Maye sat back in her chair as the rest of the group stood up and milled about, socializing. She watched as they laughed, chatted, and exchanged earnest pleasantries like they were all old war buddies or school friends. I want that, Maye said to herself. Although there are benefits to having no one in town who knows you, like being able to go to the grocery store in the purple sweat suit with old rice clinging to the zipper, I want friends. I want to invite people over for dinner, even if it is only for a bunch of side dishes. I want to bump into people I know at the store instead of stalking them. I just want to be a part of something.
I want to know people. And these people seem so nice, except for the sweet potato advocate, who is apparently one beet away from staging her own sweet potato coup.
And just like that, Maye stood up, walked to the front of the room, and picked up a Vegging Out info sheet.
“Hmmmm,” she heard a voice say from behind her. “Do we have another convert, or are you a beet hater, too?”
“Oh, no, I love beets,” Maye said, laughing, as she turned around and faced Bob. “Roasted with goat cheese, olive oil, and a pinch of sea salt. Now that is sexy food.”
“Whaddya think?” Bob said, flashing a bright, white smile. “Are you ready to join up?”
“I don’t see why not,” she decided, and nodded once.
“Okay then!” Bob cheered. “We have a short questionnaire to fill out. Ready?”
“Sure,” Maye said.
“Why are you a vegetarian?” Bob asked.
“I think it’s something I need to do right now,” she answered, then suddenly added, “and cows are pretty.”
“They are pretty,” Bob agreed, still smiling. “Now, what kind of vegetarian are you?”
Maye was stumped. There were different kinds? Did he mean a sweet potato person or a beet lover? Did she have to profess an allegiance to a fruit and a vegetable? Or maybe there was a Greenpeace kind or a PETA kind? She was lost. She had no idea what kind of vegetarian she should lie to be. Vegetarians would know what kind they were. She had to answer—the danger of exposure was so close it was dancing on her fingertips. “Um,” she stumbled. “The nice kind?”
“Well, it needs to be more specific than that,” Bob said, laughing. “Are you demi/semi, pesco, lacto-ovo, ovo, lacto, vegan, macrobiotic, fruitarian, or not sure?”
Maye was stunned. She knew what vegan was, but everything else was a meatless mystery. Ovo made Maye think of ovaries, and although she wanted friends, that terrain was a little too personal. She knew lacto had something to do with milk, and if breast-feeding was involved here, especially on a community level, she was going to run faster than she did from the witch’s house. Lacto-ovo sounded like it bordered on pornography, and macrobiotic seemed like it had something to do with a combination of economics and science, an emphasis Maye found even more distressing than the community breast-feeding.
“Not sure,” Maye replied, figuring that being noncommittal was the best option. No one likes to be pigeonholed. Or beet-holed, in a vegetarian’s case.
“Does it bother you to watch others eat meat?” Bob asked, and Maye was thankful he’d moved on to the next question.
She bit her lip. She really wanted to say, “Oh, certainly, if the person can’t close their mouth when they chew like my Uncle Ray since the accident,” but instead she replied, “Absolutely. Like I said, cows are pretty.”
“I feel that way, too,” Bob said softly. “Last one. How long have you been a vegetarian?”
Maye thought for a moment. What was today? Tuesday? She hadn’t had dinner yet, had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for lunch, and couldn’t for the life of her remember what she’d eaten the day before.
“Seems like quite a while,” she lied honestly.
“Well, congratulations, you’re now a Vegging Outer,” Bob said as he handed her a schedule of the month’s club events and looked over her sheet of personal contact information. “We are happy to have you…Maye, is it?”
“Maye Roberts,” she answered.
“Welcome, Maye Roberts,” Bob said. “There’s nothing in the world that makes me happier than finding another vegetarian.”
“Thanks, Bob.” Maye smiled and nodded, wondering if this was the sort of thing that a person might wind up going to hell for.
Cucumber, cucumber,
Green, long and round,
Emerald of my garden,
Sleeping gemstone on the ground.
