Tipping the Scales

Tipping the Scales, Chapter 19

The front door slammed, and Melanie shrieked, "DINNER!"

The house clattered with footsteps as everyone except Odelia hurried to the dining room table. She had to stuff her mouth with a handful of sheet and bite down on it to keep from screaming, as the odor of fried chicken worked its way under her door.

She was in agony. What she felt was no longer recognizable as hunger. It was too enormous, too insistent, to fit within the concept. She hurt everywhere. Her toes hurt. How could hunger make your toes hurt?

Hurting everywhere might have been bearable, if the everywhere she had in which to hurt hadn't been so incredibly vast.

No matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut, tears still forced their way out, running down the sides of her face into her ears. She sniffed, trying to clear the tear-fueled mucus out of her breathing passages, and when that didn't work, she had to let go of the sheet in order to breathe through her mouth.

At least with her nose stopped up, the fried chicken smell was a little less intense. That's the way, she told herself, keep looking on the bright side. She ransacked her mind for additional sources of cheer. There wasn't much left in the cupboard besides the worn and tattered 'one more day and it will all be over.' The moths had been eating away at that one, but there was still enough substance to it to grab hold of.

Melanie had to break soon. With nothing left in their bank accounts and all of their cards maxed out, Odelia didn't understand how she'd been able to hold out as long as she already had.

Sure, Jackson made a good living, but now that they were so deeply in debt, his salary was barely enough to cover the minimum payments on their various credit cards. They shouldn't have been able to scrape up enough cash between them to pay for the bucket of fried chicken they were devouring at that moment.

Fried chicken... Savory, salty, crispy fried chicken.

She moaned.

Her snuffling and moaning muffled other noises.

Such as the snick of a twisted knob pulling the metal tongue of the door latch out of its pocket, or the swish of displaced air as that door swept inward, or the creak of a small metal folding chair being opened... What wasn't covered was the intensification of chicken aroma.

Her nostrils twitched. Eaude Colonel assaulted them even through the mucusy detritus of crying. The smell was too thick and tactile to be blocked by a little mouth breathing. It was so strong, she could almost chew it.

"You always liked dark meat best, didn't you?"

Odelia's eyes opened to the sight of Melanie sitting in a folding chair beside her mattress, legs crossed at the knee, one pointy toed high-heeled shoe swinging back and forth. Her left arm was curled around a familiar red and white paper bucket. She dipped her free hand into it and drew out a drumstick, which she raised to her mouth.

"Did you know," she mumbled around a mouthful of chicken, "that the herbs and spices in the secret recipe are really only salt, black pepper, and MSG? It's true. Somebody took a piece to a lab and analyzed it, and that was all they found. Amazing, huh?" Two bites later, she dropped the now naked bone back into the bucket and drew out another drumstick, proceeding to devour it in front of Odelia as well. "I can't understand why it tastes so much better than other fried chicken when that's all there is in it. Can you?"

Odelia forced her eyes off the chicken eating spectacle and found them drawn to the swinging foot. Why did the woman always, but always wear those ridiculously uncomfortable shoes? Who besides Melanie would bother to don full make-up and high-heels in order to spend the day wandering around her own house? Who was she trying to impress? It wasn't as if they ever had company over these days.