Page 12 of The Marigold Trail
W hen I enter the house—after Officer Berrett’s wife swooped in and saved me from having any further conversation with her husband—I find all of my family members huddled in the living room around a young woman who looks to be in her forties with the largest hair circumference on this side of Denver. They surround the buffalo plaid couch where she stands.
Everything about the mystery visitor is concealed by my family’s lack of care for personal space and only the couch and two butterscotch butterfly wall hangings on the wood-paneled wall stare back at me. Davy moves aside and reveals her feathery champaign curls and steeply arched eyebrows. I know this woman.
Great Aunt Jevie, whose citrusy scent has taken over the living room, paves her way through Erica’s younger brothers and rushes at me with open arms.
It’s really her, as if she’d experienced rapid-fire de-aging since the last time I’d visited her in Florida for Grandma Marcie’s seventieth beach birthday party in Non-80s-Land. Vacationing with three old ladies in oversized sun hats, spending hours attempting to catch sight of crocodiles, was more exhausting than you’d think. Jevie had run off to Florida with her third husband sometime in the late eighties and in my mother’s words “wouldn’t come back until we fly her back in a casket.”
“Atta girl! So glad you’re here.” Her bowl-shaped hair grazes my chin. “I missed you!” As quickly as I fall into her embrace, she dashes off to her significantly more pale sister to catch up on whatever sisters catch up on in their forties.
I watch Erica flee the living room after leaping over a series of takedown attempts from Steven. My young uncles resume wrestling each other in the hallway. Davy manages a reversal, gaining control over Steven and I hop over the action, using the wall for support in pursuit of Erica. I need to catch her before she makes her nightly call to Greg.
Erica’s wall is sprinkled with printed photos and polaroids, a pig calendar, and three cubby holes filled with vinyl records. To no surprise, her room’s much girlier than mine, and the twenty-some pastel stuffed bears sitting atop the dresser—fit for a Brach’s conversation heart color pallet—attest to that fact. Erica changes out of her cheerleading uniform into an oversized red Ghostbusters tee and baggy flannel pajama bottoms. Her white phone attached to a landline wall outlet rests on her duvet waiting for the nightly call with her boyfriend. I step into her space.
“Erica, I have a question for you, and before you say no I just need you to hear me out,” I blurt out, realizing I’m using the same language that I would when trying to persuade her to do something for me as her daughter. Her face looks freshly rinsed and her berry lips smile back at me in surprise.
“Atta,” she sighs while maintaining a smirk. “I’m not going to prank call Ben, so you can deliver a coded message and get him to spill whether or not he’s with Bennette or Corky. I’m not trying that again.”
“I asked you to prank call Ben? Does that mean you know what happened between Bennette, Ben, and Corky?” Why hadn’t I thought to ask her in the first place? She’s close enough with both girls that it’s no surprise she would know something.
“Yeah, you asked me to do that. It’s not like you don’t know that. Did you already forget that it blew up in your face?
“I guess. Ben won’t speak to me.”
“Aren’t you not speaking to him either after he sent Tyler to our house with a homemade ashtray and a cigar, claiming you made it in ceramics class when Dad opened the door? Ben knew it was guaranteed to get you grounded.”
“So you know what’s going on between Corky and Ben then?
“I already told you Bennette and Corky are acting normal as always. Nothing’s going on between them. You act like you don’t know anything tonight.”
“You sure nothing’s going on?” I ask.
“Don’t you think you’re misunderstanding? He’s probably just mad because you prank called. You might have also struck a nerve pretending to be a college basketball media rep and prodding him with questions right after he quit the basketball team. Or it could have been that you had the gall to say ‘these tickets are yours only after you answer the age-old question, Brunettes or Blondes?’ I could hear him yelling your name before you hung up without his answer.”
“I don’t think so. I think I knew something about his relationship with Bennette and Corky?” I say as Erica finishes off tying a low French braid that sprouts a fluffy fountain-like curl where the elastic is tied.
