The same little bell on the door welcomes me as I enter the store, but not before Miss Twila, sporting gray hair now but with her same warm smile, greets me with a hug. Hugs are something I usually cut short, but today I lean into this one, taking the last moments of it to pretend it is another time.
“Janie Willow,” she says, making no effort to escape my extra-long embrace, “all grown up.”
“Good to see you, Miss Twila,” I manage, but for some reason it catches in my throat, and my eyes well up, imagining my mother standing here with us.
“Los Angeles, huh?” she says when I finally let her go. “Well, good for you, Janie.” The subtext here is even though the rest of True City thinks I’m an uppity traitor, Miss Twila has the good manners to pretend she thinks otherwise in my presence. “You make movies out there, is that right?”
I smile and shake my head. “Oh, I don’t make movies; I just write about them.”
She looks disappointed, the look on her face revealing a truth we can both agree with: writing about art instead of making the art is like describing the harvest instead of growing the damn corn.
“Well, you were always clever, Janie Willow.” She pauses, takes a deep breath, and we both know what’s coming. “I’m so very sorry about your folks.”
“Thank you, Twila.”
But before I can say any more, Twila is off, bolting down aisle three with a purposeful and practical gait. “Let me grab you what you came for, darlin’,” she hollers back.
What I came for? Did I tell her?
While I wait, I notice a young mother in line at the register, fumbling to find her wallet while jostling her baby from side to side. When I go to hold her purse for her, she hands me her baby girl instead. For a moment, I think, My God, I could be Buffalo Bill the serial killer, but then I remember I’m in Iowa.
The mother is muttering something, but all I hear are the little baby sounds coming from this perfect, tiny mouth. When she lays her head on my shoulder, I relax and gently place my hand on her back for support. I breathe in her baby smell, and just as I start to pretend that she is mine, that I am somehow worthy of such a miracle, the mother takes her back.
“Thanks,” she says, leaving me childless. “Darn wallet’s in the car. Left it there after paying Lanie’s 4-H dues earlier. Tell Twila I’ll be right back.”
I reach for my wallet. “No worries. I got this. No biggie.”
“Nonsense, the both of you,” Twila says, returning. “I’ll put it on your tab, Mrs. Jensen.” She hands me a pack of perfectly sharpened pencils. “And here ya go, Janie. Just what you need for all that writin’.”
Before I can ponder if I had mentioned this earlier, before I can ponder how exactly people here seem to know what I need before I do, she puts my pencils on a tab that doesn’t exist and places something in my hand.
“Watermelon, right?” Twila says with a wink, and I stumble back out onto Main Street.
• • •
When I pull into True View, I see a sign announcing tonight’s main feature: Castaway. An ocean in the middle of a cornfield.
This is going to take some persuasion on my part, convincing Sid that reviewing a has-been movie is somehow relevant to my readers. But it is. Castaway is one of those films that seems to change every time you see it, not because the film has changed, but because you have changed. It’s like The Old Man and the Sea. You can read it at various stages of life, but it will be a different book each time, depending on your current demons and dreams. I will tell Sid this, and when I’m finished, he will think reviewing this film was his idea to begin with.
I place my notebook and new pencils on the passenger’s seat, ready for work, but something tells me this review is going to write itself, that I am already understanding why it is this movie, this night, that my island was LA, and now I am back from the dead, returning to a home, a life that has moved on without me. Neither place is mine now; the island was just a temporary place to make me forget who I was, and home is just a heartland purgatory. I’m supposed to be the progressive one, LA’s cutting edge, but somehow the people here, with their movie time warps and their affinity for yesterday, are light-years ahead of me.
I roll down the windows, let in the rich, Iowa air, and let the starlight illuminate just enough to make me see. That it’s not the meatloaf, it’s not a watermelon Jolly Rancher, and it’s not a volleyball named Wilson that breaks our heart. It’s the loss it represents. It’s two souls drifting away, flying beyond the clouds, beyond the moon, beyond my reach. It’s a smiling young girl, happiness personified, needing to find her way back home. It’s a lost corn queen trying to remember the kingdom she left behind.
