A Travel Guide for Reckless Hearts by N. M. Kelby

Author:N. M. Kelby
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-87351-789-8
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 2009-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Deals

……………………………………

Eden and Bob never touched in public. She drove. He didn’t. She was big. He wasn’t. She had a walled eye. He had bad teeth. Her good eye always seemed to be searching for a deal—something dented, something beyond its expiration date, a little bulge. He wrote the checks.

It was the perfect setup.

We couldn’t afford a car. Eden and Bob couldn’t have kids. “It’s a little deuce coupe,” that’s what Mother used to say. She learned English by listening to rock and roll, but I knew what she meant. In Florida, in the summer, buses were pressure cookers. A station wagon with faux wood panel sides was Top 40.

We met them in the summer of 1973. Mother was Paris personified: wraparound Ray-Bans, ice blonde hair, Pall Mall halo. She was a blue angel chain-smoking her way through my youth. My sister Maggs was three. She still had that baby smell and a roller-coaster laugh. Threw off sparks.

It doesn’t matter how old I was. I was just too old, that’s all. Pink with fat. Stub brown hair.

Every Saturday they’d come. Eden with her walled eye drove. Bob sat in the back. On his lap he had the quilted tote bag that held their two Chihuahuas: Pepe I and Pepe II. They were champions in their own small world. Classified as “teacups,” they were tiny yellowed cups. Chipped barks.

At 9 AM sharp, Eden and Bob and the Pepes would honk the horn once. Only once. Eden warned us that if we weren’t ready, she’d leave. “I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

We were always ready.

The grocery store was a cool dream, but Bob never came in. He’d just sit in the car and talk to the dogs. “Oh babies, I won’t leave you in the big hot car all by yourselves! No way, Pepes! No way!”

As we walked across the parking lot, we could hear him say this over and over again. It was the only time I can remember the dogs silent, their secret eyes watching him, unblinking.

Inside, we all knew our roles. Mother steered the cart and added up the bill as we went. The beans, the small bit of cheese: she carefully arranged each item so nothing would break. Or bend. Or bruise. Eden carried Maggs and made cooing sounds. I just was.

Every now and then, Eden would slide something into the cart. Cab fare, she’d explain.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she’d ask and toss in a leg of lamb or a porterhouse. “It’s just like Monopoly money, right Gigi?” she’d say.

The food stamps were orange and blue. Colorful. I guess that’s what she meant.

My mother never answered. She just recalculated our total in silence, readjusted her list accordingly.

She hated that name, Gigi. It reminded her of Maurice Chevalier. He always seemed happy, no matter what. “He ain’t nothing but a hound dog,” she’d say whenever an old movie of his was on. She didn’t turn the channel, though. She’d sing along, “Gigi, that funny little … something … something …”

It was diffcult to make out the words.

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