Untitled 2
We need a title, my people.
It’s Valentine’s Day. Remember: they can’t take love. Love all you can today. Love what you do, what you make. Fall in love with a monkey made of rags. Love your species. Throw something beautiful in a lake so you will always know where it is.
Nobody and nothing can keep us from love.
Veronica and I love music, and we love our Halloween and Christmas playlists (along with countless other themes for which there are no specific holidays). A few years ago, we tried making a Valentine’s playlist, purposefully looking for love songs that depicted—unlike most pop songs—a sentiment we could get behind as something healthy. Possibly even desirable. It’s a short list, but I think my favorites are “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes, “Jersey Girl” by Tom Waits, “Heart to Tell” by the Love Language, “Bus Stop” by the Hollies (and the amazing Freedy Johnston cover, and my all-time beloved “They Don’t Know” by Kirsty MacColl (made famous by Tracey Ullman). You and me on a Saturday night. We’ll make them turn their heads every place we go. Oh baby. I could leave you, but I don’t know how.
I love you all for reading. Take care. Help me name this book. Here’s Chapter 2:
Untitled, Chapter 2
Slick, shiny paper covered the living room carpet in every direction, along with twisted nests of ribbon and shredded cardboard. Vayla could hardly hear her aunt Del’s voice as she shook her head. “I ain’t seen it, baby, but you know it could be under all this paper someplace. I just don’t know.” Del patted her cheek and waved the cigarette in her other hand over the devastation. Her cousins shrieked and cackled; the grownups raised their conversations to be heard over all the noise.
“Thanks, Rena! Thank you so much!”
“I reckoned you’d wear it when it gets cold! Woo, thank you, Grandma Judy! Oh my! That’s five dinner plates in my pattern!”
“Thank you, Big Tam! I love it!”
“Shoot, what did I get you? Better thank Sheila. I ain’t even shopped for her. We gon stop on the way back tonight. Where’s Judy? Thank you, Judy. I needed this. I’m gon switch out from this old one right now. Oh, shit, Thank you, Judy. Look, there’s cash in it already.”
“Bad luck to give an empty wallet.”
“I’m not superstitious but I might have to turn that way.”
“Thank you, Grandma Judy! Thanks, Grandma Judy!”
The room rocked with singsong gratitude while she shoveled mountains of shiny foil and Shirley Temple ribbons, green, red, gold mixed in the orange shag. Every unopened box’s oblong sticker tag had another aunt or uncle’s name—“thank you, sweetheart!” “It’s from Grandma Judy”—and she passed them along, still looking for the big rectangle that contained the game she’d been asking for from her mother for months. “It’s too close to Christmas,” her mother would say when the commercial would run, the children in a frenzy of delight as they launched multicolored balls through little plastic holes. It didn’t even bother her that it was a two-person game and the only time she had visitors was usually Christmas Eve. She could be playing it right now if she could just find it. “Where’s Vayla’s?” Kim asked their aunt Rena when she handed Kim her gift, a flat shirt box. Nothing good came in a shirt box. “I don’t know, honey,” Rena said, “Thanks, Grandma Judy! I love my Isotoners!”
It must be a mistake. It was that simple. She knew her mom did all of Grandma Judy’s shopping, and she knew which closet kept all the gifts until Christmas. The separate wrapping paper was there, the rolls she kept apart so everybody wouldn’t know she was buying and wrapping all the gifts. Grandma Judy had church groups, she did her neighbors’ hair. Plus Grandma Judy’s second husband—the old man nobody ever saw and nobody talked about, the man who did not come to family Christmas—had no idea she gave gifts to all her children and grandchildren. “He’d shit a brick,” Vayla’s mother used to say. “He’s tight as Dick’s hatband.”
This year, when the elves at the Hudson Belk children’s shop asked Vayla the names of her brothers and sisters (none), her parents (Sylva and Doug), and her grandparents (Mamie, Judy, and…)
“Don’t you have a grandpa, little girl? What’s your name?”
“It’s Vayla.”
