Busy as a Google

“Did you know my ceiling has exactly 5,384 stars, Mr. Bailey?”

Miao!

Tony lay on his bed the wrong way. His socked feet were propped on his pillow, and his head was resting on his linked hands near the scratched and dinged footboard. On the matching dresser by the bed, a black cat had flicked its ears forward and mewed at the sound of the boy’s voice. Now, it stood. It yawned and stretched, arching its back and showing a white patch the size of a hen's egg on its chest. It jumped down onto the bed when the boy lazily reached out his right hand. He stroked the cat from its forehead back to to the tip of its tail and repeated, “5,384 stars. How about that, Mr. Bailey?”

Miao?

Tony scratched the black cat under his chin. The cat’s yellow eyes closed to slits and loud purring filled the boy’s bedroom. “I know they aren’t really stars, but look,” he stopped petting to point at one of the cream-colored ceiling tiles. They had a rough texture speckled with a pattern of little holes. Each hole was about the size of a pencil lead. Tony pointed at them with one finger. “See all those dots up there, Mr. Bailey?”

Miao!

The cat swiped gently at Tony’s hand and rubbed the side of his face against the boy’s chest. Tony started petting him again. “See how they are all kinda in little groups of five? Well, if I draw lines connecting those five little dots, it’ll look like a star.” Tony rolled his head to side and stared at the black cat. “You know how I know that, Mr. Bailey?”

Miao.

Mr. Bailey rubbed his side against Tony’s face and turned around to rub his other side in the same way. Tony laughed. The cat’s fur tickled his nose. He scrunched his face and stuck out his lower lip to blow a puff of air up at his nose. His nose itched now, and he rubbed it hard with his knuckles. “Look over in the corner. By the dresser. You see it? That’s how I know. But don’t tell Grandma? Okay, Mr. Bailey?”

Miao?

The black cat only wanted to be petted. It didn’t care about the half-dollar sized star Tony had drawn in the room’s darkest corner. Earlier in the afternoon, he’d used a red crayon to make lines between five dots right by the crown moulding. “Now, if I drew stars like that all across the tile, there’d be forty whole stars and nine half-stars.” He held both hands up high to show his cat nine fingers. “That makes forty-four stars and a half. And that’s just on one tile, Mr. Bailey.”

Miao!

Tony held one open hand down in front of the cat’s face. The cat pressed his wet nose hard back and forth against the fingers until the boy started stroking his back again. “I only drew one star though. I counted the rest in my head. Grandma’d notice forty-four and a half red stars, wouldn’t she?” The loud sound of women laughing made the boy and cat both look toward the closed bedroom door. “Don’t worry, that’s just Grandma and her quilt party downstairs. She told us to stay up here and behave, but I think they’re the ones being too noisy. Don’t you think so, Mr. Bailey?”

Miao.

The cat licked his paw. Then, he circled twice, curled his back against the boy’s side, and started to purr. Tony could feel the vibrations through his whole body. He touched the cat’s nose with one finger. The cat licked the fingertip once and then started to gently gnaw it with its side teeth. Tony pulled his finger away and giggled. He locked his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “Now about the stars – where was I? I’d just told you about one tile, I think. Forty-four and a half stars on one tile. Just one tile. And look at how many tiles there are up there! I counted. Then, I just did the math. You don’t know the times tables, but I had to memorize them all, Mr. Bailey.”

miao

The mew was very quiet. Tony slowly rolled onto his side and curled around the black cat that was falling asleep. Yellow eyes flicked once to look at him but closed again after a brief yawn. “So that’s 5,384 stars on my ceiling. Plus a half, actually, but I threw the half away. Mrs. Fykes said that it’s okay to do that in math.” He lay quietly and still for a few minutes. Then, another noise from downstairs came muffled through the door. Tony couldn’t tell if it was laughter or something else. He yawned. “I wish they’d finish that quilt. After all that counting and multiplying stars, I can say I worked on school work and it’s not a lie. Then, I can watch my shows.” Another yawn claimed him. His eyes blinked slowly closed and then opened quick, only to fall shut again in only a second. After a third yawn, the boy whispered, “Maybe I’ll nap for a little while with you. Is that okay, Mr. Bailey?”

prrrrrrrrrrr...

Where's the Google?

Bernice was waiting when Edwin came down to the kitchen.

“Morning, lazybones! I thought you were going to stay in bed all day.” Her smile was wide and cheery, but she didn’t get up from her chair at the counter. She had a bunch of vegetables and ingredients laid out in front of her but obviously hadn’t done any cooking yet. The only smell to the room was the coffee brewing next to the stove. It was what had lured Ed downstairs in the first place.

“You should feel all rested and ready to take on the world,” Bernice continued, still with that same broad smile. She laid her right hand on the counter next to a bottle of cooking oil and tapped her fingers too loudly. Her smile got even wider.

Ed grimaced but didn’t say anything. He moved toward the coffee, filled his favorite cup, dropped in the sweetener that wouldn’t cause cancer. For the spoon, he had to crowd her to get it out of the silverware drawer, but he didn’t say a word about the set-up on the counter. When he carried his cup to the fridge and opened the door, he stood there for a long moment. He moved a few things around, juice, milk, bottles of water. Looking back at his wife, she still was smiling and had both hands tapping on the counter now. Finally, he had to break his silence.

“Where’s the good creamer, B?”

“Early bird got it, Ed – hours ago,” she laughed as he grunted and closed the fridge. “There’s the powdered kind in the cabinet. You like the hazelnut. It’s in the brown wrapper. And I’ve already added creamer to the grocery list.”

“I know, B,” he moved to the cabinet and shoved stuff aside until he found the brown plastic jar. It was brand new, of course, so he had to set down his coffee to rip off the protective seal. He wanted to use his teeth to get a good grip but knew that she would fuss. Finally, he got it off and glared at the dust inside. He needed to get a new spoon but decided to just pour some of the powder in. He poured too much and cursed under his breath.

“Ah, ah, Ed! You’ll have to put a quarter in the cuss jar!” She laughed and scooted the kitchen chair closer to the counter. The legs squeaked loudly against the yellow linoleum. She giggled and grinned just like she did back when they were dating. As he stirred the lump of creamer around in his cup, she started shifting the vegetable arrangement on the counter with busy little movements that brought wrinkles to his own face, but on his forehead instead of around his mouth and eyes.

The first sip wasn’t entirely satisfying, but he let out a long sign anyway. She looked up, winked at him, giggled again, and kept moving things around. He banged his spoon around in the coffee and took another sip. It was getting better.

“Hazelnut’s not too bad,” he grunted. He leaned his back against the far counter and took his third sip. He stared at his wife’s white hair as she pretended to be busy. He remembered when it was brunette and curled on her shoulders. She caught him looking and winked a second time.

“Okay, B, what’s with the vegetables and the oil? You setting up shop?”

She laughed. A full-on laugh that shook her shoulders and closed her eyes. Their grandkids liked to play grocery when they visited and would spend hours in the kitchen shuffling cans and produce back and forth. Ed knew that she loved that time with the kids. He liked to sit on the deck and listen to their fun when they visited. Tom had taken the family to Florida though, so he knew that wasn’t it.

“Not shop, Ed,” Bernice said, still laughing. “Even better – it’s Soup Day! And I want you to take the pictures!”

Ed covered his grimace with another sip of coffee. Now, the whole day was shot. Darn Bernice and her Cooking Blog!