"They do make a nice-looking couple, don't they?" asked Connie. Rowena nodded, but didn't say anything. She glanced away from the dancers just long enough to find her champagne glass and pick it up.
And the bride had her dance with her father, and then the bridesmaids and groomsmen were paired up--rather forcibly, in some cases; Andy and Pete tried to sneak off but were herded back. Rowena watched Sammy's brief dance with somebody else; she was not jealous so much as envious. She felt more like an outsider than ever. She watched Sammy on the dance floor; she had never watched Sammy dance before. Soon they had him paired with a different bridesmaid, as the maid of honor and Pete both tried to escape and were recaptured. Rowena took a sip of champagne, watched as the official dances dissolved into disorder.
And then the band struck up a new tune and there were other people on the dance floor and Sammy came to her and actually bowed before her, asked with a solemn voice and twinkling eyes if he might have the honor . . . And she moved her champagne to the safety of the middle of the table and rose and slipped her hand into his and they walked to the dance floor and they held each other at last and Sammy whispered "I love you" into her ear and she held onto him and leaned her head against him and they went round and round, round and round.
Rowena Spreads Some Cheer
Fiction by S. D. Youngren
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rowena pulled up in front of her parent's house. Her sister's car was already there, next to the driveway. "It's so exciting," her mother had said. "I haven't seen my Aunt Cissy for over thirty years."
"Aunt Cissy?" Rowena had said. "The one Grandma won't talk about?"
"Don't you worry about your grandma. Aunt Cissy and Uncle Lambert are--are not getting along these days, and she's coming here to cheer up."
"And . . . ?"
"And you're coming over, too," her mother had said. "Saturday. And Sunday. Your dad's going away and your sister's coming over, so it'll be just us girls; won't that be fun?"
"Fun? I thought she needed cheering up."
"Don't be like that," her mother had said. "Aunt Cissy needs you." And before Rowena could come up with a reply she added, "It'll be such fun. You'll like Aunt Cissy; she's so independent-minded and daring. When I was little she used to sneak me candy. And I'm told that when she was a teenager she went out and got her ears pierced when Grandpa--my Grandpa--told her not to! Just imagine!"
Rowena shut off the engine, hesitated just a bit before getting out of her car and walking up to her mother's door. She knocked, and after a moment a haggard-looking Maralynne appeared.
"Maralynne," Rowena began, shocked. Maralynne moved to let her enter. Rowena hesitated, then stepped inside. Maralynne clutched her arm, as if needing support, and led her into the living room.
"Rowena, dear." Their mother bustled forward, looking distressed. "This is Aunt Cissy."
Rowena tried not to stare. "Hello, Aunt Cissy," she said. Cissy, a fairly large woman with Technicolor makeup, an overly-skimpy dress, and an enormous mass of bright-yellow teased hair, swept towards her.
"Oh, look at you!" Aunt Cissy said. She held Rowena at arm's length, then gave her a big hug, then stepped back again and pinched her cheeks. "Look at you!" Cissy said. "Let's get some color in those cheeks. Babette, what have you been feeding this girl?"
"I hardly feed her anything any more, Aunt Cissy," Rowena's mother said. "She doesn't live here now."
"Moved out, did you? Of course you did." Aunt Cissy regarded her again. "Married yet?"
Rowena took a breath. "No, Aunt Cissy."
Aunt Cissy nodded. "Good for you," she said. "Don't you go rushing into marriage. Hang onto your freedom." She laughed, waggling a cautionary finger. "Hang onto your freedom."
Rowena looked over at her mother, who was staring in shock. "I'm fine, Aunt Cissy," Rowena said. "I'm not--rushing into anything."
"No--no, she's not," Rowena's mother managed. "She's been seeing the same young man for--for a very long time."
"A long time, huh?" Cissy eyed Rowena shrewdly. "How old are you?"
"Old enough," her mother said.
"I'm twenty-five," said Rowena.
"And you've been dating this fellow for . . . ?"
"Over a year now."
"Well. That's not so bad." Cissy patted her cheek. "But mind what I said about freedom."
"Yes, Aunt Cissy."
"And don't you let anybody tell you what to do--no man, nobody."
"Yes, Aunt Cissy."
Aunt Cissy nodded, satisfied. "And dress yourself up a little," she said. "Get some color. Show some skin." She pointed at Maralynne, though she could as easily have indicated herself; her splashy dress exposed her knobby knees and a good deal of aging breast. Aunt Cissy had apparently spent too much of her life with a dark suntan. "Be like your sister," she emphasized. "Don't go moping around."
If anybody could be accused at the moment of "moping around," though, it was Maralynne. She stood against the wall, not looking at anybody, apparently not cheered by Aunt Cissy's using her as an example. "I'll see what I can do," Rowena said.
Rowena watched her mother grow more and more pale as the afternoon wore on. Aunt Cissy liked to use words that made her mother hyperventilate. At one point she managed to wheeze, "Now, Aunt Cissy!" but for the most part they left her entirely beyond speech. Rowena found herself trying gently to get her aunt to tone down her speech, but her efforts only got her a half-pitying, half-amused look and a "What, a big girl like you? Don't tell me you're still a virgin."
