Chapter four

“You don't have peperoni?!” I ask in surprise, my mouth hanging open.

Marie shrugs and pokes out her lip. “Not right now, I'm sorry liebling.” She reaches over me to grab more of the shredded mozzarella cheese in the large green bowl. Sprinkling around the shredded cheese unto the pizza half way covered in cheese. It hadn't taken as long as we expected for the Pizza dough to raise. After playing two games of backgammon it was done. So we had kneaded it out into a perfect large circle, then punched the air bubbles out with the end of a wooden spatula. We had to wait a few more minutes for the olive oil in the tomato sauce to mix in, then we started on our masterpiece.
“We have sausage, how would that work?” Marie asks raising her eyebrows slightly

I shrug, it's not the same as peperoni, but it would do for now. “Sure.”

Maurise hops around the kitchen pulling out random ingredients. Like mushrooms, anchovy's, sausage, pineapple, olives, and even... breakfast cereal that looks a lot like cheerios.

Marie looks over at Maurise's counter top full of toppings and puts away several ingredients. “No!” she sticks out her tongue, making Maurise laugh. “Ick. Who wants pineapple?”

I intervene quickly, my mouth salivating at the thought. “Oh no. Marie, it's awesome on Pizza, trust me.”

Maurise nods vigorously. “Yes Momma, it's...” she looks at me quickly and scrunches up her nose in that cute way she has when she's trying something new, “Awesome?” she articulates carefully, nodding her head at me to see if she got it right.

I nod and grin at her, trying not to laugh at her cute behavior. “Please, let's cut up some up and put it on.”

Marie nods in agreement and walks over to get a cutting board.

We work and bustle around the small kitchen for a moment. During that short period of time Huey swings into the kitchen doorway with a large grin.
“How's it goin' gals?”

Marie gives a girlish giggle and spurts off a loving sentence in German. “-Oh, I love you!”

Huey grins and twirls her in his arms. I look away in embarrassment as they kiss, Marie giggling. “God,” I exclaim playfully, “Get a room.”

There is more giggling from Marie as she blushes and turns back to chopping up the pineapple. Huey shrugs and slicks back his hair in a mock greaser fashion. I laugh, remembering how we both went through a greaser faze after we watched Grease with John Trevolta, our first musical movie we watched that started a whole period in our lives full of watching musical numbers and singing 'Oklahoma' till our mom begged for 'We go together'.
Huey does that weird swagger like move where he nods his head and shrugs his shoulders, swaying side to side, like all of the greasers in the gang. He sticks a nearby chopstick in his mouth and pretends to smoke, which makes me laugh harder. “Eh, I just, you know... yeah.” He shrugs, trying not to grin.

I shake my head at him and his fake greaser accent. I snatch the chopstick out of his mouth. “Scram, Danny. Go oil up Grease Lighting-” I give a bark of laughter, “Or should I say, Rust Lighting.” I stick the chopstick in my mouth and turn, making sure my straight brown hair hits him squarely in the face.
He makes a spitting kind of noise, as he spits my hair off his lips. Something hits my butt suddenly. I give a yelp of surprise, the chopstick falling out of my mouth. I turn sharply to see Huey recoiling his towel. He gives me an innocent and surprised look, which is so fake, you might as well put it in a can and call it spam.

“Hey!” I lunge forward.

“Stoppen Sie bitte die beinen von Ihnen,” Marie says sternly, pointing the cutting knife at us.

Huey holds up his hands defensively. “Entschuldigung, Entschuldigung!”

I am so confused all I can do is raise my eyebrows and ask. “Huh?”

Maurise giggles and whispers, “She said 'Stop please the both of you' and Entschuldigung means 'sorry'.”

“Oh,” I smile and give Maurise a thankful high-five. “Thanks girlfriend.”

Maurise giggles, jumping up and down, holding up her hands for more high-fives. I shake my head and turn her back to opening cans of olives and anchovy's.

Marie smiles kindly at me and passes me a knife. “Would you cut olives for me liebling.”

