Chapter 5

It’s a two-hour drive to Cherokee City, where Aunt Marge lives. Mama is intently watching the road. She doesn’t say much. I poke my nose in the book I have brought with me: Mythology, by Edith Hamilton. I have read it before, but I like it. It has tales about Apollo and Aphrodite and other gods. There are stories about Thor and Loki, who are way different from how they are portrayed in the comic books. 

    We pass many cornfields, barns, and cattle pens. I keep an eye out for the yellow water tower in Smileyville, which has a smiley face, naturally. Next comes the sign that says, “5-miles to go.” The 5 looks like an S.

    “Smiles to go,” I chirp. On every trip, we always look at each other and say that as we pass by. But today, Mama doesn’t say a word. She is eerily silent the whole way. Something must be weighing on her mind. I don’t ask. I don’t know what to ask. 

    When we arrive at Aunt Marge’s house, I barely step one foot in the door, and she zaps me with one of Zeus’ lightning bolts and sets forth a set of rules.

    “Take those filthy shoes off and drop them by the door,” she commands.

    I do that. 

    She tells me to stash my backpack in a hall closet. 

    I do that. 

    She shows me where I will be sleeping — on the sleeper sofa in the living room. Great. The mattress is very thin, and every spring digs into your spine as you toss and turn.

    “You will make it every morning and put your dirty sheets in the hamper,” she orders.

    She takes us down the hallway to the bathroom.

    “Scrub the bathtub after every shower — and you will take a shower every morning,” she commands. “Wash the sink after you brush your teeth. Wipe off the mirror if you get any spots on it.”

    We head back to the living room. The coffee table is a sacred space, apparently. 

    “Keep your feet off of it,” she demands. “Use a coaster for any drinks. Anything you put on it must be removed when you’re finished and put back where it belongs.”  

    We go into the kitchen. She tells us that we will eat every meal at the kitchen table. No eating or snacking in the living room.

    “After you eat, rinse off your dirty dishes until they are spotless,” she stipulates. “Then — and only then — you will put them in the dishwasher.” 

    Whew! That’s a lot of rules to remember. We settle in and have some supper. Aunt Marge talks and talks about the people who go to her church. Of course, I don’t know any of them, and I doubt that Mama does either.

    “Gladys Plunkett, bless her heart, had a stroke last week, so we’re praying for her,” she tells us. “Apparently, her husband, Ben, hasn’t even gone to the hospital to see her.”

    “Why not?” Mama asks.

    “Drunkard,” Aunt Marge says. “They are quite the pair, let me tell you.”

    “Oh, my goodness!” Mama says.

    “Yes, and him being a deacon — he always takes a swig of wine as he prepares the communion cups,” Aunt Marge says. “Polly McBride caught him at it several times. Pastor Clyde doesn’t do anything about it, though.”

    I watch Aunt Marge as she goes on and on, gossiping and telling tales. Do any good people go to her church? 

    “Bill Wilbur, the choir director, and Albert Cabot, the organist, are apparently sexual deviants,” she says. She darts her eyes at me and then at Mama. “We need to put those perverts out to pasture, if you catch my drift.”

    “What do you mean by that?” I ask.

    She sniffs.

    “Let’s just say that if all the homosexuals want equal rights, then they all get in line — against a wall.”

    “A wall?” I ask.

    “For a firing squad,” she says.

    I don’t know what to say. I’ve always thought that Aunt Marge was a mean old lady, but now I’m certain that she’s really mean! Really, really mean!

    “Riley, do you have a girlfriend?” she asks, more or less changing the subject.

    “Umm, no, I don’t,” I say.

    “Well, one of these days, you’re gonna break some poor girl’s heart,” she says. “You know, you’re the last male in our family line. It’s up to you to carry on your Papa’s legacy. It’s up to you to have his descendants.”

    “O-okay,” I say. “What about your daughters?”

    “Well, neither one of them is going to give me any grandchildren,” she says. “Too busy with work, so they say. Faith isn’t even married. And Hope is still living with her college roommate, even though she graduated 10 years ago.”

    “Hmm,” I say.

