Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
That’s fine with me. I like having Uncle Eli all to myself.
“Hi, Mr. Heartson.” Marcy nips her bottom lip and I shoot her with tiny envious daggers from my eyes. “Thanks for letting Ruby drive me to the party. I’m grounded from my car.”
Marcy’s parents bought her a Mustang GT Shelby for her sixteenth birthday but when they found out she was pregnant by her long standing high-school boyfriend, they pretty much pulled the plug on all her luxuries. They yanked her Amex and Visa Debit card which they funded with five grand a month for ‘necessities’. As well, they canceled all her hair and mani-pedi appointments at La Sol, the closest thing to an upscale spa/salon within ten miles.
Her family owns the local John Deere and Ford dealerships. Those two things make her family practically royalty around Mumford. She’s also highly dyslexic and her parents found it oh-so-embarrassing to have a daughter with a learning disability.
Marcy refused tutors but when I came to school in fourth grade and aced every test and assignment with little effort, she latched onto me and I was just happy to have a friend.
She needed me to help her with her schoolwork and I needed her to try to fit in in this new rural Alice in Wonderland I’d been dropped into. But, soon enough, we were chasing boys on the playground and talking on the phone for hours at night.
Eli grunts toward Marcy, shooting her a two-second glance as he carries in the wooden tray with two steaming cups of tea and two plates of cookies.
It must be five-thirty. We’ve been here longer than I thought.
I don’t need a clock or my phone to know the time. Eli never falters in his schedule, and every day for as long as I can remember at this time, he brings me tea and cookies.
“Time for your tea,” he says, ignoring Marcy as she twists her hair and leans sideways to get a better look at Eli’s backside. “And cookies.”
Marcy screws up her face on a shrug, confused by this monster of a father figure delivering a tray of tea and cookies.
Eli lumbers toward me, crossing the bedroom in three lengthy strides and placing the tray on the dresser next to the window seat. I swing my legs around, lowering my toes to the cool wooden floor, and feel that familiar tingle in my breasts as he hands me the luscious cookie still warm from the oven.
“Thanks.” I raise it like I’m making a toast as his enormous hand balances the porcelain tea cup on his palm like a platter. This is a twice daily ritual, whether I’m here in my room studying, or with Eli in the kitchen playing Spades or whatever.
If it’s seven am or five thirty pm, it’s tea and cookies, without fail.
Marcy pops up off the bed, skipping over to the tray, hitching her hip out and giving Eli a pout.
“Where’s mine?” She reaches for the second cookie on the plate, but instead of letting her take it, he blocks her hand and lets out a low growl, making Marcy lean back onto the dresser.
“Not that one,” he says, a quick snarl following as Marcy swallows, eyes as round as the cookies on the other plate which he shoves her way without ceremony. “These. You can eat these.”
“But, can’t I have one of each?”
“No.” He sets her chipped mug of tea on the crocheted doily next to the bottles of homemade perfume he brews each spring, then tugs the tray from her reach, his black eyes centered on me, nostrils flaring as that tingle in my breasts turns into a prickling warm pressure.
With Marcy here, I fear my secret is about to be revealed in two wet spots on the front of my red and white gingham blouse.
Thankfully I put one of the mini pads I cut in half just for this problem inside my bra when I changed earlier. I work myself to my feet, smoothing down the front of the denim skirt Eli made me out of an old pair of his Levi’s.
He cooks. He sews. He milks cows and plows fields. He chops the wood for our furnace and cans vegetables and fruit from the garden. He keeps the house spotless and never seems to sleep. He’s bigger than life and there seems to be nothing my superman of a stand-in father can’t do.
Marcy slurps down her mug of tea and devours her two cookies while Eli stands like a sentry, watching me.
“Eat your second one.” He hands me the oatmeal and molasses cookie, reaching down to pick up my discarded tea cup with a scowl. “And finish the last sip.”
He holds the smooth porcelain to my bottom lip, while simultaneously gripping my wrist and raising my hand with the cookie to my mouth.