by Cathy Lamb
I put my hand out for the ticket.
His jaw tightened and he gave me the ticket.
I looked at the amount. “You have got to be kidding.” It was outrageous. “That’s outrageous.”
“No, it’s the price for a car that is not in proper working order. If you would like to argue, we can go down to the station and discuss this.”
That was a threat. “I’m not arguing. I’m telling you it’s an outrageous amount. Chief Allroy would never do this to anyone on the island. He would pull them over, let them know about the problem, chat for a while, and that would be it.”
“I am not Chief Allroy.”
“We all know that.”
“Look, Evie, don’t get smart with me,” he huffed. “I can have you out of your truck and into the back seat of my car in two minutes with handcuffs on, your rights read to you.”
I stared at him. He was a dangerous man. He would like that. He would like to yank me out of my car, manhandle me, shove me up against the back door, press his body into mine, and rip my hands back and into handcuffs. There was no one out here to see what was going on, and he would love that. He would relish it. He would take his time, he would taunt me, degrade me, his hot breath on my face, his skin to mine. That image made my stomach churn as if someone were spinning it as hard as they could with a wooden spoon. I turned to look out my front windshield and said nothing else.
“Got anything else to say?”
I didn’t move.
“What?”
I said nothing.
He loved this, I could tell. He loved to put women into a submissive position. He loved to shut them down.
“I can’t hear you,” he said. “Any more smart-aleck remarks? Any more back talk? You want to tell me what you think?”
“You’re trying to bait me. I have nothing else to say.”
I did not look at him, which I could tell made him even more angry, but I was seething now, too.
He seemed to relent slightly, probably because there were cars coming from both directions. “Go and get the taillight fixed, then bring me the ticket and I’ll reduce it. Maybe if you’re lucky, and nice to me, I’ll get rid of it.”
I wanted to hit him. He wanted me to come to him, to be put in a position of supplication, to be groveling for something. Then he could have more power over me. He wanted me to want something from him and to ask for it. He wanted to spend time reducing me to nothing, and if this was the way he had to do it, he would.
My phone rang again. I turned it over so he couldn’t see it was my mother calling again. Ah. It was my aunts in their cars approaching quickly from both directions.
They stopped in front of and in back of me, brakes squealing.
“What’s the problem?” Aunt Iris said, darting out of her car. She was so mad she didn’t have a hat on, and neither did Aunt Camellia, her white curls flowing behind her.
“Evie here has a broken taillight,” Chief Ass Burn said.
“So what? She’ll get it fixed,” Aunt Iris said.
I told them what the ticket cost.
“You gave her a ticket?” Aunt Iris said. “Chief Allroy never would have done that. He would have informed us of the problem and stayed to talk, a reasonable response to a minor problem.”
Aunt Camellia said, “I didn’t know we were going to get robbed by our new police chief. Was that in the monthly newsletter?”
Aunt Iris said, “Your job as the chief is not to shaft the islanders. Were you informed of that?”
Aunt Camellia said, “All I see is blackness around him. It’s like this dark, clingy, slimy aura. I’ve never felt slime before, so this is a curious situation.”
“All I see is a lawsuit if he threatens to run me down to the police station for a broken headlight again,” I said.
It was three against one, and he argued with them, tried to be the tough guy, but finally backed off but not before he said, “Do not interfere in a police matter again, ladies.”
He drove off in a wave of dust.
“That one is trouble,” Aunt Camellia said. “I can feel the evil circling him.”
“What a dick,” Aunt Iris said.
I looked at the ticket. Hundreds of dollars. For a broken taillight.
Aunt Iris took a photo of it and texted it off to friends. By the end of the evening the whole town knew about my outrageous fine for a broken taillight.
* * *
The next day, before work, I fixed my broken taillight. I mailed a check for the full amount to the address on the ticket. I would not, no matter what it cost me, go to the chief and ask him to reduce the amount. Sounds ridiculous, but I would not be in his presence and feed his ego or put myself in a position to plead. It was worth paying more to get my power back.
