Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [71]
“You need some hay,” he cautioned. “For when it gets bad. Just not so much.” He lit another cigarette from the one that was still burning. She walked over and took the pack from him.
“Can I try this?”
“Go ahead. Gives you cancer.”
“I think I heard about that.” She gave a small, mirthless laugh, peering into the hole in the pack. “I’ll tell you, though, hanging on to extra years in my seventies doesn’t seem high on my list right now. Under the circumstances.” She extracted one white tube and stared at it. It smelled like Cole. “I can’t even get excited about seeing thirty, to tell you the truth.”
“That’s how kids in high school feel. That’s why we all smoke.”
“Interesting.” She put it in her mouth and leaned toward his lighter, which he pulled away, teasing her.
“This really our first time?”
“Yep. You’re corrupting an old lady.” She tried to inhale the tip of the flame, but her throat recoiled and she coughed. Rickie laughed. She waved a hand in front of her face. “I’m no good at this, obviously.”
“It stinks, it really does. You shouldn’t start, Aunt Lusa.”
She laughed. “You’re sweet, Rickie. Thanks for looking out for me.”
He met her gaze for a second. He was a striking young man, a handsome union of his father’s dark complexion and the Widener looks. Lusa was seized and simultaneously mortified by thoughts of his bare chest and arms, of putting her head there and being held by him. What was she, losing her mind? Was this celibacy, lunacy, or what? She glanced down at her tennis shoes.
“I really don’t want to die,” she said, a little shaky. “I don’t mean to sound like that. I’m depressed, but I think that’s normal for a widow. They say it passes. I was more just thinking that if tobacco’s the lifeblood of this county, I should support the project.”
“Nah, you don’t have to.” He dragged and puffed away, making tiny whistling sounds with his cigarette. He looked at her sideways. “Aunt Lusa, I hope you’ll take this the right way, but you’re no old lady. These guys at school, friends of mine? They seen you at Kroger’s and said you were pretty hot.”
“Me?” She blushed scarlet.
“No offense,” he said.
“None taken. I know, you and Cole used to skip school together and he taught you how to sweet-talk girls. I keep forgetting I’m not your mother.”
He grinned and shook his head. “You are not my mother.”
“Thank you,” Lusa said primly, feeling a little guilty for all the names she’d called Rickie’s mother in her mind: long-in-the-tooth, leather-lunged Lois. “I’m sure your mother is a better soul than me.”
He snorted. “If that’s what you call it. My mother believes in no cussing, a good night’s sleep, and everything in the kitchen decorated with little ducks.”
“And how do you know I don’t believe in those things?”
“I seen your kitchen.”
“Hey, look, I can do this.” She took a tiny gulp of cigarette smoke but mostly vamped with it dangling from her fingertips, draping her arm over the top of her head. “How old is Lois, if you don’t think she’d mind my asking?”
“She’s, lemme think.” He looked at the ceiling. “I think she’s, like, around forty-one or-two. Aunt Mary Edna’s a whole bunch older than her. She’s like fiftysomething.”
“That’s about what I thought, the Magnificent Eldest. And Emaline is between them.”
“Yeah, Aunt Emaline’s older than Mom. And Aunt Hannie-Mavis is younger. She’s not forty yet. I know because she was lording it over Mom about being forty.”
“And Jewel’s what, between your mom and Emaline?”
“No, Aunt Jewel’s the youngest one. She was right before Cole, just two years apart or something like that.”
“Jewel? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. She’s not that old. I was just a dumb little kid when she got married—I was the ring burier. I don’t even remember it that well, but they have these embarrassing pictures. Luckily nobody gets them out anymore since Uncle Shel run off with that waitress.”
“Oh yeah, lucky thing that was.”
“Oh man, yuk-yuk-yuk.” He smacked his head, causing Lusa to giggle. She felt lightheaded,