Family Affair

by Saxon Bennett

  "Right." Chase pulled them out of the plastic grocery bag and threw them in the backseat.

  "That's much better," Addison said, rolling her eyes.

  They climbed in the car and Chase got out of the parking lot as quickly as possible as it was beginning to resemble a bumper car ride. As Chase merged onto the freeway, heading toward her mother's house she questioned Addison about the grocery list, making her reiterate it several times.

  "Are you going to do these holiday things a lot?" Addison asked, putting the clipboard under her seat.

  "I suppose so, especially once Bud arrives." She found herself thinking about Bud like a guest or long lost acquaintance soon to arrive. "Why do you ask?" She exited the freeway and turned on Mountain Avenue.

  Addison didn't reply instead she readjusted the teddy bear's seat belt that had gone askew since being knocked in the head with the packet of buns.

  Chase glanced in the rearview mirror. She must watch things like that. It could have been Bud's head. "All right, I'm a little nervous which tends to make me neurotic. I'll work on it."

  "All will be fine, mija. No worries," Rosarita said, touching Chase's arm.

  "I know." She took a few deep breaths. She almost chewed a cuticle, but Addison reached forward and grabbed her wrist.

  "Don't, you're doing so well."

  Chase put her hand back on the steering wheel. They pulled up into her mother's driveway. Chase swung the Hummer around the circular driveway so she could back up to the garage. The Hummer didn't fit into the garage, being too tall, an engineering snafu, Chase thought ruefully as the three of them stared at the load.

  "I know," Addison said, hopping out. She pulled out a green metal garden cart from the depths of the garage.

  "Brilliant," Chase said, and they began loading the cart and dragging it to the kitchen.

  When they got into the house, Gitana and Stella were playing Scrabble. The game board lay between them on the white couch with the dogs curled up on either side of them.

  Boy, things have really changed, Chase thought.

  Gitana looked up and smiled. "Your mother is smoking me."

  "I don't wonder. She used to drill me on vocabulary every night at dinner. Thank God, she didn't go in for the National Spelling Bee."

  Stella smirked. "It did cross my mind." She put down six tiles to spell "radical."

  "Thirty-five points!" Gitana screeched.

  "I could help," Addison offered.

  "No way, you're on kitchen duty," Chase said.

  Addison ignored her. She reached over and rearranged Gitana's tiles.

  Gitana smiled slyly and then plunked them down against an existing word, spelling out "callously."

  Stella and Chase peered down at them.

  "Fifty-five points," Chase said.

  Stella smiled savagely at Addison. "You're next. If a nine-year-old can beat me, it's back to the dictionary."

  "I only play for money," Addison said, rubbing her fingernails on her T-shirt.

  "A nickle a tile?" Stella queried.

  "I'll keep score," Gitana said, sliding over to let Addison slip in.

  Chase put her hands on her hips. "There goes my kitchen help."

  No one paid any attention as they set up a new game.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "This has been the weirdest nine months of my entire life," Chase said.

  "Does that include puberty?" Lacey asked.

  Chase thought for a moment. Puberty was boobs, periods, sex, lust and desire. "Okay, the second weirdest but a close second."

  They were in the kitchen peeling and dicing potatoes for the big turkey day celebration. Chase pondered the value of these family rituals, but it always came back to Bud.

  "Sex and driving a car, that's what I remember," Lacey said.

  Her distracted look led Chase to believe she was reliving those moments. Lacey was in charge of dicing while Chase peeled. She had a sudden concern for Lacey's fingers. Chase brought her back. "Like it's any different now. Puberty is still all about a pounding clitoris and being behind the wheel of a potential killing machine. Sixteen is really too young to be driving."

  "Oh, no, poor Bud won't be allowed to drive until she's twenty-five." Lacey dumped a pile of neatly diced potatoes into the enormous stainless steel pot Rosarita had given them.

  Chase glanced at the endless pile of potatoes she was required to peel. "Are you implying that I'll be an overprotective parent?"

  "Yes."

  "I know. I'm hoping I'll ease up."

  "Gitana will make you." Lacey glanced at the twenty-pound bag of potatoes. "Are we really going to need all these potatoes?"

  Chase glanced over her shoulder at Rosarita who was making the masa for the corn tamales. That was the problem with living in New Mexico, too many cultures crammed into one place— the triculture. They were having Anglo, Hispanic and Native American food. Too much food for one table.

  Rosarita, with their help, was essentially making three Thanksgiving dinners. This was blatant overfeeding, Chase decided. Something must be done for the sake of the planet. "Quick, open that cupboard," she whispered to Lacey.

  Lacey, being an expert at shirking, understood immediately. She took the bag of potatoes and shoved it in the Tupperware cupboard, knocking over some of the containers but with no other consequences. Rosarita hadn't heard the noise.

  "That was brilliant," Lacey whispered.

