Aunt Odie is the best cook there is in all Florida. Maybe Georgia and Alabama and Louisiana, too.
She makes everything from scratch, even her own mixes for things like cakes and biscuits and brownies. She sells the mixes down to the Publix supermarkets. And lots of other places. Like the Piggly Wiggly. And Walmart. Plus to grocery stores in the other states I have mentioned.
The whole summer long, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and some Saturdays I help my great-aunt measure and stir and package—right there in her huge professional kitchen, the biggest part of her house.
She pays me seven dollars a case of product, which is a pretty good hourly rate. No taxes pulled out. Straight under the table.
I’m saving up for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
But there are production rules. Hair in a net. Wear food-grade gloves. No rock-and-roll hoochie-koo music.
The most important thing about mixing mixes, though, is love. Love in every box. That means I have to think good thoughts while I work.
Can’t mix when I’m agitated or angry or feeling down in the dumps.
Can’t mix if I didn’t sleep good, or even had nightmares.
Most of the time it’s not hard to do. I’m a happy girl.
“People know,” Aunt Odie says, her hands laced over her belly. “They know if we think good or bad things. And Mixed with Love Is the Secret Ingredient.”
I believe her. She has the business that brings in oodles of money that affords her to live in this fancy-schmancy neighborhood. I’m only a helper. Plus, it says those words on every box.
• • •
Right now I was eating an Aunt Carolina (yep, Aunt Odie doesn’t use her own name, and she didn’t make me wait miles to eat. In fact, we were still in the driveway.) Drop Biscuit split in half, slathered with honey, and topped with grilled ham and an over-medium egg. Just like what is pictured on the packaging.
The sandwich was still hot. Smelled like heaven with a dash of pepper.
Aunt Odie provided a bib and plenty of napkins and a quart jar of fresh cold tea, lemon slices bobbing in there plus a cyclone of sugar to make it taste perfect.
And there were hash browns.
“Your momma knows I’m feeding you and all, but she intends to make a day of it after our adventure.”
Aunt Odie eased into the car.
All the windows were fogged up. Even the ones in the back. She flipped on the defroster.
Fastened her seat belt.
Turned to me and smiled.
“I put on my JC Penney girdle for you, Evie.”
I dabbed at my lips with the fancy birthday napkin.
“That ol’ rubber thing I pulled out of your bottom drawer the other day?”
“Yup.”
I swallowed my bite of food. No wonder she was squiggling around. “I thought you said you hadn’t seen that since the seventies.”
“That’s right. I look any thinner?”
“Sure,” I said, after a glance. She didn’t.
So you know, I’m not supposed to lie when I’m working on the mixes either.
Aunt Odie wrestled with the steering wheel, moving it this way and that, settling with her stomach snug against the wheel.
“Et’s-lay o-gay,” Aunt Odie said. Aunt Odie speaks perfect pig Latin. All my great-aunts do. I’m only partially proficient. “Edal-pay oo-tay ee-thay etal-may.”
Then she tore out of the driveway, driving as fast backing up as she does when she puts the car into go.
“It might be there is nothing,” she said when we sat in the middle of the road, staring at my house. For someone itching to go, she wasn’t driving. “Now lookit. You know there is the Messenger oddball who has no skill. Happens every onct in a while.”
I thought I might choke. “Well, thanks.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“I know.”
She was talking about the Gift.
In my heart I was torn. It wasn’t what I wanted. Healing like Momma. Cooking like Aunt Odie. Hair like Aunt Carol.
And I didn’t want to be an oddball, either.
Could I do that? Not be like anyone else in the family? Hmmm. It was scary, but I kinda liked the idea. Being . . . being me.
“But if there is something in there”—Aunt Odie tapped at her head, then at her heart—“my friend down to Cassadaga can pull the Gift right outta you.”
“Lookit,” I said. Worry fell over me like a shawl.
“Lookit nothing,” Aunt Odie said. “I know you’re nervous. But . . .” She stopped talking long enough to take a gigantic bite from her own breakfast sandwich. Egg dripped on the bib she rested on her bosoms.
“There’s no denying it, Evie. We gotta do what we gotta do. Messengers are here . . .”
“. . . to bless others with their skills,” we said together.
“Right,” Aunt Odie said. She sighed. Maybe because I had the right answer. Maybe because that sandwich tasted so good.
A raindrop the size of a nickel smacked onto the windshield. One pinged on the roof.
I said, “You know you don’t like driving in weather.” No need to argue about the other stuff. She wasn’t listening.
Aunt Odie put the car in gear. “You’re right. So we better get going.”
Buddy McKay came outside to deliver newspapers, his hair like a rat’s nest, which seems impossible seeing it’s a pretty close cut. He’s sixteen. Too old for me, my momma would say.
His lips looked ripe enough to kiss.
He licked those ripe lips in a downright sexy way at me as Aunt Odie roared down the street, lifting her sandwich in a salute. I stared out the window at Buddy, craning my neck to watch him till he was nothing but the shadow of a figure.
Before we even got to the four-way stop, the sky opened up wide like a yawn and poured what seemed like the whole Atlantic Ocean on us. Aunt Odie ate on. And drove, too.