Chapter 20 Cook-off Winner

 I waited till eight a.m. before texting Esther. You awake?

Sure. What’s up?

Something very strange happened last night.

Say what? Again??

Can I come over?

Yes!

I stepped outside and made sure my door was locked behind me. There was a tinge of cigarette smoke in the air. That was odd—no one at Kon Tiki smoked. But in my hurry to get to Esther’s door, it barely registered in my mind.

I knocked.

“It’s open,” Esther called out over her blaring TV.

“Is everybody here insane?” I said as I stormed into her living room.

She was lounging comfortably on a heavy burgundy velvet recliner, a coffee mug in her hand. On the TV a Bible-thumping evangelist ranted and paced across his stage in front of an audience of hundreds. She muted it with a remote.  “You look like you could use some caffeine. Help yourself to cof—”

“Who wanders into someone’s home without asking, and how do they magically get through locked doors?”

“How ’bout somethin’ to eat? I just had me some eggs and fried ham.”

“I’m  not hungry. Esther, do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Okay, okay …” She set her mug on a side table, lowered the footrest, and gave me her full attention. “So tell me, girl. What happened? Did you get another visit from Francesca?”

“Not Francesca.” I sunk onto the flowered sofa and let out a long breath. “Last night I took my casserole out of the oven and scooped some onto my plate. When I turned around, I nearly dropped the plate.” I held Esther’s gaze for a long moment. “You won’t believe who was sitting at my kitchen table.”

“Ahh … uh huh. I’d believe you if you said it was Arnie.”

“You knew? You knew and you didn’t warn me?”

“I thought you always kept your door locked.”

“I thought so too. In New York it was a habit. But since I’ve been here … maybe I’ve been distracted. I don’t know what happened. It’s possible I forgot. I should be more careful.”

“Most of us leave our doors unlocked during the day. We almost never get any strangers comin’ through here. But at night? You really should lock up at night. ’Specially if  you don’t want visitors.” She settled herself back in the chair. “One thing about Arnie, he doesn’t cook. And considerin’ how forgetful he is, that’s probably for the best. He might burn the place down. But the man does enjoy a nice, hot meal. In the evenings he’ll walk around the complex, followin’ his nose. When he picks up a scent he likes, he wanders into the unit it’s coming from and sits down to eat like an invited guest.”

“And no one stops him?

“Are you kidding me? Evenin’s around here are one big cookin’ competition. Whoever can entice Arnie into their kitchen wins. Looks like last night you won.”

“What? Why didn’t you warn me?”

She gave a little shrug. “The man likes his meat. I figured you wouldn’t even be in the runnin’, being a vegetarian and all. Whatever you made last night musta smelled really good. ”

“It was a broccoli casserole.”

“Hmmm. That does surprise me. I hear he doesn’t eat broccoli.”

“Well, apparently he forgot. He seemed to enjoy it. That, and the challah I baked.”

“That bread did smell mighty good. So what’d you do—show him the door?”

“I almost did. But then I felt sorry for him. He seemed so … expectant. He’d taken extra care to dress nicely, and acted as if he belonged in my home. I didn’t have the heart to throw him out.”

“Sometimes I wonder if his memory is really as bad as be pretends.”

“You think he’s faking it? It didn’t seem like an act to me.”

“Seems pretty convenient, you ask me. But it was very kind of you to let him stay.”

“It was the timing. I’d just lit my Shabbat candles and said the blessings, and a Jew magically appears at my dinner table.”

“Like God was testing you.”

I nodded. “It just didn’t feel right to kick him out.”

“So how was it, having Arnie as a dinner guest?”

“Once I got over my shock, I have to admit I enjoyed his company. We had a pleasant conversation over dinner.”

“Hard to imagine Arnie having any kind of conversation.”

“At first he seemed confused. I did my best to humor him. Then I asked him about his younger days, and it was like a light came on behind his eyes. He told me about growing up in New York as a young child, then moving to Las Vegas. He was around twenty when he came with his father to live in Hawai‘i. He’s been here since before statehood and has some interesting stories to tell.”

“Looks like you know more about Arnie than I do now. What happened to his mother?”

“I wondered about that, too. He never said, and I didn’t want to ask.”

“All these years I’ve lived here and never heard that man say more than a couple words. He mostly lets Romy do his talking for him.”

“Has he visited you at dinnertime?”

“I’m not interested in being part of that competition. When I’m cooking dinner I make sure my door is locked and close my kitchen curtains so he can’t even peek in.” Esther looked me in the eyes. “He didn’t make a pass at you or anything, did he?”

“Oh, no. He was a perfect gentleman in every way.”

“So … is he someone you’d be interested in getting to know better?”

“You mean like dating?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“No.” I gave my head a hard shake. “I don’t date younger men.”

Esther dipped her chin and gave me a stare. “Well, even so, I would strongly advise you to keep last night to yourself.”

 “Why?”

“You won the nightly cook-off. You don’t want the other women to see you as competition.”

“Come on—competing for Arnie? Nothing happened.”

“They won’t believe that. So tell me, how late did he stay?”

“He left early. After dinner we moved to the living room. Being in a different room must’ve reset his memory. He started rambling about a woman named Tilly Washington.”

“Who’s she?”

“Apparently someone his father helped get into show business, back in the fifties. Arnie insisted he’s seen me with this Tilly. That she and I are friends.”

“So what’d you do?”

“I told him I’ve never heard of her. But by then he was already distracted, searching for something. He mumbled that he couldn’t remember where he left the remote. Then he looked around and asked me what happened to our TV. When I told him I don’t have a TV, he gave me the strangest look. Without another word he got up and headed out the door.”

Esther glanced at her TV screen, where the preacher was dong a one-footed chicken hop across the stage, Bible raised above his head. “You’re comin’ to Bible study tonight, aren’t you?”

I’d been trying to think of a way out of it. On the other hand, Esther was the only ally I had in this place. I needed an ally.

“Six o’clock, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ll be here.”

***

As I left Esther’s place, the smell of cigarettes drifted on the slight breeze. I remembered smelling it earlier. Maybe someone had a visitor.

Mae lived in 105, between me and Esther. I was almost even with her open kitchen window when I heard a man’s deep voice in her unit.

I’m not normally one to eavesdrop, but I was so taken by surprise, my feet stopped moving. Mae with a man? Maybe she had a brother. I took two steps back so she wouldn’t see me, and listened. The cigarette smoke was definitely coming from inside Mae’s condo. The man was speaking Japanese so I didn’t understand what he said, but I was pretty sure this was not Mae’s brother. From the tone it was clear he spoke words of endearment.

Every now and then the man paused, either to puff on his cigarette or allow Mae to reply. I didn’t hear a word from Mae, and I imagined her soaking up his sweet nothings in girlish silence.

So much for Mae batting for the other team.