  "I thought so." Chase dumped the cut and peeled potatoes in the boiling pan of water and wiped her hands on the blue and white twill apron Rosarita had insisted she wear.

  Graciela came in with three bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon precariously perched atop of case of Modelo beer.

  Lacey lunged for the wine. "Those are expensive. Have you lost your fucking mind—two trips, duh."

  "Don't I know. I had to detail a Benz and a Land Rover just to foot the liquor bill," Graciela declared.

  Chase pulled out her wallet. "I'll get it."

  "Don't worry. I got it covered." Graciela set the case of beer by the inset wine fridge next to the stainless steel one. She opened the wine fridge and pulled out two bottles of Modelo from the cardboard box. They fit perfect in the rack.

  "You're not putting beer in there," Lacey said.

  "Why not? It keeps the beer at the perfect temperature."

  "Like you would know," Lacey said.

  "I work for rich people, remember. I have knowledge of their finer habits."

  "Whatever," Lacey said, handing Graciela back the bottles of beer and putting the wine in their place.

  "Fucking wine snob," Graciela said.

  Rosarita looked up from her masa. "No bad language—baby coming."

  "Sorry," Graciela said. She opened the fridge and attempted to put the case of beer into it, unceremoniously shoving important side dishes every which way.

  This time Chase intervened. "You're like a bull in a china shop. Get out of here before you destroy Thanksgiving."

  "All right, already." She snagged a beer and made a hasty exit.

  Gitana poked her head in the kitchen. "How's it going in there?"

  "You mean between the language police and the stress monkeys—fantastic," Graciela said, stomping past her.

  "You're supposed to be resting," Chase said.

  "I'm bored," Gitana said.

  "You sit here. You help me with the tamales," Rosarita said, pulling out a stool at the kitchen island.

  Chase frowned.

  "It's good," Rosarita said.

  "All right," Chase conceded unwillingly.

  "Can I help? It looks like fun," Lacey said.

  Chase smirked. Fun, ha! Lacey must be entertaining thoughts of domesticity with Jasmine.

  "Oh, yes. Gitana show you how. I must do the posole now."

  Chase's intestines did a loop at the mention of posole—that stuff was so hot it would melt lead—not to mention the driving force of the hominy. The whole mess cleaned you out like Draino.

  A bowl
of Rosarita's posole would make you crap for a week.

  "I'll get Addison and we'll set the table." Chase had to get out of the kitchen. She was reaching overload.

  "Use the good," Rosarita said.

  "No, not the china," Chase moaned.

  Rosarita raised an eyebrow. "Special day."

  "I know." Chase left the kitchen and went in search of Addison.

  She found her sitting at the dining room table surrounded by strange dried floral things of unrecognizable origins and a hollowed out pumpkin.

  "What the hell?" Chase said.

  "More like what the fuck? It's a stupid centerpiece."

  "Addison, language. I hope you didn't get that from me."

  Addison rolled her eyes. "Sorry. My mom and Stella put me in charge of the awful centerpiece."

  "How does it work?" Chase said, staring at the bits and pieces of dried flora.

  "You're supposed to stick all this stupid stuff into the pumpkin—artistically of course, and then the whole gross ensemble goes on the table and gets in the way of the food. My mom saw it in that Martha Stewart magazine, which I am going to start intercepting because it gives her strange ideas about crafts."

  "Why isn't she doing it?"

  "She's busy helping Stella catch some cheating bastard husband in the act." Addison bounced some odd looking dried spore thing on the table.

  "We're going to have to teach Bud the earmuff thing."

  "I can tell you right now, Bud is going to swear," Addison said.

  "I know," Chase said, plunking down in a chair next to Addison. They stared morosely at the unmade centerpiece.

  "What am I going to do?" Addison said.

  Chase brightened. "I know. Close your eyes. I'll hand you things and you stuff them in the pumpkin."

  Addison looked dubious. "What if it turns out ugly?"

  "You're suffering a creative block. If you get it started then we can always fix it later. Besides, do you really care?"

  Addison considered this. "No, I don't. Just because I drew pictures when I was five and stuck them on the fridge does not make me Picasso. I'm literary. Words are my art. I'm not some floral arranger."

  "Precisely. Let's make a go of it."

  When they were done, it wasn't exactly hideous, but it was close.

  Graciela came in, gasped, laughed hysterically, held her sides and left. Gitana was kinder. She attempted to help. It did look a little better when she was finished.

  "I should have brought some orchids. Where did you get all this stuff?" Gitana inquired.

  "Hobby Lobby. I hate that place. My mom is always trying to get me to try some craft thing."

  "Like what?" Chase asked.

  "Like make little bracelets with multicolored plastic beads or paint designs on flip-flops. I pretty much cured her, though. I convinced her to buy me a Shrinky Dinks kit and I almost burned the house down. It was beautiful. The house stunk like burnt plastic for weeks." Addison gloated.

