Read Online The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson - Free Book Online
Authors: Jandy Nelson
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. . .” She is starting to purr. I have to save him.
I reluctantly come out of hiding and join swami seductress Gram. I get a good look at him. I’ve forgotten quite how luminous he is, like another species of human that doesn’t have blood but light running through their veins. He’s spinning his guitar case like a top while he talks to Gram. He doesn’t look like he needs saving, he looks amused.
“Hi, John Lennon.” He’s beaming at me like our tree-spat never happened.
What are you doing here? I think so loudly my head might explode.
“Haven’t seen you around,” he says. Shyness overtakes his face for a quick moment—it makes my stomach flutter. Uh, I think I need to get a restraining order for all boys until I can get a handle on this newfound body buzz.
“Do come in,” Gram says, as if talking to a knight. “I was just preparing breakfast.” He looks at me, asking if it’s okay with his eyes. Gram’s still talking as she walks back into the kitchen. “You can play us a song, cheer us up a bit.” I smile at him, it’s impossible not to, and motion a welcome with my arm. As we enter the kitchen, I hear Gram whisper to Big, still in knight parlance, “I daresay, the young gentleman batted his extraordinarily long eyelashes at me.”
We haven’t had a real visitor since the weeks following the funeral and so don’t know how to behave. Uncle Big has seemingly floated to the floor and is leaning on the broom he had been using to sweep up the dead. Gram stands, spatula in hand, in the middle of the kitchen with an enormous smile on her face. I’m certain she’s forgotten what she’s wearing. And I sit upright in my chair at the table. No one says anything and all of us stare at Joe like he’s a television we’re hoping will just turn itself on.
It does.
“That garden is wild, never seen flowers like that, thought some of those roses might chop off my head and put me in a vase.” He shakes his head in amazement and his hair falls too adorably into his eyes. “It’s like Eden or something.”
“Better be careful in Eden, all that temptation.” The thunder of Big’s God voice surprises me—he’s been my partner in muteness lately, much to Gram’s displeasure. “Smelling Gram’s flowers has been known to cause all sorts of maladies of the heart.”
“Really?” Joe says. “Like what?”
“Many things. For instance, the scent of her roses causes a mad love to flourish.” At that, Joe’s gaze ever so subtlety shifts to me—whoa, or did I imagine it? Because now his eyes are back on Big, who’s still talking. “I believe this to be the case from personal experience and five marriages.” He grins at Joe. “Name’s Big, by the way, I’m Lennie’s uncle. Guess you’re new around here or you’d already know all this.”
What he would know is that Big is the town lothario. Rumors have it that at lunchtime women from all over pack a picnic and set out to find which tree that arborist is in, hoping for an invitation to lunch with him in his barrel high in the canopy. The stories go that shortly after they dine, their clothes flutter down like leaves.
I watch Joe taking in my uncle’s gigantism, his wacked-out mustache. He must like what he sees, because his smile immediately brightens the room a few shades.
“Yup, we moved here just a couple months ago from the city, before that we were in Paris—” Hmm. He must not have read the warning on the door about saying the word Paris within a mile radius of Gram. It’s too late. She’s already off on a Francophiliac rhapsody, but Joe seems to share her fanaticism.
He laments, “Man, if only we still lived—”
“Now, now,” she interrupts, wagging her finger like she’s scolding him. Oh no. Her hands have found her hips. Here it comes: She singsongs, “If only I had wheels on my ass, I’d be a trolley cart.” A Gram standard to forestall wallowing. I’m appalled, but Joe cracks up.
Gram’s in love. I don’t
I reluctantly come out of hiding and join swami seductress Gram. I get a good look at him. I’ve forgotten quite how luminous he is, like another species of human that doesn’t have blood but light running through their veins. He’s spinning his guitar case like a top while he talks to Gram. He doesn’t look like he needs saving, he looks amused.
“Hi, John Lennon.” He’s beaming at me like our tree-spat never happened.
What are you doing here? I think so loudly my head might explode.
“Haven’t seen you around,” he says. Shyness overtakes his face for a quick moment—it makes my stomach flutter. Uh, I think I need to get a restraining order for all boys until I can get a handle on this newfound body buzz.
“Do come in,” Gram says, as if talking to a knight. “I was just preparing breakfast.” He looks at me, asking if it’s okay with his eyes. Gram’s still talking as she walks back into the kitchen. “You can play us a song, cheer us up a bit.” I smile at him, it’s impossible not to, and motion a welcome with my arm. As we enter the kitchen, I hear Gram whisper to Big, still in knight parlance, “I daresay, the young gentleman batted his extraordinarily long eyelashes at me.”
We haven’t had a real visitor since the weeks following the funeral and so don’t know how to behave. Uncle Big has seemingly floated to the floor and is leaning on the broom he had been using to sweep up the dead. Gram stands, spatula in hand, in the middle of the kitchen with an enormous smile on her face. I’m certain she’s forgotten what she’s wearing. And I sit upright in my chair at the table. No one says anything and all of us stare at Joe like he’s a television we’re hoping will just turn itself on.
It does.
“That garden is wild, never seen flowers like that, thought some of those roses might chop off my head and put me in a vase.” He shakes his head in amazement and his hair falls too adorably into his eyes. “It’s like Eden or something.”
“Better be careful in Eden, all that temptation.” The thunder of Big’s God voice surprises me—he’s been my partner in muteness lately, much to Gram’s displeasure. “Smelling Gram’s flowers has been known to cause all sorts of maladies of the heart.”
“Really?” Joe says. “Like what?”
“Many things. For instance, the scent of her roses causes a mad love to flourish.” At that, Joe’s gaze ever so subtlety shifts to me—whoa, or did I imagine it? Because now his eyes are back on Big, who’s still talking. “I believe this to be the case from personal experience and five marriages.” He grins at Joe. “Name’s Big, by the way, I’m Lennie’s uncle. Guess you’re new around here or you’d already know all this.”
What he would know is that Big is the town lothario. Rumors have it that at lunchtime women from all over pack a picnic and set out to find which tree that arborist is in, hoping for an invitation to lunch with him in his barrel high in the canopy. The stories go that shortly after they dine, their clothes flutter down like leaves.
I watch Joe taking in my uncle’s gigantism, his wacked-out mustache. He must like what he sees, because his smile immediately brightens the room a few shades.
“Yup, we moved here just a couple months ago from the city, before that we were in Paris—” Hmm. He must not have read the warning on the door about saying the word Paris within a mile radius of Gram. It’s too late. She’s already off on a Francophiliac rhapsody, but Joe seems to share her fanaticism.
He laments, “Man, if only we still lived—”
“Now, now,” she interrupts, wagging her finger like she’s scolding him. Oh no. Her hands have found her hips. Here it comes: She singsongs, “If only I had wheels on my ass, I’d be a trolley cart.” A Gram standard to forestall wallowing. I’m appalled, but Joe cracks up.
Gram’s in love. I don’t
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