by Dori Gradall (bio at end of story)
“Gonna be a pretty one.” Joe leaned over the kitchen sink and peered out the window. “That TV weatherman was wrong again.”
Emma set a cast iron skillet on the stove and shook her head. “I don’t know why you watch that weatherman. You must like being annoyed, I guess. Hand me that blue bowl, will you? Then sit down and drink your coffee while I make breakfast.”
Joe picked up the small stoneware bowl and carried it across the green tiles, his slippered feet shuffling a little. “How long have we had this bowl, Emma? I can’t remember a day without it.” He studied the bowl for a minute before setting it down in front of the coffeemaker.
“A wedding gift from your cousin Mary.” Without looking, Emma grabbed a wooden spoon from a jar on the back of the stove. Joe swore she could cook a seven-course dinner blindfolded, the way she knew where everything was. Emma always laughed when he said that, saying it was easy. She said he could do it too, if he’d worked in this kitchen every day for fifty years like she had.
This room was Emma’s. When Charlie Maguire died, and his kids put the house up for sale, Joe took Emma to see it. It was the kitchen she fell in love with. She said it was big enough to breathe in. Two windows over the sink let in the morning sun and looked out on the old oak tree in the yard. The door next to the refrigerator opened onto a small porch that he screened in ten years ago. In summer they ate their supper there, and watched hummingbirds at feeders hanging from the eaves.
Emma hung plants in the windows, turning them every week so the leaves didn’t get stuck facing out. She taped their children’s crayoned pictures on the front of the refrigerator. Years later, magnets held pictures from grandchildren and great grandchildren. He built shelves on her yellow walls, and she filled them with jars of flour, sugar, coffee, and the fruits and vegetables she canned every summer. On the top shelf, next to a jar of dried beans, sat an old blue enamel percolator. Emma didn’t like keeping things she didn’t use, but she kept this. She said she liked the memories.
Joe smiled, remembering their first breakfast here. Emma made biscuits, scrambled eggs, and small glasses of juice that she squeezed from oranges. She burned his breakfast that morning. She said it was his fault, that it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t started kissing the back of her neck while she was cooking, distracting her, making her forget what she was doing.
Joe leaned back against the counter.
“Didn’t I tell you to sit down?” Emma’s wooden spoon nudged his shoulder. “Go. Sit. Drink your coffee.” She winked at him. “You know I can’t cook with you breathin’ all over me. Now, go on. Go, go, go, if you want breakfast before noon.” She gave him another gentle tap with her spoon. “If you like, you pour the orange juice. It’s in the icebox.”
“I’m goin’, Emma. I’m goin’!” Joe kissed the back of Emma’s neck quickly, poured coffee into his green mug, and walked to the table.
“Now, don’t you start that!” Emma broke eggs into the blue bowl. “You remember what happened the last time you interrupted me cooking your breakfast like that, don’t you?” Emma chuckled. “I burned the coffee on the stove that day, as I recall.”
Joe stirred milk into his coffee. He looked up as Emma spoke. “You know, I forgot all about you burning the coffee.” He reached back and put his spoon into the sink. “It’s the burned eggs and biscuits I remember.” He grinned. “The orange juice was good, though.”
The morning sun felt warm on Joe’s shoulders. “Yeah, gonna be beautiful today. Just look at that sky, Emma. Not a cloud in it.”
“Can’t look now, Joe. Wait till I get these biscuits in the oven.”
Joe twisted in his chair and sipped his coffee, gazing at Emma.
“Emma, stop cooking and come over here.”
“Stop cooking?” Emma muttered. “That’ll be the day, when this man stops getting’ hungry in the mornin’.” She set her wooden spoon on the counter next to the blue bowl and bent down to get a baking sheet from the cabinet. “He thinks I’m going to stop cooking, and….”
“Emma, stop. Really. Come over here and sit down.” Joe stood up and pulled Emma’s chair away from the table. “Please, Emma. Sit down.”
“What is it, Joe?” Emma set the baking sheet on the counter, and wiped her hands on her apron as she walked toward the table.
Joe pushed her chair in as she sat down. He poured her a cup of coffee, and set it in front of her. “Emma.”
“Yes, Joe?”
“Emma, how many times have you fixed me breakfast in this kitchen?”
