"Kitchens and Sweat"

Aunt Lillie was licking her fingers again. T.J. always liked the way she did that. Even as she fought off 40, her lips were still tender and pink, not a line anywhere. T.J.’s eyes followed Aunt Lillie’s hands as they swept through his uncle’s frazzled mane, down to her wide, inviting hips. Her red hair spurted like lava from her black mourning hat.
He took his place in the middle row with the other teenage children.
“You,” said the photographer, a round, bearded man with a dark complexion. Jewish? T.J. had never seen one that he knew of, but this man fit the description given by Uncle Virgil: dark and hunched over, smoothed with oils, peering out of his sleepy eyes like a hungry weasel, waiting for some kind of opportunity. They and the Catholics were the worst. They were in league. It all went back to the Pope. Everyone had a theory.
“You, move back to the back. To the back. No, to the back! Back there!”
What a loud, insistent little man, T.J. thought.
T.J. had never been in the back row before, but he didn’t mind. He took his place directly behind Aunt Lillie, who smiled at him, flashing those straight, yellowed teeth of hers. Now that he was closer to her, T.J. could spot some grey ash in the lava bed, but it didn’t matter. Her eyebrows were like Louise Brooks’, T.J. thought. Slight, slender arches. And her smell. Underneath the dime store perfume, it was all kitchens and sweat.