Images 47

Chapter 47

It was a really good way to start my day if early getting to meet and finally talk to Angel my cousin from Ontario. She’s a good kid in a bad spot and adding in that matches and gasoline moment of figuring out you’re not the you that you thought you were.

It was a joy to just talk and meet her and chew the fat with her and everything as we cooked and to have Giselle there with me as I was doing up the cinnamon rolls and teaching Angel really sort of made my morning all the more bright.

Even Iggy wasn’t a total “B” this morning and it might have been because she was stoned but my cinnamon rolls seem to stay down with her too. If they seem to help with other cancer patients I’ll have to bring some into the clinic at the hospital when I take Iggy in for those other opinions.

Yeah speaking of which I keep that in my mind as I go from baking in the back kitchen to waiting tables and helping behind the counter as Taylor does his short order magic.

I love it here, I love the fact that it’s a diner even though it could’ve been made into something else I mean it has the floor space but we’re down by the railyards and here out west they’re still a pretty good place job wise and everything plus all the spin offs too. I have always loved diners and from the clientele so do a lot of people.

And we do a little bit of everything including this morning’s special of our toasty graham pancakes or the corn beef hash.

I like the pancakes which are actually something Tim made the other day. You just take honey graham wafers and buzz them up and you spread them out in a pancake shaped on the flat top and then you pour the batter on them. And just before you flip them you dust the top of them and you get this crunchy on the outside fluffy on the inside pancake thing.

A little cream cheese instead of butter on them and syrup to cut the tart of the cheese and they’re really good.

And yes now on the specials menu.

Ingrid’s back up stairs with Giselle more mellowed out when I slipped up to check on them and their both watch TV together. I’m not sure about the idea of her getting too much TV…honestly I have no idea what’s bad or good but it’s Sesame Park so I’m giving it a pass as far as TV goes. I don’t mind TV to just do the brain off and be entertained thing but too much and you get the people I don’t like that are all a verbal bag of TV quotes and culture.

I’ll never have anything against a geek and them quoting science fiction and stuff but you have some yuppie or preppy idiot going around talking like they’re quoting “Big Brother…or Survivor or American Idol…” Just ick.

Okay maybe I might have some biases about television. I’m actually not that worried though on what Ingrid will let her watch since Ingrid was one of those read a lot activist supporting artsy gothy girls.

“Hey, I’m going to be working awhile so if you’re going to crash or blaze up call me on your phone okay and I’ll come and get Giselle.”

She blinks and she looks at me. “Yeah okay.”

“Okay? Are you feeling all right?”

“No, I feel like a loser.”

“You’re not a loser.”

“Oh? Okay you take away the fact I’m dying and the fact I was molested and just look at me and then look at you or your cousin Angel I’m a loser.”

“Well first of all No.”

“No?”

“No…those are parts of who you are Iggy, you just can’t divorce yourself from the horrible stuff that happens in your life and then say stuff like that. It’s a lie if you do.”

“And you…and all the damned fortune cookie talk you do….I don’t even care if it’s right it’s you saying it and that just pisses me off.”

Okay she’s going to be like this and in a mood so I go over and I pick Giselle up. Iggy’s glaring at me as much as she can. “What you’re taking her now?”

“You’re in a mood and honestly that’ll rub off on her like your language.”

She gives me the finger.

I ignore it.

“I’m nowhere near as perfect or as well off as you think I am Ingrid I’m just not letting it rule my life. I can’t afford to let the stuff that’s happened ruin my life.”

“See there you go again.”

“Yes there I go again. Get some sleep you’re cranky. I’ll check in on you later.”

“Yeah whatever.”

I leave and stop at the doorway. “Hey…I might be going there again Iggy but I’m not going alone. I’ll drag you with me kicking and screaming if I have to.”

“Why…? I mean why bother after all the sh… after all the stuff I did and what you’ve been through?”

“Ingrid?”

“Yeah?”

“When did I ever say that I stopped being your friend?”

Yup shocked look accomplished and I leave her with that to stew on and I take Giselle downstairs and while the girls are doing the mid morning stuff I settle into the office and I get on the computer and start looking up the stuff I need to go and study and get my GED. There’s a few good options and I’m looking at them all especially the ones set up for night classes to take like in a sort of tutored situation and the prices and the where they’re at.

I find a good one that’s pretty close being held up in the conference room of the YWCA and before I can start to second guess myself or get all nerved up about it I sign on to start in the next cycle and I use the diner’s credit card to pre-pay my fees for the classes.

I can either pay it off later or I can claim it as a business thing maybe if there’s like a tax incentive or something for sponsoring an employee to get further education.

I switch gears to mommy mode and I head downstairs to start the baking for lunch and supper which is mostly pies and bread and rolls.

Beaters and bowls of pudding and custards and fillings and fruits and sugars are great things for a little kid to play with and she’s having great fun playing “Tink” spreading sugar like pixie dust over tha apple slices and so on.

It’s going to taste better than ever really, there the laughter of a happy child in there this time.

I so want these kinds of memories for her.

I smile and blush a few times when I’m sort of getting to be a bit more of the whole mommy and little girl myself and Tay’s watching me.

I can’t help but get a little melty inside just the way he’s smiling and he’s looking at me. Love’s real when your lover, your husband, wife or just your S.O. can look at you and make you feel loved and wanted.

Wanted is huge, wanted is right up there with being worth it in your own head. Or it is with mine.

