Finding orion, p.6
Finding Orion, page 6
“Oh, that’s all Jimmy’s stuff,” Aunt Gertie said casually. “At least, the little things. The big stuff is already in storage, except the motorcycle, of course—that’s in the garage. This is mostly just personal items. Sentimental junk. We can look through it all later, if you’d like. Come relax and tell me about the trip.”
Aunt Gertie and my parents immediately found spots in the living room—the least messy room in the house—and started talking about completely mundane stuff. Road construction along the interstate, the weather, the new color of paint on Aunt Gertie’s walls (mint green and hideous). It was almost as if they wanted to talk about anything other than my grandfather, the whole reason we were all here. For her part, Aunt Gertie looked like she always did. No dark rings under her eyes. No nose rubbed raw and red from too much tissue wiping. She did not look like a woman who had recently lost her brother and best friend. She was wearing a lot of makeup for someone dressed in yoga pants, but that was Aunt Gertie for you.
It didn’t take the Kwirk kids long to split off and go our separate ways. Cass was still out in the garage getting Delilah settled, and I could hear Lyra banging her way through the rooms upstairs, opening and closing doors, looking for the ferret—“Be-ellll-ze-bub. Where arrre you?” After I’d answered the required battery of questions from my aunt (School? Good. Soccer? Good. Friends? Fine. Girlfriend? Nonexistent, but thanks for asking), I interrupted a riveting conversation on the construction of the new roundabout in town to ask Aunt Gertie if she’d gotten any new toothbrushes since the last time we were here.
I hadn’t forgotten about the toothbrushes.
“You bet your sweet bippy,” Aunt Gertie said, and pointed to the stairs. “Up in the vault. In fact, there’s one up there I got just for your dad. See if you can find it. And take your time. Your parents and I have some catching up to do.”
That’s when it dawned on me. They weren’t talking around Papa Kwirk. They were talking around me—the only kid left in the room. I nodded and headed for the stairs, wondering what a bippy was and why I would bet it.
“Watch your step,” my mother warned, no doubt worried that I would trip over some pile of Aunt Gertie’s junk and get swallowed by the clutter, never to be seen again.
I started up the stairs, pausing for just a second to look at a picture on the wall of Aunt Gertie and Papa Kwirk, all dressed up. Maybe it was for the retirement party that we didn’t make it to.
It was the first time I’d ever seen my grandfather in a suit.
Tomorrow, I assumed, would be the last.
The carpet in my great-aunt Gertie’s house changes with almost every step. Sky blue in one room, pine green in another. Gold to maroon to a sort of brownish gray that looked like dirty snow. Every doorway was like a portal to another colorful dimension, though in some rooms it was hard to tell because you could barely see the floor at all. Not that I had a right to criticize.
I’m not sure what qualifies one as being a hoarder, but Aunt Gertie sure did have a lot of stuff. There were dolls sitting on shelves and books stacked in corners. Every room had at least one table with a lamp on it, even though all the rooms had overhead lights and none of the lamps had bulbs. There were towers of boxes scattered throughout, like the ones downstairs in the entryway, except these weren’t even labeled. The house wasn’t dirty, not even that dusty (though not spotless like my mother’s office)—making me think that Aunt Gertie actually moved all this junk around to clean behind and underneath it, which made it even more of a wonder that she kept it. The last time we visited, Cass and I, in a fit of boredom, invented a game of trying to catalog all the strange stuff Aunt Gertie had accumulated. We wrote it down on a sheet of paper. Things like:
Nine vacuum cleaners (five of them operational)
Four toasters (plus one toaster oven, which she insisted was a completely different appliance)
At least four boxes of ancient National Geographics, dating back to 1937 (admittedly these were kind of cool to look through)
A giant pickle jar full of paper clips
At least five hundred balls of wadded-up aluminum foil in two giant black trash bags (she said she was going to make a sculpture out of them one day)
One unicycle, broken
Dad said it probably came from living for so long in a one-bedroom flat in Manhattan. That once she got a house with all this space, she insisted on filling it with something, and having no husband and no kids and apparently way too much money, she filled it with whatever she could find.