Cucumber, cucumber,
A versatile fruit is thee;
Brave and rugged in a salad
Or dainty sandwiches fit for tea.
Cucumber, cucumber,
Far too fine for the likes of smut
As any doctor will tell you
It doesn’t belong in a butt.
Maye giggled as she recited the poem for Bonnie over a glass of wine.
“You are kidding,” Bonnie replied with a grin on her face, then took the last sip from her wineglass. “Someone stood up and actually read that?”
“I couldn’t make that up,” Maye replied. “There was almost a fistfight over whether a beet or a sweet potato was more worthy of Vegetable of the Month!”
“Oh, sweet potato, definitely,” Bonnie said as she falsely furrowed her brow. “Everyone knows it’s the new asparagus!”
“Most of them were very nice, though,” Maye added. “You should come with me to the next meeting. I think it’s going to be a great way to meet people.”
So far, on Maye and Bonnie’s friend date, everything was going swimmingly at La Vaca Bonita, the Spanish restaurant Bonnie had heard about. Maye had gotten the A-OK from her plumber, who not only said he’d drink an open soda from the place but also strongly suggested the filete poblano, what he considered the strongest dish on the menu. “The layering of flavors is impeccable,” he declared. “You’ll dream about it for three days afterward.”
So Maye followed his advice and ordered it, as did Bonnie. Over their second glass of wine, they talked about their former careers at newspapers, and Bonnie told Maye how she’d followed her TV-reporter boyfriend to town when he was offered an anchor position, only to have the relationship disintegrate within months.
“Wow, that must have been really hard for you,” Maye said. “You didn’t know anyone else in town?”
“Not a soul,” Bonnie replied. “And not only do I have to see him on the news every night, but also the whore he left me for!”
Maye winced slightly. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she offered.
“Yeah.” Bonnie nodded, taking another swig from her glass. “Doesn’t get any more predictable than that. I was dumped for the weather girl. Fake boobs, bleached hair, nose job, you name it. The only original thing on that girl is her belly button, and I’m sure she has something shiny and cute dangling from it.”
That would be horrible, Maye thought, if Charlie brought me up here and then dumped me for another professor, or worse, a grad student. What would she do then? Drink all the wine I could get my hands on and use the word whore as much as possible, she concluded.
Suddenly, Maye smelled something wonderful, and she looked up to see their server set before each of them a dish of a steaming poblano-wrapped filet with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and last season’s “it” vegetable, asparagus.
“I need another glass of wine,” Bonnie said, with a somewhat curt flip of her hand toward the waiter. “This looks so good. I haven’t eaten a thing all day. I’m starving!”
“Well, let’s dig in,” Maye said, her fork and knife poised to cut into the filet, which indeed looked incredible.
“Aw, I’m going to wait for my wine,” Bonnie said. “I can’t stand to eat without a drink.”
Maye smiled, noticing that Bonnie seemed to have a nice little buzz going. Well, two glasses of wine on an empty stomach will do that to a hungry girl, she realized. She also realized it would be rude to begin eating without Bonnie, so Maye put down her fork and knife and waited.
An
d waited.
And waited.
After ten minutes had passed, Bonnie flagged down the server with a rather exaggerated wave and got his attention. “Wine?” she asked loudly, with a furrow of her brow and a shrug that was so overdone it belonged in a silent film.
“So sorry,” the waiter apologized profusely. “You’ll have it in two seconds!”
“ONE MISSISSIPPI,” Bonnie replied in a tone that rather resembled shouting as he scurried away. “TWO MISSISSIPPI!”
Maye noticed that the diners at the next table stole a glance at them and then looked back with something of a smirk on their faces.
“THREE MISSISSIPPI!” Bonnie proclaimed even louder.
Other diners were looking at them, too, and if Bonnie noticed, she didn’t care. She kept counting, louder and louder, until at “EIGHTEEN MISSISSIPPI,” a full wineglass was delivered to their table and Bonnie smiled and then remained quiet. Until she cut into her very expensive, once delicious but now faded-into-a-lukewarm filete poblano and took her first bite.
