Must Love Sandwiches Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  - Part 1 -

  - Part 2 -

  - Part 3 -

  About The Author

  Bonus Stories

  After Work

  Artistic Escape

  Recipe: Brad's Deconstructed Guacamole Sandwich

  Recipe: Daisy’s Budget Friendly Pasta

  Recipe: Brad’s Rustic Tomato Soup

  About The Bartonville Series

  Must Love Sandwiches

  The Bartonville Series - Volume 1

  By Janel Gradowski

  Copyright ©2012 Janel Gradowski

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  - Part 1 -

  “You’d think an artist could come up with a more creative excuse.” Emma drummed her fingers on the neck of her bottle. The tinkling sounded like a music box lullaby, but it wasn’t soothing her. How many beers had she drunk so far? Five or six, maybe seven. Apparently complete humiliation canceled out the ability to do even basic math, like simple addition. Although, it had been a very long time since she’d been so drunk. “I mean, he can draw a thousand versions of a zombie’s rotting arm, but he used the world’s lamest break up line.”

  “So what did he say?” Daisy asked as she gathered brown bottles from the coffee table and added them to the trail of empties snaking across the kitchen counter.

  The collection was beginning to look like an art installation to Emma. Maybe she could sell it to one of the trendy galleries in suburban Detroit. Call it “Remnants Of My Misery”. She drained her bottle to help quell the embarrassment and answered, “It’s not you. It’s me.”

  “Are you serious? He looks like Johnny Depp, but has the vocabulary of an 8-year old. Nice. I’ve dated some losers and even I haven’t heard that one. There was that poet that broke up with me in an email, but at least he wrote it as a haiku.” Daisy opened the refrigerator and asked, “Do you want another heifer wheezer?”

  What did she say? Laughing and swallowing at the same time didn’t work well. Emma erupted into a coughing fit. She wrapped her arms across her stomach and tried to catch her breath. The coughs morphed into giggles. “Like you should talk about Max’s vocabulary prowess. You just called the beer an asthmatic cow!”

  “Sorry, Miss Beer Snob.” Daisy set another bottle on the end table next to Emma and then flopped down in the middle of the couch. The old, black vinyl couch was covered in a quilt constructed with odd-shaped bits of fabric. Many of the pieces were a riot of color and pattern. Daisy’s sweater, made of rainbow-colored variegated yarn, blended right in. She twisted the cap off her newest bottle of beer and said, “This stuff is really good, whatever it’s called.”

  “It’s hefeweizen. A German wheat beer.”

  Daisy examined the label. “I see it’s from Chuck’s brewery. Is he still supplying it for free?”

  She shrugged. “He drops off a six pack once in awhile, if he wants me to try something new that he’s come up with, but you are currently mooching the stuff I bought from the party store on Fourth Street.” A terrarium, an old goldfish bowl filled with small plants and velvety moss, sat on an end table near the couch. Inside it a tiny bench was nestled under the feathery fronds of a fern. The initials C + E, for Chuck + Emma, were carved in one of the back slats. She had made it when she was dating the cuddly teddy bear of a man who owned a microbrewery in Ann Arbor. Often her mind wandered as she created the miniature art, inventing a world inhabited by delicate fairies. In that world everybody was happy and relationships never fell apart.

  Daisy picked up her knitting project. A complicated, cabled scarf hung from the needles. She made a few stitches then stopped and tossed it on top of the tote bag she had pulled it out of. “I’ve had too much to drink to do this. I’ll just end up ripping it out tomorrow.” She looked at Emma and grinned. “If his beer doesn’t help you get over Max I bet Chuck would be willing to try. A little rebound nookie would get your mind off the zombie asshole.”

  A year earlier Emma and Chuck had decided to amicably end their relationship. They both agreed that the spark of romance had fizzled out, leaving them as more friends than passionate lovers. However, there was always the sense that something wasn’t quite right when they chatted now. She suspected he wanted to try dating again, but she just couldn’t see herself with him anymore. They both spent so much time working they’d never see each other and end up being the cliched two ships passing in the night. “Not a chance. We’re staying friends, but I could let him know that you’re interested.”

