Dinner at Joyce’s (part 1)

So I was over at Joyce’s to have her put the sim card in the iPhone she’d given me and she was making me dinner too.  She kept disappearing into the kitchen, and leaving me alone on the couch. I don’t like just sitting around like a bump on a log, and I wasn’t going to answer Monica’s text on my old phone while waiting waiting for Joyce to make me dinner, so I got myself the third beer from the ice bucket. I reckoned it might get me to stop thinking about Becky Landry and her “romantic” notes in my locker. In the meantime, I kept trying to work out the Dodger batting order in my head, but every time I tried to decide where to play Kiké Hernandez, I thought of Becky Landry again.

Those crazyass notes she kept slipping in my locker were dang creepy. Especially since she knew Shoshanah and I were pretty serious about each other.

This wasn’t the same. Joyce was just making me dinner. Why did I keep thinking about Becky Landry? And what would be wrong with playing Hernandez at short for a few games and put CT3 out in center.

Finally Joyce came out and told me that dinner was ready. She was wearing an old apron over that nightgowny thing she had on, realized it, and ran back into the kitchen to take it off. I walked into the dining room and let my eyes get used to the dark. The only light was from the candles on the table.

And I thought of stalkerass Becky Landry again.

“You sit here,” said Joyce, putting me at the head of the table. There were three glasses at my place. I took a closer look: they were Stone beer glasses.  So she’d finally gotten some decent beer glasses.

“Did you just get these?”

“Yes…I went to the Stone store on Raymond. You must know it.”

Of course I know the Stone store on Raymond. I just try not go there very often. If I did, I’d want to move in.

“They helped me put together a beer flight for you. That’s why you have all the glasses. You know…like a wine flight. Only with beer…”

I think she wanted me to know what a wine flight was. I didn’t. Why would I?  It’s a wine thing.  So I had to ask.

“You know…a different beer to go with each course.”

“So…three beers for three courses?”

“Exactly.”

Although I’d already had three IPAs, I was liking the idea of three different beers to go with dinner. Then…dang it…Becky Landry. Maybe Kiké could play second…not like anybody would miss Logan Forsythe…

The first thing Joyce brought out of the kitchen was a bread basket and a big butter dish.

“I figured you’d like biscuits with dinner…right? You always say you wish you had them when they bring out french bread at restaurants.”

“Biscuits are great.” I do wish more restaurants had them. Meemaw wouldn’t dream of setting the table without a big basket of fresh biscuits straight from the oven.

Now there’s exactly one thing I know how to bake: Pillsbury biscuits. And it took me long enough to learn how to do that. (Tip: don’t put them in the microwave.) So I know a Pillsbury biscuit when I see one. The ones in the basket were Pillsbury. Of course, Joyce didn’t say she made them, so maybe she wasn’t trying to fool me. And it didn’t really matter: I like Pillsbury biscuits. I had some with breakfast.

“Here’s the beer that goes with the appetizer,” Joyce said next time she came out of the kitchen. She had trouble reading the bottle in the dark, but she eventually figured out that it was the Stone Scorpion Bowl IPA. A 22 oz. bottle of it. She poured some into my glass without tilting it. I took the glass and bottle before she made a mess on her tablecloth. Joyce usually lets me pour my own beer.

“See? This is the gangsterass way to pour beer into a glass.” If you can call beer in a glass gangsterass. Even when it’s in cool glasses like that.

“Oh… I see. That makes sense. I…don’t know much about beer. You probably should be thankful that I haven’t served it to you over ice.”

She was kind of waiting like the wine waiter waits when he’s poured the little bit of wine in your glass and expects you to nod like you know shit.

I don’t know all the gayass wine words they’re using to ruin beer – but the Scorpion was great and different from my usual IPA. Keaton and I have a system when we go out and try out craft beers: a beer is either “bubba likey” or “bubba no likey”. (There’s also “bubba vomit”, but we only used that once.) This was a definite bubba likey.

Joyce knows I love Meemaw’s devilled eggs…so she made devilled eggs for an appetizer. Three different kinds. None of them like Meemaw’s. But then Meemaw says you gotta use Duke’s mayonnaise if you’re making devilled eggs, and you can’t get that up at Super King in Altadena lol. She even decorated some of them with what I think was caviar, only it was gold instead of black. I gotta admit, it was a little fancyass, but who doesn’t like devilled eggs? Even when they’re made with the wrong mayonnaise lol.

Joyce was still nervous as a whore in church (like always, she was drinking Coke…she could have used a beer) and getting up all the time, which was making me nervous, although that gave me time to get through the whole bottle of Scorpion.

“I guess you liked them…or…you must have been hungry,” Joyce said, taking away the empty devilled egg plate.

“Hey, I’m a growing boy.”

The way she looked at me…y’all can guess. Kiké at second really is a good idea.