Today is Emily’s twelfth birthday, and I’m so excited I can barely contain myself.
The celebration began this morning at Emily’s soccer game. First off, Emily was amazing. Competitive sports are not my thing, my shyness prohibiting such a spectacle, but Emily thrives in that arena. A natural leader, she led her team in a charge of victory, scoring two of the three goals and assisting in the other.
I brought my special pumpkin cream cheese cupcakes for after the game, and her team sang “Happy Birthday.” Several of the girls pronounced the cupcakes the best they ever had, and I blushed with pride. I do make darn good pumpkin cream cheese cupcakes. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like a good mom.
Now we’re in the van and on our way to the next surprise of the day.
“Mom, you turned the wrong way,” Tom says.
“We’re not going home,” I answer, nearly squealing with excitement.
“We’re not?”
“Whewre we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“Can I give Emiwly my pwresent now?” Molly asks. It’s the sixth time she’s asked since we woke.
“Yes,” I say. “Now’s the perfect time.”
“It’s fwrom me and Mom but mostwly me,” Molly says proudly, pulling a wrapped box from the side of her car seat. “I got it ’cause I danced wreal good on the commewrciawl.”
It’s true. As a thank-you present to Molly for doing such a great job, the project manager gave Molly an iPhone—a ridiculous gift for a four-year-old but thoughtful just the same.
Emily couldn’t care less who the gift is mostly from or that it’s a regift. It’s as if a nugget of gold fell from heaven. Every girl on her team has a cell phone, and only a handful of those don’t have an iPhone.
“Do you wlike it?” Molly asks, confused by Emily’s silence.
All Emily can manage is a nod.
The mystical device transports the kids into a virtual world of apps and games and music and videos, keeping all three so occupied that none of them realize we’ve been driving over an hour.
When Tom finally looks up and realizes where we are, he shouts, “Yucaipa!”
Emily and Molly look up as well, then all three are clapping. I lower all the windows so the familiar smell of horses and green fills the car, and we drive the rest of the way in reverent silence, a palpable longing for our old life weighting the air.
When we pass our house, my breath catches as I realize it’s been rented. A Volvo station wagon is parked in the driveway, my flower garden brown and wilting.
I swallow and blink against the sudden realization that when we return, it won’t be to our home. I should have known this, understood that when you leave, things don’t stay the same. But I didn’t, and it strikes me as an unexpected blow. Until this moment, I viewed our time in LA as a hiccup, a jostle in our path, and that when we returned, it would be back on the course we had been on when we left. It never occurred to me that things would be permanently altered.
11
The four of us slept curled together like a litter of kittens on the king-size bed of Bo’s guest room, our stomachs full of homemade tamales and birthday cake, our dreams full of music, friends, and stories.
Emily disappeared at dawn to go riding, and at nine, I woke long enough to scrub the marshmallow residue from Molly’s cheeks then release her into the wild with Tom before collapsing back to the bed to sleep some more.
* * *
I startle awake, blink in the bright light streaming through the window, and look around frantically for the clock.
Crap!
I run for the door.
“Everyone, now,” I scream like a madwoman. “The living room. Hurry.”
I look at the clock again. Three minutes to go. Crap, crap, crap.
“NOW!”
My screech gets Bo’s attention, and he gives an ear-piercing wolf whistle while he windmills his arms, signaling everyone to come quickly. The ranch hands drop what they’re doing. Emily and her two friends tether their horses and race toward me, Emily grabbing Molly’s hand as she runs. Tom sprints from the barn.
He gets to me first. “What is it?” he yelps, panic in his eyes.
I don’t answer, just push him forward into the house, then herd everyone else in after him, practically shoving them into the living room.
When everyone is crammed in tight, breathless and worried, looking around for the fire, I shush them and click on the television, then shush them again as I zap to channel eleven and turn up the volume.
On the screen is a commercial for Tide detergent. Everyone starts talking again.
“Quiet!” I snap, causing them to look at me in surprise but also getting them to shut up.
The commercial starts off without music, the screen white except for Leroy doing a quiet soft-shoe in the center. There’s no shadow, and he looks like he’s dancing on air. His funky clothes—mustard-colored, drop-crotch skinny jeans, an argyle hoodie, and green high-top sneakers—are startling against the starkness and the definition of cool.
“It’s Wleewroy,” Molly squeals, not realizing this is the commercial, her commercial, which I can understand. It’s so surreal that it looks nothing like the shoot.
“It’s me!” she yells as she emerges from the whiteness like a spirit.
Everyone in the room gasps, then claps, then whoops and hollers—surprised, stunned, thrilled—exactly the reaction I was hoping for.
“Shush,” I bark in order to silence them again, my attention glued to the screen.
Leroy does a jig, and Molly mimics him, and our little audience bursts out in giggles.
“Well, I’ll be,” Bo says, “Molly throwing down with a big fella. I hope you showed him how it’s done.”
And boy did she.
The choreographer was brilliant, capitalizing on every ounce of Molly’s abilities and cuteness to make her look like a dancing prodigy.
