Bodie hunched his narrow shoulders and hung his head to hide the blush rising up his neck, but he kept moving toward the front door.
Uncle Royce half levered his bulk out of a protesting Laz-Y-Boy. “You answer your mother now, Boy. And no sass.”
“Yes, sir.” Bodie slowed a fraction and said, “Going to see Leesha.” Then he just darted through the door, leaving behind the rising bellow from Uncle Royce’s chair and the shocked stares of the rest of the cousins.
“Now, hush.” Aunt Mason appeared in the kitchen doorway. “You got your blood pressure to think about.” She swept into the living room, snapped up the remote, and flipped the TV back to the Macy’s parade. “You want some iced tea? I’ll get you some tea.”
Aunt Mason cast a critical eye over the assortment of lumpy cousins slouched in front of the TV. “And you,” she said. “The rest of you go on outside and rake some leaves. Make yourselves useful.”
She gave my arm a little tap and said, “Come on and help me in the kitchen.”
I trailed behind the double-wide polyester steam train that was my aunt, past the dining room table that was set with her mother’s lace tablecloth and blue-and-white china and on into the kitchen, where the makings of our day were staged. Cans of cranberry sauce and candied yams crowded next to heaped-up plastic bags of tiny marshmallows and heat-and-serve rolls.
Behind me, I could hear Uncle Royce grumbling: “Wouldn’t catch a boy from decent family running off to see a girl like that in my day. High yaller gal like that? Not in my day.” With a satisfied grunt, he flipped the channel back to his movie.
I wasn’t sure what “high yaller” meant. It sounded like one of those words that made my mother’s lips squeeze into a tight line and her eyes go all funny.
“Aunt Mason, what is Uncle Royce talking about?”
She stopped moving for just a moment and looked at me kind of thoughtful. But all she said was, “Come over here, peel these hard-boiled eggs, and cut them up for the gravy.”
“In half?”
“No, in slices. Like this. See?” My aunt wiped her hands on her apron, grabbed the pitcher of sweet tea, and bustled back out of the kitchen.
A hot stinging pricked behind my eyelids and I concentrated real hard on those eggs. Little bits of shell kept sticking, first to the slippery white egg skin and then to my fingers. After a while I started to hate those eggs. No one would tell me anything. We didn’t live in New York any more. I didn’t. I lived here, and my mom lived in some place else now.
At home Mom and I always watched the Macy’s parade on the little black and white TV that perched on the end of the dining room table.
“Look at Rocky,” she’d say. “Always pick the smart one. Better than Bullwinkle. Big and dumb won’t help you at all.”
“But I like Bullwinkle,” I’d say. “He's got a good heart.” She’d just shake her head.
A gust of warm, humid air came into the kitchen through the back door, along with the lumpiest of the cousins: Bobby. “Hey. Can I have a Coca-Cola?”
He talked slow, like he had to think about it before the words would come out. And he just stood there staring down at me, his squashed-up face looking like someone had smashed it when he was a baby and it never filled back out again.
The AC kicked on with a whoosh and a hum, muting the shouts and jeers of the cousins fighting a mock battle in the yard. I couldn't look up at Bobby and his stupid squashed-up face or cut up another disgusting egg. Double-time march, I stomped into living room, grabbed the remote from my uncle’s hand, and flipped the TV back to the parade. Uncle Royce looked at me with his mouth half open, kind of shocked like. Then he got up and walked out of the room, calling out for my aunt.
I hunkered down on the ugly olive-green carpet in front of the TV and wrapped my arms around my knees. Bullwinkle is an idiot.
—Kathy Lyon
19 June
No comments:
Post a Comment