32

Puck worked on dinner, silent and in his element.

"You know," Jody said, "this kitchen really is like some kind of chemistry lab." Puck had a central console, with range, oven and counter space out in the center on polished black tile and all around were lab tables, each with a sink, each with a gas hookup with knob and corrugated spigot.

"Who ever heard of a kitchen with gas hookups?" she said.

"I know, I know," said Puck apologetically. "It's um, it's kind of hard to explain. You're just going to have to trust me on this one. You know---" he looked at some instrument banks. "I don't really have time to chat right now, not if we're having Bavarian Cloud for dinner."

"Yummmmmm!" said Chris. "I don't know what that is but it sounds great!

"But Wolfy," Chris pouted. "I'm very very hungry RIGHT NOW." Puck nodded and went to an unseen cupboard by one of the lab tables. The cupboard was the only assymetrical thing in the room, which otherwise was laid out to match up like a mirror image.

"Just hang on," he said. ""I have just the thing."

Well, we aren't doing too bad, Jody thought. Who on the planet knows snacks like Wolfgang Puck?

She had once eaten at one of Puck's pizza restaurants in Santa Monica, where she had blinked at what she considered to be an odd combination of ingredients. She smiled. Deep underground with no commitments, no security, no job beyond a couple days' sink-hunting.

I like it though, she thought. I like my life.

Puck was rummaging around in the cupboard with the door open. Jody could see the racks made out of thin metal bars. Under the circumstances, she was prepared to take a minor mystery, wrap it up in a red bow and just drop it in the ocean. Thin metal bars, a head of lettuce and a gallon of milk, inside a wood cupboard?

She felt sleepy.

Odd things, momentary odd things, you couldn't really bring up or talk about with anyone because, first of all, they were just too piddling as issues, too wonky. Like arguing about a sentence and the meaning of the word "word", or of the word "the". You risked heading into a black hole of boredom, wonkyness and self-referentiality.

And two, Puck was busy.

Although how busy could he be - he'd been standing at that cupboard rummaging for a good ten minutes.

Jody looked at Chris, standing in her jeans with her hands on the counter behind her, and smiled.