Right there’s something that helps me so much really and I don’t want to take it for granted either. Life is hard enough just living it. It get’s rougher when you’re transgendered…not saying that other don’t have it really bad either but hey it’s my experiences.

To just have someone with you and who stays with you even when things get weird or shitty and when they get hard and they see you at far from your best.

And they still care for you and still love you and haven’t run off screaming.

There’s this bit I can hang onto that says. Someone other than my own voices wants me.

And of course he has to make me all happy and teary by coming over and hugging me and does this little rocking me just because mini dance thing and kisses me.

It’s long a slow and gentle and sweet and I love every second of us and I love that Giselle is seeing this because I want her to see what love is.

God he smells good.

Guy smell…man scent with a bit of sweat but he’s still sort of freshly showered and shaved so there’s the hints of those on him but he also smells like work so there the smells of coffee and the grill on him like the hints of meat scent and onion in his clothes. It’s just all him and it’s the smell of home.

He just holds me like that awhile and Giselle is clapping and playing away in the high chair all happy and smiling at us like it’s a big funny secret she’s seeing us like this. It feels good to steal some of these happy moments for us like this.

Taylor nibbles at my neck and we dance some right there and he’s humming *Kiss from a rose.* while we’re dancing and he gives me a long kiss before we have to start to get the baked stuff out and rotated and I let him take Giselle with him out front to play at the cash with “Daddy” while I do some more baking mostly the breads and rolls since they’ve proofed but I play around too.

Tarts…I make a butter shortbread crust for them and I make sure that the tins are cold from being in the freezer first and I make a filling. I think for a bit before I come up with custard. I go with the standard recipe first but before I temper the eggs I steep and bunch of Earle Grey tea and add it really strong into the milk before I temper it with the eggs. That has such a great flavor that most people never thing of it as anything but being just for tea. I finish the flavor off with just a bit of lemon zest that’ll give it some of that taste and aroma with out the lemon juice reacting with the egg or the milk. I bake them off carefully in a waterbath until the custard is mostly done and I take them out just long enough to sprinkle some raw sugar on top and put them back in without the waterbath so the crusts get to cook and harden more.

They turn out pretty good and their English enough I do another one that’s raisins that I’m cooking and soaking in a can or three of Guinness on the stove top and I add to that some pitted dates to thicken it and I cook it down really gently so not to have too much of a mush and I fold it and a basic mix of eggs and heavy cream together to make it set up like a custard filling but be all buttery and all almost sweet creamy beer like and I top those off just before their done baking with some brown sugar and crushed walnuts and a good bit of very coarse cracked black pepper.

I did good here…one of these as a desert after a steak and a baked potato. I either want a beer to go with this which could be good but also because it’s very close to a butter tart a nice cup of black coffee would be heavenly too.

Tay came in smelling them and as soon ad the Guinness cream tarts are cool enough he’s not going top scald him he has one. He’s chewing and giving me a thumbs up before kissing me. “These…these are awesome Jenn.”

He kisses me again. “Thanks, we should use these as a special desert or something like Victoria Day or something.”

“No way these are way too good honey…after a steak or chile or roast beef dinner these will be perfect.”

“Okay…okay I just wanted to leave room for everything else we do.”

“Honestly if we have to Jenna we’ll hire a culinary student to do part time here for the baking alone. We’re going to have to adjust things anyway with Iggy being here and the baby.”

“Okay I just didn’t want to like get to where things are moving too fast for you with all of my past coming in…and well moving in with us.”

“Uhm…You do remember that you’ve been like the only one that’s actually had the guts to not run off screaming from me and my shit right Jen?”

“Okay…okay…” I smile and we Eskimo kiss a little before actually kissing and it just sort of happened…I mumble between kisses. “Where’s Giselle?”

He says around a desperate kiss. “Holly…”

And then we’re through the back doors and into the storeroom stripping off each others clothes and making very intense love…okay we were doing the F-wordy version of it but there was lots of love there too.

It’s been a few days since we’ve been really intimate with each other and while sex isn’t everything it’s still something I really, really missed in my life lately.

Seriously four days has felt like two weeks.

For Taylor too because he hand condoms in his jeans pocket and a small tube of KY. It’s a good thing since we’ve done this before here we keep an old sleeping bag around…I think he unzipped it faster than I was unzipping him.

Welcome I guess to the joys of parenthood I guess.

I’ll spare the really heavy details but I’m heading upstairs to get cleaned up very happy and glowy if wobbly legged and Taylor flips me over his shoulder and carries me the rest of the way up with me squealing and laughing into the bathroom.

We woke Iggy up and she give us both a sleepy look that has a very ow sort of think going on and I’m sorry that we might seem to be flaunting us in front of her but we really haven’t and we have lives too.

I’ll talk to her after.

After I get cleaned up…after shower sex.

After Taylor washes my hair….I know but it’s like our song, it’s just one of those things that’s us and honestly he’s really damned good at it from the actual hair stuff to the scalp massage it’s just so…orgasms…topped off by a hairgasm.

I so love my guy.

He’s out first after that and downstairs in time for lunch and I get dried off and changed and come out and look at Iggy who’s rolled over back to me on the couch faking sleep.

Okay…that’s not a bear I’m going to be poking right now. I’m in too good a mood to get into a fight with her and I head down to meet the rush too.

Half of the beer tarts are gone and he wrote in flour on the baking table more please.

Okay…more it is then I’ll talk to Iggy and get all the stuff I need for the doctors.