Indicating the can of Budweiser on the table, the girl said, “If beer’s good enough for Micky, it’s good enough for me.” Geneva poured lemonade. “Pretend it’s Budweiser.” To Micky, Leilani said, “She thinks I’m a child.” “You are a child.”
“Depends on your definition of child.” “Anyone twelve or younger.”
“Oh, that’s sad. You resorted to an arbitrary number. That reveals a shallow capacity for independent thought and analysis.”
“Okay,” said Micky, “then try this one on for size. You’re a child because you don’t yet have boobs.”
Leilani winced. “Unfair. You know that’s one of my sore points.” “No sore points. No points at all,” Micky observed. “Flat as a slice of the Swiss cheese on that platter.”
“Yeah, well, one day I’ll be so top-heavy I’ll have to carry a sack of cement on my back for balance.”
To Micky, Aunt Gen said, “Isn’t she something?” “She’s an absolute, no-doubt-about-it, fine young mutant.” “Dinner’s ready,” Geneva announced. “Cold salads and sandwich fixings. Not very fancy, but right for the weather.”
“Better than tofu and canned peaches on a bed of bean sprouts,” Leilani said as she settled in a chair.
“What wouldn’t be?” Geneva wondered.
“Oh, lots of things. Old Sinsemilla may be a lousy mother, but she can take pride in being an equally lousy cook.”
Switching off the overhead lights to save money and to avoid adding heat to the kitchen, Geneva said, “We’ll use candles later.”
Now, at seven o’clock, the summer-evening sun was red-gold and still so fierce at the open window that the shadows, which draped but didn’t cool the kitchen, were no darker than lavender and umber.
Seated, bowing her head, Geneva offered a succinct but heart felt prayer: “Thank you, God, for providing us with all we need and for giving us the grace to be satisfied with what we have.”
“I’ve got trouble with the satisfied part,” Leilani said.
Micky reached across the dinette table, and the girl responded without hesitation: They slapped palms in a modified high-five.
“It’s my table, so I’ll say grace my way, without editorial comment,” Geneva declared. “And when I’m drinking pina coladas on a palm-shaded terrace in Heaven, what will they be serving in Hell?”
“Probably this lemonade,” said Leilani.
Spooning pasta salad onto her plate, Micky said, “So, Leilani, you and Aunt Gen have been hanging out?”
“Most of the day, yeah. Mrs. D is teaching me all about sex.”
“Girl, don’t say such things!” Geneva admonished. “Someone will believe you. We were playing five-hundred rummy.”
“I would have let her win,” said Leilani, “out of courtesy and respect for her advanced age, but before I had a chance, she won by cheating.”
“Aunt Gen always cheats,” Micky confirmed.
“Good thing we weren’t playing Russian roulette,” Leilani said. “My brains would be all over the kitchen.”
“I don’t cheat.” Gen’s sly look was worthy of a Mafia accountant testifying before a congressional committee. “I just employ advanced and complex techniques.”
“When you notice those pina coladas are garnished with live, poisonous centipedes,” Micky warned, “maybe you’ll realize your palm-shaded terrace isn’t in Heaven.”
Aunt Gen used a paper napkin to blot her brow. “Don’t flatter yourself that I’m sweating with guilt. It’s the heat.”
Leilani said, “This is great potato salad, Mrs. D.”
“Thank you. Are you sure your mother wouldn’t like to join us?”
“No. She’s wasted on crack cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms. The only way old Sinsemilla could get here is crawl, and if she tried to eat anything in her condition, she’d just puke it up.”
Geneva frowned at Micky, and Micky shrugged. She didn’t know whether these tales of Sinsemilla’s debauchery were truth or fantasy, although she suspected wild exaggeration. Tough talk and wisecracks could be a cover for low self esteem. From childhood at least through adolescence, Micky herself had been Familiar with that strategy.
“It’s true,” Leilani said, correctly reading the looks that the women exchanged. “We’ve only lived beside you three days. Give old Sinsemilla a little time, and you’ll see.”
“Drugs do terrible damage,” Aunt Gen said with sudden solemnity. “I was in love with this man in Chicago once… ” “Aunt Gen,” Micky cautioned.
Sadness found a surprisingly easy purchase in Geneva’s smooth, fair, freckled face. “He was so handsome, so sensitive—“
Sighing, Micky got up to retrieve a second beer from the refrigerator.
“_but he was on the needle,” Geneva said. “Heroin. A loser in everyone’s eyes but mine. I just knew he could be redeemed.”
“That’s monumentally romantic, Mrs. D, but as my mother’s proved with numerous doper boyfriends, it always ends badly with junkies.”
“Not in this case,” said Geneva. “I saved him.” “You did? How?”
“Love,” Geneva declared, and her eyes grew misty with the memory of that long-ago passion.
Popping open a Budweiser, Micky returned to her chair. “Aunt Gen, this sensitive junkie from Chicago… wasn’t he Frank Sinatra?”
“Seriously?” Leilani’s eyes widened. Her hand paused with a forkful of pasta halfway between plate and mouth. “The dead singer?”
“He wasn’t dead then,” Geneva assured the girl. “He hadn’t even begun to lose his hair yet.”
“The compassionate young woman who saved him from the needle,” Micky pressed, “was she you, Aunt Gen … or was she Kim Novak?”
Geneva’s face puckered in puzzlement. “I was attractive in my day, but I was never in Kim Novak’s league.”
“Aunt Gen, you’re thinking of The Man with the Golden Arm. Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak. It hit theaters sometime in the 1950s.” Geneva’s puzzlement dissolved into a smile. “You’re absolutely right, dear. I never had a romantic relationship with Sinatra, though if he’d ever come around, I’m not sure I could have resisted him.”
Returning the untouched forkful of pasta salad to her plate, Leilani looked to Micky for an explanation.
Enjoying the girl’s perplexity, Micky shrugged. “I’m not sure I could have resisted him, either.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop teasing the child,” Geneva said. “You’ll have to forgive me, Leilani. I’ve had these memory problems now and then, ever since I was shot in the head. A few wires got scrambled up here”—she tapped her right temple—“and sometimes old movies seem as real to me as my own past.”
“Could I have more lemonade?” Leilani asked.
“Of course, dear.” Geneva poured from a glass pitcher that dripped icy condensation.
Micky watched their guest take a long drink. “Don’t try to fool me, mutant girl. You’re not so cool that you can roll with that one.”
Putting down the lemonade, Leilani relented: “Oh, all right. I’ll bite. When were you shot in the head, Mrs. D?”
“This July third, just passed, made eighteen years.”
“Aunt Gen and Uncle Vernon owned a little corner grocery,” Micky explained, “which is like being targets in a shooting gallery if it’s on the wrong corner.”
“The day before the July Fourth holiday,” Geneva said, “you sell lots of lunchmeats and beer. It’s mostly a cash business.”
“And someone wanted the cash,” Leilani guessed.
“He was a perfect gentleman about it,” Geneva recalled.
“Except for the shooting.”
“Well, yes, except for that,” Geneva agreed. “But he came up to the cash register with this lovely smile. Well dressed, soft-spoken. He says, ‘I’d be really grateful if you’d give me the money in the register, and please don’t forget the large bills under the drawer.’ “
