Will you ever learn?

2

Carina

"Maya!" a smoky voice called, waking me from my sleep. I tried to open my glued eyes. After I succeeded, my first glance fell on the alarm clock. 6 o'clock in the evening. I yawned loudly and stretched until I almost fell sideways out of bed. The last few days I've always taken over night shifts from colleagues, because it seems everyone got sick all at once. That means every morning I got home at 7 and then slept until I had to go back to the hospital at 8 in the evening.

"Baby?" the annoying voice called again. I sighed, swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up straight. I yawned again, squinting my eyes tightly shut.

Charlotte. My best friend's girlfriend.

I put on a fake smile, quickly put on one of Maya's oversized hoodies and left my room. I stopped in the hallway and looked around. Next to Maya's room was a medium sized moving box. I frowned and continued my way to one of our two bathrooms. There I brushed my teeth, using the extra-hot toothpaste Maya had bought. Then I reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out the brown Listerine. Is Maya into pain, or how can she do this toothpaste and Listerine to herself every morning?

I took a small cup, dumped about 10ml of the liquid into the cup, then brought it to my mouth and poured the liquid into my mouth. As soon as the liquid touched my tongue, I gagged. This caused a little bit to get into my throat and I started coughing uncontrollably. Within seconds I spat the stuff into the sink and continued to cough and gag. Hastily, I grabbed a cup, turned on the faucet and filled the cup with water. I rinsed my mouth out and spat the water out again before taking a big gulp. I placed both hands on the sink, took a deep breath in and out, and hung my head.

"MAYA?!" screamed Charlotte again. I took a deep breath and went in search of Charlotte. Along the way, I entered the kitchen and finally found the woman. "Why are you screaming like that?" i asked. "Oh thank God, Carina! Can you please help me?" Astonished, I looked at her until I realized she was standing in front of three pots. Only now did I look around my kitchen. It was a complete disaster.

"What the hell are you trying here?" I asked, annoyed, standing next to her. "I was actually going to make chicken fricassee." I raised my eyebrows and stared into the pots. In one pot, the chicken was simmering, minus any soup vegetables. Out of the back pot stood the rice. The completely overcooked rice, if I may mention that. In second large pot, which was on the back right stove top, was a funny looking white sauce. I took a spoon and tasted the mixture. It tasted merely like roux. "Charlotte..." I began, and she stared at me aloofly. "What are you doing here?" I asked again. "I'm cooking." she replied. "Here! I'm here!" said Maya, who ran into the kitchen at that exact moment.

Neither Charlotte nor I said anything and Maya stood next to us at the stove. "What's this?" asked Maya bluntly, taking my spoon from my hand, washing it briefly, and then tasting the white sauce as well. She screwed up her face in disgust. "Well?" asked Charlotte excitedly. "Hmmmh, tastes good, babe." she said, wrapping her arms around Charlotte.

"No." was all I said, "No, it doesn't taste good." "Carina." warned Maya. "What? Nothing about this meal was cooked right? Where are the soup vegetables? Why does the sauce only taste like flour? Where are the capers? And why is the rice all whisked up?" "You know what Carina, if you think you can do it all better, here you go." said Charlotte, pressing two wooden spoons to my chest. I sighed, "You know what, I can probably do it better." And with that, I got to work. The first thing I did was dump the rice. I tasted it a bit to test if it could still be eaten, because I hate throwing away unnecessary food. "Okay, Charlotte, can you please dump the rice out of the colander back into the pot, put a lid on it, and then put it under a blanket in the living room so it doesn't get cold too quickly?"