A backpack full of old bottle caps from the seventies that my father secretly coveted
A collection of salt and pepper shakers shaped like farm animals
Thirty-two porcelain cats (can you still be a crazy cat lady if the cats aren’t real?)
A set of golf clubs, even though my aunt has never golfed once in her life (she claimed they were for self-defense)
Most of this stuff she kept upstairs in the Vault, one of three spare bedrooms and the only one that didn’t have a spare bed in it. Probably because there was nowhere to put one.
That’s the room I found myself in, looking for the large cedar chest, much like what I imagine pirates used to bury treasure on desert islands. I spotted it in the corner by a pile of shoes, knelt down beside it, and flipped the latch. It opened with a satisfying creak.
There it was. Aunt Gertie’s most prized collection.
Her toothbrushes.
It was no secret that my great-aunt had a thing for proper dental hygiene. Her house was a wreck, but her teeth were perfect. Even at the age of sixty-seven, she still had her original set. But the treasures in this chest weren’t ever used for brushing teeth. They were more like a monument to the awesomeness that is toothbrushing in general. A tribute to the glory of oral health.
There were at least a hundred of them. Imagine any kind of toothbrush, any shape, any material, and Great-Aunt Gertie had one. She had toothbrushes made of ivory and silver and wood. She had toothbrushes with foot-long handles and giant bristles. She had toothbrushes shaped like famous monuments (the Leaning Tower of Pisa was a personal favorite; it had a suction cup angled at the bottom so that it actually tilted when you stuck it to the sink) and celebrities (a Marilyn Monroe–patterned one was Aunt Gertie’s pride and joy). Double-sided toothbrushes for getting your uppers and lowers at the same time. Toothbrushes with screwdrivers in the handle. Toothbrushes that sang to you, that shot toothpaste out, that folded in half. Toothbrushes shaped like naked people—male and female; no doubt those would be a big hit around the lunch table at school. She even had one that concealed a tiny knife in the handle so that you could stab somebody and have fresh breath.
I scanned the top of the chest, looking for new additions. A lot of them looked unfamiliar. I didn’t recognize the Superman one. Or the battery-operated Justin Bieber (I resisted the urge to press the button, knowing I would regret it). I picked up a plastic frog that looked out of place and gasped when its head fell off, revealing a toothbrush protruding from its stubby neck. What kind of little kid would want to brush his teeth with a decapitated frog?
On second thought, I knew Manny would get a kick out of it.
I found at least a dozen new brushes but didn’t see anything that screamed “Dad” until I noticed something on the floor. I guess it hadn’t made it into the chest yet. Or maybe she’d left it out so that she could remember to give it to him when we came. The moment I saw it, I knew it was the one.
A ThunderCats light-up talking toothbrush, complete with Lion-O stand. Dad was going to love it. ThunderCats had been one of his favorite shows growing up. I pulled the handle free and pressed the big white button on the side.
“Thunder . . . Thunder . . . Thunder . . . ThunderCats. Hooo!” the toothbrush said.
“What the heck is that?”
I spun around, still holding the lion-man-shaped toothbrush, to find Lyra standing in the doorway, her dirty socks in her hands. I expected Beelzebub to be pressed up against her, writhing and nipping and struggling to get free, but apparently she hadn’t found him yet. Ferrets are good hiders, and lord knows there are plenty of places in Aunt Gertie’s house to hide. Lyra had taken off her socks as a precaution. Or maybe as a lure.
“Is it for Dad?” She’d heard our father recount his weekday afternoons and endless Saturday mornings sitting cross-legged in front of the TV too. She could also name all the Smurfs and the Fraggles. I nodded and skootched so that she could sit beside me and admire Aunt Gertie’s bizarre collection. “They aren’t used, are they?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
I forgot that Lyra was only five the last time we visited Aunt Gertie’s. She hadn’t gone on the cataloging quest with Cass and me. She’d never seen the treasure chest before. “Some of them,” I said.
“Ew. That’s disgusting. Why does Aunt Gertie collect used toothbrushes?”
“You collect words,” I said.
