by Cathy Lamb
“Then what happened?”
“Serafina’s brothers swam over there one day to spy on him. They had heard he had magical powers and could turn people into fish and whales into people. It was said he could transform himself into a serpent or a snake.”
“That’s scary.”
“The brothers spied on him from behind a line of rocks, but King Koradome knew they were there. He captured all of them in a cage and would not let them go. War was going to be declared between the good mermaids and mermen and King Koradome. Serafina was not supposed to go anywhere near her brothers in the cage, but she did anyhow because she loved them so much. King Koradome, who was sneaky and dangerous, caught her and threw her in a separate cage.”
“Oh no! Then what happened?”
“To get out of the cage, and to get her brothers out, Serafina had to promise to give King Koradome something.”
“What did she promise to give him?”
Chapter 13
“Let’s talk about the pot you three are growing.”
I stared at my mother and aunts across my blue sawhorse/ butcher block kitchen table. I had bought pasta and French bread for us from Giannelli’s in town and lit a bunch of vanilla-scented candles. In the center of the table I had my usual bouquet of roses, this time a mix of burgundy, red, white, yellow, and purple.
They’d come over in a rush, straight from the floral shop, kisses and hugs and “how-are-you”s, and hung up their hats. My mother had chosen a lime-green hat with white flowers for the day, rather demure for her. Aunt Iris was wearing a dark blue hat with tiny whales attached to the brim. Aunt Camellia was wearing a pink hat, tilted over one eye, with a pink net. We’d had dinner, then I’d made a pot of mint tea and served pink chiffon cookies.
They all froze for a moment after my statement. My mother and Aunt Camellia, sitting on the church pew, squirmed.
“More tea?” my mother said, holding my red teapot over my teacup. My teacup was full.
“A biscuit?” Aunt Camellia asked, holding up the plate of pink chiffon cookies, even though I already had three cookies on my plate. She likes to act British sometimes by calling cookies biscuits.
“Let’s not be unpleasant,” Aunt Iris said. “Or accusatory. Eat more salad. It helps with digestion and flatulence.”
“Mom. Aunt Camellia. Aunt Iris.” My white curtains with light yellow roses fluttered, as Sundance leaned against my leg. “You’re growing pot in the greenhouse.”
“The weather was so gorgeous today, a slight breeze, warm sun, not too warm,” my mother said.
“The way the sun is glinting off the water tonight looks like sparkles. Sparkles bring out one’s internal goodness, don’t you think?” Aunt Camellia said.
“Let’s have a conversation about when we all realized that we’re feminists,” Aunt Iris growled.
“We’re going to talk about this,” I said. Mars jumped up on a stack of books next to a wine barrel. The books fell down. He meowed in irritation, then took a leap onto the old library card catalogue. I sighed.
“Barnie’s selling two of his pigs,” my mother said.
“His pigs are delicious,” Aunt Camellia said. “Tender. Soft.”
“Should we buy the pigs?” my mother asked.
“Let’s consider the economics,” Aunt Iris said. “I’ll make up a financial spreadsheet. Buying pigs versus buying the pork and bacon at the grocery store.”
“I’m not going away,” I said. I picked up a pink chiffon cookie despite myself. I’d have one. Or two. Not more than four. Venus jumped on my lap and purred. “This isn’t funny. Pot is illegal, and you have a whole house full of it out there.”
“No,” my mother said, waving her hand dismissively. “Not a house full. It’s a greenhouse.”
“A house is a home when it’s filled with love,” Aunt Camellia said. “Who wants to watch a British love story tonight? I do. Would you like a biscuit, Evie?”
“A greenhouse is structurally different from a home,” Aunt Iris said. “There are plumbing and electrical contrasts. The insulation and flooring are at opposite ends of the construction spectrum. Plus, we don’t have that many plants. Let’s not exaggerate, Evie. Be practical.”
“But why are you growing pot?” I said. “You don’t smoke pot.”
“Oh, my, no,” my mother said, but she glanced away. “I’m a lady.”
“Never,” Aunt Camellia said, but she found a sudden interest in my fluttering rose curtains. “I can’t have pot interfering with my glow.”