    “I know you’re young, and I know you’re … small for your age, but soon you will be a man,” Aunt Marge says. “And you need to be more … manly, more macho. Girls like macho men. They don’t like bookworms or boys who act in plays.”

    I look at Mama. What has she been telling her sister? Why is she letting Aunt Marge berate me like this?

    After bedtime, I roll around on the sleeper sofa, trying to find a comfortable spot, I think about Aunt Marge and Mama. They are as different as they can be. Aunt Marge is much older than Mama. When their mother died, Mama was still a little girl, so Aunt Marge essentially raised her. Mama often talks to her big sister when something is bothering her.

    Her house is not at all like our house. At Aunt Marge’s, everything is in its proper place. At our house, everything is higgledy-piggledy. At Aunt Marge’s, no art hangs on the walls — although every room has a crucifix. She has one bookshelf, and it holds books by some TV preachers and some romance novels — an inconsistent mix of reading material that seems pretty odd to me. There’s nothing there that I want to read, even though I’m a bookworm, apparently, as Aunt Marge insinuated. She doesn’t even have cable TV! There are no plants, no vases, no knick-knacks of any kind. It is an empty shell. It sounds empty, too. Echoes bounce off the walls. I wonder if that’s because there’s no love in that house to fill the void.

    Morning comes, and the rules continue.

    I am not allowed to go swimming in the city pool.

    “No,” Aunt Marge says. “Too many perverts there.”

    I am not allowed to go to the library.

    “Too many illicit books there,” she says. “They should be banned.”

    I can’t even go for a run.

    “Oh, no,” she says. “Who knows what you’ll get yourself into out there alone?”

    I look at Mama, my eyes pleading with her to let me go. She shakes her head. I go into the living room and plop down on the couch. The women sit at the kitchen table, looking at old family photos and gossiping about people they used to know and old boyfriends. I am mildly interested in the photos, but I don’t want to hear about their lost loves.

    I open my book and read in relative peace, but I can hear their voices coming from the kitchen. I catch bits and pieces of what they’re saying.

    “Stella, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times …”

    “Oh, Margie, do you remember when Daddy …” 

    “… and he twisted his arm? …

    “Was that the first time or the second …?”

    “I miss her so much!”

    They talk and talk. I read and read. I finish my book, but I resist the urge to read one of Aunt Marge’s books. I am afraid that I’ll put it down in the wrong spot. We spend another evening listening to church gossip. Then, Aunt Marge delves into politics.

    “They’re all crooks,” she says. “I’ve never voted for any of them.”

    “You’ve never voted?” I ask.

    “No, I haven’t,” she iterates. “Crooks! The lot of them! Except for Randall Turnip. Now, he’s worth listening to. He tells it like it is. He’s going to deport all those illegal immigrants. He’s going to lower taxes. He’s going to lower gas prices, and eggs will be cheaper.”

    I don’t tell her that I learned in Social Studies that the price of eggs is tied to the cost of cheap labor and that many immigrants do that kind of work.

    Fortunately, we leave the next day. After lunch, Mama and I get in the car, and Aunt Marge comes out with us. Putting her hands on her hips, she has one last thing to say to Mama: “Don’t forget what I told you: just stop!”

    “Thank you, Margie!” Mama says. “Riley, tell your aunt ‘thank you.’”

    “Thank you, Aunt Marge,” I say with little enthusiasm.

    Through the windshield, I see her standing there, staring at us, with her hands on her hips as we back out of the driveway.

    We drive through town. Since it’s Memorial Day, all of the light poles are decked out with American flags. We hit the highway, and Mama switches on the radio. She starts humming to the song playing. It’s as if a switch has been flipped in her.

    “Are you feeling better now?” I ask her.

    “Yes, I am,” she says. “Why do you ask?

    “Oh, you weren’t quite yourself before …”

    “Hmm, well, there was something I needed to talk to her about,” she says. “She helped set me straight.”

    “You better be ‘straight,’” I say, “or else she’ll line you up against a wall.”

    “Shush, you!” she says, slapping my arm.

    “You and Aunt Marge are so different from each other,” I say.