  Chase made a mental note not to force crafts on Bud. If she had an artistic bent they would assist.

  Just then Stella and Peggy walked in talking animatedly. They stopped.

  "Oh, Addison, you did a great job. It looks just like the picture," Peggy said. She patted Addison on the head.

  Addison muttered, "She's big on things looking like the picture."

  Chase nodded sympathetically. She did not admit that when she cooked she liked things to look like the picture. It was a character flaw, but she couldn't help herself. She found it comforting.

  Delia and Jasmine came in.

  Graciela rushed out of the kitchen and nearly flattened Delia. They fell together on the couch. Jacinda, who'd been picked up as well in the Jasmine-taxi, came toddling in with the menudo. Chase took it from her. Jacinda, upon noticing Graciela being overly physical with Delia, whacked Graciela with her rosary beads, and called her something horrid in Spanish that ended in El Diablo. She smiled apologetically at Stella and Peggy and followed Chase into the kitchen.

  "That child," Jacinda said, shaking her head.

  "I know. She'll grow up someday," Chase said half-heartedly.

  "Ha!"

  Rosarita cried out, "Mi amiga, come taste this. I need your help." The rest of the conversation was in Spanish.

  Chase set the menudo on the counter, wondering at this strange extended family. She'd gone from being a hermit to arranging a feast. She sighed heavily and took four Modelos and a grape juice for Gitana out to the living room.

  It seemed like an eternity before the food was on the table. Chase sat at one end of the long cherry wood table with its awful centerpiece and her mother at the other end. Chase was to do the toast. Stella gave her the look—the one that said this is the culmination of all your handiwork—do not fuck it up.

  Chase wanted to dive gracefully into her now clear pool of complete understanding. Instead, she figuratively jumped, held her knees to her chest and executed a gargantuan cannonball. Had there been water the dinner guests would have been soaked. "Here we are one conception later, my straight best friend now a raging lesbian, my sister un-in-law almost tame and my mother has morphed into a ball-busting sleuth."

  Everyone was silent. They stared, seeming to await the brick through the window.

  "And I think it's absolutely marvelous—the best year of my life and I love you all."

  Stella smiled. "That wasn't exactly what I had in mind but it will do."

  "Grace and subtlety are not part of my make up. You must beg my pardon." Chase bowed and sat down. Glasses clinked.

  Fine bone china with a delicate pattern of pink primrose was filled and happiness like a blanket wrapped itself around her. Jacinda and Rosarita were still praying. Graciela got impatient.

  "Damn it, Chase pass the f—uh, the posole."

  Chase reached over their bowed heads. She put turkey and tamales side by side—indicative of her two families. She was pondering the cultural melting pot as she cut her turkey. She looked over at Gitana who was staring into her lap. Chase leaned over. So did Addison.

  "She's leaking," Addison said, pointing to the mahogany wood floor of the dining room.

  "Oh, fuck, your water broke. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Chase had gone from bliss to panic.

  "Chase, stop that foul language this instant," Stella said, getting up calmly.

  Jacinda rushed to Gitana and held her hand, murmuring soothing words. "It's all right, mija."

  Stella and Jacinda gendy lifted Gitana out of her chair.

  "I'm not ready for this," Chase said.

  Addison kept staring at Gitana's protruding belly like she was waiting for alien spawn to rip open the flesh and jump onto the nearest bystander.

  Lacey grabbed buns, cranberry sauce and turkey and began making little sandwiches. "Get the mashed potatoes," she commanded Jasmine. She wrapped the food into the linen napkins.

  Stella looked at Lacey unperturbed as the cranberry sauce leaked through her best table linens.

  "I'll buy new ones," Lacey said, stuffing a tamale into her mouth. "I promise."

  Or that's what it sounded like to Chase. "How can you think about food at a time like this?" Chase shouted at her. Just then she felt an excruciating pain in her shin. She bent over and grabbed it, squealing in pain.

  "I'm sorry. I had to," Addison said.

  "Why?" Chase eeked out.

  "You were in shock," she replied.

  "Good call, Addison," Stella said.

  "Maybe we should go to the hospital," Gitana suggested as a contraction made her double over.

  "Hummer," Chase said.

  "Chase, Jacinda, Graciela, Addison and myself in the Hummer. The rest of you follow," Stella said.

  They instandy obeyed her. Chase hopped in the driver's seat.

  "Dude, can you do this?" Graciela asked as she helped Stella load Gitana in the front seat, easing the seat back a little.

  "Yes, I can do it. I need a focus."

  Addison yanked the bear and car seat out and threw t
hem in the back cargo area to make room for everyone. Chase started the car and calmly pulled out of the driveway. She pulled onto the street with equal care. It looked good. Then Gitana had another contraction. Everyone stared at Chase. She looked at Addison in the rearview mirror.