“Not exactly. Last year Nozzie dispatched Harold to the backyard to whack the bird, him being the only male left in the family. Mom was between husbands just then. Anyway, Harold went out and didn’t return for the longest time. They thought he was having second thoughts about doing the deed, like maybe he bonded with the turkey or something. Nozzie went out to offer liquid courage. Did I tell you she was a bartender? Makes great Scarlett O’Haras, not that Harold would deign to drink such a girlie concoction. She brought him his favorite whiskey on a rock even though it was only seven in the morning. She found the turkey with its head cut off and Harold lying beside the bird with his noggin also partly detached. I guess it was like seeing identical twins.”

  “Oh, ugh,” said Barb.

  “Both Grandma Papa and Grandma Mama, my mother’s mom, wanted to grab the bird and get it right into the oven before it spoiled, but Harold’s daughter from his former marriage insisted upon calling the police. At first Nozzie thought her mother might have taken the ax to Harold. Grandma Papa never liked him, but she was in the house with Grandma Mama dicing and slicing onions and celery for the stuffing, drinking Nozzie’s Scarlet O’Haras, so it couldn’t have been her. The police came, but found no prints on the ax handle, no clues at all. Everybody except for Aunt Nozzie disliked Harold, so it could have been anybody.

  “It’s a year later and the police are still trying to check the alibis of the nearly three thousand people in town. I don’t think the family has much hope. The chief of police is a classmate of mine who flunked out of high school. A good guy, but more into guns and gadgets on his belt than real police work.”

  Barb reached down and pulled the blanket at the end of the bed over her.

  “Am I creeping you out?”

  “No,” she said. I thought I detected a note of uncertainty in her voice. She pulled the cover more snugly around her.

  “Are you saying the killer is still out there?”

  “That’s another reason you might want to reconsider my invitation. We can’t figure a specific motive. Maybe it wasn’t because of dislike for Harold. It could have been one of those animal activists who hated the idea of dispatching a bird for a collection of drunken carnivores to dine on. We don’t know.”

  “I don’t have to kill the turkey this year, do I?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then I think I’m safe.”

  “You’d think so wouldn’t you? It’s your call.”

  She thought on this for a while.

  “I’ll take the chance anyway.”

  “I haven’t finished the turkey issue.”

  “Oh.” She flopped onto her stomach, then grabbed her pillow, wadded it up, and tucked it under her chin. Barb was always attentive when it came to talking about food, real food, not the “mystery meat” served in the college cafeteria.

  “In Aunt Nozzie’s head there’s a strong association between the bird’s demise and Harold’s. She refuses to eat turkey for Thanksgiving.”

  “What are you having then? Ham, roast beef, pork loin?”

  I shook my head.

  “Chicken, duck, goose?”

  I continued to shake my head.

  “Lamb, veal, buffalo?”

  I looked at her.

  “What’s left?”

  I couldn’t keep this from her and knew I shouldn’t. Thanksgiving guests expect the usual holiday fare. It wasn’t right to keep the menu a secret, a surprise, a shock.

  “Spam.”

  “Oh, ugh.”

  “You said that about Harold’s death, but Aunt Nozzie wanted something as far from meat as one could get.”

  “What about peanut butter?”

  “Don’t be silly. Peanut butter isn’t a main dish.”

  “Neither is spam.”

  “You’re wrong. It was once, way back when. WW II, I think.”

  Barb liked me enough to come home with me anyway. Or maybe she didn’t get any other invitations.

  * * *

  Thanksgiving Day, 1963

  Everyone was gathered for the feast: my two grandmothers, Aunt Nozzie, Harold’s two grown children (both women, of course) from his former marriage, Great Aunt Clara wearing her brown wig and hairnet with the pink bows on it, and Harold’s wife’s sister Blanche who had nowhere to go for the holidays because she and her husband recently divorced. For some odd reason my Aunt Nozzie had befriended her, maybe because Blanche and Harold’s former wife, Testa, hated one another. Aunt Nozzie liked anyone who hated Testa.

  It was an odd collection of women, all thrown together for reasons of tenuous family, women most of whom vied with each other for center stage. It would be a day of estrogen, hot flashes, and just enough Southern Comfort.

