What visit from the ghost of Christmas past?
Stella picked up her chopsticks again, seemed to notice Janie was leaning over so far her breasts were going to squish her dinner. Stella shrugged. “What? I left them there and had a cigarette and a cup of coffee.”
Celia looked alarmed. Janie could accurately guess that Celia’s picture of motherhood consisted of sweet babies sleeping and tiny faces shining with love. Celia was young and still had more than a decade before she knew what tired was. But maybe every mother had a station wagon story. She just might not be the first of her kind to run away for a bath, cigarette, coffee. And, no doubt, when a woman returned, everything was fine. “The kids were okay, right?”
Stella seemed to consider it. “My youngest girl was crying, but I gave everybody gum and let them back in the house.” She laughed. “They were suckers for gum. You’re a mom?” Stella waited for the names and ages moms exchange.
“Logan, he’s thirteen.”
“I’ve got four. All grown, thank God. Three girls and a boy who had to understand females to survive. Now, I suppose, I’m tryin’ to raise Abundance.”
“How long have you been in business?”
“Two years this summer.”
Two years? She’d missed a lot of enhanced, restorative hot water. “It’s only been a year since I found the bubble bath. I won a gift certificate. It was from one of those fancy kitchen stores, you know, where a lemon zester costs twenty-five dollars? I don’t really want a utensil that outlives me.” Janie pictured the woman at the store, so perky in her designer apron. God, she didn’t want to go out like that, just smiling through it all. She’d had to watch it for years. She’d make sure her son wouldn’t have to.
“They had Abundance there?” Celia asked, bringing Janie’s attention back to the table.
“Just the Luscious Bubble Bath in with some other brands of soaps.”
Stella pointed at Celia. “When we get that catalog done, we’ll find ourselves in lots of places.”
“It was the color.” They all looked at her, waited for her to continue. She felt unqualified to give them any marketing information. What useful thing could she say about packaging or anything else? She’d just reacted. “I bought it because of that