sniffing her panties and being pitiful ever since.”
I lathered my hands.
Dothan stared at me in the mirror. “Maurey’ll never let you have sloppy seconds. Everyone knows she takes your money and doesn’t give shit back.”
I held the button with my left hand and rinsed the right, then switched off the other way.
“If I paid for her queer brother’s funeral, I’d at least get a blow job,” Dothan said.
Holding my hands up, I walked to the hot-air dryer and punched it on with my elbow. Over the
Dothan laughed heartily as he headed for the door. Halfway through, he turned back and said, “Maurey’s laughing at you, son. Just like me and everybody else.”
Dothan’s bimbo was first off the plane and across the runway. She had zit-red hair with black roots and wore a yellow halter thing and tight pants that were totally inappropriate for winter. The two of them kissed and rubbed against each other in a disgusting public display of affection made all the more poignant by the fact her husband was off in a hospital somewhere with cancer.
“Are we friends?” I asked Maurey.
She was watching Dothan and the tramp. “Of course we’re friends.”
“You aren’t laughing at me behind my back?”
Maurey touched my arm. “You’ve been listening to Dothan again. When are you going to learn he’s nothing but a dildo with ears.”
“You’re right.”
“There she is.”
Shannon came off the plane, wearing a yoked down jacket and some kind of jeans that weren’t Levi’s or Wranglers. As she made her way down the steps, she was talking to an older, gentlemanly type with a mustache and a cane. Shannon looked confident and composed, at home in her element. Nineteen-year-old women weren’t composed when I was nineteen.
Maurey said, “Airport scenes are so much nicer when the passengers walk down the steps and across the runway. Those tunnels took the romance out of flight.”
Shannon said good-bye to the old man and came bouncing across the runway and I had that
Then she burst through the double doors, all smiles and laughs. I think for a moment she forgot she was here for a funeral. She gave me a two-handed hug and a kiss on the cheek, then she moved on to Maurey. They hadn’t seen each other since summer, and Shannon finally remembered Pete and the purpose of the trip, so the hugs were spirited and meaningful.
“I appreciate you coming,” Maurey said.
Shannon’s brown eyes went smoky. “Uncle Pete was always nice to me. When I was little he used to send me flowers on Valentine’s.”
I didn’t remember that. It seemed like something I should remember.
Maurey said, “More than once Pete told me you were the only thing I ever got right,” and they hugged again.
Shannon had brought two suitcases plus her carry-on, so we had to wait at the conveyor belt surrounded by skiers in off-colored clothes. They talked loudly about inches and runs. I glared at boys who were checking out my daughter. Maurey got as many looks as Shannon, but I figured I had no right to glare at Maurey’s bunch. She was old enough to handle oglers without my help.
As often as they talked on the telephone, you’d think Shannon and Maurey wouldn’t have that much left to catch up on, but the moment I finished the how-was-your-flight formalities they launched into mother-daughter gossip. Shannon gave a detailed description of a pair of boots she almost bought for the trip, Maurey talked about horses and how successful Pud was in the satellite dish repair business. Shannon gave a Eugene report.
“He wants us to date each other and other people at the same time. Says it would be values affirming. I said, ‘Fat chance.’”
“You can’t date a guy after you’ve lived with him,” Maurey said.
“At your age I think you should still be playing the field,” I said.
They both stared at me until I volunteered to go pluck her suitcases off the conveyor carrel. As I made my way through the skier jam, I heard Shannon say, “Play the field?”
Maurey said, “You’ll have to excuse your father. He learned his parenting skills from
At the ranch, we found a Douglas fir lying on its side in the living room. Pud and Hank were crouched on the floor with a measuring tape. Toinette, Auburn, and Roger sat at a card table, stringing popcorn and chokecherries while Chet was off in Pete’s room, talking to New Yorkers on the telephone.
“Our tree’s too big!” Auburn shouted.
Hank and Pud studied the situation.
“We could cut a hole in the ceiling,” Hank said.
“Or the floor,” Pud said.
“Or take thirty inches off the middle and splice the tree together,” Hank added.
This is your typical example of Native American humor. As a kid, it drove me crazy, but now it was Auburn’s turn.
He crowed. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
Hank’s face was dead serious. “You got a better idea?”
Maurey introduced Shannon to Toinette and Roger. Toinette offered her supper, but Shannon said she had eaten on the plane. Shannon complimented Roger on his chokecherry necklace and asked him to show her how it was done.
“What’s Gus up to?” I asked.
“Gus is on a cleaning binge. She’s throwing out everything she doesn’t consider vital to survival.”
“My baseball cards?”
“They went the first day.”
Chet came from Pete’s room. “Our friends are coming in tomorrow.”
“Do they need a place to stay?” Maurey asked.
“I made reservations at Snow King Inn.”
Shannon and Chet shook hands and Shannon said she was sorry about Pete. Chet said Pete spoke of her often; Maurey went to the kitchen and brought back lemonade and these little crackers shaped like fish. Everything was going fine—I’d just taken my place at the popcorn-stringing station—when Shannon said, “I expected Grandma Lydia to be here.”
I stuck a needle through a popped kernel and the kernel broke in half, leaving me with nothing on my needle.
“Your father and grandmother aren’t speaking,” Maurey said.
Shannon looked at me. “Why not?”
Maurey answered. “He says she ruined his life.”
I set the needle next to my lemonade and gave up on Christmas decorating. There’s no use trying to be constructive when you’re ganged up on by women.
“That was weeks ago,” Shannon said. “You be nice to your mother.”
“She’s not nice to me.”
“Jeeze, Louise, who’s the grown-up around here? Dad, I want you to march down to her house and make up. Right now.”
“No.”
Maurey said, “Forgive your mother, Sam.”
Hank said, “You have the power to make her Christmas bright.”
