Mackenzie Day 03 - Manic Monday

"We'll be there in a second!" Jennifer yelled back, her eyes narrowing but then softening. "Let's go inside. She's probably been going mad all day without me."

"You know," I said playfully, "you have much better luck with girls."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Jennifer said as we climbed the front steps of the porch. "Did she tell you how we met?"

"Uh, no," I said, wanting to hear the story from her perspective.

"She was shoplifting," Jennifer said flatly. "I caught her in the store. Wasn't the first time either. But after the third or fourth time, I'd had enough."

"She's a thief?" I half asked, half accused.

"Oh yeah. Well, she was a thief. She's...a reformed thief."

"But a thief all the same," I said.

"Don't start that," Jennifer said warningly. "I handled it. I got her help, I got her to stop stealing, and then, when I got to know her, I realized she was actually pretty nice."

I turned the handle of the door, and stepped inside. The sun was going down already and the wind was really starting to sting. Jennifer stepped in behind me, closing the door and locking it.

"Ta-Da!" Mackenzie said, waving her hands at the dinner table as if presenting the world's newest and best feast, straight from the kitchen of Manic Mackenzie.

I glanced at the strange assortment of food, and then gave Jennifer a look as well.

"What, is this?" Jennifer asked, pointing to a bowl of something that looked like cheese with something else mixed into it.

"Cheezy chicken and tomatoes!" Mackenzie announced.

"And this?" I asked, pointing at something that looked like the rib-eye steaks I'd bought for Wednesday night, only they were extremely overcooked and showed signs of charring on one side.

I feared my assumptions were correct, and then winced when Mackenzie announced "Soy-sauce seared steak with cayenne pepper crust!"

"You cooked dinner," Jennifer said, inspecting the rest of the dishes, as if trying to select one that wasn't going to send us all to the hospital.

"Ready to eat?" Mackenzie asked and again I gave Jennifer a wary look, but then shrugged off my jacket.

"No time like the present," I said.

As we all sat down, and we passed around the dishes, a variety of topics came up. How was work? How was the weather? How was the drive in? The drive back? What did we have for lunch? I answered pizza, and Jennifer answered cheese burgers, but neither was the truth.

"What about you?" I asked. "What did you do today?"

"Well," Mackenzie began, and then she told us both how she stayed in bed until noon, and when she couldn't lay there any longer, she went to the kitchen to find something to eat. She ate a bag of chips, and drank a two-liter of soda, and then she was sleepy, so she took a nap. She got up at two, decided to switch laundry loads, do the dishes, clean up, and then make dinner.

"So, you literally didn't do anything until like, four hours ago?" Jennifer asked.

"No," Mackenzie said defensively. "I told you what I did." Jennifer turned to me and smiled. "What?"

"Nothing," Jennifer said.

"No, what?" Mackenzie said, looking slightly offended.

"I broke up with David," Jennifer said.

"You what?" Mackenzie asked, sitting up straight and looking horrified. "Why? What happened?"

"He was a complete asshole!" Jennifer said, exasperated. "Do you know what he called me today?"

"What?" Mackenzie asked.

"An...Oreo Hoe." Mackenzie snorted with laughter and rocked back in her chair. "It's not funny."

"It kinda is," Mackenzie said, but then she sat up and got a serious look on her face. "You gotta tell me exactly what happened."

Jennifer gave me another look, and I knew she was asking me for permission to divulge what had happened, and how everything went down. Silently I nodded.