Aunt Dixie shook her hand and looked at Axel with a sly smile. “Well, aren’t you sweet?”Yes, she is.
“You two look perfect together. A match made in heaven. When’s the wedding?”
Space potatoes. Do I have to answer that?
“Three weeks,” Lucy said dispiritedly. A teardrop fell on her cheek. Three more followed in short succession. She sniffled and hurried down the porch steps to walk back to the truck. He heard her sob quietly and it tore at his heart.
“What’s wrong?” Aunt Dixie asked. “What did I say?” He’d never seen his aunt look sorry for anything until this moment.
“I’m in that arranged marriage my parents set up forever ago.”
“So what? Why doesn’t she want to marry you?”
“Doesn’t matter what we want. I’m marrying her sister, Francine, because she’s the second born and so am I. You know, it’s supposed to bring good luck and all that.” Axel couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice. It was enough he managed to delete another rude swear word from the end of his remark, if barely.
Aunt Dixie said another bad word. The exact one he’d been thinking.
Axel nodded.
Lucy swiped at her eyes and he knew she was swiping away tears. Axel’s heart hurt for her. Several drops decorated her shirt before she seemed to get hold of herself.
She leaned against the truck, head down, breathing in and out slowly, as if trying to get her emotions under control. Aunt Dixie hurried ahead of him when he hesitated and stuck a tissue under Lucy’s nose.
“Here you go, hon. I have more if you need them.”
“Thanks.” She took the proffered tissue, along with two more offered from a small hand-sized package. She wiped her eyes and nose, her expression grateful as Axel approached, Ed on his heels.
Looking for something innocuous to say, and draw everyone’s attention away from Lucy’s distress, Axel pointed at the back of his truck. “What’s in these boxes?”
“Not telling,” Aunt Dixie said, her hand resting gently on Lucy’s shoulder. Axel was hard pressed to be angry with his aunt, since she was treating Lucy so kindly.
Axel said, “Fine. But if Diesel asks, I didn’t have anything to do with whatever you are planning.”
“Phooey. He always says no to every suggestion we offer in order to make money. This time, I’ve decided that I’m going to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.” The wide grin on her face spoke to her seemingly uncaring attitude for Diesel’s possible interference with whatever this project was about. Axel would do his best to forget his part in this, or at least feign innocence when whatever shenanigans Aunt Dixie was up to hit the fan, which they inevitably always did. His curiosity was piqued, though.
Lucy smiled and thanked his aunt, then climbed into the front passenger seat of his truck while Axel and Ed loaded the boxes into the garage.
“Is this Ed’s place? I thought he lived in Alienn.”
“He does live in Alienn. This place is my friend Thelma’s house. She’s got an entire basement set up for crafts and projects and the like. She promised to help me apply the special film to the mugs.”
“So, is Thelma…human?”
“Maybe.” His aunt sounded wary. “Why? What difference does it make?”
“Only makes a difference if she finds out about where we’re originally from.”
Aunt Dixie waved a hand in his face like that was not a concern. He rolled his eyes and tried again. “Tell me, what are you really doing here? If I’m keeping a secret, I should at least know what it is.”
“Fine. But you better keep quiet about it.” There was definitely an unspoken “or else” attached to the end of her sentence. “We are putting the indestructible thermal film Cam invented on coffee cups.”
Axel squinted.What?“I don’t understand. Why? To keep them from breaking?”
“No. If you use a stylus to draw a picture on the film and then peel off the backing and slap the film on the outside of a coffee mug, when you pour anything hot into the cup, the drawing appears. We can even do different colors if we use the stylus selection Cam invented to go with the thermal film.”
“I’ve seen that trick on late-night television ads.” Axel wondered what the catch was. Surely Aunt Dixie’s plan couldn’t be as innocent as it sounded.
“Except that Cam’s film doesn’t wear out or wash off. It melds with the cup and the drawing lasts forever.”
