All Involved: Day Five by Ryan Gattis

Author:Ryan Gattis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

5

Gloria’s on the phone when I get in, twisting the cord all around her finger like it’s a ribbon or something. She jumps when I shut the back door and gives me a look like I just stepped on the back of her dress or something.

The phone’s mounted on the wall in the living room and she takes a step forward and tries to shoo me out of the kitchen, but the cord’s not long enough so she gets jerked back and comes up looking really mad, especially when I smile wide at her and go in the fridge for whatever’s in there.

I see cheese pizza wrapped up in plastic cuz Cousin Gloria is boring and doesn’t like toppings on her pizza, and I see some Chinese food in its little white containers and then I see something worth seeing. There’s some tamales left over from what her mom made for Christmas.

Gloria must’ve unthawed them from the freezer the other night but couldn’t finish them cuz they’re sitting where the eggs usually are. I pick one out and pray it’s a sweet corn, queso, and jalapeño one, but when I sink my teeth in, I find it’s the boring pork.

Gloria waves her hand at me kinda frantically to get out and looks disappointed when I don’t. Instead, I finish the whole tamale in two bites without using a plate. She glares at me then, and after that, her voice gets real quiet on the phone and she whispers to the person on the other end that she’s really sorry but she has to go, and she’ll see them soon, and then she hangs up and comes at me with a hand in the air.

She swings and misses and I make the mistake of laughing cuz that’s when she gets me square on the cheek. She gets me good too. Like, bam. I see a couple quick stars, and as I’m rubbing my jaw where it’s still stinging, I say, “Hey, that’s not nice. That’s not ladylike behavior, you know?”

She picks up a mug, sips, and says, “I don’t care. You weren’t invited.”

“I’m family,” I say and shrug. “Like, what would your mom even say if I told her you hit me?”

“She’d say you deserved it probably.”

“My aunt would never say that.”

“Yes,” Gloria says, “she would.”

We glare at each other a little before I ask her if she’s got any money I can have.

“I don’t have any cash,” she says.

“Sure you do,” I say, “you were saving up for the TV and everything.”

She puts her head down and says, “That money’s gone, Jermy.”

She calls me Jermy when she’s serious, so I back off a little. She wets a cloth and dabs at the floor where I was eating the tamale and must’ve spilled. After she tosses it in the sink, she tells me she had to spend all that money on something, but she won’t tell me what. She tells me I’ll understand someday.

After that, she gives me $10, but she says that’s all she has cuz she and her coworkers won a scratchers pool at work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.