  But everyone faded into the background when Aunt Nozzie entered the room. Six feet tall in her bare feet with flaming red hair (helped along by Clairol as she entered middle age) and wearing a heavy coat of pancake make-up and daring red lipstick, Aunt Nozzie was my no-nonsense aunt. She said what she thought, and said it loud enough to be heard in the next county.

  She enveloped me in a hug, then turned to Barb. “Darcy didn’t tell me how short you were. That’s gonna be a problem as you age, you know. You’ll spread. I hope you’re prepared for that. Eat sensibly and exercise.” Without taking a breath, she announced, “I’m doing all the cooking this year.” She gestured with a large carving knife toward the kitchen. Barb glanced through the door and gasped.

  “It looks as if someone threw a bomb in there,” she whispered to me.

  Aunt Nozzie loved to cook and did it her way, which was to say with flamboyant disregard for order. If the Food Network had existed in those days, she could have had a program called “The Chaotic Cook.” Her favorite dish was aptly named “Shipwreck,” a kind of fancy meatloaf that took hours to throw together, and that’s how it looked. None of the many ingredients in it appeared to feel comfortable with the others, remaining as separate from one another as is possible in the same dish. It was, if not tasty, interesting to eat. When she served it, we played “name that ingredient” as we carefully chewed our way through the dish.

  “In honor of your Uncle Harold, we’re having spam. I hope you told your friend about our new tradition.” Aunt Nozzie gave Barb a look that dared her to object. Barb smiled and nodded. I had done my homework. Barb was unlikely to be shocked by anything in this house, or so I thought.

  Aunt Nozzie slammed back into the kitchen, and I introduced Barb around the room. My aunty reemerged long enough to whip up a batch of Scarlett O’Haras.

  “I hope you paid attention, Darcy,” she said to me. “I’ve got a meal to prepare. You have to play barkeep.” She grabbed her knife, which she’d laid on the bar cart, and, brandishing it over her head, charged back to her pots and pans to continue whatever battle she was waging there with the spam.

  Barb drifted over to me as I shook up another batch of drinks. The women in my family could drink and liked to drink. It’s our version of “comfort food.”

  “Your Great Aunt Clara is a love,” said Barb.

  I could tell that was Barb’s way of asking about Clara’s wig and bows.

  Aunt Clara was a love and, in her day, a femme fatale.

  I chuckled. “She thinks it makes her look younger.”

  “How old is she? She looks like she’s in her nineties,” asked Barb.

  “She admits to eight-five, but we think she’s really closer to one hundred.”

  “Well,” said Barb, “I guess the hairnet and wig work then.”

  “Aunt Nozzie says that’s her signature look. Everyone around here has one.”

  “Your aunt’s has to be a love of purple.” Barb looked around the living room, taking in the deep purple couch and matching chair, drapes, knickknacks, and glassware of the same color.

  Barb gulped down the remainder of her drink and held the glass out to me to refill. Either she was having second thoughts about being here or she decided to become a member of the family.

  “Nozzie likes the color with her red hair. You should see her winter coat. Purple cashmere. She wears a rhinestone pin on the collar. Very eye-catching.”

  Barb gestured at the couch, the purple damask fabric protected by a clear vinyl slip cover. “I sat there for a few minutes and almost couldn’t get up. I think it ripped the hair off the back of my thighs.”

  “Better than Nair,” I said. “Next time don’t wear a miniskirt.”

  Barb looked down at my jeans-clad legs and nodded. She took another sip of her drink and continued her ladylike interrogation of me.

  “About Grandma Papa’s shoes. Are they some kind of designer brand I don’t recognize?” she asked.

  Grandma Papa, whose hearing was excellent when she wanted it to be, and who was deaf when the conversation bored her, heard Barb from across the living room.

  “These?” she said. “They’re a pair Nozzie didn’t like. I just dolled them up a bit.”

  Barb smiled. She was doing a lot of that today, bless her. I hoped it would continue. It wouldn’t do to get Grandma Papa riled up over her fashion sense.

