Page 10 of June Bride
“What the hell is ‘the Safeway’? Is that like the Pig in the Blanket they have down in the south? Because I had those so-called bagels from the Pig in the Blanket when we went down to Helena, Georgia, and theywere not bagels.”
“I think you mean Piggly-Wiggly, Mom.”What if I told her they used to have them here in Oregon?“The bagels here are fine. I have them all the time.”
“Because you’ve grown soft in Ore-gone!”
Brandelyn cringed at her mother’s blatant mispronunciation of the state some of them now called home. “I suggest you don’t call it that while you’re here, Mom. The locals are a bit touchy about tourists mispronouncing things.”
“I’m no tourist! I’m your mother! Lizzie!” Cathy’s voice was so loud that she silenced her grandson screaming out license plate numbers as they went by. “Where did you say your friend went to school around here, again? Will-uh-mutt College?”
“It’s Willamette, damnit,” Brandelyn muttered beneath her breath. Then, louder, “Could you call your husband in the other van and tell him I need to pull over up here to get some gas? They barely gave me half a tank at the rental place.”
Cathy begrudgingly did her duty as Brandelyn came upon the Pump-And-Go. Everyone over the age of sixteen balked at the price of gas out in rural Oregon, which was compounded when Brandelyn pulled up to the pump, cut the engine, and rolled down the window.
“Oh, dear, it really is warm in here.” Cathy fanned herself with the road map she plucked from PDX. “Maybe we should get us some ice cream while you fill up the tank.”
The station attendant popped out of his booth, orange warning vest flickering in the sunlight. He tipped his hat to Brandy, who hung out the window to order her gas.
“Oh, no, dear,” Cathy scoffed beside her. “We don’t need full service for arental.”
Brandelyn handed the attendant her rewards card. “Fill it with regular, please.” She turned to her mother as soon as the attendant grabbed the pump, much to the amusement of everyone in the van. “This is Oregon, Mom. You can’t pump your own gas.”
“Whoa,” her oldest nephew Matthew said. “It’s like New Jersey!”
Cathy informed her grandson that Oregon wasnothinglike New Jersey. Whether that was a good or bad thing, Brandelyn could only guess. “Well, that’s ridiculous,” she said to her daughter. “It’s no wonder your gas prices are so damn high when you’re paying people to do things you can perfectly well do yourself!”
“Do you, like…” Lizzie began in the far back row, “do they, like, touch your car whether you want them to or not?”
“Obviously,” Brandelyn said.
“Remind me to never move to Oregon. Or New Jersey.”
“You guys are so particular.”
Brandy might as well have told them all they smelled like rancid BO and couldn’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance if they tried. When the attendant returned five minutes later, it was to a van full of women and children arguing overwho,exactly, was particular, andwho,exactly, was a big ol’ dumb butt who wouldn’t last two days back in Brooklyn. Someone might have to pump her own gas.
I’m regretting this already.It was one thing to go home for a visit and be treated to the family that never shut up. It was quite another to bring them to her new home, let alone herliteralhome. While it wasn’t the first time either her mother or sister visited, Brandy never had her whole family, from parents to cousins, in her house at once.At least they can amuse each other while I’m working or doing wedding stuff.Cathy would insist on visiting the clinic to give her expert opinion on décor and bedside manner. Lizzie would spend half her days in the antique shops and the library. Her cousin Monica would run around town looking for a decent Wi-Fi hotspot, not because she had to study or conduct business, but because her biggest hobby was writing a blog nobody ever visited. (Except for Brandelyn. One time. With regret.)
Their reactions to Paradise Valley were always of overexaggerated shock. “How can this place be so tiny?” Monica croaked. “Have you ever seen so many butch haircuts in your life?” asked Lizzie. “How can you get any services in a tiny town like this?” That was the thing Cathy cared about the most. “Do you have a post office? Where the hell is a Bank of America ATM? There’s onlyoneplace to get pizza around here? You must be kidding. This place thinks it’s the Catskills but it’s really no better than Appalachia!”
Yet their criticisms soon turned to gasps of shock and awe when they beheld Brandy’s house on Florida Street. “Such Victorian charm! Were these really built in the Victorian era?” Lizzie grabbed her sons’ hands and hauled them toward Brandelyn’s door. “I didn’t think Oregon existed back then.”
Take a history class, sis. Seriously.Did these people overlook the state’s founding date on the flag? There were five flags on Main Street alone. “I think these houses were built in the ‘80s. Or, at least, mine was.” She had bought it from a nice elderly lesbian couple who were downsizing and moving to the central coast. They had no need for four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a country kitchen. Nor could the one forever recovering from pneumonia bother with the yard anymore. Granted, Brandelyn didn’t need that many bedrooms, either, but at least she had the excuse for “growing a family” with Sunny. Whatever that entailed.
“Oh myGod,it’s the baby!” Cathy squealed to behold Brutus, ready for his afternoon walk. A neighbor should have stopped by earlier to let him out into the backyard for a run, but by the way he wagged his tail and slapped his nails against the hardwood floors, he hadn’t walked more than five feet in five days. “Who’s Grandma’s little fluffy butt, hm? Who’s a good boy and wants a treat?’
Cathy opened her purse and dumped a whole bag of dog treats onto the floor. Her grandsons and nephew tore up the stairs to claim their room. Brandy’s stepfather ambled in with half the luggage, sweating like it was a hundred degrees. Monica lamented that there was no air conditioning built into the house. (When somebody told her she could open a window, she balked.) Lizzie went straight into the kitchen and moaned that her sister had the wrong kind of milk. She was supposed to havealmondmilk, not coconut! Where was the nearest grocery store? Three bucks should do it, right?
The next time somebody asked Brandy why her family came two weeks early for the wedding, she would point to this mess and say, “It takes them two weeks to adjust to a small town on the west coast.” Everyone fought over the TV within two seconds, and the screaming didn’t stop once they realized that Brandelyn didn’t have the fabled satellite service they heard so much about. It was Hulu and Netflix or bust.
“How is my husband going to watch the Mets while he’s here?” Cathy scoffed as she followed her daughter into the kitchen. “Would you hate it if he installed the ESPN app and logged into his account?”
“He can do about anything he wants that doesn’t get me charged, Mom.”
“I should hope so. Your stepfather is going to be bored out of his mind while we women get on with this wedding business. Now, where is your dress? I wanna see it!”
Brutus nipped at their heels and danced around the upstairs hallway. Three boys argued over who slept in the bed in their room and who was stuck on an air mattress. Brandelyn’s stepfather’s coughing started the moment he settled onto the couch and shouted that he didn’t know how to download the ESPN app onto the TV. Monica rushed into the master bedroom to ask for the Wi-Fi password. Lizzie was already in the backyard smoking a cigarette.
Not once did anyone mention Sunny or ask where she was. It took Brandy about an hour to realize that, and by then, her family had firmly settled into petty arguments over blankets and bachelorette parties.
