“so where do you swim?” my eyebrows shot up. she asked the question with the same nonchalance one would if asking someone’s name. if this is how our conversation began, it was sure to be a good one.
“anini beach” i responded as i rolled down the window, opening the curtain for the sticky island breeze to dance with my still-wet strands of hair.
“ah, anini is nice but sometimes it’s a bit boring — too many honeymooners and not enough action. you must check out keālia. it’s on the way to the airport. there’s a great public restroom, in an actual concrete building, not one of those port-a-potty-things. it’s revolutionary. i’ll point it out to you when we pass it.”
the stoic germans would never strike up a conversation this hot. it became quickly apparent that the melancholic drive to the airport wouldn’t be as somber as my head had rehearsed it out to be. kathleen came into my life like a bolt of lighting, so my dramatic glossy-eyes-out-the-window-moment was put on hold — life is more fun off script anyways.
born and bred in boston, kathleen picked up and moved to a sunnier latitude. the decision came on the tail end of a divorce and a job where she was overworked and underpaid. now she summers in boston, and spends her winters here — plus ten points. her sunny disposition told me she was a local, but the buoyancy in her vowels and her firm grip of the steering wheel pointed to roots back east.
“yeah keālia is great. we always go after we go to costco… what airline are you flying?”
“united”
“i much prefer delta”
in fact, just one week prior, kathleen was high in the sky (with delta of course), on her way back from her bucket list trip to italy. zipping their way across the boot with some friends in a rental, she recounted memories in a bullet point formation: like one would a grocery list.
some say that all roads lead to rome, but for kathleen, all roads led to florence. despite her numerous pitstops through the likes of pompei and pisa, each sentence she recounted of florence was glowing as if a halo were over it.
“i don’t have to go back to italy for at least another five years. but at least when i do, i’ll just stay in florence.”
just as i was about to ask her about the food (the universal follow up question when someone returns from italy), kathleen beat me to the punch.
“you know, everyone always talks about the food in italy, but to be honest, we didn’t eat much.” my heart deflated.
“you know, here in kauai, i found that i don’t need much to eat. with everything so expensive nowadays, it’s better just to eat what we have from our garden….”
her train of thought paused as she let a biker pass the road before turning into the overpass. silence and i were about to exchange greetings, but kathleen pipped in with the perfect segway question.
“do you like sprouts?” her r’s bent into a w’s as they escaped her lips.
“oh yes, yes i do.” who wasn’t a fan of these nutritional powerhouses?
“do you want me to tell you the secret of how to grow them?”
“yes!” i could feel my green thumb beginning to grow.
“so first, you have to get one of the gizmos called a victorio. Like the name victoria, but with an o at the end.” a helpful mnemonic device.
“yeah i’ve tried to do all the hippie stuff with the mason jars, and it was just too much for me.” east coast practicality at it’s finest.
“so first you get your victorio…..”
my mental note taking slowly veered off course. at a certain point her sentences began to melt together and lulled me into a dream-like state. i began to float in a sea of linked r’s and dip-thongs. her accent was refreshingly rounded compared to the harsh angles of the germans i had grown accustomed to.
like meditation bells signalling the end of a chapter, kathleen struck me with the perfect next question.
“do you like to cook?”
“yes” i blurted out with muscle memory.
“here.” eyes still on the road, kathleen reached into her purse and handed me a notepad and a pen with a plastic hibiscus flower taped on its end.
“write this down. it’s the recipe i’m known for: kathleen’s crunchy chicken.”
the student in me perked up and i diligently titled the piece of paper as such, ears eager to hear what would come next.
“first, you gotta get your crunchies…” talk about another great beginning…
crunchies, as i came to understand, was some brand name confection that comes in a rectangular can with a red table and a white top. as to it’s contents, i had no idea. i was imagining something that was granular, probably a shade of beige, and most definitely quite crunchy.
she went back and forth between the brand name and calling them crunchies, but i could not, for the life of me, decipher what the name was. my untrained ear was showing, and after asking her to repeat the name twice, i threw in the towel.
“sometimes i use fritos, it’s good in a pinch, but the crunchies are better”
finally something for my mental kitchen to grab onto.
“so first you need your crunchies, and then you’ve gotta butterfly your chicken. melt one stick of butter, mix in some mustard and worcestershire sauce. first you dip the chicken in the liquid, then in they go into the crunchies. lay them flat on a pyrex and bake them in an oven 350 for 30 minutes.”
it was like a blinked and voila! crunchy chicken was served.
“it really doesn’t matter what mustard you use” she said, answering a question my brain had on deck.
“something about that sauce with the worcestershire sauce adds such a nice mmmm”
the way she said the word worcestershire sauce was also mmmmm.
the sign for the airport was creeping into view, and i felt myself long for the universe to work it’s magic and put cars together in standstill traffic like they do at LAX.
she swims, grows sprouts, likes florence, costco chicken, and peanut m&m’s (stories for another time). i wanted to hear anything and everything about this woman.
but alas, the reality of being on a small island crystallised, so the drive to the drop off was just as smooth as her r’s.
“before you go i’ll leave you with one more recipe”
i shot up, practically drooling.
“have you ever heard of american chop suey?”
my eyes almost popped out of my head.
“no, but tell me more”
i got out another slip of paper and got to writing, the synthetic petals of the hibiscus flower dancing with each subsequent word that came out of her mouth.
“first you get your hamburger patties…” she’s done it again…
notes pressed into my palms like a parting gift, my hand floated towards my heart as i watched her drive off.
thank you kathleen. i had gotten a lot of sun during my time here, but you gave me a slice of sun to carry in my pocket as i head back to my cold corner of the world.
i’m not sure if we have costco in berlin, but we’ve definitely got some crunchies. who knows, maybe even some worcestershire sauce.
selfishly, i’d just love to hear that word come out of a german’s mouth.
Nice one - would like to meet Kathleen too!
Such advice! Of course I’d like to meet Kathleen..(-: