Deconstructed(44)
“We’re not all bad, you know,” Juke said.
I looked back at him. “What?”
“Men. Not all of us are such dickheads. I’m not one of those guys. I can’t be bought.”
I gave him a small smile and a half shrug. “I hope not.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
RUBY
Ten days later
Gran was turning seventy-five years old on Monday, so I pretty much had to go to the huge birthday bash on the Saturday afternoon of Gritz and Glitz, even if it meant seeing my entire family, including my strung-out mother who was somehow still considered family. My mom pretty much existed on the painkillers and antianxiety meds she got from a pain management clinic. She’d slipped eight years ago on a piece of ice while waitressing at one of the casinos, which netted her a small fortune in a lawsuit and a resulting steady diet of pain pills. We didn’t talk much because we didn’t have much to say to one another. She had never been a good mother and wasn’t likely to change in the future. And lest anyone think I was a shitty daughter, I had tried time and again to connect with her with no result other than frustration that I had put myself out there and she hadn’t even bothered to open the door. My mom hadn’t even been pissed that my uncle, her former brother-in-law who she had always hated, had used me without my knowing and then got me locked up. In fact, my darling mommy had relayed to Gran that I was an idiot, and hadn’t bothered coming to my trial or sending me a single care package, even at Christmas or on my birthday. So let’s just say that I was cool with our official position to tolerate each other when we came into contact.
Gran, on the other hand, had been more of a mother to me than a grandmother. I had lived with her for most of my childhood since my parents were constantly splitting and getting booted out of their rental houses. Gran had baked me a graduation cake when I got my GED, sat beside me when I learned to drive, and glared at the prosecution at my trial. She was my greatest supporter and my chief confidante. I wasn’t missing her birthday celebration even if Ed Earl would be there.
When I arrived, I tried to wander up to the large congregation of people in the backyard of the farmhouse without anyone noticing me. Gran took great pride in the house on the outskirts of the small town, refusing any sort of junk left in her front yard and instead populating the expanse with daffodils, tulips, and iris, which danced in the afternoon breeze. Of course, this meant that many of my grandfather’s old heaps tic-tac-toed the backyard. Half-rusted livestock troughs held newly staked tomatoes, and Gran’s greenhouse was missing a panel. My uncle Jimbo, along with Ed Earl, manned the large grill off the patio, while the rest of the males clustered around souped-up pickups parked on the woods’ side, drinking beer and bragging about their hunting and fishing skills.
Most of the women in my family, including my gran and her sister, Jean, sat in a circle on the green lawn under the huge live oak. The matriarchs were sipping coffee and laughing like the two old hens they were. The younger women, including my mother, sat to the side drinking beer and wine. I crouched down next to my grandmother and kissed her weathered cheek. “Happy birthday, old yoman.”
It was our joke—something I called her because I couldn’t say my w’s when I was a toddler. My pawpaw always called her “woman” when he referred to her, a habit I picked up, quite adorably.
“Well, sugar, you made it,” Gran said with pleasure, turning her faded hazel eyes on me. She wore a sparkly blouse and some polyester pants she’d probably bought in 1984. She looked like home to me. “Welcome home. I know it was hard coming here.”
And with those words, my jaunt to Mooringsport had just become worth it. “Hey, I got you something.”
I handed her a gift that contained the hand-painted porcelain earrings I had found at Printemps the first day I worked there. They were almost identical to the ones I had lost when I was eight years old and had meddled in my grandmother’s jewelry box when I had been forbidden to play with her few good pieces. My grandfather had bought her the earrings in Mexico on an anniversary trip, and she’d been heartbroken when I had lost one in the backyard playing “house.”
“You didn’t have to get me a present!” she exclaimed, looking pleased anyway.
Aunt Jean set her coffee down. “Go on and get you somethin’ to eat, Roo. Jimbo and Ed Earl have cooked enough for Coxey’s army.”
My mother finally noted me. She wore a too-tight T-shirt with a country and western band emblazoned across the top, ripped jeans, and boots that weren’t doing her back any favors. Her hair was dyed black, with a wing of sapphire blue swooping back from her forehead, and she was pretty for a woman in her late forties, though hardship pinched her mouth, and too much sun marred her skin. She arched an eyebrow. “Thought you was too good for us and all.”
Conversation sort of fell off, and everyone turned their gazes on me crouched beside Gran. All except the multitude of children throwing the football and skipping rope in the side yard. They continued whooping, grunting, and bickering, as children did when unsupervised.
“It’s Gran’s birthday,” I said.
“Well, you didn’t show up on my birthday,” my mother said, crossing her legs and taking another drink of whatever was in her faux Yeti tumbler. Probably straight-up vodka.
“You noticed, huh? Surprising,” I said, turning my focus back on Gran. I wasn’t going to indulge my mother, who loved to draw attention to herself. That’s why she’d stayed a cocktail waitress when she could have worked at a dozen other jobs. She liked the low-cut blouses, the flirting, and making my daddy jealous. The fights they had made us quite popular in the neighborhood, as they usually brought the sheriff and everyone outside in their robes to watch my mother sobbing and my daddy in cuffs. Good times.