ribs and one nipple surrounded by sparse, light hair. The man’s face was pale and his high forehead was wrinkled. He had very short light colored hair and a receding hairline, a square jaw and a stringy neck. Even in the dim light Victor could see that his eyes were the same bright light blue as the Grandmother’s, and like hers, lightly shadowed underneath.
“You must be Victor,” the man said. He stepped forward and held out a hand. Victor shook it, and was struck by how limp and damp and warm the man’s hand felt. “I’m your Uncle Buzz. I reckon you figured that out already.”
Victor nodded.
Uncle Buzz looked at the can in his hand as if he’d forgotten all about it. “This here’s my lunch,” he said. “I didn’t know ya’ll would be back so soon. I would’ve got dressed,” he took a sip from the small can, and grimaced. “It ain’t too bad. It’s all I can keep down, lately.”
The grandmother laid her purse on the arm of the sofa. “Did Dr. Patel call, William?”
It took Victor a moment to realize she was speaking to Uncle Buzz, who shook his head.
“I’ll call him after lunch,” the man in the bathrobe said as the old lady harrumphed. “Let’s get Victor settled,” she said, “and then we’ll have something to eat. Victor, honey, I don’t know how much your mama told you, but your uncle’s going for some physical therapy over in Beaufort when a space opens up for him this weekend, so for a couple of nights, I’m afraid you’ll have to bunk out here in the living room, if that’s all right. The couch pulls out, so you ought to be pretty comfortable. I know it ain’t too private, but…” she holds out her hands in a helpless gesture. “I wish we had more room, but we don’t.”
“That’s all right,” said Victor.
“I suppose for right now you can just lay your stuff out over by the window...” she indicated an open space of floor underneath the blinded east window, “And then when William gets settled you can move everything into his room.”
Victor nodded and put one foot on top of the other. He could sense everyone looking at him.
Shelby walked over to her father and butted her head gently against his frail shoulder. “I can’t wait to come see you, Daddy,” she said. Uncle Buzz nodded and lifted his free arm, as if with enormous effort, to drape heavily across his daughter’s shoulders. She turned to Victor. “He gets his own private room, and they have hot tubs and a massage therapist. It’s not a rest home. It’s more like a damn health spa.”
“Nice,” said Victor, uncertainly.
“Well, I don’t know why we’re all standing around,” the grandmother said after a brief silence. “William, let Shelby show Victor your room before you go back in there. Shelby, go on and show Victor the rest of the house, and I’ll get some lunch ready. I’m just going to have a tomato sandwich, it’s too hot for anything else. Victor, what do you want? I’ve got peanut butter, I can grill some cheese…”
For some reason, Victor wanted one of the supplemental milkshakes that Uncle Buzz was drinking, the same sort of thing they made all the anorexic and bulimic girls in the treatment center drink. His stomach was so tense that he could think of nothing less appealing than a peanut butter sandwich. “Peanut butter’s O.K,” he said. He picked up his duffel bag and followed Shelby down the hall. The first door, on the right, was the bathroom, small and dark and clean smelling. The next door, to the left, was the door to Uncle Buzz’s room, the room that Victor would soon inhabit. He peeked in for a moment and saw an unmade twin bed, a window overlooking the front yard, and, opposite the bed, a tall dresser. The doorway down the hall a bit and to the left was shut tight. “That’s the master bedroom,” said Shelby. “The old lady doesn’t like anybody going in there, so we won’t go in. There’s not much to see, anyway. It’s the biggest room in the house, though. There are a couple of pictures of you when you were little on the wall. They look like school pictures. I guess your mom must have sent them.”
At the end of the hallway there was another door shut tight. There was a laminated magazine picture of James Dean tacked to it and a knotted string with tiny copper bells attached hanging from the doorknob. “You want to see my room?”
“Sure.”
She opened the door and immediately the intermingled scents of candle wax, incense, and menthol cigarette smoke wafted out. She stepped inside and Victor followed, and the musky air made him sneeze three times in a row. The walls and ceiling were painted a smoky shade of lavender, the bed in its antique metal frame was heaped with stuffed animals and pillows of all shapes, colors, and sizes, and thick hot pink velvet curtains were drawn across the two sets of windows. Pictures framed or simply torn from magazines were pinned or hung haphazardly on every wall, and there was a vanity with an enormous round mirror and a tiny television atop a French provincial dresser. A wooden framed rocking chair upholstered in an incongruous brown sat underneath one window, its arms and back draped with clothing. Shelby put her hands on her hips and looked questioningly at Victor.
Victor had never been in a room so feminine or so thoroughly fragranced, and yet he was overcome by an eerie feeling of familiarity. It was as if not so much the room itself, but some invisible presence within it, was welcoming him back to a place he couldn’t quite remember. He smiled at Shelby. “It’s cool,” he said.
She snorted. “Gum hates it. She says it looks like a whorehouse in here. As if she has any idea what a whorehouse looks like.”
Suddenly Shelby’s expression became stern. “I’m glad you like it. But please don’t ever come in here without my permission. If you do, I’ll be pissed, and I have my ways of knowing if my space has been invaded. I don’t want to be a bitch, but I want to make it clear that I can’t live in a house with someone who doesn’t respect my boundaries. Everyone has to have their own space, and this is mine, for now. I know we don’t really know each other, but we are cousins, and I’m glad you’re here, believe it or not, because I’ve always wondered what you’re like, but I don’t want you- or anyone- in my room without my permission. Okay?”
“Okay,” as Shelby spoke he felt an initial rush of fury, as if he’d been offered something that was suddenly, tauntingly snatched away, but almost as instantly he wanted to assure her that he could be trusted. “I need my own space, too.”
Shelby smiled. “You’ll like Daddy’s room. It’s good,” she said obscurely. “Do you smoke?”
Victor hoped she meant tobacco. “Yes.”
“Menthol?”
“If that’s what you have.”
She held out a pack. “Take the whole thing. Gum gets them wholesale for the bar at the restaurant. I never have to buy my own,” she walked over to her vanity table and picked up an ashtray. They settled themselves on the carpet, Shelby leaning against the side of her bed, and Victor leaning against the closet door. For the first time Victor asked a question. “So, are you my only cousin?”
Shelby rolled her eyes. “There’s no telling, with this family.” l
Uncle Buzz did not join them for lunch, having enjoyed his nutritional supplement earlier he retired to his room, presumably to sleep away the sunny afternoon. It struck Victor as odd, and rather comforting, that the women in the house behaved so casually about his own sudden arrival as well as the uncle’s illness and immanent departure. From what Victor’s
