“I’ve got cookies in the freezer that Karl likes. I’ll go bring him over some as a thank you. I’ll go to the backdoor so we’ll be in the kitchen. How much time do you need?”
“Five minutes,” he said. “Then come right back.”
She moved to the kitchen, him with her. “I need a drink first. Want anything?”
“I’m good,” he said.
She grabbed a glass, filled it with water and drank half. Then she pulled the cookies out of the freezer, took them out of the bag, arranging them on a plate. She finished the rest of her water, his eyes on hers, silently urging her to hurry.
She winked at him, then opened her dishwasher and frowned.
“That’s odd.”
“What?” he asked.
“My dishwasher is empty.”
“So?”
“I swear I had dishes in it. A few. At least my coffee cup.” She scratched her head.
“Your floral one?” he asked sarcastically.
She snorted. He picked on her floral pattern cups. They were kind of ugly. Like grandma china but in a big cup. A set of four from a student one year. Their mother probably got them on sale, but she used them every morning.
“Yes.” She opened her cabinet, saw all four of them in there. Almost lined up too perfectly. She usually just put them in and shut it, never got that OCD.
“Are you sure you didn’t wash it?” he said.
She turned to look at him. “No. I rarely wash cups. I have a routine. Nothing left in the sink. I empty the sink before I turn the dishwasher on. Then I empty the dishwasher the next time I use a cup or dish and then put that in. When was the last time your dishwasher was completely empty? Like you didn’t empty it and put something else in it that might be in the sink?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to those things.”
“I don’t either. I mean other than knowing my dishwasher and sink are never both empty at the same time.” She hated that the hair stood up on her arms over this but didn’t want Clay to think she was nuts. Might be best to let it go. She probably did it without remembering and so much had happened in the past few days.
“Unless you’ve got fairy maids doing your chores, it has to be you. Did you empty it at night and then not drink coffee the next morning?”
She pursed her lips. “I guess it could have been that,” she said, putting the glass in. “There is so much going on that it’s possible what you said.”
The more she thought of it, it was most likely that.
Sometimes she didn’t even drink or eat at home in the morning and left to pick something up on her way to work. So yeah, that had to be it.
She wrapped the cookies, then left through the back door and over to Karl’s, knocked on his door and waited.
He came to the door a minute later. “Meredith. This is a surprise. I thought you had company.”
“I do,” she said. “Clay is fixing one of my chairs. It had a wobbly leg.” She hated to lie but couldn’t come up with anything else for walking out on her boyfriend visiting. “I wanted to bring you over some cookies for everything you’ve done while it was on my mind. Thank you so much for keeping an eye on the repairmen today.”
“Not a problem,” Karl said, his hand out for her to come in. She stayed where she was. “I’m always around. It’s easy enough. I brought my laptop outside and sat on the porch while they worked.”
She barely kept the roll of her eyes. That was intrusive.
“Thanks again. I know you love my chocolate drop cookies.”
“I do love them,” Karl said. “Would you like a cup of coffee with me?”
“I should get back to Clay soon and I’ve got so many chores to catch up on. Just thought I’d drop these off and see if there was anything going on around here I should know about from the weekend.”
