Jinin Kiem

Ginners [An Excerpt]

June 6, 2006 on 2:14 pm | In No Context |

Miss Virginia Pauley Killed in Auto Crash
Friends here have been notified that Miss Virginia Pauley, 19, was killed and that her mother, Mrs. Pauline Pauley, was injured in an automobile accident in Pennsylvania last Thursday. The information was to the effect that JP Pauley, 15, younger brother of Virginia, who was in the car with his mother and sister, escaped injury. Funeral services for Miss Pauley, who was graduated from Township High School in 1932, were held in Philadelphia, a male friend of the family said.
The Township Talk, Illinois, May 1933

Ginners had an eerie feeling about that damn road trip. The night before we left home she did two odd things. First, she sat at the foot of my bed and cried so sad like she hadn’t cried since Mother told us Father had died. Second, once she stopped crying, she started talking sentimental about her boyfriend to me, of all people, her own brother, like she thought I cared. Usually I didn’t, not about what she and Matthew were up to, but that night I cared, because that night she talked like it mattered whether I cared or not.

“It’s an eerie feeling, JP,” she said so serious, “like my heart’s beating too fast and my mind’s spinning crazy, and maybe it means I’m in love with Matthew.”

I didn’t like to say so, but suddenly my heart and head started up fast and crazy, but I wasn’t in love—no girl ever noticed me, ever cared about me the way Ginners and Matthew cared about each other—I was just getting that eerie feeling, same as Ginners.

“And all I want,” she said, grabbing hold of my bare foot, “is to spend every minute with him, the rest of my life with him,” and she started twisting my foot in ways it wasn’t meant to go, “but then that makes me real sad and mad and scared about going away for so long.”

“Stop that!” I shouted.

Her eyes opened wide, like she was surprised to see me there, like she just snapped out of one of those trances that, according to Mother, lady spiritualists get into when they talk to the dead. “Sorry, JP,” Ginners said, still twisting my foot, “I don’t mean to scare you with my talk.”

“You ain’t scaring me! You’re hurting me!” and I kicked up my foot. Truth was, though, she was scaring me with her talk. But when she slapped my foot and grinned like her normal silly self, I wasn’t so scared anymore, so I said all cocky, “And what’s there to be so scared about?”

“That if Mother forces me to go on her damn trip, me and Matthew won’t ever see each other again.”

“We won’t be gone forever, just for—” and I couldn’t remember how long Mother said we’d be away, or if she’d said at all. “What did Mother say again?”

“That’s the thing,” Ginners said. “She won’t say for sure, and I’ve asked her a dozen times. She’s being so secret-like. All she says is,” and here Ginners made her voice deep and exact and slow, copying Mother’s highfalutin talk like only she could, “‘We will want to enjoy the numerous pleasurable sights on this scenic drive to Vermont,’ and, ‘The duration of our stay in Philadelphia is not up to us, it is up to his family,’” and Ginners spat out the word his the way she and I always did whenever we mentioned him, Mother’s then-fiancé, whose name I’ll never ever say again as long as I live. “She’s saying a whole lot of nothing that just don’t add up. I mean, if we’re going to Vermont and visiting with her family and to Philadelphia and visiting with his, and then driving all the way back to Chicago, all the time stopping at all the damn ‘numerous pleasurable sights,’ then, my god, we’ll be gone forever!”

“But that’s just Mother’s way of talking, you know that. And she’s always been secret-like to us.”

“Especially about him! And you know why? Because she’s ashamed, because she knows she looks an old fool, holding hands with him and saying, ‘my fiancé,’ like they’re young sweethearts.”

I nodded, even though it’d never occurred to me to wonder if there were reasons why Mother was the way she was. To me she was just Mother. “I keep my own counsel, march to my own beat,” she always said. Except Ginners was right that ever since she got engaged she was even more secret-like to us, but I figured it was because she’d started marching to his beat, keeping his counsel, like she said she tried her best to do with Father when he was alive.

“Oh, it’s all wrong, JP,” Ginners said.

“Then tell her you don’t want to go!” and I knew it was the stupidest thing that smart Mrs. Pauline Pauley’s stupid son had ever said, but right then all I wanted was to make Ginners feel better. And I didn’t think she was stupid enough to actually do it!

But up she jumped and out she ran, demanding, “Mother!” And the way she said it, steady and clear and not too loud, made me see that Ginners was smart, not stupid, for standing up for herself, something I was too stupid to do when it came to Mother. Right then I believed that Ginners would outsmart Mother, that she would talk her—and my!—way out of that stupid road trip with him.

“Go, Ginners, go!” I whispered.