“Vayla! That’s a pretty name. Like a movie star.”
Vayla’s big cheeks turned red. She knew she was no movie star. Her daddy said so all the time. No Miss America, he’d say.
“Vayla, what’s your grandaddy’s name? Your papaw?”
“Hubert.”
“That’s my papaw’s name, too! You want let’s find him a present? Let me show you a few things.”
And that’s how Vayla brought home a present for Hubert, even though you weren’t allowed to say his name in the house. Going through the Belk’s bag, her Momma asked who the Lucite musical photo cube that rotated and played “The Theme from The Godfather” was meant for. Vayla stared at her new desert boots. She watched the suede turn lighter as the raindrops dried and faded. Her mother’s face was really close. She could hear her jewelry.
“Grandma Judy’s…”
“No, now you said these napkin rings were Grandma Judy’s. Who did you buy this for?” Sylva held the cube away from her nose like it smelled funny.
“Grandma Judy’s hhhhhhus…” Vayla choked on the “band” syllable, but she got out enough of the word. Her mother slammed the cube down on the dining room table so hard the ice shook in the tea glasses.
“What the hell, Sylva?” Oh, no, Vayla thought. It was bad enough, but now her father was home, and somebody was already ahead of him in slamming stuff around.
“Your daughter. She bought Hubert a damn Christmas present.”
“Judy’s husband? That Hubert?”
“Son of a bitch,” Sylva stood up and went into the kitchen.
“What’s for dinner?”
“I thawed out some pork chops.”
Doug made a face at Vayla, who stood frozen. Her boots looked completely dry.
“We don’t want pork chops! What else?”
“What else? What else is Get it your damn self.”
Her father pushed the kitchen door hard and sudden, and Vayla heard the wood crack. Then the freezer slammed, and she heard her mother cry out.
Vayla was sure her mother threw the cube away sometime after the fight about dinner finished, but there it was on Christmas Eve, the last thing in the gift closet, wrapped with a huge silver bow. The reindeer sticker tag said “Hubert” in the “to” spot, and in the “from” spot, it said “Vayla” in her mother’s handwriting. She was holding it when her mother came up and crouched down next to her. “I guess he’s getting a present this year,” her mother said, almost deflated. She whispered, “Maybe somebody thinks he’s been good. It shore ain’t the Lord.”
She took the cube from Vayla’s hands and stood up. “You thought I wasn’t going to let you send it to him? Don’t worry. I was just going to give it to Momma when she’s ready to leave. I’ll put it in her bag and make sure she knows it’s in there if it’ll make you feel better.” Vayla nodded. She’d have felt a lot better if there had been one more shiny rectangle-shaped box in the gift closet.
“Why don’t you go open your present from Grandma Judy? Lord knows you’ve been asking for one since I don’t know when.” Vayla brightened. Her mother pointed to the kitchen. “It’s up in there on the counter. Go on, now.”
She hurdled over Laramie and Trey, who lay propped up on their elbows staring while Big Tam tried to put the pieces of a Hot Wheels track together, his cigarette ash dangling over a hairpin turn. She saw Kim out of the corner of her eye and stopped for a second when she realized she was watching Stacy and Sharon playing a game. Her game. There it was, finally in her living room. They giggled and pressed the buttons, but all at once, and the balls just bounced off each other and didn’t go through the little passages. It was all chaos. They were lying on the floor and laughing hysterically.
This is not a problem, Vayla thought. They often got the same gifts at Christmas. It was hard for Mom to find something different for every grandchild, and Vayla had six other female cousins within a year of her age. They must all have gotten the same game. That’s what happened. She felt a wave of relief and tears welled up in her eyes by the time she made it to the swinging kitchen door, ragged now on one side with its newest crack.
Inside, Aunt Del and Aunt Sheila stood by the full sink, Del’s hand on one hip and a cigarette hovering in the other. They looked serious; Sheila might have been crying a little. “Get up on out of here,” Del barked at Vayla. “Go somewhere and play.”
