Page 2 of Why Cheese?
“Mom, I just got in.” A laugh flits in my throat but I swallow it.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering. Leave it for the rats. Come home, already. I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” I say, not even blinking at the lie. This is the first time I’ve been away for more than three hours since college. “Mom, that realtor I talked to thinks if I clean this place up I could get some real money.”
Enough to finally move away from you.
I stomp that thought so deep down, I can’t even hear it, but the taste lingers in my mind like strawberries and champagne.
“What do you need that for? You get all you need from me and your father.”
Stepfather, but that’s a whole other mess.
“Vi, I’m checking the weather and there’s talk of storms. You need to get home right now before you’re struck by lightning.”
“I’m inside,” I argue before wincing.
Her voice turns colder than any blizzard. “And you think you know better?”
“No, Mom.”
“There are murderers waiting to take your kidneys right now. They could be outside that door, and what would stop them? Hmm?”
My head swivels on its own, and I peer through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The street is dark, the storm picking up to a deluge. If I do what my mother wants, I’ll have to risk drowning to trudge through it. No kidney-stealers rush in to take them. Only a spray of rainwater seeps under the door.
“Mom, it’s safe. I assure you.”
“How would you know?” she counters.
Because I’m twenty-five and can make my own decisions.My tongue clenches wanting to throw that in her face, but I lower my head. “I don’t.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re a child, I’m the parent. You do as I say. I’m booking you a return flight for tonight. You’ll need to get to the airport before they ground the planes. Vi?”
I don’t respond.
“Violette Aria Reely, do you—?”
The sky scorches white and thunder shakes the entire block. I shriek at the close lightning strike. The lights flicker but don’t go out. Shaking, I place my hand on a counter to catch my breath, only to kick up a massive cloud of dust.
My mother’s order to wash my hands rings in my head, and I remember her threat. “Mom?” Instead of her ever-present voice, static answers me.
Even though I don’t want to talk to her, I try calling her back. Nothing. That lightning must have hit a cell tower. Ignoring the fact that if there is a dangerous murderer sneaking about in here, I have no way to get help, I slip my phone away and resume inspecting the shop.
While the cash register is toward the back of the shop, my uncle always held court on the counter in the center. Here he would cut off slices of all kinds of exotic cheeses. He’d challenge people to try to guess them blindfolded. I got so good at it, he would then bet adults they couldn’t beat me. No one ever did.
Great Uncle Mateo was a big strawberry of a man. His face was always red from a sunburn even though he never went outside. I remembered his wide shoulders and belly most. Every time he walked through the tight shop, they’d catch and twist everything in place. It was my job to run around and put them back. I was his little cheese pixie—a title I wore with pride.
On my uncle’s counter sat a sign. In his exuberant hand, he’d written ‘2 for 1 Cheese Curds Today Only.’ That must have been the last special he ran before dying. I hadn’t seen him in years. Decades. Learning that my strawberry uncle withered to a green bean in his old age shocked me to my core.
There’s a good chance he was sick when he wrote that sign, working himself to death even while dying. I reach over to remove it but pause. Instead, I gather up old placards left rotting on the case.
“Good thing I have a trash bag,” I say to no one and pull it out of my purse. My voice sounds hollow in the empty store. I’ve never been here at night. The shadows stretch in weird ways from the overhead industrial lights. Old shelves turn into a forest of broken trees and the cheeses are the monsters lurking within. My eyes keep slipping to the sides as if I expect to find someone watching me.
Maybe it’s the ghost of my uncle coming to make sure I don’t eat all of his cheese. I chuckle at the idea and bend down. Throwing away the trash is easy. Though, I do wad the bag up in my hand to pick up the mummified cheeses. As I lift them away, some crumble to dust, others are glued to the peeling wood.
The realtor I spoke to told me it’d be best to remove all traces of the shelves. I guess the land is hot while the shop is not. Stains linger in the alcoves as I hurl rocks of cheese into the bag. It’ll take a lot of elbow grease and serious solvents to clean them.
To distract from the lingering ghosts of dead dairy, I hum a tune. I can’t sing to save my life, but humming is easy enough. It helps me zip around the room, remembering the good old days before Dad left. When Mom didn’t bat an eye about me spending my summers with my eccentric uncle.
