“Your oregano is expired,” he announced on his first visit, holding the jar like it was a dead rat. “And the way you store your olive oil next to the stove is degrading the polyphenols.”
“Because,” he said, “you’re the only people who tell me to shut up to my face.”
The summer we turned twelve was the summer he officially became my “bitchy cousin.” The whole extended family went to a lake house. My uncle had a boat. There were tubes to be pulled, fish to be caught, and a rope swing that had probably killed at least two people in the 80s. It was perfect.
That night, after everyone went to bed, I found him on the back porch, looking at the stars. The sky in Georgia is nothing like the sky in Connecticut. He had a beer—a Miller Lite, because he was still a Yankee-Type Guy and couldn’t drink a proper sweet ale to save his life. My Only Bitchy Cousin Is a Yankee-Type Guy- The...
But I didn’t have her patience. I was a feral, barefoot girl who climbed pecan trees and fought with snapping turtles. Bradley and I were oil and water—except the oil was also complaining about the water’s pH balance.
My grandmother just smiled and said, “Well, bless his heart. He gets that from his father’s side.”
“I know,” I said, sitting down next to him. “You’re a terrible liar.” “Your oregano is expired,” he announced on his
His name is Bradley, but I’ve called him “Bratley” in my head since we were nine. He’s my only cousin on my mother’s side—my only cousin, period—and he is a Yankee-Type Guy. Not just a guy from the North, mind you. He’s the stereotype . The one who thinks sweet tea is an abomination, that “bless your heart” is a declaration of war, and that any temperature above 72 degrees is a personal insult from God.
And yet, every Christmas, there he was. Sitting at my grandmother’s dining table, correcting everyone’s grammar.
“Why do you come down here every year if everything we do is wrong, everything we eat is garbage, and everything we say sounds stupid to your fancy Yankee ears?” There were tubes to be pulled, fish to
My uncle laughed. My grandmother handed him a towel and said, “You needed to cool off, honey.”
He raised his beer. I raised my sweet tea. We didn’t clink. We just sat there, two completely different people from two completely different worlds, watching the same stars.