“Ugh,” Bonnie protested, and she slapped her fork and knife on the table. “Cold. It’s cold. Is yours cold?”
“Mine’s fine,” Maye said, trying to bring her dinner partner down a notch, although her filet had become cold and coagulated. “It’s great. I’m okay.”
“Lie,” Bonnie said disgustedly and began waving her hand again as she gulped down the new glass of wine. When the waiter heeded her call again, Bonnie pushed the rim of the plate toward him and declared, “This steak is cold. I would like it reheated. And hers, too.”
“Nope,” Maye said as she shook her head and cut her steak up as fast as she could. “I’m cool. Steak is good. I’m fine here.”
“Are you sure?” the waiter asked as Maye began to chew vigorously. “I can take it back into the kitchen.”
Sure, Maye thought to herself, so you can throw it on the floor, spit on it, stick your hands down your pants, and then fondle it? No thank you. I worked in a restaurant in high school, I know what happens to food that gets sent back, and it’s not pretty and it’s not nice, and it’s not something I want to stick into my mouth. A cold steak is better than ass steak any day of the week, and if Little Miss Food Critic hasn’t figured that out yet, let her think that after her food gets reheated, the curly black hair on her meat just fell out of her own head.
The waiter tried to grab Maye’s plate, but Maye was quicker and stuck another huge bite into her mouth. “Please don’t do that,” she said, smiling and still chewing. “I’m armed.”
“What can I do here?” a new voice said, and Maye looked up to find a nicely coiffed woman standing at their table with her hands cupped together. “I am the owner of La Vaca Bonita, and I sense that we may have a problem here?”
“Everything’s great,” Maye said, now mortified beyond belief because at this precise moment, her nice dinner experience at the new chichi restaurant in town had become the show. She was the entertainment for all of the other diners, who were scoffing and rolling their eyes at her because they weren’t dining with a lightweight who had become positively lit after three glasses of wine on an empty stomach. Maye didn’t want this, she hadn’t asked for this, but now the owner of the restaurant was insisting that Maye send her steak back, and she was trying desperately to diffuse the situation.
“Really,” she replied quietly and calmly to the owner, her face red with embarrassment. “I have no problems with my meal. It’s wonderful. Thank you for offering, but I am very happy with what I have.”
“Then please let me comp your dinner,” the owner insisted.
As tempting as it sounded, Maye couldn’t agree to that, either. It wasn’t the restaurant’s fault that Bonnie’s blood alcohol had turned her into Zsa Zsa Gabor, that at any moment she could begin slapping people. Bonnie’s behavior on a first friend date was so unacceptable that Maye was not only embarrassed but disappointed as well. All Maye really wanted to do was pay the check and flee. “No, thank you,” Maye answered. “I can’t let you do that.”
And when Bonnie realized that she was alone in her hissy fit, the lone marcher in her anger parade, her face dropped and she began to stammer. “I’m okay, too,” she said quickly. “My thteak is fine. I’m thorry.”
“Please don’t apologize,” the owner said. “I want to make sure you have a good experience in my restaurant.”
“I’m thorry,” Bonnie said again. “I didn’t mean to make it thuch a big deal.”
“I understand,” the owner responded. “I want everyone to be happy.”
“I’m happy, I’m happy,” Bonnie insisted. “I am. I’m very happy. I’M THORRY, I…. I JUST THTARTED MY PERIOD TODAY.”
The restaurant became so quiet that Maye heard herself stop chewing.
Maye didn’t know what to do, if she should just throw a wad of cash on the table and run like an anchorman who spent too many nights apologizing to restaurant owners on behalf of his blasted lady friend only to hook up with the weather girl instead, or if she should go to Bonnie’s aid and pretend to be her nurse.
But instead, she sat there, in complete silence, along with the whole restaurant, including people from the kitchen who didn’t speak English, and watched the show’s denouement. The audience was indeed, captive.
Several moments after the owner and waiter had silently and carefully left the table and chatter was beginning to fill the restaurant, Bonnie looked at Maye and apologized.
