“Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha!” my uncle says, sneaking up behind me.
When I jump and turn to fend him off, something in the corner of the room catches my eye. Behind the potted plant, I can see my grandmother peeking out from the bushy leaves in her creamy nightie. She’s been eavesdropping on their manly conversation. I step in front of the highboy so Blackie can’t see his mother hiding. The open chest door is now perfectly covering her up. If Gramma gets found, she’ll be in as much trouble as me.
“Don’t forget your glass,” Blackie says. He smells of some musky scent I don’t recognize. “Looked to me like you were headin’ towards the front door. You weren’t thinking of goin’ for a stroll, were you? Why, the fun’s just begun.” He pinches the flesh under my arm and leads me back to the rest of them.
Papa and Grampa have taken their shirts off. They’re comparing muscles. My father doesn’t have any.
“Sit back down, Shenandoah,” Grampa says. When I do, it’s to the sound of a long pass of gas. He’s put his whoopee cushion beneath the kitchen chair pad. He and Blackie burst into cackles.
“Sounds like you need some of them Rolaids ya like so much,” my uncle laughs out. “Say ‘excuse me,’ Shen.”
“Excuse me.”
He slides the empty shot glass down in front of me and fills it over the brim. “Let’s toast Founders Weekend. And the weddin’.”
I only want to pretend to take a sip, but Blackie fingers the bottom of the glass, tips it until I can feel the bourbon burning in my mouth and down my throat. I look over at Papa and plead with my eyes:
Blackie refills my shot glass. “C’mon, drink up. You’re way behind,” he says, poking me in the ribs.
A back porch step creaks. Grampa Gus reaches for his shotgun and shouts, “Who’s out there?”
It might be Woody not able to leave me behind. I open my mouth, ready to shout,
“It’s just me,” Lou Jackson says, slipping through the squeaky screen door. “I heard y’all from the cottage. Stopped in to see if you needed me to cook ya up something.”
Light-on-her-feet Gramma enters the kitchen from behind me and says, “That won’t be necessary, Louise. I’ve brought pie.”
Grampa and Blackie look at each other and break into raucous laughter. Barely able to speak, my grandfather says, “It ain’t one of your special pies, is it, Ruth Love? Old Clive never saw that comin’,” and then he smacks his hand down on the table so hard that the salt shaker tips over. That’s bad luck. Superstitious Lou reaches for it and Blackie gets ahold of her. Kisses the inside of her wrist, runs his tongue up the inside of her arm with the most sickening look on his face.
Grampa grunts and says, “Likin’ the dark meat must run in this family.
My gramma smiles, and says, “If you’re through visiting with Shenandoah, I’d like to take her upstairs now, if that’s all right with you, Gus.”
Grampa doesn’t answer. His eyes are glued to Lou, who looks pretty in a pink shift. Her toffee skin glistening.
Lou looks around and asks, “Where’s Woody?”
I can’t let things get stirred up again. I can’t let myself get thrown into the root cellar. My twin needs me. I answer as casual as I can, “Oh, she’ll be home any minute, I’m sure. She’s gonna need her beauty rest. We got the Parade of Princesses early tomorrow morning. I know
Grampa Gus mumbles, “Tittles? Minin’ sludge.” He’s still eyeing Lou in a very hungry way. Uncle Blackie is looking at her like a starved dog, too.
Lou nods and says, “Well, long as there ain’t nothin’ ya need from me, best be gettin’ back to the cottage.” Ripping her arm from Blackie’s grasp, she heads towards the screen door. She stops as she opens it and says boldly to me, and only me, “Just wanted to make sure you was all right.”
My grandmother replies in her best belle voice, “Thank you for your concern, Louise. But as you can see, we’re just as fine as fine can be,” and puts her arm around me. She smells like Ben-Gay and the strong incense from church. “Aren’t we, Shenny?”
“We sure are, Gramma,” I lie. “Fine as a fly in July.”
Lou shrugs and gives me the most helpless look. She backs out onto the porch so she can keep her eye on Blackie and Grampa.
“Damn, that’s one fine-lookin’ gal,” Grampa says to Blackie. “Ya sure you wanna move on from that?”
Blackie says something disgusting about Lou’s chest and Grampa’s eyes get more desirous looking. “Nipples the size of silver dollars?” He pushes back his chair and says, “I’ll arm wrestle ya for her.”
“C’mon, sweetheart,” Gramma says. “Let’s go up to your room and leave these men to their celebrating.”
She is trying to save me from Grampa’s and Blackie’s grunts and laughter. Their bragging strongman talk.
I wish I could do the same for my father. He looks defeated and helpless. I say what I used to when I was little and he’d tuck me into bed, “See you in my dreams,” but Papa can’t hear me. His head has fallen back onto the oak table. A string of spit is hanging from his lips.
We’re kneeling at the side of Woody’s and my bed. My grandmother has turned off all the lights and set the Jesus Christ she keeps in her pocketbook in the center of the other statues around a white purity candle on our dressing table. She was the one who gave the Saint Jude statue to our mother, who then gave it to Woody. Gramma has plenty enough to share. Saint Christopher and Saint Teresa the Little Flower, etc. These statues are what she calls her dolls. She can spend a whole afternoon telling Woody and me the stories behind each saint’s suffering and performing reenactments. The Saint Francis of Assisi play has little animal figures and Gramma uses grapes to pretend that Saint Lucy’s eyes have gotten plucked out of her head the way they were. The Saint Joan of Arc story involves a burning at the stake.
Gramma has her favorite wooden rosary entwined between her fingers. She brought a matching one for me along with The Good Old Days photo album, which is lying on top of my pillow. When we’re done praying, she’ll want to spend some time with the performing saints and then she’ll make me look at the pictures with her. She’ll go on and on. “Your grandfather. There he is. This shot was taken at one of our high school homecoming games,” she’ll tell me. “See all those girls swimmin’ around him? How lucky I am to have landed him.” I’ve always thought it was the complete opposite. How butt-scratching Grampa ended up with a woman of such refined tastes beats me. When she’s done caressing the pictures of her husband of forty years, she’ll show me some shots of Papa and Blackie being such darling boys and get teary. Gramma cut Mama out of all the snapshots after she disappeared, saying as she snipped, “Such a nasty business. Out of sight, out of mind,” so our mother’s not in the album.
“Isn’t it nice to have some lady time together?” she asks. She’s about the same size as I am now. She used to be a taller brunette. Usually very pulled together in a fancy dress with petticoats and pearls, her gray hair snug in a bun, she looks fairy-tale witchy tonight with it going every which way. Her skin so frighteningly white. When we got up here, she dusted herself with Mama’s Chantilly powder and took from her purse the red lipstick and smeared it across her palms. This is bad. Very bad. This is the telltale sign that she is about to have a big fit. Grampa upset her downstairs.
I tell her, “I’m not feeling so good.” The whiskey’s got me woozy and warm. My hurt arm is throbbing. And the overpowering stench of Ben-Gay is making my stomach shrink into a hard ball. But I can’t give in to any of that. I need to get over to the Tittles’ to make sure Woody made it over there. On the other hand, what kind of girl would abandon her grandmother in her time of need? No telling what she’ll do if I leave her alone in this state. Once I’m safely downstairs, I could yell at Grampa as I leave through the front door, “Your wife is pitchin’ a conniption,” and then run away as fast as I can. That’s a good plan. “I’ll be right back, Gramma.” I struggle to get up. “I need a
