Hold the Mayo

Mary paced in front of the window waiting for Nico to enter the apartment.  She’d seen him parking the car and watched as he’d sat there gripping the steering wheel with his head down.   When he finally came in the apartment she’d let out an audible sigh.

“Jeez, you’re so dramatic” he said and headed towards the kitchen.  

Letting out another sigh she followed him and glowered as he started to make a sandwich.  

“So I’m a drama queen now because I care about punctuality” she said

He shook his head as he spread mayo on the bread, she hated mayo, he didn’t care for it much but knew she loathed it and he knew she wouldn’t steal a bite of it.  He continue to slather it all over the bread.

She stood there waiting for him to respond as she watched with disgust as he put another glob on of mayo on the baguette.

“You’re control freak, you always want people to do things on your terms” he retorted.  

This elicited a low hiss that turned into a chuckle.  

“If I was such a control freak there wouldn’t be any mayonnaise in this house and you’d have better manners”.

Nico had begun to layer on meats and cheese to the bread, that “manners” jab hit him as he was slapping down the capicola.

“Just because my dad drove a bus and my mother worked at the plant, you think you’re better than me, that I was raised by poor heathens”.  Down went a quarter pound of salami,

Mary rolled her eyes, “oh here we go again, I’m not going to cry for the little poor boy who’s about to eat $10 worth of Jarlsberg.  I’m supposed to excuse your behavior because your parents were blue-collar?”

“Better blue-collar than blue-blood” he said under his breath as he searched for the serrated knife.  The sandwich was so stuffed he had to press down hard to saw through it.

She watched as he struggled to cut the mighty sandwich.  They could have been eating chateau briand and a nice syrah but once again he’d managed to let her down.  And she’d heard his little quip.  “What, you’re more noble than me because I grew up in a nicer house?  Spare me your humble upbringing speech.  I think we both know what you prefer.”

He looked at her over the top of the sandwich just as he went to take the first bite, all he could taste was the tang of the mayo.  How long had it been in the fridge?

“You think I’ve forgotten where I come from”? He said, bits of bread flew from his mouth.  She stared incredulously.  One quick intake of air and he’d choke.  She watched as he angrily chewed through the multi-layered sandwich.  Mary was hungry but didn’t ask for a bite, the thought of the mayo made her stomach turn.  When had they bought that anyway?