“Pot is an herb,” Aunt Iris said. “Let me tell you about how Indians used herbs.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “This is how you’re going to answer my question? You’re all smoking pot now? In your seventies, you’ve decided to start?”
My mother sang a few notes of a love song. Aunt Camellia joined in. I knew the song. It was from a romance movie made in the fifties. Aunt Iris spread her arms out as if she were directing them.
“But there are a number of plants out there,” I said. “You couldn’t possibly smoke all that.”
“We’re florists,” my mother said. “We like flowers.”
“Marijuana is not a flower,” I said. “It does not go in your bouquets, but nice try, Mom. Are you selling it? And, if so, to who?”
“It’s to whom,” Aunt Iris said. “It’s important to be grammatically correct, Evie.”
“I like grammar,” Aunt Camellia said. “It helps a person get her innermost thoughts out correctly so she can clearly express her emotions.”
“Me too,” my mother said. “Especially semicolons. Most people don’t know how to use them.”
“I do,” Aunt Iris said. “They’re precise, that’s why I like them.”
“Who is buying pot from you?” I put my hand on Sundance’s head. Surely he was behind me in this?
My mother sighed, so impatient. “People who are hurting.”
Aunt Camellia tapped her blue rose teacup with a spoon. “People who are ill.”
“Or dying,” Aunt Iris said. “Isn’t it better for all of us to die stoned than to die sober? It’s a much gentler way to spend your dying time.”
“I want to be high as a kite when I die,” Aunt Camellia said, her face ecstatic at the thought. “High. As. A. Kite. Flying through the heavens, dipping into the clouds, rolling over rainbows.”
“Sadie Almeter had cancer. She was in so much pain. We gave her enough joints to smoke all day until she passed,” Aunt Iris said. “She was ninety years old and said she wished she’d discovered it earlier. What did she call it, Camellia?”
“Magic sticks. She called it magic sticks. Even her grandchildren thanked us for helping to manage her pain. They smoked it with her when their parents weren’t around.”
My mother beamed. “It was a family moment. The third generation with the first, all stoned and happy. Now, don’t you reprimand me, Evie! The grandchildren were in their forties. They were not children. They had children.”
“Who else?” Sundance laid his head on my lap. I think he knew this conversation was pointless.
“Well, you know Pietre, the Frenchman, yummy Frenchman, who has that restaurant on San Lola Island?” My mother fluttered her hands. “We carry it across the ferry in my purse. I usually use the purple-flowered one, which matches my purple plumeria hat with the white feathers.”
“I love that hat,” Aunt Camellia said. “It’s reflective of your passionate personality, your aura of commitment.”
“It’s purely medicinal, Evie,” Aunt Iris said. “When Pietre was younger, his stepfather planted an ax in his back. He was also in a motorcycle accident in his twenties and his back aches badly now that he’s older. He didn’t want to take painkillers, he knew he could get addicted, so we bring him his pot.”
“Then we have lunch at his restaurant. I had French onion soup the last time. With wine. It was scrumptious,” my mother gushed.
“I had his famous croissants,” Aunt Camellia said. “Wi
th butter. Everyone should eat butter.”
“But we keep our businesses separate,” Aunt Iris said. “At my insistence. We need to be logical. He pays for his marijuana and we pay for our meal, and we share a glass of wine on the back porch and watch the ferries come in.”
“It’s such a pleasant way to spend the day,” Aunt Camellia said. “I feel rejuvenated after eating Pietre.” She coughed. “I mean, eating with Pietre. I do not eat Pietre.”
There was a silence. Aunt Iris muffled a laugh. My mother didn’t bother to muffle hers.
“You’re dating Pietre?” I asked.
“No, not exactly,” Aunt Camellia said.
“You’re seeing him.”
“She sees all of him,” Aunt Iris said.
“But we’re not committed,” Aunt Camellia said.
“Not dating then?” I asked.
“We’re lovers,” Aunt Camellia said. “Sometimes. I’m not dead yet. Why can’t I have a lover?”
I shook my head. This was a little too much. “You can have all the lovers you want. But back to the pot. Who else are you selling to?”
