Home from the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart Mclean Page A

believe you did that,” said Morley. She was looking at him over the book. “Two pair? Really?”
    “You know what I found in the bathroom?” said Dave.
    Morley put her book down on the bed. She was sitting up. Looking at him.

    The next Friday, when Dave went to feed the starter, he thought maybe it didn’t smell quite the same as it had the week before, but it was hard to tell. He didn’t want to touch it with his fingers, so he got a fork and poked at it. He decided it was just his imagination. He put another spoonful of the flour into the jar like before and went into the den to look at Carl’s books.

    The third Friday he went directly to Carl’s on his way home from work. He was feeling good—happy because on Saturday he was leaving with Morley and the kids for Montreal. They were going to St.-Sauveur in the Laurentian Mountains for a long weekend ski trip. He was going to feed the starter and go home and pack. He fished the jar out of the fridge and gasped when he opened it.
    He ran to the phone.
    Morley answered on the third ring.
    “The starter,” said Dave. “The starter.”
    “Who is this?” said Morley.
    “It’s me,” said Dave. “I’m at Carl’s. Something is wrong with the starter.”
    Something was terribly wrong with the starter. Instead of resembling a bowl of moist oatmeal, it looked hard and dry.
    “And white,” said Dave. “It’s all dried up. I think it’s dead.”
    “You sound like you’re reporting a murder.”
    “I am,” said Dave. “It’s dead. It smells.”
    “It’s supposed to smell,” said Morley.
    “Not like this,” said Dave. “It smells horrible. Like chemicals. Like a jar of solid smog. It smells like death. What am I supposed to do?”
    When Morley arrived, it took her under a minute to figure out what had gone wrong.
    “This is what you’ve been feeding it?” she said, holding up the brown paper bag Dave had found by the phone.
    “Yes,” said Dave.
    “Spackle,” said Morley.
    “Polyfilla?” said Dave.
    “That’s what it says here on the bag,” said Morley.
    It was written neatly in Gerta’s handwriting.
    Dave sat down and stared out the kitchen window.
    The Lowbeers were due home Sunday evening. “What am I going to do?” said Dave.
    “I don’t know, but it’s going to be interesting,” said Morley. She was standing by the counter opening the dog containers. “She has brown sugar in the Coffee dog.”

    Later that night Morley was standing in her bedroom trying to stuff an extra ski sweater into one of the kids’ suitcases.
    “You’re leaving,” said Dave. “No matter what—right?”
    “Right,” she said.
    “Right,” said Dave.
    He went downstairs and stared at the phone. Ten minutes later, he called Kenny Wong.
    “I think I have a recipe for sourdough starter,” said Kenny.
    “I’m coming over,” said Dave.
    When Dave got to Kenny’s restaurant, Kenny was waiting for him with a book, a bottle of buttermilk, a hair dryer, and a bottle of Scotch.
    “We’ve got to get going,” Kenny said. “It takes three days to make sourdough starter.”
    “We’ve only got two,” said Dave.
    “That’s what the hair dryer is for,” said Kenny.
    When they got to Carl’s, Kenny rubbed his hands together and said, “First things first.” He started opening cupboardsuntil he found the glasses. He poured two big tumblers of Scotch and propped his cookbook open on the kitchen counter. It was called
Cooking Wizardry for Kids: Learn About Food … While Making Tasty Things to Eat!
    Kenny smiled and held up his Scotch. “I get all my best stuff from this book,” he said.
    “You can’t be serious,” said Dave.
    There was a moment of silence. Kenny and Dave stared deep into each other’s eyes.
    By three in the morning Dave and Kenny were anything but serious. They were still at step one of the recipe—waiting for a cup of buttermilk to warm and collect bacteria from the kitchen air, as the recipe called for, in the natural