“Well . . . let’s look in the fridge and see if there’s something in there that might be a better dinner. Do you usually have a bath before dinner?”
“Nah, no bath.” Izzy opened the avocado-green fridge before I could get to it. I edged her aside and peered in. The door shelves were crammed with mustards, oils, and grease-stained bottles of things I didn’t recognize. In the body of the fridge, standing out from the crowd of scantily-contained unidentifiable blobs, were two pots covered in tinfoil, a carton of eggs, a hunk of unwrapped cheese balanced on a Chinese take-out carton, and an unbagged head of iceberg lettuce. Everything, even the lettuce, had an odd, oily sheen. A smell created a wall that kept me from getting too close. Maybe the cheese?
“Where’s the milk?” I asked. Izzy shrugged.
Item by item, we unloaded the refrigerator, placing things in whatever space we could make on the orange linoleum counter. I finally found the milk in the back. When I pulled it out, the contents sloshed with an unusual weightiness.
Izzy stood on a stool and took down two bowls.
“Let me check the milk.” I opened the triangular pour spout of the carton and then jerked my head back from the slap of stink that hit me. It smelled like an animal had died in there.
“Peeee-ewww!” Izzy screamed, still standing on the stool. I put the milk down on the counter and put my hands on Izzy’s tiny legs, which were covered in a downy blond fuzz. The idea that she’d fall on my watch was more horrifying than the smell of the milk.
“Izzy?!” Dr. Cone shouted from the entrance hall. My stomach felt as if a string had pulled it shut like a drawstring bag. I lifted Izzy off the stool and placed her on the ground. I wondered if Dr. Cone would fire me for allowing her to climb up there.
“Here!” Izzy shouted.
Dr. Cone walked into the kitchen. “What are you two up to?”
“We were gonna make cereal for dinner,” Izzy announced. “But the milk stinks.”
“I think it soured.” I pointed at the carton on the counter.
“Oh yeah, that one’s from last month. I don’t know why no one’s thrown it out.” Dr. Cone laughed and so did I. What would my mother think of milk that had grown chunky and putrid with age? It was unimaginable. Though, now that I was seeing it, it was very imaginable.
“What about we go to Little Tavern and get some burgers and fries?” Dr. Cone offered.
“Little Tavern!” Izzy shouted.
Dr. Cone moved things around the kitchen counter, looking for something. “Where’s your mom?” He patted his pockets—front, back, front again—and then pulled out his keys and held them in the air for a moment as if he’d performed a magic trick.
“Don’t know.” Izzy shrugged.
“We haven’t seen her,” I said.
“Let’s go!” Izzy marched—knees up, like she was in a band—out of the kitchen. Dr. Cone put his hand out for me to step ahead, and I did, following Izzy down the hall and out the front door to the wood-paneled station wagon waiting in front. Dr. Cone didn’t lock the front door behind us. I wondered if Mrs. Cone was somewhere in the house. If she wasn’t, wouldn’t Dr. Cone have locked the door?
“How many burgers can your mom usually eat?” Dr. Cone asked as Izzy opened the door to the back seat.
“She’s a veterinarian this week.” Izzy climbed in and pulled the door shut.
“Is she? I thought she got over that veterinarian phase.” Dr. Cone winked at me and stared up at the open window on the third floor. “BONNIE!” Dr. Cone cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. I looked up and down the street to see if anyone was witnessing this. “BON-NIE!”
Mrs. Cone stuck her head out the window. Her hair was blown around her shiny face. “What?”
“Do you want something from Little Tavern?”
“WHAT?!”
“DO YOU WANT SOMETHING FROM LITTLE TAVERN?”
Mrs. Cone paused as if she really did want something. Then she shook her head. “I’M TRYING NOT TO EAT MEAT!”
“SHE’S A VETERINARIAN!” Izzy shouted from inside the car.
“FRIES?!”
Mrs. Cone nodded and gave a thumbs-up. Then she disappeared into the attic room.
“You’ll eat Little Tavern, won’t you?” Dr. Cone asked me.
“Yes.” The truth was, I’d only been there once. My family didn’t often eat in restaurants. We did eat out of the house once a week, but always at our country club. Sometimes, when we had visitors from out of town, we’d take them to a restaurant. But my parents would never eat at the Little Tavern, whose slogan was Buy ’em by the bag! The single occasion I’d been to the Little Tavern was the twins’ birthday, when we went with their parents.