“Do you remember Elsa Bryn?” Aunt Camellia said. “She had such severe anxiety she didn’t leave her house for almost two years. Panic attacks, too. She’s a cat hoarder. We brought her a little pot one day. She was a bit resistant at first, so your mother and I smoked it with her, out on her deck. You know she has that mansion overlooking the bay. She can see the whales frolicking about.”
“She uses her binoculars to study birds. She’s an expert birder,” Aunt Iris said. “Encyclopedic knowledge. She used to go on birding expeditions before her anxiety overcame her.”
“We helped her become herself again. We all lose ourselves sometimes,” my mother said. “It’s like who we used to be runs off into the sunset. Who Elsa was ran off after she experienced trauma. She was attacked in the city and beaten up, her purse stolen. Then they used her credit card to buy ten thousand dollars’ worth of junk. She hid in her home, alone and lonely. Trapped. Can you imagine? Now she’s out and about. Slightly stoned, but functioning.”
“More mint tea?” Aunt Camellia asked. She tried to fill my already completely full cup, then said, “Whoops!” as it spilled across the table. “Have another biscuit.”
“Please tell me you’re not selling to kids,” I said. “Please. You absolutely can’t.”
“Oh, my God!” My mother slammed her hands on the table, and my tea spilled. “Young woman! Do not insult us!”
Aunt Camellia reached over with her spoon and rapped my knuckles. Hard. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” She rapped them again, her face angry.
“Ouch!” Dang it.
“Evie Lindsay, how dare you?” Aunt Iris said, sitting up straight, brow furrowed. “I am insulted and offended. Surely you know us better than that? We would never sell to anyone under twenty-one. In fact, I don’t think we have any customers under thirty. And they all need it. There are emotional and physical reasons for them needing our homegrown marijuana.”
My aunts and my mother sat back and glared at me, arms crossed. Wow. I was in trouble.
But I was persistent. This was illegal. “Do you have a license?”
“A what?” my mother said.
“A license to sell medical marijuana?” I knew they didn’t. I had a headache. I put my fingers to my temples. Jupiter jumped up on a stack of books and knocked it down. He meowed. I sighed. I had too many books or too many cats.
“You need flower power,” my mother said. “For that headache. And what is a license to sell marijuana?”
“We have car licenses and that’s all we need,” Aunt Iris said.
“More cookies?” my mother snapped at me. She tossed cookies on my plate with anger, one at a time. I caught one before it flew off the table.
“We will accept your apology,” Aunt Iris said, glowering. “I’m waiting, young woman.”
“Please, Evie,” Aunt Camellia said, leveling me with a disapproving look. She rapped my knuckles again. Twice. Ouch! Ouch! “We need healing here.”
I sighed. I apologized. I apologized to my mother and aunts for suggesting that they might sell pot to minors. Even Sundance seemed to be looking at me with a reprimanding eye, that traitor.
We did not further discuss the legality of their selling pot at all. To anyone.
No, of course not.
They did, however, grudgingly accept my apology.
* * *
That night I put my feet up on my grandfather’s old wooden sea chest. I stared up at the model airplanes my father had made as a kid, then at my pink rose wallpaper that somehow always relaxes me. Sundance climbed on my lap and put his head on my shoulder. He was carrying his friend Lizard in his mouth.
My aunts and my mother are growing and selling pot.
They are all in their seventies. They have white hair. They lead Christmas sing-alongs in the town square. They include drunken sailor songs and insert words like Santa and Elves and Rudolph in certain places to make them more Christmassy. So even the young kids sing loudly with their parents about “Santa sluggin’ it down over yonder with his Irish lasses . . . Rudolph and the gang, why they had too much whiskey, one fell over the boat . . . Mrs. Claus, Mrs. Claus, let down your petticoats . . .”
They drink too much sometimes and dance in public. They insist that everyone get a costume and walk in the Halloween parade.
But I never thought I would say that sentence: My aunts and my mother are growing and selling pot.
I never thought I would think it.
Mars knocked down another stack of books. He meowed, I sighed. The yellow rose curtains fluttered.