I did, however, identify Chief Ass Burn’s superior to complain about the amount of the ticket. I made a copy of the ticket and my check at the bookstore and mailed the whole thing in, along with my summation of what happened, down to every last word that the chief said to me.
My question to his superior was, “Is this how a normal traffic stop should occur for a broken taillight?”
* * *
“What is that?”
“It’s a tube. Duh.”
“Gee, thanks, Jules. I was absolutely baffled.” I turned the small tube around in my hands, the packaging from a DNA company around it. “I thought you had handed me a miniature elephant. Or a barbeque. Who knew it was a tube?”
“Very funny. Spit in it. It’s new gene technology. I don’t think I said that right.” She tapped her temple. “Maybe I should call it DNA Detective Work.”
Jules pushed back her long blonde hair. She had arrived from Seattle last night and had spent the night at Rose Bloom Cottage. She was in a tank top, so her tattoos were on full display, including my pink rose. She was wearing a number of necklaces and fabric/silver/gold bracelets up her arm. She always looked cool. Jules couldn’t not look cool. I, however, thought I looked cool enough if I could fit into my jeans and my flowing shirts were clean. “I don’t get it. Spit in it?”
“Yep. Think of it as spitting for genes. We’re going to send both tubes off to this lab and find out where our ancestors came from. Mom and the aunts have always said that Grandpa was Norwegian and English, mostly, they think, and their mom said she was French and Greek. Again, they think. Nothing’s for sure.”
“And Dad said he was Scottish and English. We’re mutts,” I said. “American mutts.”
“But let’s find out what kind of mutts. Mack and I want to see what our kids are going to be made of. He already sent his test off, so I’m late. We’re late. Spit away, sister!”
“So we spit and we can find out where our ancestors are from?”
“Yep. You got it.”
“Why do we both have to do it? We’re sisters. Won’t we be the same?”
“Nope. We won’t. Only identical twins have the same genetics.”
“Huh. But we’re both from Mom and Dad.”
“Right. But you get fifty percent of Dad’s genes and fifty percent of Mom’s genes. Same with me. You and I get different percentages from each parent. It’s like all the genes get shaken up in a genetic bottle and they spill out differently when the swimming sperm meets the innocent egg.”
“That would account for why you’re tall and blonde and have dark brown eyes and I’m black haired and somehow have gold eyes and I’m short and squat like a turnip with two pumpkins for a behind.”
“Uh, let’s rephrase, book nerd, and get the vegetables out of your language. You have magnetic gold eyes that everyone loves. You are short but you are not squat, and you have a figure that curves and men love. Anyhow, you might have more of the Greek blood because of your black hair, and I might have more of the Norwegian blood because I’m blonde. But maybe not. I might have more Greek blood and ended up blonde because of the other genetic ingredients. You could be the Norwegian Viking. I can totally see you in one of those steel bustiers holding
a sword on a ship.”
“And you love scotch and men in kilts, so I could see you being more Scottish.”
“And you love tea and cookies, Evie, so you’re probably more English. As soon as we’re married, Mack and I are going to stop using birth control so I can get knocked up with a baby Mack. We’re planning on spending a lot of time bouncing in bed on our honeymoon so with his strong sperm and my open ovaries, whoa ho! Baby could soon be on the way.”
We spat in the tubes, filled out the paperwork, boxed it up. “Fun,” I said. “Don’t be surprised if we find out that you are from outer space.”
“Or that your genes are absolutely undetectable because you are a foreign species.”
“I think we already know I’m a foreign species.”
She gave me a quick squeeze. “Maybe you’re a witch. Now, that would explain everything.”
“I do have witch DNA. I think that’s already been scientifically established.”
“I’m going to mail these off when I go to town today. I bought tubes for Mom and the aunts. It’ll be interesting to see their genetic recipes, too.”
“Maybe we’ll have a surprise,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be fun to have a surprise? To be from somewhere we knew nothing of, like Zimbabwe or Ireland or Russia?”
