A Little Ray Of Sunshine

by Lani Diane Rich

  “Ah. I see. Well, it all makes sense now, because that was very helpful.”

  “But to be honest,” she went on, “I usually don’t have to do much. In the end, it’s entirely up to the person I’m assigned to. If she doesn’t want to help herself, there’s not much I can do for her.”

  “Well,” I said, “that was thinly veiled.”

  She smiled. “Subtlety’s not one of my gifts.”

  “So...” I nudged sausage around on my plate casually. “What have you observed about me?”

  She sighed and sat back, the red vinyl of the diner booth making unflattering sounds for which she was oddly unapologetic. “Well, you have a lot of maps.”

  “So? What, are maps some kind of spiritual metaphor for being lost or something? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think it means that you live on the road and need to know where you’re going.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Insightful.”

  “Insight is one of my gifts.”

  I nibbled on a sausage. She took a bite of her pancake. The tinny diner sound system played a Muzak version of Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell,” which was just wrong on so many levels.

  I threw down my fork.

  “That’s it? Three days and all you’ve noticed is that I have a lot of maps?”

  “No, that’s not all. Did you want everything?”

  I played with my coffee mug. Did I really want to hear everything?

  No.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” She smiled and leaned forward, pushing her plate away with one elbow. “You don’t have a computer, and you only have one notebook, which creaks when you open it, so I don’t think you’re really writing a book. Which means that for some reason you wanted me to think you were, which means you care what people think.”

  “Wait a minute. I could have a great memory. I could be one of those photographic people. I could be writing a book from memory. You don’t know.”

  “You didn’t abandon me at that gas station in Pennsylvania,” she went on, as though I hadn’t spoken, “which shows me you care about other people, period, despite what you’d like people to believe. You exist on as little as possible, and when you sleep, you breathe very shallowly. Either you don’t think you deserve the space and air you need, or you’re waiting to disappear into nothing, to become totally invisible.” She watched me for a minute, tapping her fingernails on the linoleum surface of the table. “I haven’t decided which.”

  I huffed. “Wow, you are so far off —”

  She held up her hand. “I’m not done. You don’t have any books, television, or newspapers. That speaks to invisible, you’re retreating from the world. But at the same time, you don’t shy away from the people who seek you out. The other night, with me and Digs, you were fully engaged, fully there.” She gave a curt, decisive not. “I’m going with unworthy. And, yes, I do wonder why. But I’m not going to ask, because even if I do ask, you won’t tell me the truth, which may be an unfair assumption, but based on my experience—”

  “I killed a man,” I said quickly.

  She froze. “Really?”

  “Yep,” I said. “With a salad fork. So you see why I can’t go back to Fletcher now.”

  Her shoulders relaxed. “Yeah. I can see how that would be a problem for you.”

  “Well, yeah. I’m a killer. I kill people all the time, usually with some sort of kitchen utensil, although in a pinch, a tire iron will do. You might wanna sleep with one eye open.”

  She kept a straight face. “Well, I’m sorry I misjudged you by assuming you’d make something up.”

  I lifted my coffee mug in salute. “You’ll want to be careful about that in the future. I’m not the kind of girl you want to tick off. Especially not when there are spatulas around.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  We shared a smile and despite myself, I found myself warming up to Jess. A little.

  The waitress slid the check onto our table and Jess grabbed for it. I would have argued, but outside of that first tank of gas, I’d picked everything up so far. Jess swiveled as though she was about to get up, then turned to face me.

  “I have something,” she said. “Digs gave it to me, and told me to give it to you when you sobered up, but I didn’t feel like the time was right. I think now, maybe, the time is right.”

  “What is it?”

  She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a long, sealed letter envelope. On the front, in Luke’s chicken-scratch hand, was simply, Eejie. Even if I hadn’t recognized Luke’s handwriting, I would have known it was him. He was the only person to ever call me Eejie.