Within seconds, she and Leroy are dancing together, a syncopated routine that, though flawless, appears spontaneous, as if she and Leroy are making it up on the spot.
As they dance, the white morphs to color, the music escalates, and the other dancers appear, the street transforming into a carnival of noise, acrobatics, and hip-hop in front of the Gap store. Then the mannequins in the windows come alive, a street band joins in, and the entire troupe starts clapping, singing, dancing, and grooving in a performance as impressive as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
My heart nearly explodes with joy, excitement, and pride. Molly is on television, tearing it up, being her amazing, wonderful Molly self for the whole world to see.
The music and color and dancers fade, and again the scene pales to white except for Leroy and Molly. A final two-step that Molly mimics, a high-five, and the two part ways, leaving the screen empty until the Gap logo appears, and a voice-over says, “Gap. Get funky.”
The living room bursts into applause, and one of the ranch hands picks Molly up and twirls her around. “Well, I’ll be,” he says. “Look at that, our Molly, a star. Tell me, when you get rich and famous, you still gonna remember the little people?”
“I am a wlittle pewrson,” Molly answers, causing everyone to crack up.
“Come on, superstar,” the woman who does the cooking for Bo says. “Let’s see about you and me making those peanut butter drop cookies. Tom, you want to help?”
“I’m going fishing,” Tom says, trotting off ahead of them, entirely unaware that he just spoke in front of a dozen people, something he hasn’t done since we left Yucaipa.
Emily and her friends follow him, each giving Molly a high-five as they pass. Emily drops a kiss on top of Molly’s head. “Good job, Itch.”
“Super cool,” one of the girls says. “I wish I could be on a commercial. Em, you think you’ll be on a commercial?”
Emily shrugs and continues leading her posse away.
I look back at the television. The Wimbledon quarterfinals are back on. I’m tempted to
scan every channel searching for the commercial so I can see it again. I could watch it over and over. I think I could watch it a thousand times and not grow tired of it.
Unfortunately the premiere was the only time and channel Monique Braxton was given, so I have no idea when it will be on again.
“Well, well,” Bo says, taking the remote from my hand and turning off the television.
“Amazing, don’t you think?” I say, my smile so wide that my cheeks hurt.
“Sure is,” Bo says, setting the remote out of my reach, sensing my desire to turn it back on. “Take a walk?”
I force myself to leave the temptation and follow him outside. We head toward the creek. There’s a pregnant mare Bo is keeping an eye on, and she likes to graze down by the water. As we walk, I tell him about the YouTube video and Monique Braxton and how the whole wonderful adventure came about.
He’s quiet, nods several times, and offers a few “uh-huhs” but not much more. And by the time we reach the water, his lack of enthusiasm is pissing me off. After all, Molly was in a commercial. She was the star of a commercial. She made a lot of money to be in a commercial. He should be more excited. This is damn exciting.
The mare stands fat and happy in the shade of an oak tree. Bo takes a seat on a stump nearby, and I lean against a fallen trunk across from him.
“Can you believe it?” I say, my smile exaggerated to ignite his enthusiasm.
“Careful, Faye,” he says, refusing to get on board. “Hollywood have a way of sneaking up on people, of making them think they won the lottery, when all they really won is a whole lot of grief.”
“We did win the lottery. You should have been there. It was amazing.”
“I have been there. I was there for a lot of years.”
“Yeah, well you weren’t there with us. Molly was incredible…”
“They made her appear incredible,” he corrects. “The choreographer, the director, the editor, the makeup artist, the hairstylist, the lights…”
“No. She was incredible.”
He shakes his head at the ground, and I feel heat rising in my cheeks. “You don’t know, you weren’t there. Making that commercial was the greatest thing I’ve ever done…”
“Making a commercial to sell overalls is the greatest thing you’ve ever done?” he challenges.
“Yes,” I shoot back. “Making a commercial, a national commercial.”
Bo frowns.
“Fine. It’s not like I discovered a cure for cancer, but it was hard work, and I had a ton of responsibility, and I was good at it, and so was Molly. Frown all you want, but it was a hell of a lot more important than waiting tables, and a hell of a lot more profitable. I made more money in those three days than I would have made working three months at the diner…”
“You mean Molly made more.”
I huff through my nose. “Yes, Molly made more. But she liked it.”
“I’m sure she did. It’s damn exciting being treated like a star, all the hoopla and the attention. What four-year-old wouldn’t like that? All I’m saying is that you need to be careful. It’s a tough business.”
“And the horse business is better?”
He shrugs. “There shit in every business, but at least here, the shit is right in front of you. You can walk around it or shovel it out of the way. The thing about Hollywood is, they’re all actors, every one of them, from the producers down to the accountants, and you have no idea you about to step into a big pile of steaming cow dung until it’s too late.”
The analogy softens my irritation and makes me smile, but Bo doesn’t smile back. He looks me square in the eye as serious as I’ve ever seen him. “Faye, I’m telling you how it is. Molly’s special. You don’t see it because you’re her mom, but she is, and other people, they gonna see that commercial and they gonna realize it as well, and they gonna want a piece of her.”