“Oh, I would love it. Hidden family secrets and all that.” She put the boxes in her bag, then looked at me across the table. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, tell me the truth.” She leaned forward, fiddling with one of her many hoop earrings.
I glanced at her tattoo of Mack. “You better not ever get divorced, because that is a huge picture of Mack on your muscle.”
“I will never divorce Mack.” Her face scrunched up as if she was going to cry. “Never. I love him so much.”
“Geez, Jules. I’m sorry. I am. It was a joke. A bad joke.”
“It’s okay,” she squeaked out. “It’s okay.” She squeaked again and teared up, and I gave her a hug and blinked my eyes fast so I didn’t cry. Okay, maybe a tear or two squeezed out. Jules is very emotional. I am, too, but I squish it inside and then all of a sudden it bursts like a firework. Jules will cry when she’s sad or afraid or lonely, although she hasn’t been lonely since Mack roared into her life on his motorcycle, but she gets the cries out. I try to restrain myself most of the time.
“I want to know, though, Evie. How are you?”
“I’m fine. The bookstore is going well. Selling books, cake, tea, Mom’s political bouquets, Aunt Camellia’s lotions and potions. . . did you know she named one lotion Titillate and Fornicate? And I’m still selling Aunt Iris’s flower photographs and cards that you can’t quite figure out and can’t quite look away from that have a seductive and sexual overcast to them. Who knew flowers could look like that?”
“And your fortune telling?”
That’s what she called my premonitions. She’s called them that since we were kids. As a kid, that’s how she could describe it, and it stuck. “They’re not that bad lately.” That was a lie. But why burden her?
She smiled. “I love you so much, Evie. You’re not only my love-sister, you’re my bestie best friend ever in the world.”
“I love you, too, Jules.” I gave her a hug. “I’m going to look so hot in my maid of honor dress.”
She laughed. “Roarin’ hot! Wait until Marco sees you!”
I almost blushed. Dang, I am too old to blush, but I almost did.
“You’re blushing.” She laughed again.
Then I cried about Marco and she knew, as my mother and aunts knew, why I was crying and what I’d seen in the future for us, so she cried, too, in sisterhood.
“I’m sorry, Evie,” she sobbed. “So sorry.”
“Me too.”
* * *
Later that night my mother, aunts, Jules, and I went to one of only two bars in North Sound. My mother and aunts climbed up on the bar and warbled and sang karaoke. They sang Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” and Aretha Franklin’s “Think.”
Then Jules got up with the band and burned the place down. She plays guitar. And she sings. She and Mack have their own band and do well locally. I mean, how cool can a sister get? She rides motorcycles, she designs stuff for motorcycles, and she plays in a band and skydives!
I should hate her, I should.
But I can’t, so I don’t.
I cheered along with everyone else when she was on her knees, strumming away and singing at the top of her lungs.
* * *
The Book Babes were back. They bought coffee and southern pecan praline cake.
They had read a book about a woman who made fantastical wood chairs with wings and dragons, giant teacups and pink crows, Picasso-style angles and jellyfish shapes.
They decided to draw the chairs they would create if they were painters and carpenters and they described why they made the chair they did.
“My chair is six feet tall and in the shape of a winged, imperial goddess. Because I am a goddess in my head when I’ve had too much tequila. That’s what I do when I’m drunk: I pretend I’m a goddess. I even put on a white net tutu and a white shiny bodysuit and wear my silver heels. What is wrong with me?”
“My chair is more like a couch. I need a nap. I have five teenagers. Can you say ‘Hell on earth’? No one tells you what it’s like to raise teenagers, because if that secret became general knowledge, the human species would die out. Also, did anyone else hear the rumor that my son was the one who painted a red bra on that horse statue in town?”
“My chair is black. Pure black. Because that’s the kind of mood I’m in now. I hate menopause. I’m sweating at random times as if I’ve got a hose over my head. I have hot flashes at night that soak my sheets. Did I want to go swimming on my mattress? No, I didn’t. I’ve gained twenty pounds in six months. I have chin hairs sprouting every day. What? I’m a man? I need a beard for what purpose? Black chair, black menopause.”
