When the three-thirty bell rang, Willow shoved her spelling list into the bottom of her backpack, confirmed that her laces were tied on both shoes and fast-walked all the way to Asher’s classroom. She grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him toward the parent pickup circle. Then Willow exhaled for the first time all day and locked her eyes on the entranceway.
Rosie was typically late to pick up Willow and Asher from school. She never wore a watch and often found herself in a daze somewhere, completely oblivious to the time. But Willow didn’t want to miss one second with her mother, so she rushed to the pickup circle anyway every Tuesday and Thursday after school. Willow noticed that all of the other moms wore jeans, a T-shirt and dark sunglasses. They drove black or white cars that sparkled permanently. They kept their hair in neat ponytails and never got out of the car to say “hi” to their children.
But that wasn’t her mother. Her mother’s car was bright blue and made loud clanking noises. Rosie had named her car Lili Von after her favorite character in Blazing Saddles. The googly eyes that were stenciled just above the headlights always caused side-eye glances from the other mothers too. But that didn’t faze Willow or Asher. They loved that car and they loved those googly eyes.
After only three games of tic-tac-toe, Lili Von appeared around the bend with Prince blasting out the window. Willow saw her mother’s left knee poking out the driver’s seat window. Her wavy brown hair was blowing around excitedly. Her big brown eyes and arched eyebrows were sticking out above her neon pink, thick-framed sunglasses that were resting on the tip of her nose. Lili Von screeched as her mother pulled up to the curb in front of where Willow and Asher were standing. And almost before the car had fully stopped, Rosie jumped out of the front seat to give each of her children separate, tight hugs.
Rosie looked as cool as she always looked in her cutoff jean shorts and long fur coat even though it was a perfectly temperate fall afternoon. She looked as cool as she always looked with her shoes with the holes in them and her polished red nails. She looked as cool as she always looked with her bright red lips.
“I missed you little noodles!” she said with a full-teeth and full-heart smile as she got back behind the wheel. “Hop in, already. It’s pizza night!”
But just before Rosie got back behind the wheel, she snapped her head around and looked back at her daughter. She tilted her head to the side, pulled her sunglasses down farther on her nose and said, “Cool hair, baby.” She said it quickly and honestly, and then drove off, leaving Willow smiling so big in the back seat.
They hadn’t even reached the edge of the school parking lot when Rosie reached for the volume knob and said to her children the thing she always said on the way to pizza night at Lanza Pizza.
“Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”
And when Rosie said that, she meant it in the literal sense. She turned the volume knob so many revolutions to the right that the speakers started throbbing and the floor started vibrating.
Cymbal. Cymbal. Bass. Bass.
Willow recognized the song right away. It was Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” and it was one of Mom and Willow’s favorites.
Rosie, Willow and Asher all sang the lyrics in tandem and whipped their hair around as the music played.
Cymbal. Cymbal. Bass. Bass.
They sang as loudly as they could until they reached their parking spot at Lanza Pizza. Even Willow and Asher could see how Rosie filled with even more life when they arrived there. It was Rosie’s favorite pizza place in town, tucked on a side street with a neon sign that was rare for the suburbs of Virginia. It had orange and yellow plastic booths, an old pinball machine and a deep bucket of half-used crayons.
The moment Willow, Rosie and Asher walked through the door of Lanza Pizza, they simultaneously tilted their noses toward the ceiling and pressed their chests forward as they inhaled the smells of bubbling cheese and hot tomatoes. As Willow and Asher grabbed handfuls of crayons, Rosie bounced straight to the counter and asked for three large cups for fountain soda. And just like every Thursday, John had them waiting already right next to the register. As Willow sat down to put her crayons to use, she saw her mother wink familiarly at John in his sauce-stained apron. And then she saw John wink familiarly back at Rosie as he swirled a freshly floured heap of pizza dough around his thick sausage fingers. Willow couldn’t help but smile at the warmth between near strangers. The ease between opposites. The electricity created when her mother entered a room.
