Free Now Is the Hour by Tom Spanbauer

MacMurray.
    Six o’clock, Mom had the chicken fried. The spuds were mashed. The gravy made, the canned green beans with Campbell’s mushroom soup on top. The pineapple upside-down cake Mom pulled out of the oven made the world smell like heaven.
    Mom paced the rooms for anything out of place. Everything had to be perfect. Alma, Mom’s big sis, who had worked her way up from a secretary in Blackfoot, Idaho, to a high-paying job in the faraway city of Portland. Alma, a woman who had made her way through the world on her own. Alma, perfectly coifed and dressed in the latest styles. Alma who rode to work on a trolley car. Alma with her important friend, an artist, was paying a visit to
us.
    When Aunt Alma drove her Chevy coupe into the dusty yard, Toby, our dog before Nikki and Tramp, started barking, and the cats started running every which way, then Toby started chasing the cats.
    It was some kind of magic Aunt Alma. A whole new world we didn’t know. A whole new kind of magic that wasn’t my mother’s. The magic of a faraway Brenda Starr or Nancy Drew, the Queen of England in a tan coupe, her long yellow scarf, her long red hair, with her friend, Theresa, the artist from Portland.
    Mom was a green and gold streak into the bathroom. I ran into the bathroom after her. I just didn’t know what else to do. In the mirror, Mom was smiling real wide to see if there was Orange Exotica on herteeth. Still holding her mouth that way, Mom told me to get the hell out of there. So I ran into our bedroom. Sis didn’t know what to do either, so she crawled under her bed and hid. I did too.
    Then we heard Mom sing out loud:
If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake!
    Even under the beds you could feel it. The whole house was buzzing. Aunt Alma’s voice, Theresa’s voice passing by in the hallway. So refined, so exotic, their laughter so gay. In nothing flat, Sis and I crawled out from under our beds.
    In the front room, when I could make my eyes finally look at them, Aunt Alma and her friend, Theresa, the artist from Portland, were both wearing pants with pleats. They were smoking Herbert Tareytons. Besides the cigarette smoke, they smelled of perfume.
Evening in Paris,
my mother whispered to me when I asked,
the both of them.
    Late afternoon light through the window, dark gold. Aunt Alma’s lipstick was red on her lips and red on her cigarette. Her red hair, her green sweater fit tight.
    Aunt Alma took hold of my hand. Her fingernails were perfect fingernails and they were painted red.
    Rigby John, Aunt Alma said, I’d like you to meet my friend, Theresa. She lives with me in Portland.
    My hand was so tiny in Theresa’s hand.
    Pleased to meet your acquaintance, I said.
    I didn’t look at Theresa. I looked at Aunt Alma instead.
    You have sensitive hands, Rigby John, Theresa said. Are you an artist as well?
    Theresa wore no lipstick. Her black hair was cut short and came off her forehead in a marcel wave.
    Her eyes were too big to look into so I lifted my hands, palms up, and looked at my hands.
    I didn’t know what to say.
    Dad says I draw flies, I said.
    After supper, after the dishes were done, when the sun got pink and behind the cottonwoods on the road, Dad walked out to the milk barn with the milk pails to do the milking.
    Mom and Aunt Alma went into the front room with their coffees and sat on the davenport. When Aunt Alma reached for a cigarette, Mom asked for one. Mom leaned in close with the cigarette in hermouth. Aunt Alma lit Mom’s cigarette with a silver lighter she flipped open. Mom inhaled, and a lick of smoke came out her mouth and went up her nose. I didn’t even know until then that Mom could even smoke. Alma’s smile was everywhere. Sis sat down between Aunt Alma and Mom, and it wasn’t long before those three females were laughing so hard their gums showed.
    Outside on the front lawn, Theresa and I sat at the picnic table. Her oil paints