“It’s just a commercial.”
“So this is where it ends? You gonna say no when fame comes knocking?”
“Fame’s not going to come knocking, but I’ll tell you this, if someone wants Molly to do another commercial, you can bet your sweet bejeebers I’m going to say yes. Did you see that commercial?”
He shakes his head like I’ve given the wrong answer. “Tell me this, Faye, would you let Molly smoke?”
“Of course not.”
“Why?”
I roll my eyes. “You know why.”
“Because it’s dangerous. Because it might kill her prematurely. Well, acting’s no different, probably worse. Them contracts should come with a surgeon general’s warning telling parents that child stardom has been proven to cause misery and early death.”
I roll my eyes again.
“Roll your eyes all you want, but I’m telling you how it is. Acting pays well, but it don’t pay well enough for forever.”
12
Emily’s not talking to me. I’ve ruined her life.
We’ve been driving nearly an hour, and everyone is miserable.
I thought going home was a good idea; now I realize it was a mistake. When it was time to leave, Emily pleaded with me to let her stay, to let her live with one of her friends or with Bo. The answer was no, and since my refusal, she hasn’t said a word. She blames me, and I can’t help but rile at her twisted perspective as to which parent she should be angry with.
Molly and Tom sit silent and tense in the middle seat, upset both about leaving Yucaipa and about their sister’s despair.
The sun is nearly gone, pink and orange streaking the sky as the day melts into dusk. The van lurches and nearly stalls, and I step on the gas hoping that will fix it, but it falters again and my heart falters with it. I turn on the hazards, and we limp to the shoulder then pitch and roll to the next exit, making it halfway down the ramp before the van sighs a final gasp then comes to rest on the side of the road.
“Mom?” Tom says, his voice concerned. Already he’s begun taking on the role of the man of the house, and this situation is out of his depth.
“We’re okay,” I say, though we’re not. In front of us is an unpromising-looking neighborhood, desperation scrawled in graffiti on the overpass and coiled in the barbed wire that surrounds the salvage yard to our right.
This is the part of being on my own I hate most, the utter aloneness when things go wrong. A year ago had this happened, I would have called Sean, and though most likely he would have been on the road, he would have told me what to do. He would have calmed me down, asked where I was, then he would have called a tow truck to get us. He would have assured me we were okay and would have felt terrible that the van had broken down, feeling responsible for not maintaining it or for not earning enough to buy me a better car. This is what would have happened a year ago.
“Mom?” Tom says again, breaking me out of my frozen stupor.
“Yeah, baby, I just need to call a tow truck, and I’m trying to figure out how to do that.”
With no idea how you find a tow truck, I call 411.
“City and state, please.”
I don’t know what city we’re in. I hang up. Beneath the overpass, a shadow moves or maybe it’s my imagination. All sorts of bad headlines about abduction and rape flash in my mind.
Why did I pull off the freeway? A bad choice, the story of my life.
I call my mom. No answer.
“I cowld,” Molly says.
It is cold. Despite it being summer, the sun is now gone, and a frigid wind rattles through the windows.
Tears fill my eyes, and I hate that I’m so pathetic. I hate that I’m scared and that I can’t even figure out how to call for a stupid tow truck when my car breaks down. I bite my lower lip to stifle the emotions, to keep them from pouring out and freaking out the kids.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
I mutter my distress, and the woman instructs me to calm down, then she tells me to stay on the line so she can track my location. Within minutes, a highway patrol car pulls up behind us. A few minutes
after that, a tow truck arrives.
13
It’s after nine when we stumble through the door of the condo. Taking pity on us, the highway patrolman offered to drive us home after our van was hauled away. The kids found it thrilling to ride in a police car; I found it humiliating. He assured me I did the right thing calling 911, but my breakdown preceding the drive home and my incoherent mumblings during it were what had me stammering apologies when he finally dropped us at the curb. The culmination of emotions did me in. Between Bo’s terse words, Emily’s sob-fest, leaving Yucaipa for a second time, and the van dying, I just couldn’t take it.
Too much, I want to scream. You win! I’m not entirely certain what God I’m screaming at, but I imagine some supreme Buddha sitting on a cloud holding his fat belly and laughing as he sharpens his lightning bolts and contemplates what diabolical blow he’s going to deliver next.
Uncle. Mercy. I give up. Please, just stop.
“What happened to you?” my mom says. “You were supposed to be back hours ago.”
“Ouwr van died,” Molly says, sounding almost as sad as me about our loss.
“I told you not to go to Yucaipa,” my mom says, as if she divined our car’s death.
She told me not to go to Yucaipa because she wanted us to stay here and have a party with her friends when Molly’s commercial aired.
With the name of her longing pronounced, Emily remembers her despair, drops her load on the floor, and runs into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
“I see you two are getting along well,” my mom says, with a look that plainly says this is all my fault. Then she kneels with her arms open for Molly to walk into. “I’m so proud of you. That commercial was wonderful, and I bet every kid in America is going to be asking their moms for overalls.”
No Ordinary Life Page 5