Real life sneaks in for a moment, like Sid somehow knows I’m on the brink of drifting away. What the hell will Sid think of my reviewing a has-been movie? I can hear it already. What’s next, Jane? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? St. Elmo’s Fire? Back to the Future?
But I let it all pour over me, let the two most powerful conduits of human emotion—music and story—swirl together in one beautiful thing called film. I let the magic on the screen breathe in and out of real life, the gentle lapping of ocean waves becoming one with the breeze rustling through the cornfields that surround me, that have always surrounded me.
The music swells, somehow captures the bittersweetness that is life, the chance at love intertwined with the stabbing pain of loss, of things that can never, ever be the same. Each part of the orchestral score, each separate string providing both a bass and treble, an underbelly of sadness with hope dancing in for a few solo notes, reminding us of the power of desire, the power of one.
By the light of the moon on the big screen, by the light of the moon right here in this cornfield, all of us watch in wonder, with heavy hearts, as Wilson drifts farther and farther away. Then as the moonlight reflects both on the black ocean water and the tops of cornstalks, the soundtrack crescendos into a full-bellied overture of what we all feel—too small in a big world, lost when something we love is taken from us.
The smell of popcorn wafts past my window, and the cool night air reminds me where I am. I am watching a movie in the middle of a cornfield in True City, Iowa. But that’s not really where I am. I am swimming toward her, wading through oceans and cornfields of regret to bring her back.
Chapter Thirty-One
INT. THE MIDDLE—TODAY
BLISS (V.O.)
Why are people trying to talk to me? Why do they keep saying my name? Bliss? Bliss? Bliss? It’s like they think something’s wrong with me. Sometimes it goes on for minutes. Don’t they know we’re supposed to keep quiet? The Show is about to start. I try to tell them with my eyes, you know, that everything is okay, but they still sound weird, all muffled and panicked at the same time.
FADE IN: Auditorium, BLISS sitting in the front row with the other girls. Award-show music plays, and a giant spotlight dances around the auditorium.
RED-DRESS GIRL
(whispers and makes L on forehead)
You’re going to lose.
GREEN-DRESS GIRL
(smiling and giving a thumbs-up)
You got this, Bliss.
GREEN-DRESS GIRL’s peacock on her dress comes to life and spreads its feathers.
GREEN-DRESS GIRL
(winking, stroking the feathers)
All eyes on you, Blissy.
BLISS
(quietly)
I am excited for The Show, but I am getting tired again, just trying to keep…my…eyes…open.
WOMAN (O.S.)
(urgently)
Open your eyes, Bliss! Do not fall asleep, baby.
A monarch butterfly suddenly lands on BLISS’s hand. She examines it, and it flies away. The scent of hollyhocks floods the room, and one by one, hollyhocks sprout up, the first one, baby pink, grows out of the seat in front of BLISS, then one more pops o
ut of the stage in front of her. It grows and grows and grows until it winds around the podium, explodes into the air, and shoots up toward the ceiling like it’s trying to see what’s on the other side.
BLISS
(dreamily, sleepily)
Who are you? Where are you? You sound far away, yet so close.
WOMAN (O.S.)
It was my job to look after you, and I let you down.
BLISS
Are you an angel?
WOMAN (O.S.)
No.
(pause)
I don’t know.
BLISS
Are you coming to The Show?
WOMAN (O.S.)
(sadly)
I can’t. I live somewhere different from you, but you can’t come here, Bliss. You belong there.
BLISS
(disappointed)
Okay.
(pause)
What is The Show, anyway? Is it a competition or…just a show?
WOMAN (O.S.)
(voice trailing off)
It’s the biggest mystery of all, Bliss…
The auditorium grows dark, and a booming voice announces that The Show is beginning. All spotlights converge on the podium where AUDREY HEPBURN stands, waiting for the raucous applause to cease.
