“Stop being your prudish grandmother. She’s gone, Birdie. It’s okay to live a little.”
“Like mother, like daughter, huh?”
Aunt Mona stopped in the middle of the market, hooked her cane on her forearm, and grasped my shoulders with both hands. “Your mother was a goddess. Not a whore. Not a sinner. You know this.”
A sudden swell of emotion tightened my throat. I whispered, “I think I made a huge mistake.”
“Look. So, you had sex. Big deal. I’ve told you a million times—virginity isn’t something you lose. It’s not a missing sock. It’s a state of mind.”
“It was weird and awkward.”
“Because you ran away afterward?”
“No. It’s why I ran. It was... not like what I expected. It wasn’t magical. It wasn’t... I don’t know... Disneyland.”
“Disneyland?”
“You know. Matterhorn. Churros. Fireworks. The happiest place on earth.”
Mona laughed softly. “God, I love you, kid.”
“Really?” I said, scowling. “Because it sure seems like you’re laughing while I’m trying to spill my guts to you, which is what you’re always begging me to do.”
“You’re absolutely right, darling. Forgive me.” She slung an arm around my shoulder, and we strolled together while she talked. “Look. Sure, my first time was magical—”
I’d heard about it. In detail. Many times. Ireallywish I hadn’t.
“But since then?Pfft. Do you know how much weird sex I’ve had in my life?”
“Don’t want to know.”
“Good, because I can’t count that high. Sometimes it’s good; sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes it’s just plain bad. It’s never the same. It’s like...” Her mouth twisted as she searched for the right words. “Okay, think of it this way. You brought up Disneyland.... Remember when we went?”
A few months before my mom died. They’d saved money for two years. Ms. Patty from the diner even chipped in. We drove down through Oregon and California, and we couldn’t afford to stay in an official park hotel, so we ended up in a motel outside that had roaches. But I didn’t care. Those three days inside the park were pure joy.
Aunt Mona continued. “You had a great time. I had a great time. But your mom was miserable.”
Huh. I’d forgotten that. She was sick with a chest cold that had developed into bronchitis and sat on benches hacking her lungs up while Mona and I stood in line for rides.
“Disneyland was a miserable experience for her. Maybe another time, when she wasn’t sick, it wouldn’t have been. And that’s pretty much how sex is. Sometimes it’s the happiest place on earth, and sometimes it’s too crowded, and sometimes there are no fireworks over the castle, and that’s something you need to address with the prince, and if he doesn’t listen to your complaints, then you need to find a new prince.”
“Good grief,” I said, checking to see that no one was listening to us.
“If Daniel wants to talk about what happened, then maybe you should talk about it. Or maybe you should talk about other things? What’s the worst that could happen? You get embarrassed? Even if it’s notwuv, twue wuv,” she said, quotingThe PrincessBride, “you never know what may happen. I mean, it could turn out that he’s a really sweet boy whom you cherish as a friend for your entire life, and when he has a kid and dies suddenly, you might find yourself promising to look after that kid and one day giving it advice about another Daniel.”
“Circle of life?”
“Circle of fucking life,” she says, smiling through green lipstick. “Now, the only payment I ask for the gift of my advice is for you to secretly take a photo of him, so that I can confer my official blessing upon this union, which is my sacred duty as your unofficial godmother.”
“Will you wear a Pope outfit?”
She thought about this for a moment. “I could alter my purple nun habit and pair it with a wizard staff.”
“Good enough.”
“Excellent. Now, the stalls will be packing up soon, so I’m going to fetch my check. You coming with?”
“Meet you downstairs in the usual spot in thirty?”
