The Hard Sell
The room was dark, the bed was warm and the occupants were fast asleep. Emily was in a deep and dreamless sleep. Ross was dreaming that he was giving a demonstration at the museum.
'Dinosaurs,' he said in his dream, 'Had culture. Evidence that they did the paintings in the Lescaux caves has recently been confirmed…' As his dream voice spoke, his dream mind wondered how he knew this fact, although he was not greatly surprised at the fact itself, because, as his dream voice was saying, in all seriousness, 'We all know that the Brachiosaurus had opposable thumbs.' Of course. The audience was all nodding, and he heard the sound of a doorbell, which he knew meant that even more people were wanting to attend the lecture. 'We're – ' he called out.
He sat up suddenly, fully awake.
' – full,' he said, at the sound of the doorbell. The room was still dark. The clock said 5:20. That dream was pretty intense, he thought, wondering why he'd dreamed that the museum had doorbells indoors. The doorbell rang again. That was not the after effect of a dream, that was the real thing.
Who wanted to ring the doorbell at 5:20 in the morning? He reached a hand out beside him and found Emily, who didn't move at his touch. He heard a fire alarm in the distance, outside the curtained windows of their bedroom, and the thought that there might be a fire in their building made him shake Emily vigorously.
'Wake up, Em!' Ross exclaimed.
'?' Emily said as she went through the process of who-am-I-where-am-I-why-have-I-been-woken-up-so-suddenly.
'Someone's ringing the doorbell. It could be a fire!'
'What?' She jumped out of bed and tripped over the pyjama bottoms that she'd kicked out of bed.
'Emily!' Ross exclaimed, rushing out of bed to help her up. 'Are you all right?'
'Think so,' she said, still sounding groggy from sleep. The doorbell rang again. 'Hadn't we better see who it is?' She started groping around for the light and Ross switched it on for her.
'I'll go,' he said and went out to answer the door.
Monica was at the doorway.
'At last, I thought you'd never get the door,' she said coming in. Ross stared. Something had to be seriously wrong for her to be over at the apartment at such an unGodly hour.
'What's wrong?' Ross asked. Monica was being amazingly calm about whatever disaster had just befallen her.
'Wrong?' she said, as Emily came into the main area, wearing a dressing gown.
'Monica!' she exclaimed, 'What's wrong?' Monica looked at both of them as though they were both strange.
'Why are you both asking me if something's wrong?' Her hand flew to her face, 'Oh my God, do I look sick?'
'No,' Emily said, but Monica rushed to the mirror to be sure. 'It's just that you're early to be visiting.'
'Very early,' Ross said, thinking Emily was being too restrained.
'Oh I know I'm a little early,' Monica said.
'A little!' Ross exclaimed, 'Do you know what time it is? It's 5:20!' Maybe a bit later, but not late enough for Monica to call it a reasonable time. Monica was frowning.
'But I said we'd be going shopping today, you both knew I was coming over. I said five thirty.' There was a silence.
'Five thirty,' Emily said. She had indeed said five thirty, but Emily had thought what most people thought when they spoke of meeting at five thirty. 'But that was five thirty pm.'
'Oh you can't buy good fruit and vegetables at that time of the day,' Monica laughed. 'You have to get over to the markets in good time, before the regular shoppers get there. Of course I mean five thirty in the morning.' Both Ross and Emily were staring at her. 'I'll wait here while you get dressed,' Monica said, sitting down. Ross and Emily exchanged a look. Emily gave a slight shrug and went back to the bedroom to dress.
On the way to the markets, Monica explained her theory of shopping for fruit and vegetables to Emily, who listened politely, even though she didn't recognise many of the names of some of the vegetables that Monica was talking about. Monica was pleased that she had such an attentive audience.
She hadn't been so pleased yesterday when, in a flush of enthusiasm for culinary reform, she had tried to interest Rachel in the project.
'I could fix both of you up together. It would do you good. You could use a little help in that department.' There was another, ulterior motive of Monica's involved. It seemed to her that relations between Rachel and Emily were still not far advanced from a mere truce. They tolerated each other, and interacted with each other in company, but didn't seek each other out especially. Someone always had to be the glue to get them together, but it wasn't always simple. Monica knew that she had to be careful, dividing her attention carefully between best friend and her sister in law. She knew that Rachel had not liked the number of shopping trips that Monica had taken alone with Emily, although she hadn't gone so far as to say so, because it would sound childish to complain. But that didn't mean she didn't have the feelings. Ever since she had sensed this feeling of Rachel's, Monica had been careful to invite her to every single thing she did with Emily, unless there was a good reason not to.
Rachel hadn't reacted with any interest in the cooking project, so Monica brought out what she had thought would be the hook.
'We're going shopping tomorrow, do you want to come?' She succeeded in raising a slight interest.
'When and where?' Rachel asked, 'I might have to stay back late at work tomorrow.'
'That won't be a problem,' Monica said confidently, and told her.
'I don't think I'll butt in,' Rachel said quickly, 'You two need to bond.' Of course, the real reason was that Rachel hadn't wanted to get up so early. But it was great to get up early, Monica thought, you got so much more out of the day. She felt sorry for people, commuting to work at 8:30 in the morning. She too would look miserable if she hadn't done anything with her day by then.
At the markets, she explained to Emily how to choose tomatoes and then had her choose some.
'No,' she said, shaking her head, at what Emily had selected, 'I know those look nice, but see, they don't had the firmness that's required.'
'How about these ones?' said a woman who had been eavesdropping on the lesson. She gave two to Monica who said,
'This one is good, that one is not so good. See if you can tell the difference.' She handed the tomatoes back to the other woman who said,
'Ah, yes, I see it now. This one has a better consistency.'
'There aren't many good tomatoes on this stall at all,' Monica said.
'Lady,' said the stall owner, 'How can I have any good tomatoes when people like you come and paw over the stock?'
'I have not been pawing over the stock,' Monica exclaimed, outraged. 'I've just been checking it…'
'Checking it!' the stall owner said, 'You've been making tomato sauce! And defaming me. You're losing me customers.' Whether he was losing customers, he was certanly gaining an audience. 'You can pay for those tomatoes you and your friend have been pawing over and beat it,' the stall owner demanded.
But Monica thought that the morning had been a success, in spite of that. Emily had learned a few things. It was a pity that they had ended up buying so much stuff that they didn't need, but the stall keepers were so unreasonable about education. Even so, she was ready to do something with all of the stuff they had bought, but when Emily fell asleep on the subway, she admitted that perhaps, they might start the actual cooking lessons on another day.