The muumuu Odelia had swathed herself in was so big it was getting in her way. As she raised her arms to pour boiling potatoes into the colander draped across the sink, the dress caught a draft and billowed out, blocking the pan from view.
The "Big & Beautiful" muumuu catalog said oversized clothes make a person look smaller, so she'd ordered 12X, the largest size they carried. This, she mused, might have been a mistake.
"Ouch!" Hastily dropping the pan on the counter, she recoiled from the unseen cloud of steam that had burnt her forearms.
"Dinner had better be done before the football game starts. I'm warning you, old woman!" The insolent baby-face of Odelia's nephew, Brian, glowered at her from the kitchen archway.
"Everything's finished except the potatoes, and that'll only take a minute. If you want to speed things up, you could carry a couple of platters to the table."
His reply was a snort and an eye-roll. "That's your job, isn't it? Get your ass in gear and dish us up some turkey."
Jackson pushed past his son, reached out and grabbed a warm dinner roll off a baking sheet. "I think you mean 'asses,' not 'ass.' Looks like she's packing a few extra under that circus tent."
"If you're going to be in here, you can do a little work," Odelia said. She shook the last drops of water out of the colander and returned the potatoes to their pan. "I wouldn't mind a little help mashing these, for instance."
She turned to carry the potatoes back to the stove and saw that she was once again alone. The word 'work' was as good as 'abracadabra' when it came to making her family disappear.
Furiously pounding the potatoes into a thick paste, she felt a twinge. Gas pain... A furtive glance around the kitchen told her she was still alone, so she let it out.
The scent caused her lip to curl, but not in distaste. Like most people she tended to find her own stinks more interesting than repellent. No, it wasn't distaste but surprise that made her recoil. Her farts had gone beyond interesting into the realm of just plain peculiar. This one smelled disquietingly industrial, sort of like smoldering plastic doused in paint thinner.
The only thing out of the ordinary about her diet was the volume she consumed, not the food itself. She ate the same things she fed the rest of the family, and none of them were farting diesel exhaust.
She pushed the thought away, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.
Ladling the potatoes into a tureen, she carried it to the dining room table and set it near Courtney. The little girl didn't so much as glance up from her phone. Odelia snuck a peek at the screen to see what was so much more important than the holiday dinner her aunt had slaved for hours to prepare, and discovered she was trying hats on a tiny pixelated hamster.
"It's about time," Brian said, grabbing the dish and scooping a glob onto his plate.
"Don't just stand there—bring in the rest before it gets cold," Jackson added.
Melanie simply shook her napkin out and spread it delicately across her knees.
One by one, Odelia ferried serving dishes to the table. After the mashed potatoes came yams, both plain and candied. Then gravy, cranberries, green beans in hollandaise sauce, and ears of sweet corn. Her heart pounded a little louder in her chest after each trip and by the time she set the corn down, a thin film of sweat had broken out across her brow. The corn was followed to the table by a jellied fruit salad molded into the shape of a pumpkin, and finally, a basket of rolls.
YOU ARE READING
Tipping the Scales
Chick-LitOdelia has spent most of her life so firmly under her brother's thumb that she might as well have been an insect trapped in a chunk of amber, but now, at long last, something is happening to her. Too bad it's not a nice, normal, something, like a '...