Vayla started to back out. You didn’t cross Del. But then she turned. “Momma said my present is in here.” It struck her, after all, that she was in her own house. Her kitchen. Vayla had already started to cook some of the time. Her momma didn’t like to cook.
“I said get ya tail out,” Del hissed, leaning forward and raising her eyebrows. Vayla stiffened. “But it’s my house,” she whispered.
“What did you just say?” Sheila leaned off the counter and put her hands on her hips.
Dizzied at having the full attention of two grown women at one time, Vayla stood firm. “It’s my kitchen, isn’t it? I live here! And anyway Momma said—”
“Get your Ay Ess Ess up out of here before I tan it!” Del waved a sudsy spatula at Vayla. Just then, her mother glided through the busted swinging door. “Vayla, I found… what in the hell, Del?”
“Vayla just about threw us out of your house. Her house, she said.”
“That’s not what I—”
“…thinks she’s smarter than everybody, that’s what’s wrong with her. Spoiled rotten. Ruint!” Del turned and started scrubbing a pan like it had made eyes at her husband.
“Del, I told you to leave all that. Just leave it. I’ll take care of it later. It’s Christmas; y’all got better things to do than clean my kitchen. That’s right. Sheila, Big Tam’s looking for you. I think he’s ready to go. Vayla, honey, I got your present. It got mixed up with somebody else’s, and I’m sorry but it’s already open—”
Vayla about forgot to breathe as she pounced on the handful of paper in her mother’s hands. Tissue, ribbon, silver foil. It was all out of order but somewhere in there was her gift.
“I just hope it fits. You getting boobs and not even twelve. Lord have mercy.”
Something flimsy, a shirt box. A mistake. Vayla opened it, turned it over. This was a jean jacket. Not Gnip Gnop. It was a pretty small jean jacket, too.
“Look at that! It’s exactly like that one you said you wanted, now, isn’t it? Try it on.”
Vayla reached into each arm hole of the jacket, still somehow wondering if another gift might be inside. She didn’t like jean jackets. She would never have asked for a jean jacket. Did she ask for a jean jacket? She had a picture of the cast of Welcome Back, Kotter in her room, and they were wearing jean jackets. Was that asking for a jean jacket? She tried to move her arms, but the jacket was so tight she could only wiggle them a little.
“Oh, no. Well, just give it back to me. I’ll have to take it back after Christmas. Vayla, stop that crying. It’s Christmas Eve. Don’t be so ungrateful.”
As her mother swept out of the kitchen, the jean jacket slung over her arm, the cracked door swung wide enough for Vayla to see Kim standing there wearing a jean jacket two sizes too small. Her arms didn’t quite lay flat at her sides. Vayla pushed the door open with her foot.
“I got a jean jacket!” Kim said, grinning. “Momma says I have to give it to Tina, though. Cause it don’t fit me. But I wanted to wear it for a few minutes. What’s wrong? Come play Gnip Gnop. It’s fun.”
“I know it’s fun,” Vayla said, wiping her eyes. “I was supposed to get Gnip Gnop. And my jacket’s too small, too.”
“I think Grandma Judy just forgot how old we are. But she’s got a lot of people to remember.”
Vayla snorted. “Oh, Kim. Don’t you know? Grandma Judy doesn’t buy the presents. My mom does. She always has.” She waved her hands at Kim dismissively. But then she saw Kim’s eyebrows knit up and her lower lip fall open, trembling. “Grandma Judy don’t buy our presents?” she whispered, leaning her head all the way to one side. Vayla knew what she’d done, but it was too late to back down now.
“No, Kim, and I’ve got some bad news about Santa Claus for later.”
“Well. Shit.”
“OOO-ooo I’mon telllll. Momma, Kim said ‘shit’! Momma!”
“Shut up, Tina,” Sharon said, pounding all the buttons on the Gnip Gnop board at one time with the flat of her palm.