  “I didn’t say I like him. I’m not really into the Paul Bunyan, mountain man type. He’s a sweetheart, but he looks like he could wrestle a bear and win.”

  Chuck’s hair was always a crazy mess, whether he had just woken up or was going on a date. His full beard was a thicket of ginger-kissed facial hair. Emma wrinkled her nose. “He kind of looks like a bear when he’s naked, too.”

  “Thanks for that visual. I’m going to need a lot more alcohol to erase that image from my mind.” Daisy rolled her eyes. She tipped up her bottle and chugged all of its contents without taking a breath. The resulting raucous burp echoed off the walls of the small studio apartment. “So, Chuck is out of the question. What ever happened to that guy you were dating before him? The computer geek.”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.” The conversation needed to leave the subject of ex-boyfriends. Now. The spotlight on her personal life, and too much alcohol, made her stomach queasy. If she didn’t think of another topic to talk about soon, she’d be cleaning up a mess. Her inspiration board, hanging on the wall behind Daisy, caught her attention. It used to be an ornate mirror with beveled glass. When she spotted it discarded in a pile of trash in front of a sorority house, she couldn’t resist snatching it up, despite its shattered glass. Once the wooden frame was repainted and the mirror replaced with cork it became the perfect place to collect interesting photos and inspiring quotes. One of Max’s drawings was pinned in the middle. It depicted a man’s chest, ripped open to display a heart encircled with barbed wire and pierced with nails. Emma got up and snatched the sketch off the board. The push pin that had anchored it to the cork skittered across the floor and rolled under the couch. She crumpled the drawing into a ball and tossed it into the nearby trash can.

  Daisy had been silent while Emma disposed of the drawing, but she continued the conversation after Emma settled back into the overstuffed recliner. “Max is a self-centered egomaniac who is obsessed with death. Don’t get depressed because the gorgeous weirdo would rather draw dead people than spend time with you. The guys you’ve dated since I met you have all been nice, for the most part. Just keep looking and you’ll find a keeper.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk, but all you’re doing is showing me that I’m turning into my mother.” The realization sucker punched her in the stomach. The air in the room thickened and expanded, pressing on her like wet cement. She couldn’t breathe. The last ten years of her life had been spent distancing herself from her mother and the life she had chosen for herself. Catching creepy slimeballs sneaking out of the run-down trailer house in the middle of the night was a common occurrence when Emma was growing up. Her mother was incapable of functioning without a man in her life. Some of the pointless relationships lasted a month at the most, others were one night stands orchestrated at a dive bar. When Emma moved out of the ancient trailer park, a week after she graduated from high school, she promised herself to never be anything like her mother. She wo
rked so hard to make a living as an artist, instead of becoming a second generation, chain-smoking bartender, she had never examined her own relationships with men. “Oh my God, Daisy. It’s true. I keep stringing relationships together, one man after another, just like my disgusting mother. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be like her.”

  Daisy shook her head and groaned. “Stop being such a drama queen. There’s a big difference between having lasting relationships and screwing some guy just because he said your eyes are pretty. I’ve never met your mom, but from what you’ve told me I know you are nothing like her.”

  “Really? I get new boyfriends more frequently than new shoes or clothes.” Emma swiped her hand over her cheeks, to wipe away the tears that were blurring her vision and trickling down her face. “I bet my mom acted this way when she was my age. It’s like some kind of curse or inherited genetic abnormality. If I keep going it won’t be long before I’m at O’Hare’s bar every night, sporting a pair of beer goggles and trolling for drunks.”

  “That does it. I’m bringing this evening to an end,” Daisy said as she stuffed the scarf and its accompanying ball of yarn back into her bag. She quickly hugged Emma and walked to the door. “It’s time for me to leave. You’re heading to Crazy Town for no reason, so I’m not going to enable you by listening. It’s late and we’ve both had too much to drink. I promise everything will be better tomorrow. If you can drag yourself down the hall to my apartment, I’ll make breakfast and we can talk about this some more in the morning. Go get some sleep now and stop obsessing, okay?”