“So you’ve said. You’ve been suspecting them of something since you overheard him on the line at Diana’s house. You wouldn’t tell me what you heard the first time and now you’re not even sure what you heard.” She stares longingly at the phone block on her bed before dragging it by the cord down to the floor where her socks dig into the cinnamon carpet.
“Okay, well…” I need to hold the conversation a little longer before she dials Greg’s number. “I actually came to ask you if I could join the cheer team,” I say with an ounce of reluctance.
Is this really a good idea? I don’t plan to stay here much longer if I can help it and “perky cheerleader” wasn’t exactly listed in my federal resume.
“Did someone slip you something? Why are you asking me all these weird questions?” She’s chewing on the inside of her cheek, more satisfied with my request than she is worried if I’m intoxicated or not.
“No one slipped me anything and I’m much stronger and more flexible than you think. I know it might be too late in the season, but you’re the cheer captain so you can make it happen, right?”
Erica leaves me hanging. Her devilish smile tells me she already knows the answer. She’s just holding out to enjoy my anticipation, whether it be because I’ve finally succumbed to her master plan and she wants to savor the moment envisioning me jumping, kicking, and cheering.
“We need a base. You can be a base.”
Although my cheer terminology knowledge isn’t great, I grasp this. She’s saying yes. No request has come this easy between me and my mother before in my life. I’m capable of standing with a bunch of other girls while holding someone’s leg.
“I’ll have to run it by our coach and the girls. I’ll give her a call tonight. But I swear if you wake up sober and take this all back, I will unwind all of the tape from your 38 Special cassette. If you join, you're stuck with us for the rest of the season.”
I’ll be gone in a week, I tell myself.
“I won’t back out. I promise.”
“Oh, and one other requirement.”
“What’s that?” I say flipping through all the possible requests she might have for me in my mind.
“You’ve got to get a perm.”
I eye the sock basket in the corner where a partially filled out crossword puzzle sits at the top of the large mound of socks. It’s been two and a half days since I’ve had access to my planner and my hand misses jotting down important notes and keeping track of my daily schedule; though my schedule isn’t nearly as booked as it was in Non-80s-Land and my new daily activities seem silly in comparison. Still, I would feel more myself if I could at least jot down my eighties class schedule and keep track of the things happening in this alternate universe, including where I stand with Ben on any given day and keep track of any potential Marigold findings on top of what Officer Berrett’s revealed.
I grab the partially filled out crossword puzzle from the sock pile while Erica gives the cheer coach a ring.
When I pop back into Erica’s room she gives me the good news. Her coach is out for two weeks on vacation but doesn’t mind if I join the team as long as Erica’s confident I won’t ruin the routines. Erica’s confident. I, however, am not.
Together, Erica and I find Aunt Jevie in the kitchen, deep in conversation with Marcie discussing the game plan for tomorrow’s move. Marcie will help Jevie pack, so that by the time her third husband Gary flies in, they can load the trailer together and drive both cars with the rest of her belongings back to their new place in Florida.
“Hello, Sweethearts.” Jevie turns around and pulls us both into a warm hug.
“How long are you here for Aunt Jevie?” I can tell the hairstylist manipulation tactic is about to be actualized. Erica’s going to have my hair in tightly wound plastic perm rods before the end of the night.
“So Auntie, could you spare some time before you leave?” Erica folds her fingers into a prayer-style beg then asks Aunt Jevie if she’ll be able to perm my hair before she leaves. I can hear Marcie’s jaw clank against the floor on the other side of the kitchen.
“I should have some time tonight. I just need to stop by my house to get some supplies. Marcie, would you mind if I permed Atta’s hair while we watch MTV?” Jevie asks her while fumbling around in her purse for her car keys.
Marcie rolls her eyes and walks to the fridge. She pulls out the green grapes and tosses them into two ceramic bowls with a yellow floral pattern ring.
“Does it have to be MTV? MacGyver has a new episode tonight. How about that?”