“That’s not the same at all. Words are indispensable. You can’t do anything without them.”
“You could brush your teeth,” I said. “Provided you had a toothbrush.”
“Dubious,” Lyra replied. “Without words, human civilization wouldn’t exist and we wouldn’t have even invented toothbrushes.”
Now she sounded like one of Aunt Gertie’s National Geographics. “I bet you’re wrong. I bet cavemen had toothbrushes. Probably made of bone and woolly mammoth hair or something.” I was pretty sure Fred Flintstone had a toothbrush. Of course, he also had a car and a dinosaur crane.
“That’s revolting,” Lyra said. She picked up a toothbrush that appeared to be made out of Lego, obviously meant for little kids. Her forehead furrowed. “Why does Aunt Gertie have such a big house and no family?”
“She has family,” I said. “She has us.” And she had her brother. At least until recently. The two of them had been really close, I knew. I guess Papa Kwirk didn’t feel the same way about sisters as I did. Or maybe he did when he was younger and managed to grow out of it. Was such a thing possible?
“You know what I mean. How come she doesn’t have any progeny of her own?”
I stared at my little sister. “Progeny? Really? You can’t just say ‘kids’? You’re ten.”
“Almost eleven,” Lyra corrected. “And progeny sounds better. Anyone can have kids. When I grow up, I’m going to have progeny.”
I tried to imagine what a world full of Lyra’s progeny would look like. A gaggle of pigtailed Boggle champions ready to take over the world. I shuddered. It’s not that I wished she wasn’t so smart; I just wished she did a better job of keeping it to herself. “Maybe she thought they’d be too much work,” I said.
“Kids aren’t too much work.”
“I’m not any work,” I told her. “You, on the other hand, are a chore.”
Maybe that’s why Dad never had any brothers or sisters either, I thought. Why Papa Kwirk never had any more kids. It must have been hard enough raising one on your own. Once Grandma Shelley died, it had just been the two of them. Dad never said much about those years either, when it was just he and Papa Kwirk.
Lyra twirled the Lego toothbrush around and around. “I sort of miss Grandpa already. Is that weird? Can you miss someone after only one day? When you wouldn’t have seen them anyway?”
“I don’t think it’s weird at all,” I said. I knew what she meant. There was something strange about being here, in Aunt Gertie’s house. Something that brought Papa Kwirk’s absence so much closer. This was his town. The place he lived and worked and fished and played cards. The place where our own dad was born and raised. The moment Papa Kwirk came back from the war, he married my grandmother and they settled down here in Greenburg and never left. He never left. Not like Dad, who hightailed it out of here the moment he graduated from high school, only coming back when he had to.
Like now.
I could almost feel Papa Kwirk’s absence in the close air of the overstuffed room. If it felt strange to us being here, I thought, imagine how Dad must be feeling right now.
“Here,” I said, handing Lyra the ThunderCats toothbrush stand. “Let’s go show this to Dad. And then maybe I’ll help you look for Beelzebub.” I’d learned long ago to always add a maybe anytime I suggested I’d do something for either of my sisters.
It was always a good idea to have an out.
Fortunes and Felons
When we got downstairs, the others had moved from the living room to the dining room in search of tea and coffee. Aunt Gertie was a coffee fiend. Six mugs a day, bare minimum. You could get a caffeine high off her breath. Mom and Dad sat on one end of Aunt Gertie’s old wood table, scrunched close together as usual. At the other end, Aunt Gertie was telling a story to Cass about Papa Kwirk, which I guess meant that it was okay to talk about him again. It was a story from before my dad was even born, though it probably led to that moment eventually.
After all, it was about my grandma Shelley.
“Ah,” Dad said when he saw Lyra and me. “You’re just in time for another one of your grandfather’s harrowing adventures.” Judging by the tone of his voice, he could just as easily have said, “Ah, you’re just in time for your root canal.”
Aunt Gertie ignored him and continued her story, speaking mostly to Cass, who sat, riveted. “So it was their third date, and your grandfather was determined that he was going to ask your grandmother to go steady with him.”
“Wait. Why would she want to study on their third date?” Cass asked.
