It sat among the ravaged dishes clustered atop her dinner table—pumpkin, like the one she had in the oven. Excess heat had fissured its filling and charred the crests of graham cracker crust. While overcooked, a piquant but sweet aroma wafted from its weepy surface. Had it been there all evening?
“That smells
incredible,” said Wilbur, shoveling a second helping of mashed potatoes onto
his plate. A wisp plummeted to the tablecloth from the serving spoon, sloshing
grit onto the orange aspen embroidery.
She pounded into the
open-plan kitchen and cracked the oven door before flinging it shut again a
moment later. The pie inside was almost scentless in comparison. From the
living room, her guests’ reflections moved against the glass.
“No one even mentioned
dessert,” she said, standing. Each guest had been allotted a side dish weeks
before Thanksgiving.
“Jannie, did you say something?” chortled
Shayla from the sofa.
“No, Shayla, I
didn’t.” Shayla. The tray of from-frozen mac and cheese—homemade, she claimed—had
been her sole contribution. In fact, each guest had arrived with exactly one
dish, except for Wilbur. She spun to face the group. “Wilbur, you didn’t bring
anything tonight?” Mouth full, he raised his pointer finger to indicate he
needed a moment to finish chewing. “Today,” she snapped.
He swallowed. “Sorry,
Jannie. I was planning to bring some veggies, but I left them at home by
mistake. I told you earlier.”
She watched Whitney
leverage herself off the couch and waddle into the kitchen. “Do you need some
help? You seem stressed.”
“I’m fine. It’s just
bothering me.”
“What is?”
“Just—the pie.”
Whitney ushered her
past the table—past it—and into the
sitting area. “I’m sure it’ll taste great. Come sit down and relax.”
She could hear a
muffled marimba ringtone coming from the locked lower cabinet of the bookcase.
Someone had surrendered a cell without shutting it off first, undermining her
party’s no-phone rule.
“There she is,” said
Shayla, swirling her wine glass. Maybe she’d smuggled it into the apartment
inside her Michael Kors bag.
A sudden crash of
shattering glass stalled the thought. Her gaze whipped to the opposite end of
the room.
“Shit,” yelped Martin. On the floor beneath
him, beer was fizzing around broken bottle fragments and seeping into the
threads of her hand-sewn, Amish rug. He slipped the novel he’d dislodged from
her alphabetized bookshelf into an arbitrary spot. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care
of it.”
“Let me get the cleaner,” said Jannie. Jaw
clenched, she returned to the kitchen and retrieved the rag and dwindling
Clorox bottle from below the sink.
“Sorry about this,”
said Martin, appearing at her side. “Do you have a dustpan?”
“It’s in the closet
next to the cabinet.” She waited for him to leave the kitchen with the supplies
before crouching like a sumo wrestler in front of the oven to watch her guests
in the panel. While he buffed the rug with stain remover, the others cleared
the crash site, sweeping shards and swabbing the hardwood.
One of them had brought
a pie to upstage hers. It would succeed, no doubt; she could smell its powerful
scent from the kitchen. She pulled the oven door open. No cracks, but destined
to be outshined by the one on the table.
Martin plopped the
equipment on the counter next to her. “We’re gonna’ go for a cigarette. Any
interest in coming outside with us? You don’t have to smoke.”
“I’m okay,” said
Jannie, closing the hatch. She rose and sidestepped over to the sink. “I should
start on these dishes.”
“Alright, we’ll be
back soon.”
Maybe Martin had
stashed it underneath the tinfoil that had encased his string bean casserole.
Once she heard the door close, she swooped back to the dining area.
The ingredients had
spiced the air pungent. As she inhaled, a tangy note jostled her sinuses.
Citrus. It had been added to enhance the sweetness. Orange. Lime? Hers hadn’t
been that experimental; when matched against the aromatic other, it would taste
bland.
Her night—her
Thanksgiving—had been sabotaged, and someone was responsible.
“Motivations, let’s
see—motivations,” she said to herself, peeling paper plates from the stack.
Martin might have
brought it in an attempt to peacock; Whitney’s motivations would have been
purely passive-aggressive; Wilbur—maybe he was pranking her; Shayla? Shayla was
just a bitch.
“Ungrateful,” said
Jannie. All of them. She took the carving knife from the table.
Four servings of pumpkin pie were
set on top of the coffee table when they returned.
“Finally,” Wilbur
chided, grabbing a plate. The rest followed his lead.
“This looks amazing,
Jannie,” said Whitney, shifting her fat thighs onto the couch. “Aren’t you
gonna’ have some?”
“I had a slice of the
other pie.”
“There’s more than
one?” asked Martin. “Was that why you kept going to the kitchen?”
“My one is the only
one,” she said, reminding herself. The oven was off, as it had been all
evening. The bones of its last output were still on the dinner table.
“Did you add liquor to this?” Shayla asked,
flickering her tongue.
“I wanted to make
sure you couldn’t taste it with the other ingredients. You guys like it,
right?” Ingredients, after all, meant more than appearances.
“Absolutely,” said
Whitney, wincing. “You can really taste the cinnamon.”
She watched her
guests finish the fluffy, autumn paste.
The cocktail of cleaning
supplies hit their stomachs within the hour. One by one, they fell to the
floor, gasping and slobbering. The last to collapse, Martin had spent his final
moments trying to pry open the bookcase’s bottom cabinet. Jannie rolled his
body aside, unlocked the door, and gathered the phones from the lower shelf.
She pitched them into the trash bag with the
turkey carcass before circling back to the sitting area to admire her work.
Staring at her fallen friends, Jannie reflected on what she was most thankful
for.
This year: the potent
combination of nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.
Although originally from Boca Raton, Florida, Scotty Sarafian grew up in Dublin, Ireland and Wilmington, Delaware. He draws inspiration from the atmosphere, culture, and legends of each of his three hometowns. His interests in supernatural horror, Gothic fiction, and vampire lore can also be found sneaking their way into his writing. Scotty graduated from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL with a bachelor’s in English and a minor study in creative writing. During his time at Rollins, he served as one of the student writers for the annual “Winter with the Writers” literary festival. He is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin’s M. Phil program in popular literature. He currently resides in Dublin, Ireland.
No comments:
Post a Comment