“You promised me we’d watch MTV, so I can show you the sexy Huey Lewis I keep telling you about. His song from Back to the Future was number one a couple of years ago and it played all the time. You’ve seen Back to the Future, right?”
“No Jevie. I haven’t seen Back to the Future , but since you’re my guest we can watch whatever you want,” Marcie says, upping the sass while admitting defeat.
Erica nudges her elbow into my side, confirming I’ve caught their sportive sisterly squabble too.
“I’m heading out now. If I can rent Back to the Future on my way out we’ll watch that, Marcie,” Jevie says. Marcie shoos her off with a wave and Jevie exits the kitchen, passing the brick firewood stove platform on the far side of the living room.
“Atta’s getting a perm?” Marcie says reaching for the Gilligan’s Island ceramic cookie jar and pulling out a Twix bar. She places it between her teeth, unopened, and moves a glass dish of mushroom-colored goo into the oven, as if she’s preparing to let loose a little tonight with Jevie.
“She’s joining the cheer team,” Erica says. This time the Twix shoots from her mouth as her jaw falls back to the floor.
Erica wastes no time before putting me through her nightly TV stretching routine while Jevie’s out to get hair supplies. I feel cracked. The stretching position Erica has me in sends daggers of pain up my leg and my dogs are seriously barking. She maneuvers me into multiple split stretches and one, specifically focused on stretching the groin area, makes me question this plan in the first place. If this is how it’s going to be from now on, I’m going to have to harness the powers of Gumby and somehow suffer through these muscle-snapping splits.
Jevie tiptoes through the door with a paper bag full of curlers and chemicals, prompting an end to Erica’s stretching session. Erica then follows Jevie into the kitchen where my insanely young-looking grandmother uses her oven mitts to slide the kitchen towel over and pull her casserole out of the oven, before walking over to the table to drop it off on a crochet pot holder. She surveys the table setting and combs through her short dark curls after tossing the oven mittens next to the kitchen sink.
“Mom, is the food ready yet?” Davy yells for the third time now down the stairwell.
“It’s out already. Can’t you smell it?” Jevie yells back, walking into the family room so that Davy can hear. She sets her bags down next to the mid-century dark cherry hutch by the side wall. She’s right. The steamy smell of a crispy grilled onion and creamy mushroom had traveled all throughout the first floor. If anything said “Dinner’s ready” it was the new scent of the house.
The rest of the family trickles down the stairs while I still sit in a deep-seated split—a really horrible spot actually. Stuck and knowing what sensation is about to occur when I lift myself from the position, I almost wish to continue splitting here. I must get it over with quickly. I tell my legs to move, but I’m physically unable to until Marcie runs over and pulls me up in a swift snap motion. My legs meet each other and I bend over in quiet rage, feeling a lingering tearing sensation.
I’m the last to gather in the newly renovated kitchen, with a fancy popcorn ceiling and grand honey oak cabinet focal point. It feels like a completely separate entity in an entirely seventies-dressed home. The whites and creams and ivory rosebud drapes—fatter than my childhood pet pig—with silky bottom ruffles, don’t qualify for newly renovated in my mind, but the eighties design is a decade upgrade in this household.
Marcie takes a seat next to Jevie, untying her apron in the process, and sets down a plate of warm butter rolls onto the floral tablecloth to go along with the casserole. I don’t hesitate and grab a bubbly glazed roll before the others.
“Steven, how was wrestling today?” Marcie begins the dinner discussion ritual.
“I pinned Jeffrey and I’m working on a single leg takedown.”
“That’s a load of bull. Steven got pinned twice after pinning Jeff,” Davy cuts in, shoving his older brother off the high tower of high-handedness.
“Thank you for that, Davy.” Marcie sits on an endless plain of irritation as far as the eye can see with them. She turns to face me to disregard the conversation entirely. “How’s Diana? I haven’t seen her in a while. Tell her to come here more. You girls are always over at her place.”