    “How so?” she asks.

    “Well, you don’t look alike,” I offer. “She has black, wavy hair that’s turning gray, and you have straight red hair. She wears glasses, and you don’t. You’re thin, and she’s … kinda fat.”

    “Hah! Well, remember, she’s quite a bit older than me.”

    “Well, her house — I mean, it’s practically empty. There’s one bookshelf and no art — no vases!”

    “No, no vases. Anything else?” she asks.

    “She doesn’t have a sense of humor like you do ... And she has all those rules I had to follow. Why is she like that?”

    “Hmm. Our mother liked rules, too. I guess Margie is more like our mother, and I am more like our father,” she said. “Your Nana hated the antiques and junk that Daddy brought home. When I was growing up, our house was nearly as spotless as Marge’s is.”

    “Wow,” I say. “Is that why his antique store was in the basement?”

    “Well, his last one was there,” she says. “Before that, he had the one on Bristol Street. And I don’t think Mother ever went to it. He only had the one in his basement after she died.”

    “How old were you when she died?”

    “I was 8.”

    “Oh, that’s how old I was when Papa died.”

    “Yes, that’s right.”

    “I miss him,” I say.

    “So do I, sweetie. So do I.”

    We travel in silence for a few miles. I’m feeling less pissed off after reflecting on the differences between Mama and Aunt Marge. I’m lucky, I guess. 

    “What was that last thing she said to you?” I ask. “What are you supposed to not forget?”

    “Mmm, she thinks I should stop doing something that she thinks isn’t good for me,” she says.

    “That’s … vague,” I say.

    “I need to talk to your dad about it,” she says. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

    “Hmm, okay,” I mumble.

    “Say, tomorrow, why don’t we go downtown and do some shopping?” she says.

    “Nooo,” I whine. “I’m gonna do something with ... my friends.”

    I don’t tell her that by “friends,” plural, that I mean “friend,” singular — Kendall. Because of how she feels about him, she’s better off not knowing.

    “They can wait,” she says.

    I scrunch down in the seat and sulk the rest of the way home.

We get back home late — too late to do anything but too early for bed. I go out to the patio. Naturally, I take off my clothes. Ahh. That’s better. I lie on a lounge chair and look up at the stars. Ho hum. I have spent the past few days being bullied and bossed. I haven’t gotten to do anything I wanted — except for that one night of camping with Kendall. I hope we get to do more. Summertime is off to a slow start. 

    Speaking of “Summertime,” that’s the song that our district band is going to play in the Cowboy Parade during Sunflower Days. I’ll have to go to rehearsals every Wednesday. I hope that doesn’t interfere with rehearsals for Peter Pan, though! And Sunflower Days — will Paige want to go with me?

    I look down at my body. Scrawny, puny, pathetic. No muscles, no abs, nothing. I’m definitely not “macho.” But I remember Papa’s mantra: “Body positivity. Body positivity. Love the skin you’re in.”

    He didn’t have a great body either, but he wore it well, and he tried to teach me that. Another thing he always said was, “The only thing you need to wear to bed is a smile.” That makes me smile right now. Being naked does make me smile. It sets me free. I feel less anxious. Whether it’s soaking up the sun or feeling the cool breeze on my skin, I feel the stress floating away. One bit of stress sticks with me, though: Aunt Marge’s comments. I start singing to myself: “Macho, macho man … I gotta be a macho man … Macho, macho man …” It makes me laugh. I stand up and start moving to the music in my head. “Body, want to feel my body …” I thrust my hips and swing my arms in front of me, my fingers pointing to the sky. “Body, such a thrill, my body …” My fists rotate around each other. I jog in place, twisting and turning my body. I jump up and down. I spin and twirl. I even do a cartwheel. How’s this for being “macho,” Aunt Marge? 

    Then, a falling star shoots across the sky! I stop moving and wait for another, but no other star falls. This is no meteor shower. Is it Skylab? According to NASA, it’s going to come crashing down soon.

I make a wish upon that falling “star.” 

Starlight, star bright,

First star I see tonight.

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.

    I wish for something extraordinary to happen this summer.