Asher and Willow snatched their large paper cups from Rosie’s hand and dashed to the soda fountain, where they filled their cups with a fizzing mixture of orange, root beer, Sprite and Hawaiian Punch. Rosie met them at the fountain, but filled her cup with nothing but cream soda. It was her favorite drink. And every time she got her big, icy cream soda from the fountain—not the bottle—she poked her straw through the plastic top, took her first gulp and said, “Nothing like a cold fountain cream soda.” She did it so often that it had become tradition for Willow and Asher to say the words right alongside Rosie and then for all to take a big slurp of soda.
While the pizza warmed in the oven, Rosie took a roll of quarters out of her tote bag and handed it to Willow. And then Willow and Asher took turns on the pinball machine, clicking the flippers and encouraging each other on. They cheered when they hit a bonus and booed when their final ball slid between the flippers.
And when they got back to the table, a big slice of hot pizza was waiting on each of their plates. Willow bit into her slice, and then looked back up at Rosie, who had a big gooey piece of cheese hanging from her nostril.
“Mom!” Willow said half laughing, half embarrassed, but not at all surprised. Asher looked up too. He clutched his tummy and laughed so hard at his mother with that cheese in her nose.
“What?” Rosie said in thinly veiled awareness, now barely able to hide her smirk. Asher pointed right at her nose, unable to get a word out between giggles.
“Is my nose running? I did feel a cold coming on,” Rosie said, restoring her poker face.
Now Willow was laughing too.
“It’s a cheese booger! A huge one!” Asher screeched between breathy giggles as he pointed at his mother’s nose.
Asher peeled a piece of cheese from his pizza, still vibrating with laughter, and stuck it in the gap where his front teeth should have been. He shook his head back and forth, the cheese swaying too. “Look! It’s cheese teeth!”
Now Rosie was giggling uncontrollably too.
Rosie looked at Willow with urging eyes. And then Willow peeled a piece of cheese from the gooey pizza and draped it over her right ear. “Cheese earrings!”
Right there, in the middle of Lanza Pizza, Rosie, Asher and Willow were just one big pile of cheese and giggles and love.
For Willow, every time she was with Mom was like having all the pizza and soda and candy and ice cream in the world and never getting a tummy ache.
7
Twelve Years Ago
Rex and Rosie planned to walk around Central Park for their next date. Rosie thought about it every night as she fell asleep in her downtown apartment with the creaky stairs and tattered comforter. She wondered if she and Rex were going to hold hands. Or kiss. Or continue falling in love.
* * *
When 2:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon finally arrived, Rosie was scanning the crowd for Rex on the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She spotted him right away when she looked up as he leaned against the base of one of the Corinthian columns next to the entrance with his left leg crossed over his right and his hands in his pockets. He was so tall and handsome with his broad shoulders and thick black hair. And Rosie was giddy at the sight of her strong, sturdy man leaning on that strong, sturdy column. She skipped up the steps, two at a time, and surprised both herself and Rex when she did a little hop right in front of him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. She didn’t plan
to kiss him right away like that so early in their relationship, even if it was on the cheek, but it felt so natural.
* * *
Rex raised one eyebrow at Rosie, and then hooked his arm around her shoulder and said, “Hey, you.” Then they walked down the steps slowly in lockstep toward the park so that they could soak in every moment of each other as they listened to each other with full attention. They each told stories about living in Manhattan and the sets of events that got them there. They talked about art and philosophy. Music and stories of past travels. They paused every few moments to digest each other’s words. They nodded in agreement and sometimes blissful disagreement. And, in no time at all, on that fall afternoon, Rex was drunk with Rosie and Rosie had Rex sloshing around in her tummy. The air was crisp and clear in the height of a Manhattan autumn, but neither of them noticed the weather. There was only each other. In the whole park, the whole city. Among all the buildings and people and planets and stars.