I shove another glorious roll into my mouth. I did spend quite a bit more time at her house, rather than my own, growing up. Most likely because she had an older brother who I found just as captivating. Mama Robyn and Grandma Harriet also wanted her home since Ben was always at practice, and Mama Robyn liked to have Diana around for company.
“I will, but she asked if I could stay over at her house this weekend.” I clench my teeth waiting for an answer.
“I don’t see why not. Just tell her to show her face over here more often. We miss you when you’re not here.”
“Don’t forget you have a basketball game to cheer at this Saturday,” Erica chimes in. This time with a satisfied grin.
Steven’s the first one to look up from his plate as if he’s heard me say milk now comes from cats. Davy joins him in disbelief.
“Did I hear that right? Steven, check my ear. Is it clogged with earwax? Did Erica just say that Atta is going to be cheering?”
“I heard it too.”
“She’s joining the team. You heard it right.” Erica’s words sound like a cheer wants to burst through them.
“What did you do with our sister?” Steven makes a shocked-Yoda-like sound.
“There’s got to be something in it for her if she agreed to this. Is it a bet? Did they somehow incorporate chess into cheering, or do they play Rummikub during cheer breaks?” He knows me well. His jokes are on par. These things were more my level, but there was something in it for me, and in the same nerdy sense he was referring to—a mystery to be solved.
“Hey!” Erica slaps the raspberry red ball cap off of Davy’s twiggy little head. “Atta wouldn’t do that. You aren’t doing this because of a bet, are you?” Erica turns to me with real signs of oncoming disappointment. Everyone’s awaiting my answer.
I hold up my hands, surrendering.
“There is no bet.”
Aunt Jevie seats me in a folding chair in front of the vintage TV cabinet, whose antennas are longer than the TV itself, leaving me nine potted plants scattered on top to stare at, as she pulls back the accordion door curtain and tunes the cable dial. She picks out a strand of my naturally, mostly straight hair and begins rolling it up in a thick roller as she sings along to Loverboy playing on the television.
This feels like a historical moment. I’m watching, for the first time ever, music that played on MTV when MTV actually played music videos. Neon-colored cartoons transition each segment, and Marcie and Erica sit curled up together on the couch sharing a disgustingly vibrant brown, yellow, and orange knitted afghan that only the seventies could’ve produced. I feel unexpectedly warm, as if the coziest blanket has me wrapped up in a hug of comfort with all the women in my family gathered in this dim-lit living room.
“I mean they aren’t The Rolling Stones but it’s just so wonderful, isn’t it?” Aunt Jevie says, looking for a positive response from her sister, Marcie.
“This Huey Lewis better have a really nice butt,” Marcie says as Jevie inhales a long deep breath.
“Eww, Mom,” Erica smacks her with the lace crochet pillow, and Marcie gives her smoochy kisses as she leaves for her room to make her nightly call with Greg.
It takes Jevie rolling my entire head in rollers until Huey Lewis finally appears on screen. And when he does, Jevie does jumping jacks in celebration before pulling Marcie and I into a cha-cha train while his song “If This Is It” plays on the fuzzy and slightly pixilated TV screen.
“Atta, some rollers fell out!” Marcie says, breaking the train to fetch the small finger-trap-shaped rollers.
“I’ll re-roll them. We got all evening, sis,” Jevie says as we sit back down to re-roll the liberated hairs.
She pulls out a bottle of chemical treatment and hairspray from the paper bag on the floor. A bright red “Keep away from copper” warning shines against the steel bottle just below the “W” squiggle wave branding. The symbol stares back at me with a knowing look from its stamped position and I recognize it as the same symbol from the newspaper I’d read the other day, seated in the back of the older couple’s car with their fluffy dogs. This symbol is the branding for the new company that the Sheriden Foundation had just acquired, according to the article.
Another Marigold reminder. The eighties seem to carry a few of them. A newspaper snippet, Officer Berrett and his tattoo, and even Aunt Jevie’s hairspray can seem to have a relation. The Marigold symbol isn’t the only logo associated with the Sheriden Foundation. How many other companies did they own and why hair chemicals? Did “W” make other products as well? The questions fire hard inside of me.
