Cousin

She told me it would take a couple of weeks to go into effect. She told me I could “have tits like a girl” if I let her pinch me. She was 14 and I was 6. She was visiting us from Texas for the year because she had gotten into trouble at home and was having to repeat the 8^th grade out here now. She smoked a lot and listened to the 45 of that song “Dream Weaver” over and over again. She had me watch “Dark Shadows” with her, which I loved, and she watched me practice my magic tricks. She was kind of mean, but also kind of cool, in a sort of menacing way. She ate peanut butter from a spoon like it was a lolipop—and shared it from the same spoon, at the same time, with my black and white cat, Colleen, who’d sit in Lisa’s lap and eat the peanut butter from her spoon. Lisa’s mouth, Colleen’s mouth; same spoon, same time. My mom made us both matching fern print shirts, with a string around and through the collar, kind of a weaved, soft rope. For when we went to the Merced County Fair in 1976. And also for wearing to the public pool.