When they reached the boathouse lake, Rex sat down on the grass and Rosie joined him. Rosie was pleased and surprised that he hadn’t brought a blanket. Pleased that he wasn’t worried about getting little pieces of crunchy leaves stuck to the back of his pants. And Rex and Rosie simultaneously opened the bags they had each been carrying. Rex’s had turkey sandwiches, two bags of chips and two apples. Rosie’s had old scraps of scribbled-on paper, a dozen flat stones and a few grape Pixy Stix.
* * *
Rex unwrapped the sandwiches and offered one up to Rosie, who was already standing up with a fist full of stones. She inadvertently ignored Rex’s extended arm and pranced a few feet away to the edge of the lake and counted out loud as her stone skipped across the surface of the water. “1-2-3-4-5-6!” she shouted and made three little hops. And then held her stone-filled hand out and offered a stone to Rex. “No thanks,” he said, his mouth half-full of turkey sandwich.
Rosie rolled her eyes dramatically, ensuring that Rex could see. “What do you mean, no thanks? Come on.”
“I mean, no thanks,” Rex said now a bit more firmly.
Rosie pranced back toward him. “Oh, come on. Take a stone. Skip it on the water. Live a little!” Rosie was now yanking Rex by his arm from his position on the grass. But Rosie’s slim five-foot-one-inch body could barely shake Rex’s single muscular arm.
“I don’t like skipping stones,” Rex said with his body stiff on the grass and the agitation in his tone escalating.
“Everyone likes skipping stones.”
Rosie was still tugging.
“Not me. I don’t like skipping stones. And I’m not good at it so can you just give it a rest, please?”
And, just like that, Rex accidentally revealed his vulnerability to Rosie. It was the first time it had been done. And it just slipped right out.
And Rosie wasn’t gentle about it. She responded like Rosie. “Oh, I see! You don’t like it because you’re not good at it. Well that, babe, we can fix.”
It may have been the way she called him babe, and it may have been that he was weary of her little body tugging on his arm, and it may have been the cuteness of her candor, and it may have been that he actually believed her, but no matter what the reason was, Rex stood up and allowed Rosie to be his teacher just this once. In skipping stones and in letting go.
Rosie reached around Rex and guided his arm in proper stone-skipping motion. She demonstrated how and when to flick your wrist. How to position the stone in your hand. She showed him how to choose the flat side of the stone so that it would slide most efficiently across the top of the water. And she was warm and enthusiastic through all of it.
She stood full of excitement as Rex tossed stone after stone, waiting for each to skip just once. And even when each stone sank into the water with a plop and a few fat ripples, Rosie pushed Rex to try again. Never once did she crumble under the weight of his frustration.
And when Rex finally got one little stone to skip twice, they both jumped and cheered and smiled. And then Rex picked Rosie up and spun her round and round. She was as delicate and airy as Rex thought she would be as he whipped her around in her loose floral-printed dress and draped scarf.
Rex liked holding Rosie. And Rosie liked being held by Rex. He liked feeling her lightness. And she liked feeling his strength.
Rex put Rosie back down onto the grass and they packed up the remaining traces of their lunch and shared a grape Pixy Stix. And then Rex picked Rosie up again, this time for a piggyback ride all the way back to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They stopped for a brief kiss and then parted ways.
As soon as Rosie got back to her apartment, Rex called and asked to see her again. And Rosie immediately invited him over to her six-story walk-up on the Lower East Side.
8
Willow and Asher got in the car to go to school the next morning with a little bit of the previous night’s ice cream still dried on their cheeks. And Willow’s bones relaxed with relief. Sitting in the front seat next to her mother, she observed her in all of her coolness. Her long fingers with the red painted nails curved around the gear stick. Her left foot casually perched up on the seat. Her head bopping from side to side as she drove. Her wavy brown hair swaying back and forth as the wind moved through it.
