The 25¢ Miracle by Theresa Nelson

Author:Theresa Nelson [Nelson, Theresa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theresa Nelson
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

There was so much to do.…

Elvira spent all of Tuesday morning sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the magazine rack at the U-Totem, poring over every magazine that had a food section. She had to find the ideal menu for the dinner party—something delicious and exciting and unforgettable and cheap. Cheap, mainly. That pretty well eliminated some of her first choices: “crown roast of lamb” and “brandied steak” and “roast loin of pork St. Cloud”.… Elvira loved the sound of that last one, especially. “St. Cloud”… But she had seen the meat prices at Kroger. Hamburger Helper was more her speed.

She was just about to give up on a magazine called Kitchens of America when she came to a page with the headline: NEED A LITTLE ROMANCE IN YOUR LIFE? LUIGI INVITES YOU TO ITALY FOR THE EVENING! Under the words was a big color picture of a beautiful woman and a handsome man at a table for two. It looked as if they were floating in the air somehow or other, in front of some Italian-type city. Their eyes sparkled in the candlelight. There was a checkered tablecloth on the table and a crystal vase filled with roses and long-stemmed wine glasses half-filled with ruby-red wine and gilt-edged dinner plates piled high with spaghetti.

It was just an ad for Luigi’s Spaghetti Sauce. That was all. But Elvira knew right away that it was perfect. That man and that woman were looking at each other just the way she wanted Miss Ivy and Hank to look at each other. And spaghetti was just the thing, too—it was tasty, it wasn’t too hard to fix, it was cheap—it was perfect. Another inspiration.

Elvira looked at the picture for a long time, trying to memorize every detail. Spaghetti and bread and salad and wine and… what about dessert? They had to have dessert, didn’t they? Elvira laid down Kitchens of America (carefully, so as not to lose the magic picture) and thumbed through three more magazines before she found the answer. It was another picture—a picture of a lemon meringue pie—so lovely and luscious looking that it almost brought tears to her eyes. CREATE THE ULTIMATE DESSERT, said the caption. IT’S SIMPLE WITH CARLSON CORNSTARCH.

The ultimate dessert. Well. That was the one, all right.

Elvira couldn’t afford to buy the magazines, but she had brought along her spiral notebook, so she copied down the recipe for the pie and made notes about the spaghetti ad: “Checkered tablecloth, drippy candle stuck in fat bottle, salid, Italyun bread, roses…”

Oh, it was going to be a wonderful dinner—a beautiful dinner—a perfect dinner!

She spent the afternoon at Kroger, finding out how much everything was going to cost. She made a list and added it up:

Ground beef (1 pound) — $1.49

Spagetty (1 box) — .59

Luigi’s Sp. Sauce — 2.29

Italyun bread — 1.19

Lemons (4 for) — 1.00

Cornstarch — .47

Lettuce — .89

Salid dressing — 1.05

Candle — .99

$9.96

Nine dollars and ninety-six cents! And not even counting the tax! That was cutting it pretty close.

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