  Barb turned her back to the room and whispered to me. “But your grandmother is barely five feet tall, and your aunt is…”

  “Tall, very tall. With size ten feet. Grandma sews ribbons on the shoes so they won’t come off her feet. Color-coordinates them with her dresses.”

  “Your other grandmother looks pretty, uh, usual.”

  “She’s my mother’s mother. She’s a bit more subtle in her approach. She sings songs in Swedish when she gets drunk.”

  “I didn’t know you were Swedish.”

  “I’m not. She only imagines she can speak the language.”

  “And Harold’s daughters and their aunt? They seem fine to me. Although Blanche’s make-up is a bit garish.”

  “They’re not really family. And besides, like me, the daughters are too young yet to have a real niche.”

  Barb took a long, deep look at me, perhaps imagining what I might be like in the coming years and hoping I would put off emergence into my unique identity until after college graduation.

  A crashing sound came from the kitchen.

  “Perhaps you could check on that, Darcy,” Grandma Papa said to me.

  I pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen and stuck my head in.

  “Everything ship shape here?” I asked.

  “Just carving up the spam,” said Nozzie.

  “Don’t we do that at the table?”

  “Not this Thanksgiving.”

  She plunked the knife she was holding onto the counter and wiped her eyes with her apron. “I want everything to be special in remembrance of Harold. And that reminds me. I’ve got a job for you. Make certain everyone has a drink, then go up to the storeroom. I’ve put off giving Harold’s clothes away, but now it’s time. Except,” she wiped her eyes again, “I can’t bear to do it myself. You do it, Darcy. Take your friend with you to help. Dinner will be a half-hour or so.” It wasn’t a request. It was marching orders from the General.

  “Great. We can hardly wait.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  I told Barb about our mission. She didn’t seem upset at leaving the living room and all my relatives. Imagine that.

  The bathroom door was closed, so I knocked.

  “Be out in a minute. I’m repairing my make-up.” It was Blanche.

  “Let’s wait in here,” I said. I pulled Barb into my aunt’s bedroom and sat down at her dressing table. In front of me was a large jewelry box. I opened it and dipped my hand into the necklaces in the bottom of the chest, the feel of faux pearls bringing back memories of stringing all of them around my neck at once.

  “When I was a kid I played up here all the time, trying on her jewelry and shoes. And putting on her red lipstick, which I had to wipe off before my mother caught me.” I walked over to the closet and opened the door. How could a woman cram so many clothes and shoes in such a small space? The smell of Nozzie’s perfume, a scent I associated with her and no one else, a scent I never knew the name of, assaulted my nostrils. Barb walked over to look in.

  “Do you know what that scent is?” I asked her.

  “Mothballs?”

  I ignored her. Perhaps I’d misjudged how much novelty Barb could handle at a holiday gathering.

  “Grandma Papa isn’t the only one who has profited by Nozzie’s cast-offs. When I was in junior high, right after my dad died, before Mom discovered that older men of means found her interesting, we didn’t have much money. I inherited clothes Nozzie no longer wore.”

  Barb gave me a look of amazement.

  “I know, I know. I’m average height, not a Valkyrie like my aunt, but I could sew, so I made over skirts and dresses. My favorite was the bumble bee skirt.”

  “I never heard of one.”

  “I think I had the only one like it. It was corduroy with yellow and black stripes that ran diagonally around the skirt. In retrospect, it was pretty ugly, but I loved it.”

  Barb had wandered over to the dresser and picked up one of Nozzie’s tubes of lipstick. She read the name of the color on the bottom. “‘Fire and Ice’ by Revlon. I didn’t think anyone wore that anymore. Obviously your aunt does.”

  “She’s not a trend follower. She’s her own person, if you haven’t grabbed that yet.”

  “Got it,” Barb said. “I know she’s your favorite aunt, but I’m glad you’re not following her lead in lipstick.”

  We heard the bathroom door open and footsteps on the stairs.

  “Blanche is out of there. Let’s go.” I entered the bath and opened the door to the immediate right. It led into a space under the eaves. Clothes hung on bars throughout the room. Most of them were my aunt’s, but a section of the room had been set aside for Harold’s shirts, suits, jackets, pants, and shoes.

