Secondhand Stiff by Sue Ann Jaffarian Page A

“Make sure you’re back in time for tonight’s gig—Mom can’t cook all by herself.”
    Without turning around or changing his stride, Eric raised the hand not holding the cigarette and extended his middle finger high into the air.
    â€œAt least,” his mother called after him, “use that finger to give us a call if you’re going to be late.”
    Heide plopped herself down into one of the plastic chairs at our table. Her shoulders sagged with weariness. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. Eric’s really a nice kid and a whiz in the kitchen. I’m trying to get him to go to culinary school and become a first-class chef, but he won’t listen. He cooked the food you’re eating.” Mixed with Heide’s concern was pride.
    Mom had a mouthful of lobster mac and cheese, so I made the introductions. “I’m Odelia Grey and this is my mother, Grace Littlejohn. She’s visiting from the East Coast.”
    Mom swallowed her food. “New Hampshire, actually. I used to live in Massachusetts, but now I’m in an old folks’ home in New Hampshire.”
    â€œI’m Heide van den Akker,” she said. “That’s my youngest son, Paul, cleaning up. The older boy is Eric.”
    I took a bite out of my meatloaf wrap and wanted to swoon with meat and gravy bliss. It smelled so good, I wanted to dab some behind my ears.
    â€œYou like it?” Heide asked.
    â€œMffhmmfgff,” came out of my stuffed mouth along with a vigorous nod of my head.
    â€œMine’s wonderful, too,” added Mom.
    â€œGlad you ladies are enjoying it.” Heide beamed with pleasure at having her food appreciated.
    â€œWe don’t have anything like this where I live,” said Mom after wiping her mouth with a paper napkin that had been provided with the food. “I’m blogging about my trip to California and thought it would be fun to see one of these things. Catering trucks are a lot different now than in my day.”
    Blogging? I stopped chewing and stared at Mom through bulging eyes.
    Heide leaned forward with interest. “You have a blog, Grace?”
    â€œYes, I do. It’s called An Old Broad’s Perspective.”
    Heide laughed. I nearly sprayed mashed potatoes across the table.
    â€œIt’s nothing much,” Mom continued. “Just the ramblings of an old woman with time on her hands. At first a lot of the old folks where I live were the only ones reading it. Now I have about fifty or so regular readers. Sometimes more than two hundred people view it in a month.” Mom straightened in her chair with pride. “I thought it would be fun to blog about my trip. So far folks seem to be enjoying it. I’ve blogged about the flight, Thanksgiving Dinner, shopping—things like that. Even about Odelia here taking me and her mother-in-law to see The Nutcracker on Sunday afternoon.”
    I was waiting for Mom to add finding a dead body to her list of What I Did On My Vacation , but she seemed to be staying off that topic. Maybe she was right—maybe I did get my defective fibbing gene from my father, because she was lying like a champ.
    â€œAnd you wanted to blog about a trip to a food truck?” asked Heide.
    â€œI’d seen trucks like yours on TV, so when Odelia asked me what I wanted to do today for lunch, I mentioned it.” Mom looked to me to pick up the thread of deceit. I guess she wanted to get back to her food. And, of course, I’d just taken another big bite of mine.
    After nearly swallowing my food whole, I said to Heide, “I went on About Town to look up reviews on local food trucks and remembered seeing a story on the news about your truck and how you got started.”
    â€œOdelia told me what happened to you and your husband,” Mom chimed in. “I’m very sorry.”
    â€œThank you.” As she said the words, Heide’s friendly face clouded.