  “That sounds good.” Emma stood up. The room tilted and spun. Successfully making the journey across the room to the bed was highly unlikely. Instead of risking a front flip over the footstool, she shut the lamp off and lowered herself onto the couch. She waved good-bye and mumbled, “Call me when you get up.”

  Daisy opened one eye and groaned. The curtains were shut, but the dim sunshine still felt as bright as a camera flash as it seared through her eyeball into her brain. More bursts of pain exploded in her head like fireworks. She struggled to extricate her legs from the tangled sheets and slowly rolled onto her back, making sure she kept her eyes shut. The bass drum of her heart beat whooshed in her ears. Hangovers sucked.

  Bits and pieces of the previous evening jerked through her mind until she landed on the part where she had invited Emma to breakfast. Considering how much they both had to drink, that certainly wasn’t a brilliant move. At least Emma would be hungover too, so she wouldn’t have to pretend everything was sunshine and roses with a cherry on top. She rolled back onto her side and slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position. Her stomach lurched in protest. Sweat beaded on her upper lip as she forced herself to breathe through her mouth. The only way she’d make it through the day would be by taking it one step at a time. No multi-tasking allowed. First step, the bathroom.

  The mint toothpaste helped erase the foul taste of beer and bile. Now that the nasty combination of fluids was flushed down the toilet, the morning could begin properly. Daisy shuffled out of the bathroom. She flipped on the overhead light in the kitchen. Damn, that hurt. The glaring, bare light bulb in the refrigerator added to the torture. She surveyed her options, trying to think of something to make. Eggs, English muffins, a chunk of cheese and a few slices of ham from the deli. Everything she needed for a proper, hangover-relieving breakfast. First, though, a little hair of the dog treatment was in order.

  She grabbed a single-serving sized can of tomato juice from the back of the refrigerator and snagged bottles of hot sauce and steak sauce before nudging the door shut with her hip. She gagged as she poured the ghoulish, blood red juice into a glass. Then she dribbled in a puddle of hot sauce, added a glug of steak sauce and poured a shot of vodka on top. A butter knife stood in for a stalk of celery as the stirrer. She took a sip and coughed. The liquid scorched a path down her throat and left her mouth stinging. A little too much hot sauce, but the heat would help take her mind off the throbbing headache thrashing inside her skull.

  Daisy broke the eggs into a shallow bowl. Keeping eye contact with the gooey substance to a minimum was crucial. She alternated between whipping the eggs with a whisk and taking sips of Bloody Mary. A splash of milk lightened the hue of the slime to a slightly more tolerable lemony yellow. She put a pat of butter into a skillet, turned on the burner and used a fork to pry open an English muffin. While the muffin halves soaked in the egg mixture, she called Emma. It wasn’t a surprise that her best friend didn’t sound like she was in agony. The fact that she was already dressed and would be at the door any moment just added salt to the wound. How did Emma make it through the night without developing a hangover?

  The door swung open as Daisy dropped the sodden muffin halves into a sizzling pool of melted butter. She had been wrong. Emma looked bad. Possibly even worse than herself, but she couldn’t be sure since she’d only caught a fleeting glance of her own reflection in the small mirror on the medicine cabinet. “Hey there, buddy. How’re you feeling this morning?”

  “That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Emma said as she collapsed into the corner of the futon. She curled up, rested her head on her knees and wrapped her arms around her head. “I’ve been awake most of the night, but I still ended up with a raging headache.”

  “You did drink a lot,” Daisy said as she flipped the muffins over. “I think you had more than I did and my head feels like it’s going to explode. So I’m making my special, greasy spoon hangover cure breakfast sandwiches. It’s taken me many years of failed experiments to get this recipe right. I promise you’ll feel better after you eat one of these babies.”

  “That sounds good. What are you making?”

  Daisy dropped a couple slices of ham into another skillet. The loud hiss of the cold meat hitting the hot pan made her cringe. She sprinkled brown sugar onto the ham and flipped the slices over to caramelize. “French toasted English muffins filled with brown sugar glazed ham, eggs and cheese.”

