Short story excerpt: "A Thing for Cucumbers"

Saturday 6/22/24

She had a thing for cucumbers. Growing them, eating them, knowing when a cucumber was on the cusp of going bad and needed to be put to use before it was too late. She looked forward to the smell of cucumbers in the garden and washing the last of the dirt off of their rubbery sides in the sink and how the seeds slid around in her mouth but never got stuck between her teeth. She liked the concept of pickles but less so the taste because after all it wasn’t the true taste of a cucumber. She just felt a particular way about them. They were her thing, so far as vegetables were concerned. Corn has a certain romance for other people due to the harvest and autumn and scarecrows, but she liked summer most of all and it was undeniable that summer was the best time for cucumbers.

He, meanwhile, appreciated her avidity. She possessed a green thumb which was like the outdoors version of being handy. Plus, with all of the salads he had lost that strap of fat around his middle that he had figured he was going to be stuck with forever. Life was on a pleasing course.  

They were trying something one night because they were playful like that and a cucumber was gotten from the fridge, rinsed under the sink, and incorporated into the evening’s extracurriculars.

“Pretend it’s someone else,” he trilled, and she replied, sotto voce but sparklingly so, “Who do you want it to be?”

That was a tricky question because he didn’t have an answer pre-planned and if you said, “I don’t know” or “You pick,” you lost the flow. But fortunately he got an idea within spontaneity’s window which also kept the color motif intact and in a fateful moment of presumed triumph he crowed, “The Green Giant,” and in almost the whole cucumber went. It was a nice night.

Later that weekend his parents came over for dinner. Salad was served before the grilling of the fish. Both of his parents commented as to the deliciousness of this leafy delight and sincerely at that. It was one of those evenings that everyone in attendance understands has a possible bearing on the future and no one could say it wasn’t going well.

The maker of the delicious salad replied, “I’m so glad you like it, the cucumbers are from our little garden,” and she gave her boyfriend a big, “You-remember-the-third-party-who-penetrated-me” type of wink across the table and it was then, in a moment of coruscating horror and confusion worsened by the looks of repasting delight on his parents’ faces, their jaws in happy, bobbing motion, that he knew the cucumber from last night’s adventuring had made it—albeit chopped up, but made it all the same—to the salad bowl.