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ALEXIS, AKA SHE OF RACCOON LINEAGE
I’ve learned to sleepthrough many wild noises back in Fork Falls. One of my neighbors owned a parrot who talked nonstop from dawn to dusk. Another guy played the electric guitar. An older, clearly hearing-impaired chick watched telenovels day and night on the highest volume.
Since my cousins painting the kitchen can’t compete with such noise, I sleep through their bickering while working on my hangover. Finally, my phone’s alarm alerts me of lunchtime.
My first thought is how I’ll see West again today. Or maybe not. Men are fickle pickles. He might have lost interest already. Oh, what am I thinking? He hasn’t even gotten lucky yet. Of course, he won’t lose interest. That’ll happen after the hotel sex.
I sit up in bed to find Aunt Given flanked by her daughters. Juno smiles at me, but Zelda looks annoyed.
“Whatever happened wasn’t my fault,” I mumble and throw my legs over the side of the couch.
“We have the absolutely most terrible news,” Aunt Given says as her dark curls threaten to consume her face.
“Is an asteroid on a collision course with Earth?”
“No.”
While relieving my achy bladder in the bathroom, I ask, “Are you suffering from a contagious flesh-eating disease, and we’ve all caught it?”
“Of course not.”
Hands washed, and the toilet flushed, I appear in the hallway and ask, “Is the government outlawing cat ownership?”
“You’re just being silly now,” she says and rolls her dark eyes.
“Well, then, it’s not really the most terrible news, now, is it?”
“No, Miss Literal, I guess it isn’t, but it’s still awful.”
Shuffling to the kitchen, I hope coffee exists in this “most terrible” reality. “Now that I’ve braced myself for the sheer power of your awful news, just spill it.”
“Your dream man is Poppy Mercer’s son.”
“I don’t know who that is or why it matters.”
“I just said she’s the mother of the guy you’re dating.”
Once my cup of cold coffee warms in the microwave, I return to the living room, where they hog my bed.
Sitting on the floor, I mumble, “Oh, yeah, I guess it matters a little.”
“Poppy once announced the Toomeys were raccoon people,” Aunt Given explains. “And she knows you’re one of us.”
“I’m not a raccoon, though.”
“Hey, neither are we,” Juno says while Zelda shrugs, remaining noncommittal on the raccoon question.
Aunt Given points out, “Alexis, you’re from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“But this is a tiny West Virginia town often looked down on by the Rockwell people. Wouldn’t that make us all on the wrong side of the tracks?”
My aunt shrugs. “Well, there’s a second set of tracks that we’re also on the wrong side of.”
“How many tracks are there?” Juno asks her mother.
“I don’t know, baby. But we’re on the wrong side of every single one.”
“Maybe we are raccoon people,” Zelda says, smirking. “What other animal would get stuck on the wrong side of so many tracks?”