  “We’d better check the pockets in case there’s money or other stuff we need to clean out before we give them away,” I said.

  Harold seemed to like using any pocket as a storage locker. We found tissues, bills, racing forms, newspaper articles, a few coins, a pack of gum, and the occasional dollar bill.

  “Oh, here’s something special,” said Barb. She pulled several pieces of thin cardboard and a white swatch of cloth out of the pocket of a suit.

  “Let me see that.”

  Barb handed the items to me.

  “Ticket stubs for A Raisin in the Sun. That played in Chicago last year.”

  Barb looked over my shoulder at the stubs. “How romantic. He took your Aunt Nozzie to a play.”

  “That’s a first. I can’t imagine either of them taking in a play much less traveling a hundred miles to do it. Nozzie’s a movie lover and she told me Harold was addicted to television.” I examined the tickets. The date on them made my stomach lurch.

  “Dinner, girls,” yelled Grandma Papa up the stairs.

  I tucked the tickets and the handkerchief into my jeans pocket, and we ran down the stairs to the dining room.

  “About damn time, too,” said Grandma Papa. “Your other grandmother has been singing Swedish Christmas carols. Or so she claims.”

  * * *

  Dinner Is Served

  Blanche had indeed repaired her make-up. It looked as if she had accomplished an entire renovation of her face. The liquid foundation she wore had to be yet another half inch thick, and her eyelashes were as black and heavy as woolly caterpillars perched on her eyelids. When she smiled, some of her blood red lipstick adhered to her teeth, giving her the appearance of a vampire finishing a snack. She sat at Barb’s left giving Barb frequent, red, waxy smiles. Barb smiled back, then turned her head away from Blanche to whisper in my ear.

  “She’s wearing your aunt’s lipstick,” said Barb.

  “No she’s not. That’s Revlon’s blue red, ‘Cherries in the Snow.’ Don’t you know anything about color?”

  “These women are stuck in the fifties,” said Barb.

  I looked at her pale pink, almost white lips. I leaned over and said in her ear, “I hope no one ever says that about us someday.”

  “We’re too with it to let that happen.”

  Aunt Nozzie had placed individual casseroles at each of our places. Each baking dish held spam, that’s true, but she had shaped or “carved” it. We all looked at each other in confusion. The meat, if you could call it that, had the appearance of a baseball perched on a pyramid. Perhaps this was some kind of Eastern religion thing.

  “Did you become a Buddhist?” I asked her.

  She ignored my question.

  “I want to say a few words about Harold,” said Nozzie.

  We all sighed. Grandma Papa threw down her fork.

  “Okay. Get on with it. The only thing worse than baked spam has to be cold, baked spam,” she said.

  “We don’t know what horrid person axed him,” began Aunt Nozzie. She made a throat-cutting motion.

  Grandma Mama stopped singing long enough to insert her choice for the killer. “I think it was the bird.”

  “Why?” asked Barb. “I mean, how?”

  “To avenge the thousands of birds from the time of the first Thanksgiving and stretching into the future who gave and will continue to give their lives for this silly holiday. What’s to be thankful for? All our husbands are dead, and we’re old. I’m losing my voice. By next Thanksgiving I won’t be able to warble a note. Yet year after year, decade after decade, this fowl carnage goes on. It’s stupid.” She went silent, locking eyes with each person as she moved her gaze from one of us to the next.

  “You’re drunk,” said Grandma Papa.

  “I am, and I’m hungry. I hope I don’t throw up,” she replied.

  “What the hell are these?” asked Aunt Clara. She carefully turned her casserole dish around and around to inspect the spam from all angles. “If it’s a turkey, it’s a piss poor job of carving.”

  “No turkey!” Aunt Nozzie banged her Scarlet O’Hara on the table. “Obviously, it’s a bust of Harold. Harold, we’re eating this in your honor, honey. Eat up, everybody.”

  I wondered if everyone was as puzzled as I about how to slice into Harold’s head so as not to re-create his death scene. My Harold spam remained untouched. I had other things on my mind.

 

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