Rowena distinctly heard her mother gasp, but she looked at her aunt, hoping that Cissy had not heard as well. "It's just--you know what they say, if you overuse those words, they lose their . . . effectiveness." Though they were still pretty effective, Rowena thought, where her mother was concerned.
"Well," Aunt Cissy said, "even if that's true, I'm too old to change. That's what I keep telling Kevin." She lowered her voice just a little bit; a formality rather than an actual attempt at confidentiality. "He's got the cutest little ass," she said. She brayed with laughter. "Not the brightest, but I didn't pick him for his brains."
Rowena glanced at her mother, leaning stiffly against the wall, and wondered how long she'd be able to stand up. She was considering what she might do when Cissy demanded, "What's the matter with you, Babette? You look like you could use a drink. I know I could."
"Ummm . . .," said Rowena's mother.
"Gimme a Scotch," Cissy said, adding, "A person could die of thirst."
Rowena's mother managed to gasp out something about not having any Scotch. "Out of Scotch?" cried Aunt Cissy. As far as Rowena knew, there had never been any Scotch in the house. "Well, how about a beer? You got any beer?"
"It's Wilder's"
"Pah! He won't let anyone drink his beer?" Cissy shook her head in disbelief. "I wouldn't put up with that." She shook her head again. "Not even if he had an ass like Kevin's." She looked again at Rowena's mother. "You gonna get me that beer, or what?"
"I'll help," Rowena offered. She took her mother by the elbow and steered her towards the refrigerator. She opened the door.
"Take it easy," she told her mother in low tones. "She doesn't mean anything by it."
"Ooooh," her mother moaned. "I don't want you girls exposed to that."
"If she really bugs you, throw her out." Rowena did not for a moment believe her mother would or could do this. She located a beer, removed it, and closed the refrigerator door. "Mom, listen. Maralynne and I are grown up now. We're not that . . . susceptible." She located a glass for the beer and remembered that she was thirsty. She regarded the inside of the refrigerator, pulled out a soda for herself, then one for her sister and one for their mother.
"You're my babies," her mother said.
"Mom. I'm an adult. And so is Maralynne." To herself she added, "More or less." She pulled down three more glasses. "Don't worry about us."
"I can't believe
it," her mother said. "Aunt Cissy . . ."
"Maybe this is why nobody in the family--"
"I can't believe she's in this family," her mother said. "And I can't believe she's Aunt Cissy. She was so--so alive, back then. She was so pretty and lively--just in her twenties, when I was little--such a pretty smile--she had these high-heeled shoes; I couldn't wait, when I was a kid, to have shoes like that. So shiny, and such high heels. So glamorous! And she said I was her favorite niece!"
"Mom--"
"I wanted to walk like her, do everything like her . . ."
"Everybody looks up to somebody as a kid," Rowena said. "It's--"
"And now look at her! An old lady! Carrying on like--like--"
Rowena filled the last of the glasses. "I think she's lonely," she said.
"Rowena!"
"I mean, for--family. Friends--you know?" She held out two glasses of soda to her mother, who seemed not to realize that she was supposed to take them. "We'll get through this fine. And then she'll go home, or wherever, and--"
"In this family," her mother said. Rowena raised the glasses a bit and she finally took hold of them.
"Now, let's go out there and be nice," Rowena said. She picked up the other two glasses, went back out to the living room and smiled at her aunt.
"Here you go, Aunt Cissy."
"Thank you, dear." She accepted the glass, admired it a moment. "In a glass," she said. "Wow. The VIP treatment. You got a highfalutin' establishment here." She raised the glass with a "Salud!" and drank. But she brought the glass down immediately, her entire face twisted into a wince.
"Ugh! What is this shit?"
"That's my dad's beer," Rowena said, and told her the brand name.
"Is that the only kind he drinks?"
"Yep." Rowena took a good-sized sip of her own, safe beverage.
"Lord," said Cissy. But she laughed and took another sip--more of a gulp, really--making not quite as sour a face as before. "You got anything drinkable here?"
"Nothing alcoholic."
"Rowena!" cried her mother, coming suddenly to life. "Watch your language!"
Aunt Cissy brayed again, throwing back her head and exposing to Rowena the salt-and-pepper roots of her otherwise yellow hair. "Babette," she said, "you kill me. You just kill me."
"Kill?" said Rowena's mother. "Me?"
Aunt Cissy laughed so hard she nearly choked. "Lord, Babette," she said. "It's a figure of speech. Though for a minute, there . . ." She shook her head, still laughing, and patted herself on the chest. "Babette, Babette, Babette."
For a moment nobody said anything. Aunt Cissy didn't seem to notice. She took another swig of beer. "Vile," she said cheerfully. "Utterly repulsive." And she raised the glass again.
Rowena brought her own drink to the coffee table, where she found a photo album. A sudden movement made her look up; Maralynne, clutching her soda in both hands, turning to face into the wall. Rowena looked to her mother, who wore much the same expression of shock and horror that she'd been wearing since Rowena arrived--probably since Cissy arrived--and Cissy herself, still drinking. Rowena sat down, set her glass within reach, and brought her attention to the album.
