Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [77]
Hope smiled secretively and rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling. “Things,” she said.
“What things?” I asked.
She made the gesture of buttoning her lip and tossing aside the key. She shrugged her shoulders.
“Ick. Well, I’m not having any of it,” Natalie said.
“That’s too bad for you then,” she said. “You won’t get to appreciate my secret ingredient.”
Natalie slid her eyes toward Hope. “What secret ingredient?” She fanned her shirt out from her skin to shake off some of the water.
“Well, I went outside and dug Freud up. So she’s in there.”
Natalie shrieked and recoiled instantly from the stove. She slapped her hands across her legs, her arms and her chest as if trying to brush away a swarm of locusts. “Oh my God, you fucking lunatic, I knew you were fucking insane,” she screamed.
Hope smiled triumphantly. “I’m only kidding, jerks! Ha, ha, got you back.”
When Natalie regained her composure and stopped laughing, she said, “Got me back for what?”
“I got you back for not getting me anything at McDonald’s when you guys went there today.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Natalie said. “We really should have brought you back something.”
“Yeah, Hope. I’m sorry too.”
“That’s okay,” Hope said. “At least we all got some anger out.” She smiled warmly at both of us and extended her arms. “Group hug.”
And as easy as that, we were one big, happy family again.
LIFE IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS
N
ATALIE STOOD AT THE COUNTER SCOOPING FRIENDLY’S mint chocolate chip ice cream into the blender and Hope sat at the kitchen table leafing through her bible. She’d bookmarked earlier bible-dips and was now going back over them. Glancing up at Natalie she said, “Sure looks good.”
Natalie hit the puree button. “There’s not going to be enough for you.”
“Oh come on,” Hope complained. “Why not? Why can’t you make me one, too?”
Natalie stopped the blender and added some chocolate syrup. “Because you haven’t been behaving,” she said.
Agnes looked up from the television, which was on a cart next to the love seat. “Now don’t you two get into another fight.”
“Hear that, Natalie?” Hope said.
“Maybe you can have a little,” Natalie teased.
“Oh, wow!” Hope cried. “Listen to this.” She turned her bible sideways and read from a note in the margin. “Last fall I asked, ‘Will the IRS get the house?’ and my finger landed on the word defeated. Isn’t that great? It was right.”
“That’s fantastic, Hope. You’ve got your own little Magic Eight Ball there.”
“Well, I think it’s pretty incredible.”
“Where are the glasses?” Natalie said.
I remembered seeing them just recently. “They’re in that suitcase,” I said, pointing next to the old clothes dryer.
“Oh, okay,” Natalie said.
The wind picked up and Hope closed her eyes. “Mmmmm, that feels so good.”
Agnes reached forward to change the channel. “It is rather pleasant out here.”
“The best part,” said Natalie, plucking a blade of grass from the lip of the coffee mug, “is that cleanup is so easy.” She filled four mugs with milkshake and then leaned over and rinsed the blender out with the garden hose.
We’d been living outdoors now for almost a week. Although we didn’t sleep outside, we certainly napped.
It had started as a simple tag sale. Hope had suggested we make some extra money by laying a few things out on the lawn and sticking prices on them. At first, Natalie didn’t think it was such a good idea. “Who the hell’s gonna buy Dad’s old electroshock therapy machine?” But when somebody paid ten dollars for Agnes’s ratty old sealskin coat, she changed her tune.
Little by little, we added more things. The old love seat from the barn, the washing machine that didn’t have a spin cycle anymore. We brought out the spare kitchen table that had been hogging so much room next to the piano in the living room. And the extra TV in Hope’s room that she never watched. There was even an old kitchen counter in the basement. And we dragged it all out onto the front lawn.
Once we got it out there, we saw that we had enough major furnishings to create a sort of room. The love seat