“I’m thorry,” she whispered. “I’m puffy and I have crampth. Not even the wine helped. I’m ready for another glath.”
You know, Maye thought, as desperate as I am, I just don’t have any openings on my friends list for a shit-faced woman with hormone rages that should be measured on a Richter scale. Thorry about that. She tried to smile, and that was when Maye heard someone call her name, which was impossible since she essentially knew no one in this town. She thought she was certainly imagining it until she heard it again.
“Maye?” a man’s voice said. “Maye Roberts?”
Then she gasped.
She could not have been more alarmed if Satan himself had traced his burning finger right up her spine.
And as she slightly crooked her neck in the direction of the voice, she saw that it was not, thankfully, Dean Spaulding, who had seen Maye do her Charo impersonation in the place where he takes his meals when she was neither under the mind control of her menses cycle or had even had so much as one drink. No, it was not Dean Spaulding, and she felt a tremendous rush of relief until she realized that the man coming toward her with the wide white smile and the gray hair was Bob.
Vegging Out Bob.
“Hi, Bob,” Maye said, suddenly slapping a fake smile on her face. “It’s so nice to see you.”
“Well, I was a couple of tables away when I heard about your friend’s cramping issues,” he said, and turned to Bonnie. “When you go home, nibble on some rose petals and place some warm, but not hot, banana leaves over your lower uterine area in a fan-like sequence. You should be right as rain by tomorrow! I just had the best chile relleno I’ve ever had in my life! The menu here for veggies is outstanding, isn’t it? It’s the most extensive one in town, which doesn’t quite make up for the meatery that abounds, but I’m good at eating with my eyes closed—”
Bob suddenly stopped and stared at the chunk of meat impaled on the glistening spires of Maye’s fork.
“Oh my,” Bob said, as if all of the air had been sucked out of his lungs like a Seal-a-Meal bag. “Oh my God. How could you? How could you do that? How pretty was that cow, Maye Roberts? How pretty was that cow when you were chewing on her flesh like a zombie?”
For the second time within a matter of minutes, Maye didn’t know what to say. The gig was up. The news was out. They’ve finally found me, she thought.
“You said you were VEGGIE-CURIOUS,” Bob shrieked even louder than Bonnie had about her period. “But you neglected to mention that you were a KILLER!”
“I’m sorry, Bob,
” Maye began. “Everyone was so nice to me, and I…I just wanted to be a part of your group. I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“Thee?” Bonnie slurred. “The’s thorry. Hey, are you the guy with the big cucumber?”
“Liars are not welcome at the Beet Bonanza dinner,” Bob shot back angrily. “And neither are the candied beets that they signed up to bring! We don’t want your dirty food made by meat hands! You are excommunicated from Vegging Out, and I am hereby banning you forever!”
“I imagined you would,” Maye replied. “I’m still really sorry.”
“Your colon will pay for this, Maye Roberts,” he warned. “It will.”
“Actually, I’ve decided I’m making Bonnie do that,” Maye said.
“I bet your cucumber ithn’t that big,” Bonnie declared as she swayed in the chair like a swami’s cobra.
“CARNIVORE!” Bob yelled before stomping away.
“Check, please,” Maye said calmly as she raised her hand, one step closer to securing a seat in a fiery hereafter. “I’d like to pay for my meat.”
After Bob stormed off to his own table and Maye had delivered Bonnie into the safety of a taxi, she got her car keys out and headed into the parking lot to make a not-very-clean getaway.
She was fifteen steps away from the driver’s side door of her car when she heard her name being called again. Afraid that it was a mad mob of vegetarians come to tie her up with leeks and thrash her with carrots, Maye ignored the call and picked up her step.
“Maye!” she heard louder, this time determining it was a woman’s voice, and almost broke into a run when she realized that she was probably being stalked by a bunch of glittering chubby women with frizzy hair straddling broomsticks, armed with Softsoap and an organic sea sponge.
“Please, leave me alone,” Maye called, not turning around, decidedly focused on getting into her car. “Again, I’ve already bathed. Next time, catch me in the morning when I might be more receptive to your advances!”