  “I’m gonna go pay this,” Jess said, sliding the check under her hand as she rose from the table. I think I mumbled something at her, but mostly, I just stared at the letter in my hands, unable to figure out if it was a nice gesture or a dirty trick. Either way, I wasn’t going to read it. I didn’t need to. I knew what was inside. On the first line, Dear Eejie, followed by some joke, probably one about a wedding, a sly way to encourage me to come and see my mother, to tell me in our own private shorthand that he was fine with my coming and that life was too short for me to not mend things with Mom, because that was the kind of guy Luke was. It didn’t matter, though. He may have survived the big train wreck intact, which I was glad for, but I was still hunched over and hobbling, and in no shape for a big reunion. I traced my fingers over the space where he’d scribbled my name, then folded the envelope in half and tucked it in my back pocket before going up to meet Jess at the register.

  “So,” she said, shooting me a sideways glance as she handed the cashier a twenty. “What did it say?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just an inside joke.”

  She nodded, told the cashier to give the change to our waitress, and tucked her hand in my elbow, guiding me out of the diner.

  “I think we need to have some fun,” she said.

  “This is your idea of fun?” I asked, staring down at the cardboard tray in my arms as Jess stepped in front of me, her head darting from side to side like a dousing stick looking for water. The sickly sweet smell of six bags full of sausage McGriddles wafted up from the tray, and I turned my head.

  “It’s harder to find them in the small towns,” she said as she hurried down a side street toward a large park.

  “You know, it’s early, but I’m sure we can find a bar or something,” I said, shuffling behind her, raising the tray over my head and inhaling the fresh air.

  “Alcohol is a depressant,” she said, marching down the road. “Random acts of kindness are a natural mood elevator. Like exercise. And better than any of those damn pills they’re putting everyone on lately.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking that maybe now was not the time to argue for the pills, although I had no doubt that at least one of us, if not both, could seriously benefit from a prescription or two.

  The sidewalk ended, just like that, and we found ourselves walking on the dusty shoulder of a two-way road. To our right, across the street, was a park where harried mothers yelled at their children to stop kicking dirt in the faces of the other harried mothers’ children, and to our left, an abandoned VFW hall that looked like it had seen far, far better days.

  Jess clapped her hands together. “Perfect!”

  My arms got tired and I was forced to lower the tray back down as I followed her around the back of the abandoned VFW.

  “Jess, this is how nice girls like us get killed,” I said, but she ignored me, so I continued mumbling to myself over the crunch-crunch of our Keds on the gravel. “Oh, yes, Saint Peter. Thanks so much for sending your angel to get me hacked to pieces while committing random acts of hello-Mr.-Serial-Killer--“

  “Yay!” Jess hopped up on her toes and turned to me and snatched a bag off the tray, her eyes alight. “Watch! This is so much fun!”

  I peered around the back of the building. Dumpsters. Of course, it had to be Dumpsters. The bottom half of the world’s skinnie
st man poked out of one, and Jess ducked with agility as a crumpled beer can whizzed past her head and straight onto a pile of recyclables forming about two feet away.

  “Good morning!” she called out.

  The man hopped up out of the dumpster, landing on his feet. He looked warily from Jess to me, then back again.

  “What do you want with me?” he growled.

  “Nothing. Sorry. Our mistake,” I said, taking a step back.

  Jess moved toward him, holding out the bag. “We thought you might be hungry.”

  “I don’t need no handouts,” he said, nodding toward the worn-out bicycle resting behind the dumpster. Behind it was a very sad-looking wagon fashioned from warped plywood and chicken wire which held clear plastic bags full of recyclables. “I make my own way.”

  “Of course you do.” I shifted the tray on to one arm, stepped forward and snatched a handful of Jess’s denim jacket in my hand. “He makes his own way. Let’s go.”

  Jess eyed me until I released her, then stepped closer. “It’s not for you. It’s for us. My friend and I have been having a bad couple of days, and we really need to do something kind for someone. We’ve been all over this town, and there’s just no one who needs us, and the sandwiches are getting cold. It would really help if you’d take one.”

