by Lisa Graff
“So,” she asks as we walk, “what is it you’re here to talk about today, Miss Ames?”
I don’t have to hesitate at that.
“The truth,” I reply. “The mango-glazed, messy truth.”
EPILOGUE
“I SWEAR THEY told us we only need a dime-size drop of shampoo,” Aunt Nic says, leaning my neck back gently over the kitchen sink. The water is deliciously warm as it hits my scalp, and Aunt Nic works the wetness through all my curls. “But that seems ridiculous. Doesn’t that seem ridiculous to you, CJ? Maybe I need to take you in with me to class tomorrow and tell that teacher, ‘See these curls? This girl needs a dollar’s worth at least!’”
I laugh, eyes closed, as I enjoy the feeling of Aunt Nic’s fingers working through my wet hair. So far, Aunt Nic’s first month of beauty school is going about as well as my first year of regular school did—“a little rocky.” But I settled in, eventually, so I know she will, too.
I did try Plemmons, for a whole semester, but boarding school and I didn’t get along too well. After that, Aunt Nic and I spent a while hopping around here and there, dipping our toes in new towns like they were pools we were nervous about taking a full-on swim in. Aunt Nic says it’s hard to stop being a nomad, after so long on the road. But when our Toyota honest-to-goodness broke down in Long Beach, in front of an apartment building that just happened to have a two-bedroom for rent with a view of the Ferris wheel, we decided it didn’t matter if it was a sign or chance or what—this was the spot for us. And nearly a year in, it seems to have stuck.
The weirdest thing that happened after my interview was that Aunt Nic’s career did kind of blow up for a while—but not at all in the way any of us expected. After my interview got picked up nationally, and the whole world got to hear me explain the mango-glaze truth about everything, Aunt Nic had more requests for bookings than ever before. Theaters all over the country, bigger venues than she’d ever played. For whatever reason, there were some folks who believed in Aunt Nic’s Gift more after that. Even after Aunt Nic did her own interview, confirming every detail of my story, there were still people who didn’t want to hear it. People who said she’d absolutely spoken to their loved ones already, whether she knew it or not. People who said she must’ve been paid to lie, or gotten brainwashed, or who knows what.
Aunt Nic turned all those offers down.
“I’ll get to talk to plenty of people once I’m a hairdresser.” That’s all Aunt Nic will say about her old career. “And probably most of them will be alive this time.”
Roger still works at Le Char Mer, last I heard, but he hasn’t made any new reality shows. He wasn’t exactly happy with me when I went on TV and called him a liar. I called myself a liar, too, but I don’t think that’s the part that made him mad. I’m still deciding what to do with the interview money. Aunt Nic says it’s mine to use for whatever I want, but it doesn’t feel right to spend it on myself. Most days I think I’ll donate it to some sort of charity for people who are grieving, or people who’ve been lied to, or both.
Anyway, I’m still deciding.
Aunt Nic ends up putting five dime-size dollops of shampoo into my hair before she gets a good froth. “I’m going to rat you out to your teacher,” I tease her. “You’ll get a D-minus in shampooing.”
“I’m gonna find a new niece to help me with my homework,” Aunt Nic replies. But even with my eyes closed, I can tell she’s grinning.
I move on to more important matters. “Did you find any pudding for a backup?” I ask.
“Oh, so you trust my cooking as much as you trust my shampooing, hmm?” Aunt Nic says. But she’s joking again. Obviously. Because she knows I do not trust her cooking.
Last month, Jax said he had his choice of recipes to master during “Custard Week” at his new culinary school, and he picked caraway pudding. The one he made looked super fancy—I saw photos—but he also found a “completely foolproof” recipe and mailed us a copy so we could make it ourselves for my birthday. But I walked through the kitchen when Aunt Nic was working on it yesterday, and I’m positive that couldn’t possibly have been what it’s supposed to smell like.
“Anyway, yes,” Aunt Nic says as she rinses the last of the shampoo out of my hair. I guess they don’t have a coin-size limit on conditioner, because she squeezes an enormous blob into her hand. “I did find a backup pudding this morning. Whichever one looks the least like something a penguin barfed up, we’ll try after your mom calls, how’s that sound?”
“Sounds good,” I say.
In a lot of ways, my mom is about the same alive as she was when she was a spirit. We’re just an hour-and-a-half drive from her now, so she visits when she wants to—she’ll join us for trips to the beach, or the movies, or we’ll head to her place for dinner. We went to the grand opening of her exhibit at the zoo last year, and it was amazing. And we get to talk a lot, pretty much whenever I want. Which, mostly, is okay. It’s not how I ever thought things were supposed to be, when you have a real-life mom instead of a spirit one. But mostly, I think there probably isn’t any such thing as supposed to.
When she’s all done with the rinsing, Aunt Nic sits me up and grabs a towel. Just as I open my eyes, she is looking at me, her head tilted to the side. The smile on her face is warmer than the warmest water.
“You know, seedling,” she tells me, “you look fourteen.”
I watch the last of the water swirl down the drain, and I think about the pipes that the water is swirling into. I’m pretty sure—the same way I know the pipes exist even when I can’t see them—that Spirit exists. It feels right to me, so most days, that’s what I think. But I also know that even if Spirit isn’t real, even if there’s no one to send me signs and tell me where to go, I’ll be just fine.
I know where I’m meant to be.
Aunt Nic is wrapping my hair up tight in the towel when I spot the postcard on the kitchen table, under the cement mushroom cap that we use as a paperweight. “It came this afternoon,” she tells me when she sees me looking. She lifts up the paperweight to remove the card from the top of the mail stack.
I know, without even reading it, that it’s a postcard from Jax, because on the front is a photo of a horse. A warm smile works its way onto my face as I flip the postcard over. Sure enough, on the back, Jax has written a single word.
HORSE!!!!!!!
Sometimes, that’s really all a person needs to say.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Graff (lisagraff.com) is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of The Great Treehouse War, A Clatter of Jars, Lost in the Sun, Absolutely Almost, A Tangle of Knots, Double Dog Dare, Sophie Simon Solves Them All, Umbrella Summer, The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower, and The Thing About Georgie. Lisa Graff's books have been named to more than sixty state award lists and have been touted as best books of the year by booksellers, teachers, and librarians. A Tangle of Knots was long-listed for the National Book Award in 2013. Lisa Graff lives with her family just outside of Philadelphia. Follow her on Twitter @LisaGraff.
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