And then she looked at her sister, and then at Cissy, and then briefly at her mother, and back at the album.
The young Cissy, at about Maralynne's age, was almost the image of Maralynne now.
Rowena stared at the pictures. The resemblance was striking; striking and unavoidable.
And she understood why Maralynne was so shocked.
"I tell you," Aunt Cissy said, comfortably ensconced in Rowena's father's chair, clutching her fourth glass of Rowena's father's beer, "you gotta watch your men like a hawk. Like a hawk." She took another gulp of beer. Nobody else said anything; nobody else had spoken for quite some time. "Why, I told Lambie the other day--Oh, Lambie." She gulped more beer, remembering; Rowena wondered what Uncle Lambert thought of his nickname. "I told Lambie, any indi-cation he's spying on me or any of that--ANY of that--and--and--and I won't put up with it." She nodded, emphatically. "Won't put up with it. And don't you, either." She looked at Rowena; a lot of her remarks were addressed to Rowena, who was the only person who reliably answered. "Right?"
"Right."
She turned suddenly to Maralynne. "What did you say your boyfriend does?"
"What?" said Maralynne, alarmed.
Cissy gave another loud laugh. "What's he do for a living, girl? He's got a job, hasn't he?"
"He--he's a computer programmer."
"Computers, huh?" Cissy considered. "Does he know how to treat you?"
"He--"
"You got a picture of him?"
"No."
"No? asked Cissy. "You don't have a picture of him?"
"Not with me."
Cissy looked at her a moment, then shrugged and turned to Rowena.
"What's yours do?"
"He works for an attorney," Rowena said. "Clerical work and some research."
"Law clerk, huh? Is he good to you?"
"Yes," said Rowena. "He is."
"Glad to hear it," Aunt Cissy said. "You got a picture of him?"
"No," Rowena lied. She didn't want any crude remarks made about Sammy, especially in front of her mother, and she didn't want to make Maralynne look negligent.
"No pictures? Neither of you?" Cissy shook her head. "Well, I just don't understand you young people today. Though maybe it's for the best; let them carry our pictures, huh?" She paused for another beer break. "Does yours carry your picture?" she asked Maralynne.
"Yes."
"You sure? Have you checked?" More beer. "Go through his wallet next time he's asleep or in the can or whatever he does after you screw, and make sure." Maralynne looked at her lap; Rowena supposed she'd already checked. She glanced next at her mother, who looked exactly as shocked as before; Rowena couldn't tell whether she'd even heard this last affront, or whether she could hear--or comprehend--anything at all.
Her aunt now turned to Rowena. "How about you?"
"I'm not going to look through his wallet, Aunt Cissy."
But Cissy only laughed. "I'm joking, you two. Don't take everything so seriously." She drained the beer, held the empty glass out to her hostess for refilling. "Let me tell you something, though," she said to Rowena. "You gotta keep an eye on your man; you gotta know where you stand with him. You gotta stay alert; you can't just--Babette! Gimme some beer."
Rowena's mother managed somehow to come forward, take the glass, and bear it away to the kitchen. Rowena wondered, for a moment, whether she would come back. "No," Cissy said, "You gotta stay on top--so to speak." She laughed immoderately, fell to hiccupping, and finally got some control over herself. "Information--that's the key." She looked from Rowena to Maralynne. "I gotta know if Lambie will take me back," she said. "I gotta know what to do. Either of you know of a good psychic around here?"
Rowena, somewhat alarmed, looked at her sister, who was standing even more stiffly than before. "No," said Maralynne, a little too vehemently. "No, I don't."
Cissy looked at Rowena, a bit fuzzily. "Me neither," Rowena said.
"Too bad," Cissy said. "I may be here a while." She shook her head. "A Pisces gotta do what a Pisces gotta do," she said, and laughed.
Rowena looked again at Maralynne, who seemed to have gone even paler. "Well, Aunt Cissy," Rowena began, "what do you think of the area so far?"
Cissy shrugged. "I just got here," she said. "A city's a city, you know? What I have to do is get out and meet people, you know what I mean? It's the people who make the city." She raised her voice. "Babette! Babette! Where's my beer?"
Rowena's mother reappeared with a full glass. "We only have two more," she said, or managed to say. She gave the beer to her aunt, and went to stand against the wall, near Maralynne. "Two more," Cissy said, and snorted. She took a swig, shaking her head.
"I was telling the girls," she continued, "that wisdom--they need to know things. Experience. They should listen to mature women,
like us. Us mature women--we know what's what, don't we?"
Rowena's mother wavered; apparently having her aunt lump them into the same age group was entirely too much for her. Rowena got up and caught hold of her, helped her onto the couch.
"So many ways a young girl can ruin her life," Aunt Cissy mused. She looked at Rowena and Maralynne. "You're both using birth control, aren't you?" she asked. Rowena, who had been wanting to relieve herself but felt guilty about leaving her mother and sister, decided that she wouldn't wait after all.
S.D. Youngren - Rowena 6 - Rowena Moves In.txt Page 3