“Saying ‘shut up’ is uglier than saying ‘shit.’” Vayla didn’t look at Sharon. Stacy and Sharon both laughed, rolling around on the floor. Denise, their sister, pushed the game away with her foot. She was sitting on the sofa with her boyfriend, whom she’d been allowed to bring to family Christmas because they had been dating for almost a year. Vayla saw him put his hand between Denise’s thighs while she was opening her box of Jean Nate bath products. It was starting to feel, Vayla thought to herself, like nearly everybody was getting a little bit too presumptuous about absolutely everything.
“That’s stupid. ‘Shut up’ isn’t a swear word.”
“No. It’s two words. And you’re going to break that game.”
“What do you care? It’s a stupid, little kid game, anyway. Grandma Judy thinks we’re still ten years old.”
“Grandma Judy doesn’t—” Kim shoved Vayla and shot her a look. No point in ruining everybody’s Christmas.
“Stupid is an ugly word,” Kim shot back.
Sharon rolled onto her back and looked up at Kim. “Yeah, I guess we should be grateful. At least our presents fit.” They pointed and howled, holding their sides and rolling back and forth on the ground.
This time Denise shoved Sharon hard with her foot. “What in the pure T hell is wrong with you? Sit up and act like you got some sense. You’re embarrassing.” Denise’s boyfriend put his arm around her and rested his hand at the base of her neck. For a second, Vayla thought it looked like he might strangle her. The thought of Denise, who had terrorized her as a small child with trailer park witchcraft spells, suddenly at the mercy of a skinny boy with a pearl button shirt and a moustache that looked like he’d just finished off the last of the chocolate milk completely suspended everything else going on in the room for a second.
“Fatty, fatty. Eats a stick of butter.” Vayla watched Sharon’s pigtails swing while she chanted the ugly words. Maybe she was about to have another seizure.
“I did not eat a stick of butter.” Kim turned to Vayla. “I didn’t. She keeps saying I came to their house and I ate the stick of butter they were saving to make my birthday cake. That I didn’t have a birthday cake because I ate all the butter.”
“Butter butt! Butter eater! Butt eater!!”
“Which one of y’all youngins said ‘shit’?” Aunt Del called sharply from the kitchen door, flapping a dishtowel that said “Prancer” on it. Denise suddenly reached over the sofa arm, grabbed one of Stacey’s braids and yanked it until she started to scream. Sharon had dissolved into a chorus of butts, chanting to the tune of Jingle Bells. “Butt butt butt, butt butt butt, butt-er all the waaaay!”
“Stacey! Sharon!” Uncle Terrell’s voice cut through the entire room. “Don’t y’all make me do it!” Sharon and Stacey recoiled, then settled back on the floor. Vayla turned to look at the top of the Christmas tree, the little blonde headed angel with the smirk. The angel looked left, then right, and slowly she held a finger to her lips.
“It was me that ate the stick of butter,” Vayla began, her voice steady. Her cousins, now deflated, swatted absently at the noisy game, the pink and yellow balls barely lifting into the air, like mild objections. “You two dared me to do it. You made me get in the cabinet under the kitchen sink and you wouldn’t let me out until I ate the butter.” Then she turned to Kim. “And you didn’t have a birthday cake because your momma threw it at your daddy while y’all were locked out of the trailer. I heard their momma tell it to my momma on the phone. Kim, don’t cry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your momma and I’m sorry about the cake. I’m sorry about telling you who buys the Christmas presents. And the next time they lock you out of that trailer, I tell you what, I’ll come help you light a fire under it.”
Sharon hopped to her feet and stared at Vayla. Kim was sobbing. “She don’t mean it, Kim,” Sharon said. “She’s crazy.” But Kim nodded. “Yes, she does, Sharon. She means it. And you know what? Ain’t nobody else ever took up for me.” Kim reached out and grabbed Vayla, hugged so hard Vayla squinted in pain. But she stood still and let her. And as hugs went, it was okay. She didn’t mind. She almost felt good.
“Vayla, did you want this game? We don’t want it.” Stacey turned the box over, knocking the game to the floor.
“No, it’s yours. I don’t want it. You need to take it with you. Grandma Judy bought it especially for you.”