I was going to do an herb-chicken thing for dinner last night, but you have to heat the pan for at least four hours before you can even get started with this particular recipe, and I got back from the mall later than I planned. Pop was puttering around with the weather channel on, and Mom was upstairs somewhere, I think watching a PBS special about volcanoes, so I had the kitchen pretty much to myself.
I did baked scallops with a bowtie-in-peanut-sauce bed, some peperoncini, some chopped bacon and mushroom, and asparagus spears, no big deal. Would have been nice to do the chicken, but we’ll have more warm days. I can get the grill up outside probably — that would be excellent in the May or June dusk. Lee appeared ten minutes before the plates got made up, in that way of his. I hadn’t seen him all day — ostensibly he’s been working on a data compilation project for a friend’s brother-in-law, something on the side, you know, extra cash, but he keeps the door closed all day and I know what it sounds like when someone’s trying to stroke off silently.
There’s a different kind of non-noise that happens when great effort is being made not to produce any sound. Over the meal, I made some mild reference to tax deadlines coming up and Lee got all quiet, you know, the deathly kind, like I’d just said something mortally offensive. Later I realized he must have taken it as some kind of cloaked dig at him for still not having moved out even though it’s nearly April. Well, that’s not my fault, Lee. I know you have the money. Nobody’s marching you to the dinner table with a Glock at the top of your spine every night and forcing you to hear Mom complain about text messages. Sheesh.