  He watched us for a long moment, the eyes in his haggard face narrowing to slits. I was pretty sure he was going to pull out a knife and fillet us both, and I was going to die unmourned behind a VFW somewhere between Kansas City and the fifth ring of hell. When he reached into his pocket, I squealed and jumped back.

  He stared at me, hand still in his pocket. “What’s wrong with your friend?”

  “Bad couple of days,” Jess said. He watched me with suspicious eyes as he pulled a dirty quarter out of his pocket and handed it to Jess.

  “I pay my way,” he said.

  Jess smiled, took it gratefully and handed him the bag. “Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.”

  “Yes, thanks so much.” I grabbed her elbow and pulled her around with me until we were safe in the sunlight on the dirty shoulder of the road. “So, where does the natural high come from? Is it like a bungee-jumping thing, you work off the adrenalin your body produces when you narrowly escape getting strangled to death with chicken wire?”

  She laughed. “He wasn’t going to hurt us. Most of the truly dangerous people in the world have jobs.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I was too focused on the fact that we had five bags left, and not another homeless person in sight. I glanced across the street at Harried Mom Park.

  “Lots of hungry moms. We can unload the rest of these and get on the road. Let’s go.”

  I stopped when I felt Jess’s hand on my arm. “But they’re not... I mean, they’ve probably already had breakfast.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “Moms never have time to eat. This will be a huge act of kindness. Plus, we wandered for a half-hour and only found one homeless guy. I don’t think this is a homeless-guy kind of place. Let’s just unload these and—”

  “No,” Jess said, her voice quiet but determined. “I’m not going over there.”

  “Okay,” I said, a little startled by her vehemence, but unwilling to give up that easily. “That’s fine. You can wait here. I’m unloading these things.”

  I dashed across the street to the park before she could say any more. When I arrived at the picnic bench, a frail, redheaded harried mother shouted, “Hannah! Don’t put that in your mouth!” then turned to look at me.

  “Hello.” She sounded even warier than the Dumpster guy.

  “Look, see that girl across the street?” I turned and waved at Jess, who gave a small wave back. “It’s a really long story, but she’s making me give away McGriddles and I was just hoping you guys could act like you’re hungry. Or... something.”

  Red sniffed and turned up her nose. “Do you know how much saturated fat is in one of those things?”

  “I’m not saying you have to actually eat them,” I said through clenched but smiling teeth. “I’m just asking you, as a favor to me, as a random act of kindness on your part, to pretend that you’re hungry and grateful.”

  Another harried mother, who seemed blissfully unaware of the spit up on her collar, said, “Who are you again?”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. There were times in life when a girl had to do what a girl had to do, dignity be damned. I opened my eyes again and smiled. “Have you ever seen Baby of the Family?”

  The redhead looked confused. I didn’t blame her. “What, that sitcom from the sixties?”

  “Yep.” I cleared my throat. “You know Twinkie?”

  Spit-up’s eyebrows knit. “Was that the dog?”

  “No,” I said. “The daughter. The adorable little blonde girl who did this—” I did the beatific shrug—“all the time?”

  Another mom, a pudgy woman with hair in long Laura Ingalls braids, approached and glanced at the McGriddles. “What’s going on here?”

  “I’m her daughter,” I said.

  “Whose daughter?” Braids asked.

  Red shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted up at me, then smiled. “Oh, wow. You do look a bit like her.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to bear the comparison as a compliment. “But back to that woman who’s forcing me to hand out food to strangers—”

  “Twinkie’s daughter!” Spit-up mom clapped her hands. “Oh, my God. What are you doing all the way out here?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now if you could please, just—”

  “Wait!” Spit up reached into her purse and pulled out a pen, then continued riffling through her bag. “Does anyone have any paper? I want an autograph.”

