Free Love Me Tender by Audrey Couloumbis Page A

long, wheezy moans.
    “They're Cracker Jacks,” Aunt Clare said. “Nutty popcorn.”
    “Because they're tired,” the grandmother said. “Both of you come sit down.”
    “No, no,” Mel said, and sputtered into the crook of her elbow. “We're fine. Really. Give us a minute.”
    Kerrie opened the nail polish, ready to do Aunt Clare's manicure.
    This made it possible for Mel to shift gears. “Take that stuff outside. It turns my stomach over.”
    “Well, we surely don't want to do that,” Aunt Clare said as she picked up the nail polish. “Let's go out on the veranda, Kerrie, the way ladies do.”
    Just the movement in the room seemed to help me get back to work. I had a little more energy; just enough to finish, I figured. After a time, Aunt Clare called into the kitchen to say that she and Kerrie were going for a walk.
    “The way ladies do,” the grandmother said.

Chapter 13
    “COME ON down,” Mel told me once. “You've been up there for nearly three hours.”
    “I'm not done yet.”
    “Trade places with me,” the grandmother said to Mel. She was the one, then, to hand me the sponge and wipe the counter dry. Mel sat down on the floor, cross-legged, to go on cleaning the lower cabinets.
    After a time, Mel said, “It's getting too hot for this, you're dripping sweat on me.”
    “I'm nearly done. Let me finish.” I was tired to the point of feeling dizzy, but I didn't want to quit just yet. “I might find out where the cookies are hid.”
    The grandmother laughed. “You let me know about it if you find any. But don't worry, we'll buy some before the day is out.”
    I grinned down at her, but right away her eyes slid away, almost as if she was afraid of me. That couldn't be true. When I had my diary to hand, I'd start a new list: Things to Figure Out About the Grandmother.
    In the end, we were lucky the counter crossed the entire wall so we could go from corner to corner without leaving a visible line between clean and still dirty. The kitchen looked brighter, or at least it looked cleaner, which was a lot to say.
    There were some oddly stubborn stains left on the wall that looked like drifting smoke. “Nothing a coat of paint won't cure,” the grandmother said. “Time to eat something.”
    We fried bologna and layered it with lettuce and tomato in sandwiches. We'd just sat down when I noticed the cat's dish. The food hadn't been touched.
    “I haven't seen your cat.”
    The grandmother looked at the dish. “My lands. You two start, I'll be right back.” She picked up the dish and headed out of the kitchen, and maybe upstairs. “Go ahead, start without me.”
    We wouldn't, of course. Mel touched her finger to a flap of bologna and tasted it, gave me the thumbs-up sign. I grinned, but we both turned at the sound of Kerrie pounding up the back steps at full speed.
    She came in, pink with happy excitement. “You'll never guess what Aunt Clare has at her house.”
    “Puppies,” I said, the way somebody might say “roaches.”
    “You knew?” Kerrie asked. “How did you know?”
    “I guessed.”
    “I brought you girls something,” Aunt Clare said, coming into the kitchen with a golden bundle of fluff in her arms. “Mel, are you going to shoot me if I give these girls a dog?”
    “Probably,” Mel said.
    “You don't just give people's children a dog without asking first,” I said, standing up. I wasn't going anywhere; I just couldn't stay in the chair.
    “I thought you'd love a puppy,” Aunt Clare said, for once nearly at a loss for words. She had her hands full of wriggling puppy. It looked like its every gene was screaming,
New place to mess up. Let's get going.
    “Elvira,” Mel said, “I'll be the mother.”
    “It isn't right,” I said. “First she makes a crack about you having another baby, and then she waltzes in—”
    “What does that mean, a crack?” Aunt Clare said as the grandmother's footsteps could be heard coming down-stairs. “What am I being accused of?”
    “That