“Wow,” Terry says, slowly surveying the room. The food, the relatives, the tiny bundles of dressed-up candy. “Someone getting married?” She laughs hard at her own joke.
Aida glances at the cuckoo clock on the wall. Her father bought it in Germany when he was in the Navy, and it is the one thing of all the souvenirs he bought that she likes. She does not know anyone else with a cuckoo clock. It seems exotic and fancy. While she looks at it, admiring the carved scene of birds and trees, the ivory face, the cuckoo shoots out and jerkily cuckoos once. It is five thirty. Hours before Dean Martin comes on. She plans on hiding in her parents’ bedroom to watch it on the portable television in there.
Terry has kissed everyone hello, everyone except Aida. She wraps her skinny arm around her and kisses her cheek.
“Hello, little sister,” she says.
Her eyes are red and heavy lidded. Aida smells the too-sweet smell of marijuana, which is what Terry and Eddie do in their spare time. Aida found them behind the garage last fall, and threatened to call the police. It was illegal. It led to harder drugs, like heroin. But Terry had grabbed her arm hard and said, “Keep your fucking mouth shut, Aida. If you’re a good little girl maybe we’ll give you some.”
“I don’t want drugs!” Aida had said, horrified.
Ever since then, she’s caught them smoking it in the car, in the basement, even in Terry’s room with a blue bath towel—one of the good ones—rolled under the door. It is all that they do, and it makes Aida alternately sad and angry. For her bridal shower, she bought her sister a book called Wok Cookery, believing that maybe if she found something new, something she liked, she wouldn’t have to get high all the time. “Wow,” Terry had said in her thick stoned voice when she opened it, “Chicken with Cashews.”
The phone rings and Aida runs to answer it.
She hears static and then, “Auntie Anna? Auntie Anna?”
“This is Aida,” Aida says.
“Little Aida? It’s Cousin Cammie.”
Aida puts a finger in one ear to hear better. She imagines this voice cutting through the hot desert air, traveling across mountains and rivers and cities to her ear.
“Cammie!” Aida says it like a sigh.
“Listen, doll,” Cammie says, “I’m on my way. I think I’ll be able to make it in time for the wedding. If I drive straight through.”
“What?” Aida says. “You’re driving?” Why wouldn’t someone in show business fly from Las Vegas?
“I’ve got my little red convertible, my cooler filled with ice-cold Fresca. It’s heavenly,” Cammie tells her.
“Okay,” Aida says.
“I’m scared of flying anyway. Did you hear about that Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in some lake near New Orleans?”
“Uh-huh,” Aida says, though she has not heard of any such thing.
“No thank you,” Cammie says.
There is a strange sound, then the phone goes dead briefly.
“Out of change, babe,” Cammie says before it goes dead again.
Suddenly Aida has something to look forward to. Maybe she can go back to Las Vegas with Cammie. Maybe she can be her assistant. Aida smiles, hugging herself. Her mother is yelling to her: “Aida, get your skinny ass in here and help.” But Aida doesn’t move. Instead, she stands alone with her good news.
AIDA WONDERS IF Cammie knows Jeannie, Dean Martin’s beautiful blond wife. Last night he said, “Jeannie, baby, don’t wait up,” and Aida got goose bumps. She imagines Jeannie in a sleek modern house with white furniture and a big stone fireplace and, outside, a piano-shaped swimming pool. Some movie star has a pool like that, she just can’t remember who. If she were Jeannie, she would wait up. She would spray on Jean Naté and wear a little babydoll pajama set like the one Terry got at her bridal shower. Her goose bumps rise up again, all along her arms.
ON HER BEDROOM DOOR, wrapped in plastic, hangs her ugly yellow chiana junior bridesmaid’s dress. Terry thinks it is sophisticated, but to Aida it looks like a cheap prom dress. Her sister’s dress is also chiana—white, even though she isn’t a virgin. Aida stares at the dress, hating it.
Downstairs: noise. They are getting ready for the rehearsal at the church, and then the dinner here afterward. Eddie’s entire family is coming. They don’t peel their eggplants. They put a crust on their Easter pastera. They don’t do anything right.
“Aida!” her mother yells.