Rubaline H. Bender Shares a Meal

Warning. Contains scenes of grieving.

“It’s… It’s closed?” Rubaline said, incredulous and standing in front of the locked door to Deck O’Pod’s BBQ. “No. No! They’ll be back right?”

Behind her, Chel the snapping turtle shrugged her shoulders, letting her head sink into a rising shell.

“Not Deck’s! Anything but Deck’s” She pounded on the door with a webbed fist.

“Roo!” Chel said, pulling the salamander away from the building. “Stop! Someone will call the carps!” There was nobody else in sight of the rundown, boggy shopping center.

Rubaline went limp, slumping into her friend’s arms. “You don’t understand.”

“It’s okay.” Chel effortlessly dragged her back into her chipped clam wagon parked on a small, grassy ridgeline. “We’ll find you a new restaurant. What about that place near the beaver lodge? It always smells damn good.”

Rubaline rolled over, pressing her snout into the faux lichen-lined seat.

“Okay, well, what about that mushroom grill over by the stump? Fun Gus says he likes it.”

Rubaline smacked Chel’s plastron chest with a flick of her tail.

“C’mon, Roo. Deck’s wasn’t even that good.”

As she turned to face Chel, Rubaline wiped tears from her large, black eyes. “You-You don’t…understand,” she said in a pained whisper.

Later that day, Rubaline sat with her mother on a bench. Rubaline had dried her tears before meeting up with her, but, inside, it felt like the tears were just running backwards. They were outside St. Peeper Elementary School, where her mother taught. Classes had all let out, and she’d discovered that sitting beside the playground was the best environment for her mother to vent about her work day.

At a pace near ten words per second, her mother was saying, “So, I told the administrator that if they can’t hire good people, they should at least fire the bad ones.”

“Uh huh,” said Rubaline, her expression a wall of distraction.

Her mother paused, eyeing Rubaline up and down, but then continued without missing a beat. “And so he said there hadn’t been enough left in the budget for new hires after the incident with the slug and the bathroom sinks. I tell ya, some parents do not know how to raise their kids.”

“Mm hm.” Rubaline nodded in something approaching agreement.

“Do you remember that one kid? I think he was a snake. He was in your class?”

“I don’t know.”

“Anyway, some of these kids today remind me of him. Little hellions.”

“I bet.”

“Well, how was your day?”

Rubaline looked away, pretending to notice something in the sky. “Uh… Went to Deck O’Pod’s.”

“Oh, yeah?” Her mother grinned.

“They closed down.” Rubaline started picking at a splinter coming out of the bench.

“That’s a shame,” she replied as a matter of fact.

Rubaline exhaled the word, “Yeah,”

“Bislin loooved going there.” There was cheer in her mother’s voice, and Rubaline was both jealous and angry at that.

“I remember.” Rubaline pulled the splinter all the way out, leaving a gap in the old wood larger than she expected.

“He used to get that awful stir fly. You know, the one with the bits of undercooked onion in it?”

“Yep.” She rolled the splinter between her fingers, eventually flicking it into the playground’s gravel pit.

“And it gave him the worst breath. I mean, can you imagine…fly guts and onions?”

She was ambushed by a tear that had sprung from what was supposed to be an innocent chuckle. “I don’t have to. I remember.”

“WHO WOULD WANT THAT?!”

“My little brother.”

“So… We should talk,” Chel said while standing in the doorway to Rubaline’s burrow. Her head was shrinking into her shell as she spoke.

Rubaline, her eyes abnormally wet and irritated, shrugged, saying, “What about?”

“Uh… Maybe about why you cried in my clam wagon all the way home today! I didn’t press you before because you were, like, totally distraught. But when my best friend cries because a BBQ place closes, I’m thinking one of two things is going on: either you were actually starving to death or…”

“Or?” Rubaline twirled the tip of her tail, gesturing for Chel to continue.

Chel’s expression darkened. “Roo… Are you in love with Deck O’Pod?”

“Chel!”

Her head popped out of its shell, and she shouted, “Are you?!”

“Deck isn’t even a real person, just a cartoon mascot that kinda looks like a crayfish with a cane and top hat.” She paused, thinking about it. “Pretty sure he’s not real.”

“Roo! Then what is going on?!”

“Can’t I just be sad about never having shrimp fried rice again?”

“That shrimp hasn’t worked there in years!”