  I had to raise an eyebrow at this. People rarely wanted Mom’s autograph unless she was at an opening for a mall or something. These west-edge-of-the-fifth-ring-of-hell people must be truly desperate for celebrity. Lucky for them, I was desperate, too. I reached into a McGriddle bag, pulled out a sandwich, unwrapped it, and set it in front of Spit-up. Then I pulled out a napkin and took her pen.

  “Make it out to Sandra,” she said, giggling.

  “Who are you?” Braids asked, then turned to Red. “Who is she?”

  “She’s Lana Lorraine’s daughter,” Red said. “You know. Twinkie, from Baby of the Family. Can you believe it? All the way out here!”

  I didn’t bother to tell her the name was Lilly, not Lana. I didn’t care. I was already knee-deep in the muck of my mother’s faded celebrity; I wasn’t going any deeper by pretending I had pride. I scribbled my name on the napkin and handed it to Spit-up. “Okay, so, McGriddles for everyone, then?”

  “Wow,” Braids said, reaching to shake my hand. “Lana Lorraine’s daughter.”

  “‘Sandra, all the best, Emmy James,’” Spit-up read, then glanced up at me. “Who’s Emmy James?”

  I forced my smile. “I am. But you can call me EJ. I go by EJ.”

  Red looked up. “So, your last name isn’t Lorraine?”

  “No,” I said. “My father was a director. His name was Simon James. He left when I was two. And even if I didn’t take my father’s name, my name still wouldn’t be Lorraine, since my mother’s real name is Wilhelmina Gwartney.”

  Dead silence as three sets of mommy eyes stared me down, blinking in disbelief or surprise or just sheer exhaustion from being mommies. I was stuck. There was no getting out of this without significant sharing.

  So, I shared.

  “Since my father moved to Spain to get away from her, my mother has remarried six times. Six times. Now you tell me, what kind of woman needs to get married seven times before she realizes she’s not good at it? I mean, shouldn’t the first three or four times be a solid clue? I only had to kill one hamster before I realized that rodents were not my thing.”

  Braids and Red exchanged a glance, then looked back at me and made awkward noises of reassurance.

  “Anyway,” I went on, “she’s abou
t to snare number eight in Oregon. I’m not going to the wedding, because I don’t speak to my mother, because she kind of ruined my life. I live by myself in an Airstream trailer, and at the moment, my closest friend is a woman who thinks she’s an angel, and who is forcing me to ply you with the deadliest food known to man. Now, I’d really appreciate it if you all would smile and wave at me as I leave as though we’ve had some kind of pleasant interaction here. Can you do that for me?” I clasped my hands in front of my heart in a gesture of total supplication. “Please?”

  Spit-up was the first to smile. “Sure. You bet.”

  She reached in the bag and handed a McGriddle to Braids, who stared at it dubiously, then smiled at me.

  “My mother was a piece of work, too.” She opened up a McGriddle and took a bite, then said, loudly, “Thanks so much!”

  I smiled, mouthed “Thank you,” and turned to walk back to Jess, the cheers of the Harried Moms ushering me on my way.

  Dedication:

  To all my fans, who have been so faithful and loving to me, giving me strength when I felt weak, and making me laugh when I needed cheering. You all have meant so much to me through the years; you have kept me going.

  And to Emmy.

  --from Twinkie and Me: The Real Life Confessions of Lilly Lorraine

  Five

  “EJ?”

  I opened my eyes. In the dim shaft of rest area light that came through the curtains, I could see only the faintest detail of the Airstream’s ceiling. “What?”

  The twin bunk squeaked as Jess shifted in her bed. “You should read the letter.”

  I closed my eyes. “What letter?”

  “The letter Digs gave me. The one I gave you at the diner.”

  “I told you,” I said. “I read it. It was just a joke. Good night.”

  “If it was important enough for Digs to bring all the way from Oregon, then it’s important enough for you to read.”

  How did she always know when I was lying? That was getting really annoying. I sighed and pushed myself up on my elbows. “It’s the middle of the night, Jess. I’ll read it in the morning, okay?”