“I don’t know, Joe. Three hundred fifty some days for fifty years. You figure it out. ” She held her coffee cup with both hands, warming her fingers. “All I know is it’s a lot of breakfast.”
“I’ll cook breakfast today.” Joe stood up. “You relax. Drink your coffee. I’ll cook.”
He walked around the table and kissed her forehead. “Give me your apron.”
Emma laughed. “Joe, we both know you can’t cook. And I don’t want you messin’ up my kitchen. So sit down, finish your coffee, and let me finish.”
“Nope. I’m making breakfast today, Emma. Maybe I can’t cook, but you tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” Joe reached behind Emma to untie her apron. “C’mon now, you drink YOUR coffee, and tell me what to do.”
Emma gave him the kind of look he hadn’t seen since he told her he wanted a motorcycle back in 1953. Joe started to say he wasn’t backing down this time, but then she grinned, and helped him with the apron.
“Okay, Joe. First you roll out that biscuit dough. Put some flour down. You’ve watched me do it often enough. Yes, that’s right. Now cut them out. Joe, use the biscuit cutter, not the knife.” Emma nodded. “That’s good. On the baking sheet, just like that. Now in the oven. It’s already warm.”
Joe opened the oven door and slid the sheet in, after asking Emma which shelf to use.
Emma sipped her coffee. “Okay, Joe. You should have just enough time to get those scrambled eggs done before the biscuits come out. So, get going. Start heating up that pan. You don’t want that flame too high. And put a little butter in there. Not too much.”
Joe held the pan out. “Is that about right, Emma?”
“That’s good, Joe. Spread it around a little. Good. Now, I already got the eggs mixed up and ready to go. The pan should be hot enough now, so pour them in. That’s right. Don’t let them burn, now. Keep an eye on them, and you’ll start turning them in just a minute.”
Joe stared at the skillet, wondering what he was looking for, hoping Emma would tell him before it was too late.
He felt a warm breath. Fingers pulled down the back of his collar, and lips touched the back of his neck, lips Joe knew almost as well as he knew his own. “What are you doing, Emma? You’re supposed to be helping me with these eggs, not fooling around.”
Emma kissed him again, and Joe closed his eyes, smiling. Standing behind him, she stroked his hair, and leaned against his back.
“Emma, … the eggs.” Joe turned around, smelling her hair as he pulled her close and rested his cheek on her head. They stood together, swaying gently.
“The food, Emma….” Joe turned around. Brown smoke rose from the skillet. “The eggs!” He opened the oven door, and pulled out a sheet of brown biscuits. “Emma, I’m sorry…” Joe turned around.
Emma tried not to laugh. “I’m sorry, Joe. Did you say something?” A giggle snuck past her closed lips.
She sat down, not trying to hold the laughter in anymore. “I’ve been waiting fifty years for this!” Emma wiped her eyes with her napkin. “Fifty years! Every morning I look at that old blue coffeepot, and remember how you got me to burn our first breakfast in this house, coffee and all. I’ve just been waiting for my chance!”
Joe sat down, too surprised to laugh. “Are you telling me you planned all this?”
Emma laughed again. “Not exactly. I just figured that someday you’d cook, and It’d be my turn. Didn’t think I’d have to wait fifty years, though.”
She looked at Joe. “Now, you’re not going to pout about this, are you?”
“Well,” Joe chuckled. “Just remember. I didn’t burn the coffee too!”
He held out a glass. “Orange juice?”
© Dori Gradall. All Rights Reserved.
Finalist - Breakfast with Joe by Dori Gradall
Dori Gradall has been writing since the third grade, when she submitted a school poem to a magazine. They didn’t like it as much as she did, but she continued to write anyway. She once spent a year managing a coffee shop, where she learned to appreciate the fine points of good coffee. Dori lives in northern Wisconsin, where she writes, paints, quilts, and scratches the ears of the two cats who share her house.
Editor’s Note: Breakfast With Joe was chosen for the first round for the following reasons: Outside of the “no punctuation, grammatical or spelling errors,” this was a comfortable story. We would put the story down, and pick it back up and read it again. After a while, it became an old friend. We didn’t receive another story centered on an older couple, and “Joe” was sharp, to boot. Authentic voice, great dialogue, wonderful ending - who would dare end a coffee story with OJ? Excellent twist.