“Oh…yeah.”

“Roo?”

“It was Bislin’s favorite place!” The words burst from her without warning like a cork from a bottle of algae wine.

Chel’s clawed hands went straight to her mouth, and there was a long silence. After Rubaline shut her eyes to stop more tears, Chel finally said, “Oh, Roo.”

Rubaline retreated into her home, sitting on a hyacinth chair. Chel followed her inside and sat on the bare, stone floor.

Rubaline looked at her and smiled. “I… I know it’s silly. But—” She sighed.

“I’m here to listen,” said Chel, offering a smile.

Rubaline swallowed and nodded. “Stir fly with onions. That was his favorite food. Mom thought I’d forgotten. But she doesn’t know that every year, around his birthday, I go to Deck’s and order that. I never liked it much, but—oh, it’s so stupid.”

“No it’s not. Go on.”

“It reminds me of what it was like to be there with him.” Her tears resumed and she choked on a lump in her throat.

Chel nodded and hugged Rubaline, then she said, “Wait here, for, like, ten minutes.”

“Why?” Rubaline dabbed around her eyes, using her tail like a tissue.”

“Just be patient. You’ll see.” Then Chel walked into the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, and Rubaline began to piece together what was going on. The sound of a sizzling pan crackled from the kitchen and the burrow began to fill with the bitter scent of charred flies and onions.

Then, finally, Chel said, “Alright! You can come in now.”

Rubaline trudged into the kitchen and saw Chel standing over a small dining table made of birch bark. On the table, two plates of stir fly and onions waited to be eaten.

“Chel…” she started. “I really appreciate the gesture, but—”

“I know I’m not your brother, but I—”

“That’s not—you went through a lot of work.”

“It’s fine. Happy to.” Chel grinned and her short tail wagged, excited.

“Thank you. I’m feeling better now. You can go home.”

Chel’s smile dropped. “But I wanted to eat this with you.”

“You can take your plate with you. I just kind of want to be alone right now.”

“What—I don’t understand. This was supposed to make you happier.”

“It’s not—” Rubaline hesitated.

“It’s not what? It’s not good?”

“You’re not Decky!” Rubaline was shocked by the anger in her own voice.

“What?”

“Decky had a special way of making it! He—”

“You said Decky isn’t real!”

“Of course Decky is real! His name is on the building for mud sake!”

Chel retreated entirely into her shell, only extending her legs far enough to waddle out of the room and to the main door.

“Chel…” Rubaline called after her. But she was already gone.

For an hour, Rubaline sat in front of the two plates of stir fly. She didn’t touch them, but she imagined what it would be like to eat them. They honestly looked delicious, and she had no doubt they’d make a fine meal. But there was something stopping her that she had difficulty forming into words. She decided to call Chel and try to find the words anyway.

The phone rang for a heart-pounding eternity. Shame welled in her chest. But when Chel did finally answer, Rubaline could only say one word. “Sorry.”

Chel said nothing.

“You—You didn’t do anything wrong. I just—”

“It’s okay for you to be sad, Roo.”

Upon hearing that, a floodgate opened in Rubaline, and along with a surge of sorrow, she gained clarity. Through chokes and sobs, she explained, “I go to Deck’s every year and eat that stir fly, because—because I don’t want to forget a single detail of him. I don’t want to forget his laugh. I don’t want to forget the color of his face. And I don’t even want to forget the way he always tripped walking up the ramp to the door. A-And I don’t want to forget how his favorite food tasted. I’m sure what you made is great and I really appreciate it, but I’m afraid that if I eat it, I’ll start thinking about how yours tastes and I’ll… I’ll lose the memory it all.”

There was another long silence, and then Rubaline continued, “But I’ll try it. I’ll eat it because this is all dumb and I’m holding on to the memory of something that wasn’t even that important.”

“No. You won’t.”

“But—”

“You’re going to tell me what it was like.”

“What was like?”

“That stir fly made by that top-hat-wearing crayfish who may or may not exist. I want every detail you can remember. Every flavor, every texture, and even anything you remember your brother doing while he ate.”

“Chel…”

“Hold on. I need to find a pen and paper.”

“Chel.”

“No, no. This will be good. Better than me making it. Not only will I have the details of your memory in my head, but I will have them written down for anyone else to read. He won’t be forgotten.”

“Chel.”

“What, Roo?”

“Thank you.”