Read Online Delicious by Mark Haskell Smith - Free Book Online

“He’ll cook whatever you want.”
    Yuki looked at the men. “Excuse me for interrupting, but wouldn’t it be better if your men ate a healthier diet? I mean, really, who knows what’s in Spam?”
    Ed looked at her. “Belly buttons and assholes.”
    Yuki made a face and went back to minding her own business.
    Joe turned to Francis. “What’s the name of this outfit?”
    â€œIt’s Jack Lucey out of Las Vegas.”
    Joe nodded soberly. “I’ve heard of him.”
    The half papaya arrived. Francis squirted some lime juice on it, careful to shoot a little of it in Joe and Ed’s direction. He scooped up a spoonful.
    â€œI’ve worked with him before. He’s quite a character.”

Seven
    Hannah sat in Joseph’s kitchen and drank a cup of coffee. She was on her lunch break and still had time before she had to go back to work, so she relaxed, enjoying herself. She sat back and put her feet up on the table. Even though she was dressed in her schoolteacher outfit, a pair of navy slacks and a buttoned pink and white striped blouse, she slouched in the chair, letting wrinkles grow like weeds on her freshly pressed clothes.
    She was Hawaiian, with black hair and beautiful brown skin, her black eyes twinkling out of a delicate moon-shaped face. Her body was thin—her mother thought this to be evidence of some Japanese ancestry—and she had small, beautifully rounded breasts like the Tahitian women in paintings by Gauguin. Stuffed into professional clothes, she felt like a fraud, not like a native Hawaiian but like any Asian salary woman working for a big corporation in Tokyo or Singapore.
    Hannah had always chafed under the school’s dress code. This was supposed to be laid-back Hawaii, the Aloha State, where even the governor wore sandals and an aloha shirt to work. But the school administration wanted the faculty toappear crisp and professional. Perhaps there was some logic to it. If the teachers stood around chatting in Hawaiian dressed like hippies and surfers, it might give the wrong impression. They were under enough pressure as it was.
    The No Child Left Behind law demanded English proficiency as a sign of a good school—as if speaking a native language somehow meant you weren’t as smart as kids in Connecticut. It was a big bunch of mainland bullshit. But it meant they were constantly forced to test their kids, allow auditors to come and watch the classes, and put up with all kinds of bureaucratic indignities.
    Hannah sipped her coffee and looked around the kitchen. She liked it when she stayed over at Joseph’s house. It was immaculate, almost compulsively clean, compared to her house; there were no mounds of dirty laundry dotting the landscape like those termite hills in West Africa, no stacks of magazines, books, and newspapers covering every available inch of counter space. Joseph’s house was antiseptically spotless, as if he expected the health department to arrive any minute for a surprise inspection.
    Joseph would pick up after her. Put her laundry in the hamper, recycle the newspapers, and clean the dirty dishes that she stacked in the sink. He used to joke, as he put her sweatpants in the wash, that it was nice to have a woman’s touch around the place. Hannah liked him to pick up after her. It showed he cared. He spoiled her that way.
    Hannah’s black eyes twinkled as she heard Joseph come into the house. “You want some coffee?”
    Joseph shook his head and bent down to give her a kiss. “Sid just called. He’s flipping out about something.”
    â€œCall me later.”
    Joseph looked at her, slouching in the chair with her feet up. “You’re gonna wrinkle your clothes, sitting like that.”
    Hannah smiled. “I know.”
    ...
    Jack couldn’t believe it. Didn’t any white people live here? What was wrong with this place? Isn’t this supposed to be America?