“Not stuh-dee. Steh-dee. That’s what we called it back then.”
“She means ‘going out,’” Mom clarified, though that just seemed to confuse Cass even more.
“Whatever you want to call it,” Aunt Gertie continued. “Jimmy wanted to make Shelley Harper his girlfriend, so he took her to the carnival, where he was hoping to woo her.”
“You mean make out with her,” Cass said.
“That’s not what ‘woo’ means, sweetie,” Mom said.
“It’s sort of what ‘woo’ means,” Dad offered.
“Can I please tell this story?” Aunt Gertie interjected. “So your grandmother asks Jimmy if he could win her one of those giant stuffed bears—the ones that are almost as big as Lyra over there. And he figures his best chance is at the duck-shoot game. Jimmy had been hunting lots of times. He knew how to shoot real ducks, so metal ones that couldn’t even fly should be no problem, right?”
Nobody had to answer. Whenever something shouldn’t be a problem is precisely when it becomes one. Especially in this family.
“He tried seven times to win that bear for her. Seven times, at a dollar a pop,” Aunt Gertie said. “Spent most of the money he’d brought along and barely had enough left over to buy her a soda. Of course your grandmother insisted she still had a nice time, but Jimmy wouldn’t have it. He was just like that: get an idea in his head and there’s no shaking it.”
Yeah. I knew somebody like that. I glanced at Dad, who appeared to be scratching at a nick in the wood table with his fingernail, only half paying attention. Maybe he’d heard this one before.
“But Shelley Harper wanted that bear, and she was going to get that bear,” Aunt Gertie continued. “So in the middle of the night, your fool grandfather wakes me up and tells me he needs my help. And because I didn’t know any better, we sneak out to the fairgrounds where the carnival’s shut down for the night, and he uses my shoulders to help him scrabble up over the metal fence. He whispers at me to keep guard and to make a sound like a duck if I see anybody. So I just stand there, waiting for what feels like an hour. And it’s cold and I’m getting scared and I’ve got to pee, but as I head for a bush I hear dogs barking. So of course, I start quacking as loud as I can. And then I see your grandfather come tearing around the corner with the giant stuffed bear draped over his shoulders like a wounded soldier, huffing and puffing, face purple as a turnip. It takes him three tries just to throw the thing over, and I’m panicking, yelling at him to hurry, wondering how he’s gonna get back over to my side when he needed my shoulders the first time. Then these two Rottweilers round the corner, flashing their big teeth and growling for blood—and your grandfather jumps higher than he ever jumped in his life, getting his hands on the top of the fence and pulling himself up, those dogs tugging at his pant cuffs, trying to drag him back down so they can have him for breakfast. Jimmy heaved himself over, landing on top of that giant, cushy pink bear just as a shotgun blast cracked the sky. Kapow!”
Aunt Gertie slammed her hands on the table and both Cass and my mother jumped high enough that they probably could have cleared the metal fence as well.
“Jimmy grabbed that bear, tossed it over his shoulders again, and we ran for our lives, all the way back home.”
“Then what happened?” Cass asked.
“What do you think happened?” Aunt Gertie said. “The next morning, your grandmother-to-be woke up to find that giant bear sitting by her back door with a little dried mud on its fur and a note pinned to its belly. The note said, ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.’ Your grandma got her bear. Your grandpa got the girl. And I got in trouble for making too much noise and waking your great-grandparents up in the middle of the night sneaking back into my room.” Aunt Gertie shook her head. “The crazy things we do for love.”
“If that was their third date, I wonder what the first date was like,” I said.
She gave me a sly wink. “That’s a whole ’nother story.”
“Wait a minute,” Lyra said. “You mean Grandpa stole the bear? Doesn’t that make him a criminal?”
“And a trespasser,” Dad pointed out.
“Well . . . yes,” Aunt Gertie hedged. “If you look at it that way. Though the guy running the game probably made a fair bit a money off Jimmy that night too. And the game was rigged. They used to bend the barrels of those guns so they didn’t shoot straight. There isn’t anyone a hundred percent honest in this world.”