“My chair is colorful because I am eighty-two years old and that’s all I want to see from here on out. Color. Red. Blue. Purple. I’ve had enough tough times in my life, and every day forward from here on out I want to have red, purple, yellow, and orange around me.”
“My chair is pink with a lion roaring in the background. See the head? That’s how I feel. I feel like roaring. I’m a woman, hear me roar. Remember that slogan? Hear me, I’m going to roar.” And she did. That long, growly roar startled everyone in the bookstore. One woman dropped a pile of books, and another dropped her teacup full of lemongrass tea and it shattered, but the book club clapped enthusiastically.
One can see why so many women want to join this book club.
* * *
“Spit here,” Jules told my mother and aunts. She held out the DNA tubes to each of them. We were at my house, at my kitchen table, a row of pink Dolly Parton roses in short glass vases running down the middle.
Sundance had his head on my lap, and Venus was in my lap. Butch and Cassidy were wrestling in the family room. They’d already knocked over a pile of books and almost knocked over my wine barrel coffee table.
I’d made pasta and salad. I’d bought bread. Aunt Camellia had baked a butterscotch pie. I had a slice of that pie before dinner, simply as an appetizer, and a slice for dessert. Can’t get too thin!
“Spit? Spit?” Aunt Camellia said, hand dramatically to her chest. “A lady doesn’t spit. Poor manners. Not done.”
“What in the world?” Aunt Iris said. “Why would I spit in a tube? Does that sound sane?”
“It’s for a DNA test,” I said. I scraped my fork across my butterscotch pie plate. No need to waste this scrumptious pie. A lot of people don’t know that butterscotch pie is good for them.
“A what?” my mother said, but she said it with a sharp tone that indicated she knew what it was but couldn’t believe we were doing it. I stopped scraping my plate and studied her.
“You spit in this tube,” Jules said, flipping her blonde hair b
ack, “and I’ll mail it back to the DNA company and then they’ll tell you what you’re made of, what countries our ancestors are from.”
The silence was prickly.
“Where I’m from?” Aunt Camellia said, with an edgy tone. “I’m from here. We’re from here, San Orcanita Island. Our parents are from here. I left for forty years and wandered, but that is all I need to know.”
“Aunt Camellia, you’re not one hundred percent American Indian,” I said. I saw Mars out of the corner of my eye. He was trying to climb a stack of books. Yep. He brought them down. What a mess. “You said your dad was half Norwegian and half English. You said your mother was half French and half Greek. But if you spit in this tube, you’ll know for sure. It’s this new genetic test. Evie and I already did it.”
“You what?” my mother snapped. I turned to her, as did Jules. She seemed alarmed.
“Jules and I already did it and sent off our kits.”
“You already did a DNA test?” my mother asked. She leaned forward, intense.
“Yes,” Jules said. She looked as confused by my mother’s sharp reaction as I felt. “I mailed it off when I was in town the other day and sent Mack a love letter.”
Aunt Camellia’s face froze.
Aunt Iris dropped her glass to the table, and it spilled.
My mother lost all color in her face.
What? What was going on here? Why the silence? Why the stricken atmosphere?
“Here, Mom, spit away,” Jules said. “It’ll be cool. Like a genetic puzzle. We’ll all come up related, linked up on the DNA website when we get our results back. It’ll show that you’re our mom and that you two are our aunts, because we share the same genetic stuff.”
“The website can link us up?” my mother asked, her voice choked. “They can tell you who you’re related to?”
“Yes, because we’re family,” I said, baffled by her response.
“When the DNA test is sent back to you,” Jules said, “you get to see your percentages. You three will have different percentages of Norwegian, English, Greek, and French from your parents. Plus, there could be some slinky surprises in there, at least I hope. Wouldn’t that be fun? You three don’t get the same blend. Evie and I will get different percentages, too.”