Читать книгу Come Clean - Terri Paddock - Страница 13

I have a memory that floats around in the early-time ether. We’re two, maybe three. I only retrieved the memory because of something my best friend Cindy Gregory told me in the seventh grade. Cindy had this kooky old aunt named Anastasia who was an astrologer, who told us that everyone was supposed to know the time of day they were born. If you didn’t know the exact time, Anastasia said, then you couldn’t ever have an accurate astrology reading because you couldn’t ever know your precise alignment with the stars. Something like that.

It always bugged me that Mom couldn’t remember the time, but we were never big into astrology so on that count, I guess, it wasn’t a disaster. But Aunt Anastasia did cause me to recall this other time. We couldn’t have been old enough to talk properly, but I remember us talking to each other, like cartoon thoughts bubbling up out of our skulls except only you and me could see them. We could read, too. We were bright young sparks, even if nobody else knew it.

We little Einsteins were with Mommy – because we called her Mommy then – nearing the checkout at the A&P. They have all these candy bars, rolls of mints, bubble gum and cheapo pocket pamphlets displayed around the checkout to distract you, because the cashiers at this A&P are high-school dropouts and the waits are always long.

I’m feeling a whine coming on, I want a Chunky bar. You’re bored, too, but easily entertained by the cheapo pamphlets, cardboard that melts in your mouth. You start fingering one that’s got a picture of a fierce but friendly looking lion on it. A lion like Aslan out of The Chronicles of Narnia – only we wouldn’t have known that then because, though we could read, Dad didn’t buy us the C.S. Lewis box set until we were nine.

‘A – U – G – U – S – T,’ you tell me. ‘August, that’s us.’

‘Yes, very good, Joshua, that’s Daddy,’ Mommy pipes in, getting it wrong as usual. ‘What a good boy to remember Daddy’s birthday.’

When you shove the corner of Daddy’s birthday into your mouth to see what flavour it is, Mommy slaps it out of your hand.

‘Tastes baaaad.’ She tidies it in its rack and leafs through the other cheapo pamphlets, until she finds another, much more boring-looking one that’s got a picture of a lady lounging on it. ‘Hey, twenty-fifth of August. That’s you.’

I curl up my lip.

Mommy doesn’t hear. ‘Virgo, the Virgin. That’s you.’

‘What’s a virgin?’ you ask, disappointed as I am that we can’t be something as cool as a lion. Why does Daddy get to be a lion and we’ve got to be some lazy old bag on a chaise longue?

‘Don’t like the sound of it.’

‘Sounds stupid.’ You tear the pamphlet from Mommy’s grip and proceed to drool on it in protest.

There’s another woman behind us in the line. She titters and coos away. ‘They’re so cute. Are they twins?’