on at school, I started reading over all my letters to you really carefully to make sure I didn’t give anything away, and I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to be straight-up honest.
Like about Carolyn. There’s no one else I can talk to about her. We kissed again yesterday, for the first time since that night on the golf course. It happened in the girls’ locker room before math class, but it was really quick and we both ran away afterward and I don’t know what it means, and…
Actually, maybe I should tell you about Thanksgiving instead. That’s simpler.
My dad’s parents came out from Ohio for the weekend. That’s a big deal, because they hate flying, and they hate California even more. I’ve only seen them a handful of times since I was born, and I’m not entirely sure they can tell me and my sisters apart, but they’re obsessed with my little brother and my baby nephew.
My aunt and uncle came over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner with my little cousin Eddie, the way they do every year (my aunt hates to cook). That made things awkward. My mom’s family and my dad’s family have never been close, and my grandparents clearly resented Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell being at the dinner. When my grandparents started drinking—they only drink on holidays, so they tend to get drunk fast—things got worse.
“I thought you’d have more children by now, Amanda,” Grandpa said before Dad had even carved the turkey. “How old are you?”
My aunt tried to cough politely. “Now, now, we never discuss a woman’s age, do we?”
“She’s thirty-five,” Eddie said. He was pouting, because he’d tried to read a comic book under the table and Uncle Russell had smacked him and taken it away.
“Is that so?” My grandmother sipped her wine and eyed Uncle Russell. Then she turned back to my aunt. “I always think of you as that tiny girl at Henry’s wedding, but you’re not so tiny now, I suppose.”
“No, no, she’s got that whole legion of followers,” my grandfather said. “Donna sent us that article she cut out from the newspaper, remember? Something about Anita Bryant?”
“Now there’s a godly woman,” Grandma said. Then she started singing, in that overwrought, trembly voiced, Anita-Bryant-on-her-Christian-music-albums way. “‘Mine eyes have seen the GLO-ry of the COM-ing of the LORD…’”
Singing aside, I was enjoying watching them give Aunt Mandy a hard time, but then my mother messed it all up. “Irene, did we tell you Ricky’s going to be the lead in the school Christmas pageant?”
“I’m Joseph!” my brother yelled, and of course Grandma and Grandpa immediately started cooing over him and arguing with my dad about who’d pay for them to fly out for Christmas so they could see Ricky stumble around with a stuffed donkey and some unfortunate junior-high girl dressed as Mary.
They left my aunt alone after that, but she seethed all through dinner. I’ve been around her when she’s angry enough times that I know her fakest, most wooden smile when I see it.
Seeing her suffer really does make me happy. Maybe that makes me a terrible person, but to be honest, I’m not sure I care.
Anyway, tell me if you go back to that bookstore, please. I want to hear every detail.
Yours truly, Tammy
Friday, December 2, 1977
Dear Tammy,
Your grandparents sound hilarious. I bet you wish they came over all the time, even if your grandmother’s an Anita Bryant fan.
But… I’m sorry, Tammy. I have to admit something, and it’s bad.
I’ll just tell you what happened. Then you can decide what you think.
I went to the bookstore again after school today. I’d gone on Tuesday and Wednesday, too, since there was always work to do. The afternoons were quiet. I’d helped with some mailings, talked to the women there, and made it home in time for dinner.
Today was different.
“Sharon?” a voice behind me said when I was halfway through a stack of envelopes. “What are you doing?”