The Last Suspicious Holdout by Ladee Hubbard

Author:Ladee Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Five People Who Crave Sauce

(1999)

1.

Ever since she was a little girl Desiree poured ketchup on her ham and eggs and sausage and hash browns and pork chops and hot dogs and hamburgers and meatloaf and tuna melts and chicken fingers and catfish and corn fritters and onion rings and come to think of it anything fried. They were all missing something and somehow that sweet and savory, tart and tangy taste almost always did the trick. Throughout her childhood she’d stared down at the plates set before her then up into the eyes of the various loved ones who’d prepared her meals and thought to herself, No offense but this needs ketchup.

Then, one night when she was older, left to her own devices and really, really broke, she found herself standing alone in the kitchen of the tiny apartment she shared with her husband, Craig. She opened the refrigerator and stood blinking at the harsh light that flashed above empty white shelving units stained with soy sauce, coffee grounds, and the hard, cracked edge of what once had been a perfectly edible wedge of cheese. Hungry, she thought and grabbed a bottle of ketchup.

She squirted it onto a plate. Last lick, she thought. Was there anything more satisfying than a last lick? The way when she was finished eating she always scooped what was left onto her finger and put it into her mouth because she wanted that to be the taste that stayed with her when she stood up from the table. She grabbed a fork, walked into the living room, and clicked on the TV. Then sat on the couch sucking on metal prongs and waiting to feel full.

After a while she couldn’t help but realize that something was missing, that what she had smeared across her plate was not, technically, food. She put down her fork and looked around her empty apartment. Ketchup was perfect, yes, but the word she was looking for was compliment.

Such was the nature of sauce. It was an enhancer, a taste-bringer-outer. Even the most delicious and universally admired wanted in its essence to be a part of something larger than itself. It craved merger, could only truly be itself or realize its full potential in the presence of the other—no matter how indistinct or ultimately bland that other was.

She stared at the TV and waited for her husband to come home.

At some point during the next four hours it occurred to Desiree that she could always pour it into a bowl and add water, heat it up and call it soup. But that seemed like unnecessary subterfuge at that point.

She picked up her fork, dipped it back into her plate of ketchup. And that was what she had for dinner.

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