“That’d be fabulous!” Mrs. Cone slipped on the blouse and began buttoning it from the bottom up, the opposite of how my mother had taught me （Start at the top to preserve your modesty and then work your way down）。
“And you’ll stay and eat dinner with me, right, Mary Jane? ’Cause I miss you at dinner.”
“Of course she’ll eat with us.” Mrs. Cone fastened the last button. “Do you mind preparing dinner?”
“No, I’d like it. I mean, I think Izzy and I need to clean out the refrigerator first, but if we do that, I’ll know exactly what you have and then I can plan.”
“Maybe you could cook all summer,” Sheba said. “I really think Jimmy needs fresh vegetables, and a meat that hasn’t been fried on a grill or in a wok.”
“Are you still a vegetarian?” I asked Mrs. Cone. We’d added Slim Jims to our daily Eddie’s run. Jimmy loved them and said he liked to alternate a sugary treat with a Slim Jim. Mrs. Cone, upon hearing that, had ripped open a Slim Jim and then a Chunky bar so she could alternate bites. I wasn’t sure if a Slim Jim counted as meat or not. It didn’t look like meat any more than Screaming Yellow Zonkers looked like corn.
“You’re a vegetarian?” Sheba said. “No. Stop. Now is not the time to be a vegetarian.”
“Okay! I’m easy!” Mrs. Cone laughed.
Jimmy walked in the room wearing only boxer shorts. “Hey.” He ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. There was a tattoo of Woody Woodpecker on the inside of his thigh. I tried not to stare at it, as it was so close to his penis.
Sheba stood, went to him, and hugged and kissed him like he’d been gone a month. “Hey, baby, you good? Mary Jane can make you some eggs in a blanket—”
“Birds in a nest!” Izzy shouted.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Jimmy said. “Are there any Zonkers left?”
I rushed to the pantry and got a new box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers. Jimmy sat where Sheba had been. I handed him the Zonkers. Sheba scooted in beside him, so Izzy scooted down too. I went back to the stove, flipped the pancakes, and cut out the center of three. Jimmy stared at me as I cracked eggs into the holes. I nervously smiled at him and tried not to look at the fuzz all over his chest or the tablecloth-patterned tattoo running down one arm.
“What about coffee?” Jimmy asked.
“Yep, right here.” I’d found the coffee maker when Izzy and I cleaned out the pantry, and had been making a fresh pot every morning. The first day I did it, I didn’t know if anyone drank coffee, but since the pot was mostly empty by noon, it seemed like a task worth doing. I poured a cup for Jimmy and brought it to the table.
“You are a living doll, you know that?” Jimmy stared at me so intensely that I couldn’t speak for a second. It felt like his eyes shot out electricity.
“Mary Jane Doll.” Izzy sighed, coloring away.
“Does anyone else want coffee?” I wrenched my eyes from Jimmy. Was I a sex addict? Is that why I kept looking at his nearly naked body?
Dr. Cone walked into the room. “Are you the one who’s been making the coffee?”
“I stopped drinking coffee when I stopped eating meat,” Mrs. Cone said.
“Enough.” Sheba pointed at Mrs. Cone. “From now on, you drink coffee and eat meat. Got it? No alcohol and drugs, but lots of coffee and meat.”
“And sugar,” Jimmy said.
“Okay!” Mrs. Cone laughed again. “I’ll eat meat and drink coffee!”
“HURRAH!” Izzy lifted two crayons in the air.
After Dr. Cone and Jimmy had gone to the office and Mrs. Cone and Sheba went upstairs, Izzy and I started in on the refrigerator.
“I’ll say good or bad,” I said. “If it’s bad, you put it in the Hefty bag. If it’s good, stick it on the table.”
We both looked over at the table. It was stacked high with coloring books, crayons, dishes, coffee cups. Izzy read my face and went to the table, where she started stacking coloring books. I followed.
“Fast motion!” I wanted this cleanup done quickly so I could get to the fridge, figure out what to make for dinner, and get to Eddie’s and buy what was necessary.
Izzy laughed as she fast-motion shoved crayons into the box. I moved the dishes straight into the dishwasher, which I had emptied earlier in the morning. There were books on the table too: Freud’s dream analysis and The Diary of Ana?s Nin—five editions, each with a different-colored cover. I stacked the books in my arms and took them into the living room, where the built-in bookshelves were full. I had been collecting books from all over the house and stacking them in front of the shelves the past few weeks, with the eventual plan for me and Izzy to organize and alphabetize them. I figured the alphabetizing would help Izzy be ready for kindergarten in the fall.