“To hell with mayonnaise” by Evgenia Karabatova, a "Mayonnaise" contest winner

My Creative Writing Contest "Mayonnaise" has come to its inevitable end, which is good because I can finally share the amazing stories by the amazing winners! The prompt for the contest was simple: Write a story that ends with the word "Mayonnaise."

I am beyond thrilled to present another winner Evgenia Karabatova and share her story "To hell with mayonnaise." See her interpretation of the prompt and enjoy her story!

✽✽✽

To hell with mayonnaise

He flinched when she said he couldn’t have mayonnaise. You wouldn’t even notice it since it wasn’t a real flinch but more of a slight movement of his brow following eye following cheek following lip. However, five years of unprecedented togetherness taught her to detect any little change in her husband’s facial expression. She couldn’t miss it. At that moment they heard a loud thud from the nursery followed by a piercing shriek.

“Bottle overboard”, she muttered knowingly. “I hate that game.”

She stood up quickly, the chair scraping loudly over the laminate, and went to pick up the screaming infant from her crib. They had another round of colic coming.

“Do you want me to bounce her?” He asked when she came back with their little bundle of misery, red-faced and tear-streaked, kicking, jerking, and arching her back altogether.

“Just eat your salad.”

Yeah, the salad with no fucking mayonnaise. Who the hell eats the Waldorf salad without any mayo? What was he supposed to put there? Olive oil and vinegar? His daughter’s screams escalated. He wanted to scream with her, and he did, however silently. Maybe he could even wail. Of course, silently as well. Instead, he sniffed the air and nodded towards the cooker, “I think something’s burning.”

“Shit!” She jumped with the baby; the chair scraped on the hardwood floor some more. He never told her that deep in his gut he feared they’d wear a groove from constant pacing and scraping and will have to re-do the finish.

He turned back to his salad. Not like he was gonna eat that rabbit food anyway. Apparently, his wife was on some kick again. First, there were little six-ounce cups of plain yogurt in which she stirred bee pollen. Then she started buying those little crunchy things from the Asian market. Now was the mayo’s turn. Was she trying to compensate for her usual morning double-or-better-make-it-triple shot of caffeine she couldn’t have anymore since it seemed to upset their daughter’s digestion so much?

The baby howled like there was no tomorrow. He prayed silently ‘Bounce, pat, sway. Rub her back. Rock. Sway some more.’

“I burned the gravy,” she signed heavily.

“That’s OK, I don’t like the gravy.”

‘Since when?’, she wanted to ask thinking of hundreds of gravy-smothered meals she saw him eating and immediately mentally kicked herself. Don’t go there. She was staring fixedly at the blackened sludge at the bottom of the saucepan, the baby whining in her arms.

“Yes, you do,” slipped from her mouth before she could stop it.

Defeated, he raised his eyes and met her hard stare.

“So, is this some kind of cold shoulder? All because I asked for the mayonnaise?”

“Not everything is about you,” she scoffed.

“You don’t say!” He cut her short. “It sure looks like it is.”

“Oh, that is so you! Guess what? The world doesn’t revolve around you!” She drew in a shaky breath and turned her back to him. “It’s even comforting to see that you haven’t changed a bit since we met,” she added sarcastically. The baby shrieked and kicked so hard that one tiny sock flew off.

Ever since Amy was born, the kitchen turned into a culinary shrine. Pots and pans always had something boiling, simmering, and bubbling in them, and his other half was constantly chopping, grating, or mixing. Even now he could hear something hissing in the skillet on the burner. Add it to her weird, hormone-changed taste buds and all that “no mayo” crap she was pulling on him.

It was a mystery to him how the woman who could hardly toss a salad turned into a gourmet freak. However, here he was, in the front row of his own Hell’s Kitchen reality show. She said it was emergency preparedness. She had to put some food in the freezer to spend more time with her family. She had responsibilities. As if she didn’t have them before. God, he never would’ve pegged his wife for a freezer type of woman. Weren’t newly minted mothers supposed to nap along with their babies? Apparently, not in this case.

A maelstrom of emotions was coursing through him. Like an avalanche it was about to sweep away the two of them. Three if you count a baby. Thoughts about snow instantly filled his head with pictures of Aspen where he used to go skiing but hadn’t been since they met. Skiing (Alas!) was the last thing on her mind when it came to planning whatever time off they had.

Oh, to hell with Aspen! He was bound to die in that snowy storm from starvation, dehydration, lack of oxygen, but, first and foremost, humiliation because she would most certainly find a way to blame it all on him. He felt like one of those criminals who suffered from severe chemical imbalances and couldn’t distinguish right from wrong but instead of being put under supervised medical conditions ended up sentenced to life or even worse to death. As a result, he had no idea how to handle his wife’s crazy, psycho mood swings.

He wished he could pinpoint the exact moment when things went downhill. Clenching his jaw hard he stopped himself from answering back. She still could do that - render him speechless, maddeningly furious and on the verge of tears at the same time. When she turned, he didn’t avert his gaze and she could see the mixture of hurt and confusion in his eyes. Yet his words were clipped, a hard edge in his tone.

“I don’t know why you are taking it out on me. You are so goddamned infuriating to be around sometimes! Jesus Christ, mayonnaise!”

“You know my stance towards eating that greasy food. One day your arteries will be so clogged that…Don’t you dare roll your eyes at me! I know what I’m talking about! I am a doctor, for crying out loud!”

“And all your patients are dead.”

He intended it as an insult but somehow it came out exactly the opposite. Fascinated, he saw how the smile started playing at the corners of her mouth, slowly breaking into a wide grin, then growing broader before she finally burst out laughing.

Adorable. Infectious. Deep loudy hearty laughter. With a glimpse of tears at the corners of her eyes. He started laughing with her. The baby stopped crying and was turning her head with amusement from one parent to another.

“Well, that makes sense since I'm a medical examiner.” She hiccupped.

“Come ‘ere,” he reached out and she stepped into his arms. “You know, a bit of mayonnaise won’t harm. And we can always call for takeout if we are in a bind.” He cupped the back of her neck, their foreheads touching, the baby in between.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice barely audible. “I didn’t mean to be short with you today.”

“Whatever is wrong, we’ll find a way to fix it.” He whispered caressing the skin of her cheek with his mouth until finally settling on her lips. “We are no good apart.”

The kiss was a promise. Yes, they are no good apart. They are worth a second chance. A third and fourth and every damn chance possible. He would tend her broken wings, and she would tend his. What was it his father used to repeat all the time? Try again, fail again, fail better. He had no inkling of how to fail again, let alone fail better. But he was fucking willing to try. All in all, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

To hell with mayonnaise.

✽✽✽

Make sure to watch our live stream with all the winners to get some inspiration and some valuable writing tips on how to write a winning story.

And absolutely make sure to read more stories from the contest:
- "It will leave a stain" by Irina Lutsenko (me)
- "Hypnotized" by Elizaveta Zanozina

- "Etude" by Vera Novikova

- "How to fail (the IELTS exam)" by Natalia Larchenko


Image credit: Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash