Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [18]
“Glen loves me, loves my girls. Don’t matter if his family is stuck-up and full of themselves. Glen’s not like that.”
“You don’t know what that boy is like, Anney. You just don’t know.”
“I know he loves me.” Mama spoke with conviction, certain that Glen Waddell loved her more than his soul and everything else would come from that. “I know enough,” she told Granny.
“That boy’s got something wrong with him.” Granny turned to Aunt Alma for support. “He’s always looking at me out the sides of his eyes like some old junkyard dog waiting to steal a bone. And you know Anney’s the bone he wants.”
“You just don’t think anybody’s good enough for Anney,” Alma teased. “You want her to go on paying you to keep her girls every day till she’s dried up and can’t imagine marrying again. ”
It was a continuation of a fight that had been dragging on all week. Now it was Sunday, and Glen was coming over to take everyone out to the lake for a picnic. Granny was refusing to come along even though Mama had packed chicken hash and Jell-O with her in mind.
“Let it go, Anney, and help me with this camera.” Aunt Alma had a new Brownie and was determined to document every family occasion she could. “You can’t win a fight with Mama no way. Just leave her alone and let her come to her senses in her own good time.”
When Glen arrived, it was the camera that coaxed Granny out of the house and onto the porch with the rest of us. But then it was Glen who didn’t want his picture taken. “I an’t no movie star,” he told Alma, and kept putting his hand up in front of his face when she pointed her camera at him.
“It’s that new haircut,” Earle joked. “Glen don’t want people to know his ears stick out that far. I’m with you, Glen. We’re too ugly for photographs. Let the women and kids line up for ’em and leave us alone. ”
Uncle Earle liked Glen Waddell well enough, but like Granny he didn’t think much of the Waddell family. He’d even said so to Glen’s face, but the boy had just grinned at him, and that didn’t seem right. Even if he didn’t get on with his people, Earle believed that Glen shouldn’t let anybody bad-mouth them. If they had traded a few punches over it, bled on each other a little and made up after, the whole thing would have felt better to Earle all around. But Glen was a quiet sort who never fought in friendly style. He either gave you that slow grin or went all out and tried to kill you. The latter earned him a little respect, Earle admitted. The cops had had to be called on Glen once at the foundry before he left to take the job at the RC Cola plant. Glen was a grown man, a working man, and he loved Anney Boatwright. Everybody knew that, even Granny.
“Now, Earle, don’t you be making no trouble. Granny pushed her hair back behind her ears and smoothed down the wrinkles on her green print blouse. ”I want Alma to get pictures of everybody. I want a book of family pictures for my cedar chest.”
Earle laughed and sneaked around to poke Alma while she was focusing on Granny and Mama, then chased Reese and me out into the yard, catching Reese and throwing her up in the air so high she flapped her arms like she was going to fly. I dodged them and cut through the bushes, ignoring the brambles that caught in the skirt of the new dress Mama had made me wear. From the other side of Earle’s truck, I stood and looked back at them, Granny up on the porch with her hesitant uncertain smile, and Mama down on the steps in her new blouse with Glen in that short brush haircut, while Alma posed on the walkway focusing up at them. Everybody looked nervous but determined, Mama stiff in Glen’s awkward embrace and Glen almost stumbling off the steps as he tried to turn his face away from the camera. It made my neck go tight just to look at them.
Only Earle and Reese were relaxed, Reese shrieking and giggling, still up in Earle’s arms, her legs outstretched as he spun the two of them around and around on the wet grass in the bright sunlight. “Bone, Bone,” Reese screamed. “Oh, Bone, help me! Help me!”
“I’m gonna