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paper roll in a neat triangle, a source of mild embarrassment to ted, who was generally loathe to acknowledge the need for such.
for his part, ted would write notes to elizaveta before he left on thursday mornings. at first he would ask for little things like "please straighten up the pots & pans cabinet" or "baseboards could use a wipe." but later he went for short and cute: "hi e! thanks again for doing the things you do! you da bomb! t"
he would imagine her puzzling over his americanisms, bringing his notes to her friends to help decipher. in his imagination, she would giggle, smile and clutch the note to her breast.
on occasion, ted would contrive to appear while elizaveta was still in his apartment, just to catch a glimpse of her unearthly beauty. he tried to time it to when he figured she'd just be leaving |
(he certainly didn't want to catch her on her hands and knees in the bathroom). these meetings were brief and awkward, but ted was convinced that, after a few years of such encounters, something might come of it.
it was thursday now, two days after the second crouton encounter. no crouton had appeared on wednesday a fact that had worked to make ted even more apprehensive had one actually appeared. whoever it was, there was some twisted psychology involved. they were messing with him, big time.
logically, ted told himself, there was no reason to doubt that the crouton placer was elizaveta. she was the only other person apart from the property manager guy who had access to his apartment. at the same time, it made absolutely no sense for someone charged with making the place spotless (which she did, with flying |
colors) to leave such an item on his pristine white ottoman. but what if it was some kind of kazakhstani ritual or tradition?
it still didn't fit. elizaveta was a perfectionist, a clean freak like him, and she knew how ted liked things. the crouton, unlike, say, an apple or a wrapped granola bar, was a messy comestible. it shed crumbs readily, left a visible (if slight) slick of oil behind it, and was unwrapped and porous a natural collector of microbes, dust, pollen, filth.
it had taken ted several days to arrive at the elizaveta theory for, although it was screechingly obvious, the pairing of the crouton incident and the goddess was difficult for him to parse. after all, elizaveta was the embodiment of something wonderful that ted desired greatly, whereas the crouton, well, it was an unwelcome guest, a condiment |
non-grata, a flaking, oily intruder that had pierced his domestic tranquility with all the subtly of a tomahawk missile. already his mind had conjured what escalations might be forthcoming. would he come home to find a half-eaten pop tart on the ottoman? a hunk of bloody whale blubber or a calf's liver? in his more elaborate flights of fancy, ted had poked around wikipedia to identify even more objectionable foodstuffs and their ingredients or properties, just to be prepared if the worst came to pass:
> haggis: the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep mixed with onions, spices, oatmeal and suet and boiled in the animal's stomach.
> borewors: sheep, pig and/or cattle intestines stuffed with meat and offcuts, then barbecued.
"offcuts," ted said aloud to himself.
> swedish blood dumplings: reindeer blood mixed |
with flour and served with bacon.
> seal flipper pie from newfoundland.
"stop it ted," he finally said, closing his laptop. "just wait for thursday and ask elizaveta if she knows anything about the crouton."
and so he did.
ted knew from past experience that elizaveta finished his apartment sometime between 3:30 and 4 in the afternoon. leaving work early, he found himself creeping down the hallway to his door with the air of a man intent on surprising a burglar. for a moment, he stood outside his door, listening for activity within. it was silent for a moment, and then he heard the toilet flush.
good. that meant she was done with the bathroom, probably. he waited another minute, then made a great show of jangling keys and stomping feet as he entered. elizaveta was bending over the couch straightening pillows, |
her perfect rear marred only slightly by the odd-fitting exchange-student jeans she wore.
he flashed back to a time a few months previous when he'd found her in a similar position. her shirt had ridden up her back, exposing the top of her plain, white panties and a few inches of skin. he was certain it was the exact moment he'd fallen in love with her, because he couldn't help but notice two things in that flash of time before she stood up:
1. the panties were dingy and ripped, the elastic band separated from the fabric. yet she looked 10 times sexier in them than the most incendiary lingerie model, and ted felt a twinge of something like guilt: the most beautiful woman in the world was forced to wear shabby panties.
2. she had a tiny tattoo that appeared in the space between the elastic and the rest of |
her panties: two little bumblebees nothing more.
ted had actually worked himself up to ask about them, aware that doing so would tip his slightly voyeuristic hand. she paused a moment at the question, considering him and his query. then she smiled, patting her chest.
"me," she said. "busy bee, right? always working." she laughed a wonderful laugh. "yes, busy bee, but never the money to go with."
today, though, her shirt was tucked in, and ted had to mentally paint the bees in their proper place.
she stood up when he entered but did not turn around.