I nod, looking between Marie and Huey, seeing the small tension of the moment release. I practically see Huey relax as he puts a hand on his hips and sidles over to hug Marie around the shoulders. He says something sweetly in German to her and kisses her cheek. She cant help but smile. She points over to the half covered pizza. “You could finish putting cheese on the pizza.”

He grins and nods his head. “Ja, alright.”

Maurise caught my eye and grinned, making 'blah, blah, blah' movements with her hand, where it opens and closes like a mouth. I snort and go back to cutting olives. Slice, slice, slice, over and over and over. One olive after the other. I slice each one in fifths, thin enough to cook well on the Pizza. On my... maybe ten thousandth cut, my finger apparently was too close to the knifes blade and-,”@#!$ ow!” I yell.

Everyone turns to me, all three with surprised faces. Maurise's mouth hung open at my cussing, Huey's hand goes to his mouth and he flees from the room as he sees my bleeding finger, Marie steps over and takes my bloody finger in her hand.
I look down in horror at the small cut in my pointer finger, the cut is hardly visible because of all the bright crimson blood issuing from the cut. Blood drips unto the kitchen tile as Marie walks me over to the kitchen sink. It stings like the Dickens.
I've never been one for pain, and Huey has never been one for blood. Once I got a huge splinter in my foot and the only person to care for it was Huey, I practically fainted from the pain and Huey threw up on me when my blood got on his fingers. He never, ever came close to any of my wounds ever again. This feeling was different from a splinter some how, it stung and felt like a bruise at the same time. “Ow, ow, ow, ow!” I moan as Marie runs cold water over the cut. I can see my wound now. The skin is flapping around under the surge of cold water, which makes me bare my teeth and inhale noisily. When Marie takes my finger out of the water, the skin flaps over my skin, so now it looks like an arrow head shaped scratch. Blood starts trickling out of the cut again.

Marie turns to Maurise who is watching intently. She says something in German and Marie goes off running from the kitchen, only to come back a minute latter with cotton balls and a clear bottle that must be rubbing alcohol. Marie brings me over to the dinning room table and I sit down, trying not to cuss in front of Maurise. Marie puts the cotton ball to the cut on my finger. “Keep pressure on it for a few minutes.”

“How many minutes?” I ask in a squeaky, melt down sort of voice.

“About five, let me put on a timer.” Marie is so calm it makes me want to shake her, screaming What the hell's wrong with you! I almost cut off my finger. But in some weird way, her calm makes me calm. Maybe this is no big deal after all? Maybe I was overreacting. Marie goes back into the kitchen to set a timer and I push the cotton ball into my cut with so much force my fingers cramp up.

Marie doesn't came back until the timer goes off, which is long enough for me to start freaking out again. I look at her expectantly, looking for maybe the death sentence or something. “Let's take that off and clean it, alright?”

I nod and let her gently peel the cotton ball off my cut. The little furry white hairs stick to my bloody skin, which is super uncomfortable. I scrunch up my nose in disgust and the bloody mess. “Ew.”

Marie smiles, “It's really not all that bad.”

“Not that bad?” I ask incredulously.

“It could be worse, trust me.” Marie dabs at the drying blood with a cotton soaked with rubbing alcohol.

“AH!!!” I yelp, tearing my hand away from her. The sharp sting doesn't subside in my cut, it just gets worse. I grit my teeth together and seethe for a moment. “Ow, ow, ow, ow! Holy-” I glance over at Maurise, still watching with a pained look, “-cow.”

“Liebling, I have to clean it, or it will become infected,” Marie says gently.

“It hurts, no, it hurts!”

Marie sighs patiently. “Calm down. I must clean it.”

“No!”

Marie's eyes narrow at me, “Give me your hand and stop acting like a baby.”

“No!”

“Give me your hand!” she raises her voice at me.

I quickly outstretch my hand, suddenly afraid of Marie. I didn't known she'd explode at me like that. I know she yelled at Maurise when she broke the lamp stand, but I never thought she would at me. Well...I guess I was wrong. Now I know to never argue or make Marie mad. She was patient, but when her patience was thin, she was on the verge of being outright scary.