The Cousins Read Online Free Page A

brought her back East to Mandelay, to introduce her to his family as his future bride, none of them much liked her, but they tried to be as nice as they could. They thought it was typical of Stan to bring home this unsuitable
shiksa
of limited sophistication, who drank as much as a man. Earlene was completely stunned by the wealth she saw: the rolling hills covered with manicured lawn and huge neatly pruned old trees, the formal gardens, the swimming pool, the tennis court, the twenty-seven-room Gothic mansion which even had an elevator in it that looked like a cage, although the caretaker had disabled the elevator because the parents were afraid the children might try to play in it and get hurt. The family money made Earlene uncomfortable, and discomfort made her hostile.
    Olivia was only ten, but she was very perceptive and picked up on all of this. She was rather in awe of Stan, who had become her childhood hero. He was wearing his hair longer than any man she had ever seen, and he had a handlebar mustache and a deep tan, and was dressed like a cowboy. He had cowboy boots and a turquoise bracelet. He didn’t even move like any man she had seen; he was quick and fluid like a snake. He rolled his own cigarettes when he thought he was alone under the trees, and they smelled different from the cigarettes other grown-ups smoked.
    “Why is this place called Mandelay?” Earlene asked Stan, on the cool porch with the vista of what seemed like heaven. She was drinking iced tea laced with bourbon she had found in the bar.
    “My aunt Lila named it. The store was named after my mother, so my grandfather let Lila name the estate.”
    “Like ‘The Road to Mandalay’?” Earlene asked. “Like the
road
pictures?”
    “I don’t think so,” Stan said.
    “Well, like
Rebecca?
I saw that movie. Like
Manderley?
”
    “No, it’s Mandelay.”
    “Do you remember when Mrs. Danvers set the whole house on fire? And the murder? That place was cursed.”
    “It’s not Manderley,” Stan said.
    “Wouldn’t it be funny if she was trying to be pretentious and got it wrong,” Earlene said.
    “Just cool it.”
    Actually, as Stan was later to find out, most things made Earlene hostile.
    They sat at the long dinner table and Olivia bombarded him with questions about his work. “What happens when you jump off a building?”
    “They spread out these large foam-rubber-filled mats, and they stack cardboard boxes under them to help break the fall.”
    ‘Well, you knew he didn’t hit the ground,” Aunt Myra said with her little giggle. “He’s still here.”
    Olivia ignored her. “Do you scream?”
    Stan smiled. “You bet. The loudest primal scream you ever heard.”
    “I don’t know why you do it, then,” Lila said, disapproving.
    “The adrenaline rush,” Stan said.
    The aunts and uncles looked at each other and at the grandparents nervously, worried what they might make of this. But the grandparents had seen so many amazing things since the 1800s, when they had been born, that they just shrugged.
    “What’s the scariest trick to do?” Olivia persisted, thrilled to be so close to her strange cousin.
    “Gag,” Stan said. “They’re called gags, not tricks.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe because it’s all a joke.”
    “Some joke,” Stan’s father, Uncle Eli, grumbled. He had never approved of Julia sending those checks.
    “I’d pick . . . probably the explosion and fire gag, where you have to crash a car and then get out of it before it blows up. You have to test to be sure the door will open, and then set off the charge, set yourself on fire and jump out. I’d never do that one with a hangover.”
    “Hangover!” Aunt Julia gasped. She glanced again at her parents.
    “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Stan said, and smiled. “Many’s the gag that’s been done after a hard night out with the guys.”
    “He’s just trying to scare you,” Earlene said. She had learned a few things since she’d been going