AUDREY HEPBURN
Our first nominee is happiness, personified. She is a wonderful actress, her shining role being Marian Paroo from The Music Man, a beautiful parallel to the fictional River City and homage to her small hometown of True City, Iowa.
BLISS
(to GREEN-DRESS GIRL)
True City! I remember now. That’s where I’m from!
AUDREY HEPBURN
She is an unlikely star from an unlikely place.
(smiles)
I’ve always said that nothing is impossible. The word itself says I’m possible!
The audience erupts in applause.
AUDREY HEPBURN
(warmly)
Bliss Anderson, this is your life…
The lights go completely dark except for a giant screen in the front of the auditorium. The first image is a large silver gift box being unwrapped, its shiny yellow ribbon falling in slow motion like an undulating wave. Time reverses, demonstrated by an out-of-focus camera view. An image comes into focus. It is BLISS as a baby. Her father holds her, rocks her back and forth. His smile is too big for his face.
BLISS
(whispering)
Daddy.
A WOMAN touches BLISS’s tiny face. Tears of joy stream down the WOMAN’s face.
BLISS
(wistful)
Mom? That’s my mom.
(pause)
I had a mom.
WOMAN (O.S.)
(crying)
I’m so sorry, Bliss. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.
BLISS looks up; the ceiling is covered in hollyhocks and the auditorium is teeming with monarch butterflies.
CUT TO:
BLISS is a toddler, running, playing with GREEN-DRESS GIRL, putting their faces through an American Gothic parody cutout.
BLISS
(looking at GREEN-DRESS GIRL)
That’s you.
(quietly)
That’s us.
GREEN-DRESS GIRL nods, smiles.
CUT TO:
BLISS, now maybe twelve, fills the screen with her long legs and long, blond hair blowing in the Iowa summer wind. The scene changes to BLISS with her hair up in a bun, in her mother’s too-big black dress, pearls, and sunglasses. She recites a line from Breakfast at Tiffany’s into the mirror.
AUDREY HEPBURN blows BLISS a kiss from the podium.
CUT TO:
A coffin appears on the screen, and the audience goes silent. A teenaged, crying BLISS is draped over the coffin.
WOMAN (O.S.)
(audibly crying)
Oh, Bliss.
BLISS
(looks up toward the WOMAN’s voice)
That’s you. You’re my mom.
(eyes tear up)
CUT TO:
A laughing BLISS, slightly older now, is with a boy. They flirt. BLISS pushes him away.
BLISS suddenly hears a new sound, not what’s playing on the screen before her, not her mother’s voice from above, and not the audience, but something else. This is from far, far away, not The Middle. This is from the Other Place.
OTHER-PLACE NOISE (O.S.)
(whispers in ear)
Mitch.
BLISS looks around the auditorium for the voice, but knows it’s far away.
OTHER-PLACE NOISE (O.S.)
(again)
Mitch.
BLISS looks at her finger, moves it up and down, not knowing why.
CUT TO:
BLISS and the boy are stars of the big screen for a moment, but then the screen goes black. The auditorium listens in the darkness, on the edges of their seats. There is a scuffle. BLISS and the boy argue.
BLISS
(mouths, looking at the screen)
Stop it!
CUT TO:
The screen fills with a blacktop road at night. BLISS is breathing hard, walking fast, crying. The audience reacts in a collective murmur.
OTHER-PLACE NOISE (O.S.)
(“Moon River” plays)
It’s worth a shot. I heard she’s a Breakfast at Tiffany’s fan.
BLISS remains still, listening intently. The audience members are now frozen in time, their faces eternally captured with various expressions, while BLISS spins into a panoramic view of the whole auditorium.
BLISS
(spinning)
Getting. So. Tired.
