THREE MEN AND A LADY
Chapter One
The hallway was filled with the
sounds of heartbroken sobbing. Jack gritted his teeth and slowly made his way
to the living room. The sobbing increased in volume with each step. He stood in
the doorway and stared at the man on the couch.
Cal was lying on the couch, a
blanket up to his chin. Empty doughnut boxes littered the floor around him. He
was staring at the TV and sobbing uncontrollably. The theme from Port
Charles was playing.
"Are you okay?" Jack
asked. He crossed the room to where Cal lay. Cal shook his head. "What
happened?"
"Alison and Rafe are
related!" Cal let loose with another loud sob.
Jack sighed; just when in the
last ninety-one years had Cal become addicted to soap operas? He didn’t know.
Maybe it had come from being the housewife.
Cal grabbed Jack and shook him.
"Don’t you see? Now it’s all ruined!" He collapsed onto the couch,
sobbing.
"Er…" Jack patted him
on the shoulder. This was not his favorite part of the day, and making Cal stop
crying was always his job.
"Ah!" A scream from the
kitchen stopped Jack from having to deal with Cal further.
"I have to check the
kitchen," Jack said quickly. He briskly left the living room.
The water was ankle deep when he
reached the kitchen. Fabrizio was standing in the middle of it, holding a pot.
A bemused look was on his face.
"What did you do?"
"I didn’t do anything."
Jack pointed to the water that
had filled his shoes. "Okay. What in the hell is that?"
"Water."
"I know it’s water."
"Then why did you--"
"I didn’t! I
was...argh!"
Fabrizio eyed Jack warily.
"Jack, are you all right?"
"Yes." Jack was taking
deep breaths. In the last twenty years or so, his friend’s idiocy had started
to get to Jack. Really get to Jack. "Why is there water on the
floor?"
"Oh, that. Well, there was
this pot on the stove, and it had water in it, and when I went to move it, I
got burnt and dropped it." Fabrizio smiled happily.
"That makes sense, I guess.
But how are we to get the water off of the floor?"
Fabrizio stared at him blankly;
this had obviously never crossed his mind.
"Do you know you’re standing
in water?" Cal asked. He strode over to the table and began moving the
chairs.
"Yes, we know," Jack
said. "Why are you moving the chairs?"
Fabrizio replied, "He does
it every day."
Jack looked at Cal questioningly.
"I have to. When you’re all
at work, I move them around and use them as tables and things."
"Right. How can we get the
floor clean?"
"Go away, and I can fix
it."
Jack looked at Cal, and then at
Fabrizio. He was getting the feeling that he would not like what would happen
to the water.
"Okay. I’ll go, but you have
to get this up before it damages something."
Both nodded.
When Jack was gone, Cal grabbed
the pot from Fabrizio’s hands and set it in the floor. "Get some
straws."
"Okay." Fabrizio handed
Cal two straws. "Now what?"
"Now, we use the vacuum to
suck the water back into the pot."
"Why?"
"Because I want to make
Stroganoff, and we need the water."
*****
Rose arrived home several hours
later and found Jack in the attic and Cal and Fabrizio cooking. She was sitting
at the kitchen table, reading the paper, when Jack came down from the attic. He
was covered in dust.
"What were you doing?"
Rose asked, not looking up from the paper.
"I was cleaning the
attic."
Rose looked up from the paper.
She burst into laughter.
"It’s not funny," Jack
said, dropping into a chair.
"But it is!" Rose said.
She climbed into his lap. "It’s very funny."
"Oh, is it?"
"Uh-huh."
Jack whispered something in her
ear. Rose giggled.
"Oh, Lord, help us,"
Cal said irritability.
"What’s wrong with
you?" Rose asked. "Soaps not go well?"
Cal’s lower lip wobbled.
"Please don’t ask." Cal’s voice was choked with unshed sobs.
"Can we eat?" Fabrizio
asked.
"Yes." The sobs were
gone from Cal’s voice. He carried the pot of Stroganoff to the table and set it
down.
They began serving themselves.
Rose remained in Jack’s lap. Cal grunted.
"What is it?" Rose
asked.
"Can’t you people sit
apart?"
"No," Jack said.
"Why does it bother you so much?"
"It bothers him because he’s
alone," Fabrizio said.
Cal glared at him. "That was
private. I told you that in confidence!"
"Oh, yeah. I remember you
saying that."
"Then why, if you remember,
did you just share it with our housemates?"
"Er…"
"It doesn’t matter!"
Rose broke in.
"Why doesn’t it
matter?" Cal asked. The tears were back in his voice.
"Because," Jack
explained. "You’re alone because you don’t ever leave the house."
"So, it’s my fault?"
Cal burst into tears.
"No, it’s…" Jack
struggled for words.
"Can we just forget it and
eat?" Fabrizio asked. They all stared at him, amazed.
Usually he wasn’t the brightest
of guys, but sometimes he surprised them all. "Okay," they said in
unison.
"Besides, who cares if Jack
and Rose like to canoodle while eating? Or if Cal likes to drool over Sonny
from General Hospital?" His housemates stared at him.
"I told you that in
confidence also!" Cal screamed shrilly. He jumped up and lunged at
Fabrizio.
"Ah!"
Jack managed to pull off the
greatest feat ever. He grabbed Cal and kept him from killing Fabrizio, and
still kept Rose in his lap. "Would you stop it? You’re acting like
animals!"
Cal said, sulkily, "He told
things about me!"
"So? I know worse
things," Rose said.
"Why do I tell you people
things?"
"Cause you live with
us," Fabrizio said.
"Oh, yes. Now I remember.
Wish I could forget."
"Ha ha. Whatever. You love
us, and you know it." Jack threw a piece of bread at Cal. It bounced off
his head.
"Maybe. Now, stop throwing
the food I made you with the water from the kitchen floor and eat it!" Cal
yelled.
"Water from the floor?"
Rose asked. She glared at Cal. "Why would you use floor water?"
"Well, Jack told us to get
it off of the floor, and we did," Fabrizio answered.
"I didn’t tell you to cook
with it!"
"Oh," Cal and Fabrizio
answered in unison.
"Damn it all, I’m not
eating!"
They all left the kitchen and sat
in the living room, watching the Sci-Fi channel. They later regretted the rash
decision not to eat the Stroganoff.