"hi elizaveta!" ted said, in a stupid-sounding, faux-surprised voice that reverberated around the tiny condo as if it had been issued through a bullhorn. his eyes fell to the kitchen table where his note from that morning lay, crumpled in a ball.
he felt a sickening |
stab in his stomach as he recalled what he'd written.
e, had an accident in here the other night. cleaned as best i could but ran out of time. spot on carpet and (sorry!) blood in bathroom. damn crouton, believe it or not! t
he'd guessed she wouldn't even know what a crouton was at least not in english. and when he'd written it, the suspicion that she was the bearer of the crouton was only a latent presence in his mind. he'd half-hoped the crouton mention in the note would lead to a longer note from her requesting an explanation, and maybe even expressing concern or regret for his accident.
"elizaveta?"
she was still facing away from him, her hands at her sides. slowly, she turned around to reveal her angelic face streaming with tears. she held her hands out to ted, palms up, as if in supplication.
"oh, |
ted! so sorry... you fell?"
he stood frozen for a moment, not knowing whether to maintain some sort of professional distance or to step forward and embrace her, comfort her. that, of course, would entail putting his arms and hands around the most beautiful woman in the world. he settled for taking two steps toward her and extending his own palms outward.
"it's, it's ok elizaveta. i'm ok. just a, a bump on the head is all."
she took a step toward him, her hands now together, nervously moving against themselves as if she were applying lotion. she gave him what he interpreted as an imploring look, then cocked her head to the left and down. her voice dropped to where he could barely hear the next thing she said.
"and... ted?"
"yes, elizaveta?"
the hands moved against each other some more.
"you pee... yourself?"
he |
took a step back, then another as her eyes slowly came up to meet his. part of his brain insisted he keep going until he reached the door. he still had his coat on; he could go down to clint's for a coffee and wait a few hours to make sure she was gone. then he'd call bricklin the next day and tell him he needed a new cleaning woman. man, even. a guy would be fine.
but he stood his ground, his mind quickly processing the options:
1. deny it. offer some story about a friend's dog, a neighbor's cat or some drunk guy who mistook ted's apartment for his own.
2. laugh it off. yep, elizaveta, that was me: pissed all over my carpet. he could mention some health problem, maybe. but, then, beautiful women didn't want to hear there was anything wrong with a guy's plumbing.
3. tell the truth, sheepishly.
with elizaveta's |
eyes on him, he turned away, his gaze resting on the carpet, the spot in question. it looked damp in a uniform circle shape, which he took to mean elizaveta had already cleaned it. in fact, he thought he smelled some kind of masking fragrance like febreze. as he was settling on no. 3 and deciding how to start, he felt a light hand on his shoulder and elizaveta's whispered "it is... ok."
slowly, he turned, his hands finding her waist while her other hand landed softly on his cheek.
"i was scared," said ted. "i'm all alone here and when the thing showed up the second time, i , i..."
and then her lips were on his and, for the first time since a game of spin-the-bottle 12 years before, ted kissed a girl. she was, in fact, the only one ever after that, and when their children and grandchildren threw them a 50th |
anniversary party in 2060, the cake was decorated to look like a giant crouton.
"so it was you?" he asked, as they broke off that first, most extraordinary kiss of all time.
she smiled. she nodded.
"but... why?"
elizaveta laughed a tiny, staccato giggle ted would soon learn to love. "look at us, ted. worked, right? like charm."
he couldn't deny it. the damn croutons had done what his mother, half a dozen shrinks and a score or two of web-hookup blind dates had failed to do: got him a girl.
ted smiled a wide smile so wide, in fact, that muscles in his face unused to such grinning were taxed to their limit.
"but why a crouton, elizaveta?"
she smiled, tossed her hair a bit and shrugged.
"i poor cleaning woman, ted. they were on sale. at store."
###
about the author
t. alex miller is a graduate of the |
university of colorado-boulder creative writing program. his writing career has been spent mostly in community newspapers, although he also worked for a year in hollywood (in development at the sci-fi channel) and edited a magazine in los angeles (la family). he is currently the editor of the summit daily news, a newspaper in frisco, co.
in addition to his career in journalism, miller has been active in theatre as an actor, director and playwright. his plays have been produced locally as well as in conjunction with the state theatre festival. they include _5 gears in reverse, the adjudicators, velociraptors_ and _outrageous claims._ his novels, _ohiowa_ and _zombie road trip are_ also available as ebooks.
miller lives in frisco, colorado with his wife, jen, and their children. contact him at [email protected].
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