Page 57 of Perfect Mess

I studied Gary a moment, like a museum patron assessing a piece of modern art, trying to decide if the art piece was the artist’s actual attempt to be brilliantly creative, or they were just messing with everyone as some kind of hoax. Gary shifted his weight back and forth on his feet.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

I brushed an errant hair from his eyes and straightened his collar. “You clean up nice,” I said.

“I do?”

I nodded. “You look hot, actually.”

Gary tugged at his collar and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “Well, I am sweating. I think I might have a fever.”

“The other kind of hot. The good kind of hot.” I gave Gary a wink. “Like a block of ghost pepper havarti.” Gary’s face turned from pink to red. “Now let’s go find some tortilla chips.”

“Why tortilla chips?”

“They’re Janet’s favorite food.”

Gary followed me to the snack aisle, where I found a bag of tortilla chips and added them to our cart. He eyed the bag doubtfully. “And what exactly is it we’re doing again?”

“Meeting Janet,” I explained. We had already been over it a million times.

“But she doesn’t know we’re meeting her?”

“Not yet. Now we need tofu.”

“Tofu?” Gary wrinkled his nose.

Fresh Foods had one of the largest vegan selections in the area, which is why it was Janet’s favorite place to shop. We found a shelf of tofu products next to the produce. There were tofu cubes. Tofu bricks. And tofu nuggets. It was as if we had died and gone to vegan tofu heaven, or as it was called by non-vegans, hell.

“What is it exactly? Tofu? It looks kind of squishy.”

I pulled a package of tofu from the shelf and read the back of the label. “Coagulated soy milk curds pressed into blocks of varying firmness.”

“Sounds amazing.”

I pointed at the tofu. “Add one of those to your cart.”

Gary made another face. “Does she prefer soft, firm, or extra firm?”

“I’ll let you do your own research on that one big guy.” I patted Gary on the back. “But since we’re trying to make a good impression here, I think you should go with the extra firm.”

Gary took a package of extra firm and placed it in the cart.

“Now on to the magazines.” We stopped the grocery cart in front of the magazine racks and started perusing the titles. “We need something …” I fished for the proper word. “Intellectual. Sophisticated. Refined.”

“Refined?”

“Show her how ... civilized you are.”

Gary gave me a funny look. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, something about engineering or science. We need to make her think you’re smart.”

“As opposed to …” Gary trailed off.

“You know, just a painter.”

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