The Shoes Come First: A Jennifer Cloud Novel

by Janet Leigh

  ~

  The next day I woke up to a loud pounding on my front door. I hurried groggily down the stairs to see what was causing the ruckus. My cousin Gertrude had her face pressed against the glass window in the door, trying to see inside. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  “Good morning,” she said in a chipper voice.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Six a.m.,” she replied. “I’m supposed to move in today, right?”

  “Yes, but my today doesn’t usually start until at least ten on Saturday.”

  I looked past Gertie and saw a small moving van parked at the curb. I had run across Gertie at a few family functions, but it had been years since I had seen her. She was still shorter than me, but her Ronald McDonald hair had calmed down into a deep red color and hung down her back in a thick braid. She wasn’t fat but stout. She definitely came from the Cloud side of the family.

  My parents had moved out the week before. My mom cried as she loaded the last box. Now they lived in a new house with all the amenities and a neighborhood full of old people to keep them company.

  I moved aside and let Gertie enter. She was followed by her two very large brothers carrying large boxes.

  “You remember the twins, Billy Ray and Bobby Ray, don’t cha?” asked Gertie.

  “Y’all have, um, really grown,” I said. “And you guys have all your teeth, well, sort of…” They both smiled big. Billy Ray had a big gold cap on one of his front teeth.

  “Yeah,” he said, “knocked it out in football, but now I look like Mike Tyson.”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed. Not.

  Last time I had seen Gertie, she had a tongue ring and was sporting paint-on tattoos to irritate her newest stepdad. Gertie had removed the tongue ring. I guess the rebel attitude had worn out its effect on her stepdad. We helped Gertie move in and paid her brothers with pizza and beer. Six empty pizza boxes later, the twins left.

  Gertie took my parents’ old room. The space was bigger than mine, but I had turned the spare room into a closet, and my room was comfortable and familiar. I would feel weird sleeping in the room where my parents “did it.” I knew I should be more mature about such things, but, ewww, you never get over the thought.

  Gertie and I were polar opposites. I liked designer things, and she liked pink and lots of it. Her bedspread was pink, along with her curtains and most of her clothing, and she had a big pink papasan chair that took up an entire corner of her room. When I first stuck my head in, I thought the Pepto-Bismol bottle had exploded.

  “Whoa,” I told her, “this is sooo pink.”

  “I know, I think my mom told me once I looked terrible in pink, so I made it my new favorite color.”

  Gertie and her mom had a love-hate relationship. Gertie was taking classes for her degree at Southern Methodist University. At night she worked part time in the library on campus. I wondered how someone with such a loud voice could work at a place where quiet was revered. Gertie told me she spent all her time catching the college students making out in the stacks.

  When Cousin Trish married Vincent Gambino, things changed for Gertie. Vinnie and Trish moved to Manhattan. The next week Vinnie sent Gertie and her brothers off to Catholic school. Gertie explained the nuns had whacked that white-trash behavior right out of her. On the other hand, Billy Ray and Bobby Ray had given the nuns so much grief, they were expelled and sent off to military school. After a few months, even the armed forces couldn’t handle them. They were kicked out and moved back to Mount Vernon to live with Trish’s mom, Aunt Azona.

  My dad says Aint Azona could make the devil sing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” but she was heaven in the kitchen.

  Gertie told me she loved to read. When she was sent away to school, she didn’t have many friends, and one of the nuns encouraged her to read. Gertie’s infatuation with history books led her to study for her bachelor’s degree in history. She had a ton of books. The boxes filled up the entire living room. Who would have thought the redheaded, freckle-faced, kick-your-ass cousin would be a book-reading nerd? Although I thought she could still kick some ass if you pushed the right buttons.

  We decided Gertie’s books could go on Dad’s bookshelf in the living room. This way either of us could have access to them if we wanted. I thought this was a good idea. I liked to read a good book occasionally, while my nails dried.

  Dad had cleared out his homeopathic medicine books, leaving me a few about medicinal herbs and vitamins in case I had an herbal emergency. I unpacked books on medieval history, ancient Roman history, American history, and various other countries’ histories.

  I called to Gertie, who was in the kitchen. “Did you really read all these books?”

  “Yes, I have what’s called a photographic memory,” she answered from behind the kitchen wall. “I can remember anything I have read at least once. Mamma Bea said I get that from the Cloud side of the family.”

  I couldn’t recall the last book I had just put up on the shelf, so I figured I had missed the photographic memory gene. If Gertie had a photographic memory, why did she need to keep all these books? Go figure.

  I was reaching down for another book when I heard a hiss from below the box I was unpacking. Removing the box, I found a crate with a hinged metal front. Sticking through the bars was a gray paw. I bent down for a closer look, and a pair of bright green eyes squinted at me, followed by another hiss.

  “Gertie!” I hollered. “What is this?”

  Gertie rounded the corner with a bowl of ice cream. “Oooooooh, cuddleumpkins!” She put her bowl of ice cream on top of the crate and opened the metal door. I backed up a few steps ‘cause cuddleumpkins didn’t look too happy to see Gertie. She reached in and pulled out a huge gray tabby cat, stuck him in the crook of her arm, and rocked him like a baby.

  “No one said anything about a cat. I’m not sure we can have a cat.” My older sister, Melody, had allergies, so we were never allowed any animals.

  Gertie grimaced. “I already cleared it through your dad.”

  My dad loved animals; it was my mom who always put her foot down. Gertie had definitely asked the right parent for approval. Maybe having a pet wouldn’t be so bad. He would kill the bugs and any mice that might get in the yard.

  “This here’s Smoke, my little cuddleumpkins.” Gertie said the last part in baby talk as she kissed the cat on the head. “He’s real friendly once you get to know him.” She scratched under his chin, and he tilted his head up, rolled his eyes back into his head, and purred. I studied the creature. Cats always acted pissed off. He looked at me upside down, his green eyes barely visible through the slit-like openings. I thought he looked harmless, so I stepped forward, extending my hand to pet Smoke on the head. He opened one eye, then performed a perfect backflip out of Gertie’s arms, claws extended, and attached himself to my leg.

  “Yikes, he’s got me,” I shrieked, running around the room with the cat stuck to my leg. “Get him off, get him off!”

  “Hold still!” Gertie said, chasing after me. “He’s nervous.”

  She plucked him off my leg, along with a chunk of my sweatpants.

  “Nervous, my ass!”

  “He just doesn’t know you yet.”

  I stood panting, bent over with my hands on my knees, my mouth hanging open. “I think cuddleumpkins should stay in your room.”

  “Okeydoke. Once you make friends, he won’t jump you,” she said, placing the cat in front of the bowl of ice cream, which he licked at victoriously.

  “How long does that take?”

  “Mmmm,” Gertie said with a finger on her lips. “Oh, I’m not sure. He’s never really warmed up to anyone but me.”

  Great, not only am I sharing my space with a cousin, but now I also have a psycho cat. My life just keeps getting better. Jeez.