“Let’s go to bed,” I said. And three dogs, four cats, and a stuffed green lizard, and I trudged up the stairs.
* * *
On Sunday I took Sundance, Butch, and Cassidy on a walk downtown. They love to go downtown. There are lots of other dogs on leashes with their owners, and they love to say hello and chat. I wanted to check in at the bookstore to make sure everything was going well, so I looped their leashes around a lamppost while I went in and they socialized.
After I determined that the bookstore, shockingly enough, was functioning fine and dandy without me, I bought a two-scoop chocolate fudge/peppermint ice-cream cone for its nutritional value. Ice cream is made of milk, and milk is one of the four food groups. The ice-cream parlor is owned by my friend Samson and his husband, Terri. Samson and I went to school together, and we used to play dress-up with my mom’s and aunts’ clothes, so he always gives me an extra helping.
“My sister and I heard you’re magic.”
I peered down at two girls. One was brown haired, one curly strawberry blonde. The girls’ names were Kimberly and Kaitlyn, and they were eight and six years old. I was holding three leashes. My dogs were trying to make a run for it, so I had to hold on tight. In my other hand I was trying not to drop my healthy ice-cream lunch.
“I’m not magic.” I was magical enough to know what they were talking about, though.
“Yes, you are.” The older one, Kimberly, said it as if she knew better than me.
“Yeah,” Kaitlyn said. “You’re like a magic witch.”
“I’m not a witch, because I don’t have a black pointed hat.”
Now, that threw the sisters for a second. Witches did have black pointed hats, everyone knew that.
“Maybe you’re hiding your witch’s hat,” Kimberly said, eyeing me carefully. “Your mom and your aunties always wear flowered hats. Do they have witches’ hats underneath their hats?”
“No, they aren’t witches. Girls, think about it. I don’t ride on a broomstick. So I can’t be a witch.”
The older one tapped her temple with her pointer finger as she thought. “Wait! I got it. You’re a modern witch. You new witches don’t do that old stuff anymore.”
“You ride in your magic truck that flies at night. That one!” Kaitlyn pointed accusingly at my blue truck.
&
nbsp; “My truck is too heavy to get in the sky. Plus, it’s too old. It’s tired.”
Their brows furrowed. This was getting confusing.
“Anyhow!” Kimberly said. “We want you to tell us if we’re going to get a doggie or not, so are we?”
I was friends with their mother, Pammy. I had known Pammy since I was twelve and she moved to the island when her mother, an actress, had an affair with a married actor in Hollywood. The married actor’s wife, the daughter of a studio head, had her blacklisted, hence the move to the island to disappear and put the scandal behind her. She now owns the yarn shop.
I have never met a more allergic person than Pammy. She is allergic to cats, dogs, dust, pollen, grasses, milk, and nuts. She is glucose intolerant.
“No, you’re not going to get a dog.”
“What?!” They were mad. Kimberly crossed her arms and frowned. Kaitlyn put her hands on her hips, leaned forward, and glared at me, her blonde curls almost covering her eyes.
“You’re not going to get a dog,” I said. “But don’t tell anyone I looked into your future and saw no dog. It’s a secret.”
“Never? No dog?” As if on cue, they both scrunched their noses at me.
“Not when you’re children. I see you having dogs when you’re adults. Four each.” I didn’t see a darn thing, but it seemed to appease them.
“I’m mad!” Kimberly said with a huff.
“I’m super mad!” Kaitlyn said with a puff.
“I’m screaming mad!” Kimberly said, then laughed.
Kaitlyn giggled. “That’s funny! Screaming mad!” Kaitlyn screamed. I covered my ears. Then I had to use my tongue to right the scoop of peppermint ice cream because it almost fell off. I could feel ice cream on my face and in my left eyelashes. I wiped both with my sleeves, my dogs prancing about.
Their mother arrived, looking flustered.
“Hi, Evie,” she said, giving me a hug.
“Hi, Pammy.”
She pulled away from the dogs. They appeared a little offended by her poor manners. I suddenly felt like eating microwave popcorn. Extra butter. That would be so good. Ice cream and buttery popcorn are perfect together. A lot of people don’t know that.