Willow was in awe of the way Rosie’s hair moved so pleasantly. The mellow manner in which her locks draped over her shoulders. The way it looked like her hair belonged piled on top of her head. She wondered if her own tight curls would ever fall into smooth waves like that.
Willow was distracted from her thoughts by the jolt of Lili Von coming to a red light. And Willow watched Rosie as she pulled down the sun visor and fumbled around in her purse. She watched her mother pucker her lips in the mirror, and then locate a tube of red lipstick in the depths of her tote bag. Then she watched her mother twist her lipstick stick and spread the bright red color slowly and deliberately around her lips.
Rosie smacked her lips together and winked at herself in the mirror. Then she caught her daughter’s eyes fixated on her lips as if she were aching for something. And Rosie was happy to give her that thing.
So when Rosie reached the elementary school drop-off area, she asked Willow to stay in the car for a moment while she said goodbye to Asher. Willow felt a tickle in her tummy waiting for her mother to return as she watched Asher express his typical embarrassment over the dramatic hug that Rosie gave him when they were dropped off. And like all the other mornings, Asher rolled his big blue eyes as his mother pressed her whole body into him.
Willow watched with a smile until her mother got back into the car. And then, with minimal digging in her bag, Rosie pulled out that same stick of red lipstick and presented it with a flick of her wrist to her daughter.
“You want some?”
Willow didn’t have to say anything for her mother to know that, yes, she wanted to put some lipstick on. She wanted some of her mother’s lipstick on more than anything in the world. She wanted pieces of her mother with her all the time.
Rosie leaned over to Willow and delicately painted her daughter’s lips red with full attention and precision. Then Rosie snapped up, looked at her daughter and smiled warmly.
Willow could see how much her mother loved her. How funky Rosie found Willow’s purple leggings. How cool she found her wild hair.
“Check it out, noodle,” Rosie said as she unfolded the mirror from the sun visor in front of Willow.
Willow looked at herself in that tiny mirror. She knew she looked so much like her mother with those bright red lips. Willow smiled a big, big smile as she hopped out of the car with only the tiniest stumble and walked toward the building door.
“Wait!” Rosie hollered after Willow as she marched away. “You forgot something.”
Rosie tossed the stick of lipstick through the passenger side window and right into her daughter’s hands.
“It’s all yours.”
And just like that, red lipstick was added to Willow’s permanent outfit.
“Oh! Willow. One more thing!”
Willow stumbled again when she turned back around toward her mother. You would have never guessed that Willow was feeling more confident than ever in her new red lips, the way she turned around with her knees and ankles wobbling.
Rosie held up her pointer finger and curled it back toward herself three times as she raised her left eyebrow. Willow smiled, ran up to the car and stuck her little head and big hair through the window.
“Yeah?” Willow asked.
And then Rosie leaned over and pressed a big kiss into Willow’s cheek. And she shook her head all around as she did it. It left a big blob of red on Willow’s cheek that Willow didn’t even consider wiping away.
There was a moment of quiet love as Willow and Rosie looked straight at each other. But then Willow snatched it up.
“Hey, Mom. Can I ask you something?” She was looking right into Rosie’s brown eyes. Right down into her full heart.
“Did you leave those Pixy Stix for me on the school bus from Dad’s?”
Rosie tilted her head to the side and scrunched her eyebrows.
“Hmm. I’m not sure about that, noodle. What do you mean?”
Willow smirked. It was so like her mom to pretend like it wasn’t her.
Willow turned around and walked into the building feeling a second wave of her mother’s love. But ignoring the sincerity of her mother’s confusion about those Pixy Stix.
* * *
Willow Thorpe had gotten a lot of things privately wrong about her mother. Her father too. As parents and as people. And Willow got a lot of things wrong about the ways in which her parents showed their love. But of all the things that Willow got wrong about her parents and about love, Willow’s assumption that those two Pixy Stix were another one of her mother’s displays of the right kind of love would turn out to be the most detrimental.
Rosie Coloured Glasses Page 4