(dreamily listening to “Moon River”)
Chapter Thirty-Two
1995
I waited until nobody could see me, which wasn’t hard, because nobody really saw me for a while after it happened. For weeks after that last trip to the corn maze, I’d made it an art form, flying under the radar of the nosiest people on Earth: my parents, my neighbors, my conscience. I waited until Mom and Dad had gone to town for the Elks’ fundraiser meeting, and I waited until the Browns, one farm over, had turned on their porch lights, the signal for supper.
Finding my way to the willow was easy. I could’ve done it blindfolded. First, I walked out the front door, past the tire swing, past the barn, past the first corncrib, took a left at the second corncrib, took a right, walked ten paces until I reached the dirt path that led to it. Fabled to be one of the oldest willow trees in all of Iowa, it seemed the tree itself knew this, knew that despite its whimsical name, its grandeur made it king.
When I was little, I would find myself on my favorite branch, an outstretched arm enclosed by a wall of droopy leaves that wept down around me, creating my very own tree room. It wasn’t only by chance that a majestic willow tree had planted itself on our Willow family property. My grandfather, who apparently had a ripe sense of humor, thought the Willow farm should most certainly have a willow tree and planted it when he was a young boy. They are known to take root easily, eager to grow, so with my grandfather’s nurturing, it was well on its way to tree stardom.
From my favorite bough, a special vantage point, I used to peer out through the curtain-wall of leaves and observe thousands of acres—the Browns’ six-hundred acres, the Andersons’ pale-yellow farmhouse, the Hennings’ weathered red barn—and I would imagine the tree’s roots stretching for miles, reaching in intricate patterns toward every farmhouse, every barn, every ounce of life it could find.
“It’s a good one this week,” Mom would say, placing the newspaper down on a gingham blanket along with the picnic treats, and the two of us would sit in the giant willow’s shade.
“Is it Kramer vs. Kramer or Manhattan?” I alw
ays knew what movies were out. The Willow household got two channels, channels four and nine, my primary source for movie trailers. I also knew that my Pauline Kael, my mentor—my “other mother” as Mother sometimes called her when she was feeling jealous—published a weekly film review in the Des Moines Register. Other girls my age read magazines like Cricket or, if they had older sisters, Teen Beat, but I preferred the musings of the always-fabulous and always-right Pauline.
Why I had taken to film criticism at the ripe age of ten was never entirely clear. Maybe I took after Dad, the ultimate revisionist, reimagining each film with smarter dialogue, a better ending. Or maybe at the heart of every midwesterner, young or old, lay a deep desire to pass judgment. Or perhaps it was the fact that I was an only child looking for an imaginary sibling in the form of a sassy, sometimes brutally caustic forty-year-old writer.
Either way, I hung on her every word, often contemplating what Ms. Kael would say about my everyday life. That oatmeal lacks a certain something, leaves me wanting, and not in a good way, I would imagine her saying. Or You call that a bike? It’s an embarrassment—the gauche tassels, the overly patriotic paint job, the new-fangled handlebars that reek of innovation gone wrong.
“Manhattan.” Mom knew she could not compete with Pauline Kael, the object of my affection, so she embraced her. “You know, she’s really on fire this week. Said some choice things about Woody Allen and said the film was full of some real ‘characters.’”
Mother and I took turns reading the review, laughing at Ms. Kael’s not-so-subtle sarcasm, and spent the afternoons under our massive willow in the midst of an idyllic dream of a childhood that I was too young to recognize as such. Life so good, it played without my knowing it was a movie in progress.
So on that day, when I’d returned to the same willow tree to bury a part of myself, it seemed I was burying two mothers, two daughters. I slipped off my backpack, took out the tiny patch of blanket I’d torn from the blanket I made for her, the same sad little patch-of-a-star that now haunted me. Even when it was hidden under my bed, I felt its presence. I felt her presence, and it was too much to bear, knowing she was somewhere. Without me.
The Lost Queen of Crocker County: A Novel Page 18
