brown-haired baby was left at my great-grandmother's door step. According to family stories, my great-grandmother Petra Monroe (yes, I was named after her) opened the door, took one look at the squalling infant in a basket, and shut the door again. It was October now, gray and rainy, and she shut the door.
She crossed the house to the back pantry, poured a mug full of dandelion wine, and quaffed it back in one swallow. She was unbuttoning her blouse already when she opened the door again, and a moment later she held the baby to her bare breast, heavy with milk for the baby boy asleep in the crib upstairs. The girl baby latched on even easier than the firstborn, and my grandmother cooed at her, “You're a clever baby.” Their eyes met and they fell in love at first sight.
The baby was named Clever Monroe, and she grew up sharing the same classrooms and toys as my grandfather, Arthur Monroe. They were joined in 1952 by plump-cheeked Beatrice, who enjoyed being the baby of the family until 1962, when my great-grandmother gave birth to Icy, twenty years to the day after her first child, Arthur. My great-grandfather waited in the hospital for news of that delivery, because that was how things were done in Beaverdale in 1962.
They smoked five cigars, two packs of cigarettes, and one “marijuana cigarette” between him and his friends. My great-grandfather had the night of his life, and woke up in a clean hospital bed next to my great-grandmother, an ice pack between his legs from the vasectomy he didn't remember agreeing to.
~
The next morning, I did that thing where you wake up and you know you’re awake, but you’re afraid to open your eyes or do any movement beyond breathing because you’re not sure exactly how hungover you ought to be.
Given my fuzzy recollection of the previous evening, moving my head was not advisable. Something smooth and hard was pressed under my cheek.
Dalton Deangelo? And his chiseled chest?
No.
By the feel of it, the hard thing was just my non-sexy, non-smooth-talking, un-kissable laptop. I cracked open one gummy eyelid to see a dresser, blue and yellow with a distressed paint finish, piled with books. At least I was in my bedroom and not under the garbage truck that ran me over and dropped a load in my mouth.
I rolled back and peeled myself off my computer, surprised to feel only mild nausea.
What had I gotten into the night before? The last time I really drank with Shayla, we’d had tequila shots with two of the Australians working at her restaurant. The Aussies were an engaged couple who (I thought) looked like brother and sister, both six feet tall with shaggy, shoulder-length, honey-hued hair. I started calling them The Beautifuls after the first drink, and it stuck.
Shayla’s post-shift unwinding turned into a full-on party at our shared rental house, and while people set up a limbo challenge using a broomstick, and a frisbee challenge using our plastic camping plates, I retreated upstairs to my bedroom and partied down extra-hard on my laptop. That was the night I purchased an authentic German cuckoo clock via an online auction.
Since I already had a cuckoo clock, still tucked away in its shipping box and nestled in my Closet of Regret, I wondered what new thing had caught my drunken fancy the night before.
I opened my email to find a dozen confirmation messages.
Apparently, I’d joined the Dalton Deangelo fan club. An adrenaline blast of horror shot through me, making my brain throw up inside my head.
I closed the laptop to keep the awful truth quiet, and begged my fluttering heart to chill out. Dalton was a huge star, and he probably hired high-priced people to hire medium-priced people to deal with fan clubs. He was too busy running into bookstores and flirting with…
The thought of him kissing another girl sent a fireball of jealousy to my stomach. If only he hadn’t shushed me with his too-perfect finger, then his bumpy chest would be snuggled into the sheets next
She crossed the house to the back pantry, poured a mug full of dandelion wine, and quaffed it back in one swallow. She was unbuttoning her blouse already when she opened the door again, and a moment later she held the baby to her bare breast, heavy with milk for the baby boy asleep in the crib upstairs. The girl baby latched on even easier than the firstborn, and my grandmother cooed at her, “You're a clever baby.” Their eyes met and they fell in love at first sight.
The baby was named Clever Monroe, and she grew up sharing the same classrooms and toys as my grandfather, Arthur Monroe. They were joined in 1952 by plump-cheeked Beatrice, who enjoyed being the baby of the family until 1962, when my great-grandmother gave birth to Icy, twenty years to the day after her first child, Arthur. My great-grandfather waited in the hospital for news of that delivery, because that was how things were done in Beaverdale in 1962.
They smoked five cigars, two packs of cigarettes, and one “marijuana cigarette” between him and his friends. My great-grandfather had the night of his life, and woke up in a clean hospital bed next to my great-grandmother, an ice pack between his legs from the vasectomy he didn't remember agreeing to.
~
The next morning, I did that thing where you wake up and you know you’re awake, but you’re afraid to open your eyes or do any movement beyond breathing because you’re not sure exactly how hungover you ought to be.
Given my fuzzy recollection of the previous evening, moving my head was not advisable. Something smooth and hard was pressed under my cheek.
Dalton Deangelo? And his chiseled chest?
No.
By the feel of it, the hard thing was just my non-sexy, non-smooth-talking, un-kissable laptop. I cracked open one gummy eyelid to see a dresser, blue and yellow with a distressed paint finish, piled with books. At least I was in my bedroom and not under the garbage truck that ran me over and dropped a load in my mouth.
I rolled back and peeled myself off my computer, surprised to feel only mild nausea.
What had I gotten into the night before? The last time I really drank with Shayla, we’d had tequila shots with two of the Australians working at her restaurant. The Aussies were an engaged couple who (I thought) looked like brother and sister, both six feet tall with shaggy, shoulder-length, honey-hued hair. I started calling them The Beautifuls after the first drink, and it stuck.
Shayla’s post-shift unwinding turned into a full-on party at our shared rental house, and while people set up a limbo challenge using a broomstick, and a frisbee challenge using our plastic camping plates, I retreated upstairs to my bedroom and partied down extra-hard on my laptop. That was the night I purchased an authentic German cuckoo clock via an online auction.
Since I already had a cuckoo clock, still tucked away in its shipping box and nestled in my Closet of Regret, I wondered what new thing had caught my drunken fancy the night before.
I opened my email to find a dozen confirmation messages.
Apparently, I’d joined the Dalton Deangelo fan club. An adrenaline blast of horror shot through me, making my brain throw up inside my head.
I closed the laptop to keep the awful truth quiet, and begged my fluttering heart to chill out. Dalton was a huge star, and he probably hired high-priced people to hire medium-priced people to deal with fan clubs. He was too busy running into bookstores and flirting with…
The thought of him kissing another girl sent a fireball of jealousy to my stomach. If only he hadn’t shushed me with his too-perfect finger, then his bumpy chest would be snuggled into the sheets next
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