Concessions II
From The Avocado Grove Emily
Original Posting 6/24/2015
“Mom, you need to see something,” Thom says.
“What’s wrong?” The rain stops, the evening feels more than tipsy. And Ally would like to do nothing more than hide out under the tree and wait for her head to clear. But Thom pulls her arm,“Just come on.”
Frank? Do you know what’s happened? Is the chili hot where you are? Do they put extra cayenne into the pot the way we used to make it? Are you always at the front of the line? Are there any lines?
Thom’s plastic water bottle sweats in Ally’s hands and she looks over towards the place where Marianne stands and licks her lips.
Original Posting 6/24/2015
Ally dances in a river of collected thoughts and mucks around with Frank and Eddie in the flood
in her mind. Isn’t that what Marianne does? And what Grizzly does too? And always did? Ally
doesn’t need anyone’s permission to play today. She turns away from the party and the specks
of dirt on her new dress. The mud dries up and soon she is dry too. Her biggest concern - what
to tell everyone about Grizzly. She ignores what Marianne’s butterfly says.
People say things, when they should say nothing at all.
“Eddie’s working” or “Eddie’s at a Lakers’ game.” It wasn’t true, especially the games, he could never afford those tickets, but he always bluffed as if he did. His absence was expected. Grizelda’s was not. Everyone assumed she knew about Eddie. And it was better she wasn’t there. She would have suffered the talk.
Things have not changed. Ally would rather face Marianne’s nasty tattoo than listen to the other garbage people said about her sister and Emily and now her.
That girl’s extracurricular activities aren’t normal, and the mom is gone.
Gone where? Out.
Go for the hotdogs. Marianne brought the beer.
Ally hears her twenty-something self ask Frank, “What was it about the beer?" “It tasted like piss,” Frank said.
“Did you tell Eddie we had the same beer last week and he said he loved it?”
“I gave him a look.”
And Ally knows the way Frank could look when he was unhappy about something, the way he could make you feel like a dog - the way a dog gets when you yell at it and it dips its head and sinks all the way to the floor. She has a hard time seeing Eddie cower, but if anyone ever brought Eddie to that point, it was Frank. And she remembers the other things long ago Frank said, how Eddie got close to saying he was having trouble with Grizzly without saying Grizzly’s name, and what it was like after they gossiped to curl her fingers in her husband’s hand and believe she would never be like her sister. She would never stand soaking wet under some stinking Ficus and wait alone while everyone else seemed paired up, grouped up, or in some way on top of things and having a good time, not dogs at all but butterflies.
In that moment even Grizzly flies with broken wings and this she knows cannot be true. Her sister chats it up with an Eddie look a like and Ally imagines it is the two of them, Eddie and Grizelda together again and they join with everyone else at the block party. They laugh at her too. It must be the beer. She’s had way too much. But, she reaches for another. It slides down smooth and she’s cool all over, cooler than anything and anyone. Her eyes drift up into the bright evening. If she could transport up to the creamy depths of the giant moon and slip away for a little while longer, everything might be perfect like it used to be. She closes her eyes and she is with Frank in the sky.
People say things, when they should say nothing at all.
“Eddie’s working” or “Eddie’s at a Lakers’ game.” It wasn’t true, especially the games, he could never afford those tickets, but he always bluffed as if he did. His absence was expected. Grizelda’s was not. Everyone assumed she knew about Eddie. And it was better she wasn’t there. She would have suffered the talk.
Things have not changed. Ally would rather face Marianne’s nasty tattoo than listen to the other garbage people said about her sister and Emily and now her.
That girl’s extracurricular activities aren’t normal, and the mom is gone.
Gone where? Out.
Go for the hotdogs. Marianne brought the beer.
Ally hears her twenty-something self ask Frank, “What was it about the beer?" “It tasted like piss,” Frank said.
“Did you tell Eddie we had the same beer last week and he said he loved it?”
“I gave him a look.”
And Ally knows the way Frank could look when he was unhappy about something, the way he could make you feel like a dog - the way a dog gets when you yell at it and it dips its head and sinks all the way to the floor. She has a hard time seeing Eddie cower, but if anyone ever brought Eddie to that point, it was Frank. And she remembers the other things long ago Frank said, how Eddie got close to saying he was having trouble with Grizzly without saying Grizzly’s name, and what it was like after they gossiped to curl her fingers in her husband’s hand and believe she would never be like her sister. She would never stand soaking wet under some stinking Ficus and wait alone while everyone else seemed paired up, grouped up, or in some way on top of things and having a good time, not dogs at all but butterflies.
In that moment even Grizzly flies with broken wings and this she knows cannot be true. Her sister chats it up with an Eddie look a like and Ally imagines it is the two of them, Eddie and Grizelda together again and they join with everyone else at the block party. They laugh at her too. It must be the beer. She’s had way too much. But, she reaches for another. It slides down smooth and she’s cool all over, cooler than anything and anyone. Her eyes drift up into the bright evening. If she could transport up to the creamy depths of the giant moon and slip away for a little while longer, everything might be perfect like it used to be. She closes her eyes and she is with Frank in the sky.
“Mom, you need to see something,” Thom says.
“What’s wrong?” The rain stops, the evening feels more than tipsy. And Ally would like to do nothing more than hide out under the tree and wait for her head to clear. But Thom pulls her arm,“Just come on.”
Frank? Do you know what’s happened? Is the chili hot where you are? Do they put extra cayenne into the pot the way we used to make it? Are you always at the front of the line? Are there any lines?
Thom’s plastic water bottle sweats in Ally’s hands and she looks over towards the place where Marianne stands and licks her lips.
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