How was I going to fully understand Sheriden, Marigold, and now W’s relationship, with only symbols and newspaper articles to go off of?
“Aunt Jevie, what brand is this?”
“Clean Wave,” she says. “They’re big in household and hair products. I have their dish soap and laundry detergent as well. I use everything. They just came out with a new instantaneous clean technology, so most of the hair products hold like steel until water’s applied.”
“Have you tried this before?” I ask, holding up the hairspray can.
“I tried it last week and my curls didn’t move for hours. From a hairstylist's perspective it’s a game changer.”
So Marigold was connected to Clean Wave through the Sheriden Foundation. I would need to add this to my partially filled crossword book which now dubs as my planner and I would do so the second these heavy rollers left my head.
Finally, I could make a connection to a name I was familiar with. Sheriden had acquired Clean Wave. I recall the brand from the future. In fact, I’d used a Clean Wave product to spray the wad of gum off of the corded telephone in Pops’ hidden room before coming here.
I wouldn’t have recognized the branding though. It had been updated in the last decade at least. I don’t know what the hairspray looked like in the future but I knew the cleaning product. It had a neon yellow-orange colored wrap and simple text. No squiggly “W” logo in sight.
“I read recently that they were acquired by the Sheriden Foundation in the paper. Do you know anything about the Sheriden Foundation?” I ask.
“The Sheriden Foundation? I’ve heard them talked about on the news, but I don’t know much about them. Sorry,” she says as Marcie walks back into the room with three whipped jello desserts on small plates with excessive cool whip.
“I thought we could use some orange fluff. Looks like you’re finishing up.” She hands me a plate and lays Jevie’s down on the small square brick platform next to the wall.
“I know Erica’s got a boyfriend. How’s your dating life, Atta?” Jevie’s finished applying the chemicals. So this is what she wants to do with me sitting here trapped in a heat cap. She wants the dirty details.
“There’s not a lot of men in my life. Not much to tell,” I say. And it was true. Most recently I took a leap with a guy who seemed promising due to his interest in Chris Farley and well, look how that one turned out.
That was the last date I had been on since Diana tried to set me up with Ben officially two years ago. He’d set the date and time according to his sister’s wishes, then stood me up after forgetting it entirely and spending the evening looking for the best hamburger in Denver with three of our Ju Jitsu buddies.
Ben met me at work the very next day, so excited to tell me about the “Atomic Cowboy” they found at Fat Sully’s after trying four other places. He was overflowing with joy from their discovery, and I didn’t dare say anything to shake the perfect ground of friendship we’d stood on for all these years. So, when Diana called to reprimand him the next day, I let him off the hook and laughed a bro-we’re-good-mates-no-need-for-this kind of laugh, as if it wasn’t a big deal.
I knew what this meant for us; I wasn’t a dating option for him. If I was, he would’ve been looking forward to it enough to remember it. That fact still didn’t stop me from secretly loving him the way I had most of my early life, even if I knew I had to move on and realize he might give me his coat jacket when I offer to get drinks for game night, but he’ll request it back so he can give it to another woman later that night.
“You must not be paying attention then. I’m sure there are many men interested in that pretty face of yours. Keep an eye out for the cute ones, okay?” Jevie says.
“I’m sure that’s the case. It’s probably not that I’d rather solve crossword puzzles and hang out with Ben and Diana more,” I say. Really it was because all my time was spent at the Bureau and what little free time I had was spent with colleagues and family. I’d been through all the prospects at work, so Aunt Jevie was wrong about that. There are not many men in my circle interested in this “pretty” face of mine. Just me, interested in my best friend and partner agent who’s somehow decades—maybe even universes—away yet also living across town, absolutely not interested in me.
Still, I needed to find a way to get back to him. And soon. I’d give myself till the end of the week to figure out the Ben and Corky mystery before trying to find my way back home. I just needed to somehow get my hands on a transparent phone.