  “That sounds kind of bizarre. I don’t know if I want to try . . .”

  “I’m kind of bizarre. My sandwich is sweet and savory, hangover fixing goodness. I promise.” She slid the ham slices onto a plate and sprinkled them with shredded cheese. Concentrating on cooking was helping keep her mind off how rotten she felt. She cracked a couple eggs into the frying pan the ham had been in and broke them up with a fork. No sense in dirtying another bowl when she could scramble them in the pan. The muffins were done. She divided them among two plates and asked, “Are scrambled eggs okay? I figured they would be more appetizing than a sunny side up version this morning.

  “Definitely scrambled. I can’t deal with oozy, yellow stuff right now.”

  Daisy stirred the eggs with the spatula to break them up more. “I agree. You don’t know the torture I went through trying to deal with the raw eggs for the French toast. Everything is almost done now, though, so hang on. I’ll bring you a plate in a minute.”

  A muffled “thanks” came from Emma’s corner of the couch. Daisy slid a mound of scrambled eggs onto two of the muffin halves, topped them with a slice of cheesy ham and the other muffin half. She drained the rest of her cocktail and took the plates to the couch. “Would you like a Bloody Mary or something else to drink?” she asked as she set a plate on the coffee table in front of Emma.

  Emma lifted her head and grimaced. “Why would I want more to drink? A Bloody Mary just sounds disgusting right now. I don’t want anything, thank you.”

  “I know. I had a hard time choking it down, but getting back a bit of a buzz usually eases some of the pain. Maybe I should just forget the tomato juice and knock back the shot of vodka in the future.” She took a bite of her sandwich and waited for a response. Emma was still curled into a ball, her arms wrapped around her head. Finally she moved a bit. One eye peeked out of her self-made fortress of darkness. She didn’t say anything. Daisy poked her in the ribs and said, “Come on, nothing? Where are the witty comments I love you for?”


  “They’re gone, along with my love life for the foreseeable future.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ll have a new guy falling head over heals in love with you within a week. Stop moping around about Max.”

  Emma lowered her feet to the floor and crossed her arms over her stomach. “It’s not Max. I’m giving up on all men. I’m turning into my slutty mother and I can’t allow myself to do that. No dates, no boyfriends, no sex until I break myself of the nasty habit of always being in a dead end relationship.”

  Daisy whistled softly as she exhaled. “You don’t want to do that. Instead of giving up on guys cold turkey, why don’t you and I set up a buddy system for dating? I’ll critique your potential dates to make sure they are quality, upstanding man material. If I ever get asked out, you can do the same for me.”

  Living vicariously through Emma’s accounts of her dates was pretty much the only love life Daisy had now. Emma was like honey to flies as far as men were concerned, while she was more like a repellent. Not many men got past her acne scars, linebacker shoulders and weird clothing to ask her out once, much less embark on a committed relationship. Naturally blonde hair didn’t help at all. Emma certainly wasn’t a typical man magnet either. She was petite with dark, wavy hair and chocolate brown eyes. Far from a curvy, fair-haired super model. Yet she breezed through dates, charming her suitors into falling for her in a matter of minutes, and now she wanted to give it up. One person’s hell was another person’s heaven.

  “No, I don’t think that will work. I need to stay away from men, until I get used to being alone.”

  Daisy picked at the ham on the edge of her sandwich. A rock settled in her stomach. “Alone isn’t really a good thing.”

  The heavy, glass door wouldn’t budge. Emma shoved harder, barely making headway against the wind pushing on the other side. The door opened a few inches, but a gust slammed into the glass. Luckily she wasn’t leaning forward or her face would’ve become a door stop. That would’ve left a mark. A collection of Daisy’s intricately-patterned scarves were draped over the arms of a coat rack at the edge of the gallery space. The strips of wool fabric twisted and fluttered like they had come alive after being touched by the cold wind. Finally, the strong breeze eased up to allow her and Daisy to scramble out the door.