“Magnolia! What are you doing?”
I laugh. “I’m not doing anything. Mrs. M. is.”
Mrs. Moutsous grins at Rose, snips another piece of my hair off, and sets it on the table next to her.
“You’ve never wanted to cut your hair before,” Rose says.
I shrug. “New life, new look.”
Mrs. M. fingers another chunk of hair between her thumb and forefinger. “When I was young, everyone had long hair. Back then it was almost taboo for women to cut it short.” She clips another strand. Rose’s and my eyes follow it as it falls to the ground. “When I met your mom, she had the most stylish short haircut. Do you remember that?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I always remember it being kind of long.”
“I remember it short,” Rose says.
Mrs. M. nods. “She was always changing her hair. Always dying it blonde and cutting it short. Growing it long and then coloring it red. Her hair changed with the seasons. Changed with her moods.”
The images come seconds later. Not clear—not exactly. But glimmers of them.
Her hands, running a towel through her freshly washed, short, newly caramel-colored strands.
Her hand, stroking my hair.
There. Now I look more like you.
“Wait. I remember that.” I scrunch my nose. “At least, I think I do.”
Mrs. M. snips off another large chunk of hair from the back. “When I met your mom, I had never cut my hair before.”
“Never? Like, never ever?”
“Nope. Mr. Moutsous always liked it long and before that my mother would never let me cut it. But when I met your mom, I was ready for a change.”
Mrs. M. musses the remaining hair on my head with her fingertips. She stands back and gives it a long look before snipping a little more off the sides. “It’s not an easy thing to come by in a place like Summerland. Change, I mean. Of course, people come and go, but for the most part things stay the same. And then when change does happen, people resent it.”
“Yeah,” Rose says. “Sometimes it can make you feel a bit like a rat in a cage. But when that cage is gone, you kind of just want it back.”
Mrs. Moutsous nods, thoughtful. “One day, I asked your mom to cut off my hair.” She touches the back of her own head and smiles. “She did a fabulous job. She used to be a stylist in the city before she came back to Summerland to live in your grandmother’s house. Her styles even won a few awards in hair shows.”
Rose brushes a few rogue locks of my hair off the bed. “I remember Grandma telling me that once. It seems so hard to believe.” She turns to me. “Doesn’t it?”
I don’t answer. Because, for one, I had no idea that Mom used to do hair in some other lifetime that didn’t include Summerland. And two, I didn’t know that Mom used to be anything, anyone before Rose and I existed. I guess I’ve been spending my whole life hoping that Mom would just stay good for one more day, one more week, one more month, that I never really had time to figure out who she was, when she was somebody else.
“I want to tell you girls something. Something I should have told you a long time ago.” Mrs. M. stops talking and Rose and I are silent, too, as the snipping sound of Mrs. M.’s scissors fills the spaces between us. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened to Colleen. It had nothing to do with either of you.”
I feel my whole body stiffen. Next to me, Rose is staring at her lap. “Okay,” I say.
“Magnolia, look at me.” Still holding the scissors, she walks around the opposite side of my bed so that we’re face to face. “You couldn’t have stopped it from happening. Neither of you could have. Your mom made her own choices and so did Colleen. Nobody is responsible for what happened, except for the two of them.”
“But we’re the ones who had to clean up her mess,” Rose says, her voice curt. “Mags walked into it that night. I had to deal with the fact that Colleen was my friend. If it wasn’t our fault, why did it have everything to do with us?”
Mrs. M. sets her scissors on the countertop behind her. She reaches across the bed to grab Rose’s hand, and then she grabs mine too. “I don’t know, honey. I wish so badly I did know why your mom had to drag the two of you into her pit of ugliness. I’ve spent days and weeks and months wondering why she couldn’t get better and give you the lives you deserve. There were always these moments where I thought maybe she had. Like the time where she showed up all washed and pretty for your and George’s end-of-the-year recital. Do you remember? She wore that lime green dress.”
“I remember it.” I close my eyes and feel the smooth, satiny material between my fingertips, like I’m touching it. Feel her warmth on me, her words saying she’d put it on for my special night. “It made her look nice. Healthy even.”
“That was a great night,” Rose says. “But then the next day she turned around and sold our television because she needed her fix.” Rose looks down at her empty palms.
I stare at Rose. “She didn’t sell the television. It wasn’t for drugs.”
Rose and Mrs. M. exchange glances. “I couldn’t believe it, either, when Rose told me,” Mrs. M. says. “You girls barely had anything as it was.”
“She said they took it,” I say. “She said it was to help cover the bills and to stop them from taking our whole house away.”
Mrs. M. shakes her head in the saddest way I’ve ever seen. “No, honey. Your house is all paid off, has been for a long, long time. Your grandmother left it to you and to Rose in her will when she passed on.”
“But Mom said—” My voice cracks. “I heard her say it.”
“I know what she probably told you,” Mrs. M. says. “What she felt like she needed to tell you to make it all okay inside her head. At the time, I couldn’t imagine anyone doing anything more selfish than that. But when Colleen died, I realized that it was who she was. Who she had become. Selfish.” Mrs. M. purses her lips. “Trust me, I’ve blamed everyone for what your mom became. I’ve blamed Summerland and the people who live there. I even blamed your grandma for leaving this world so early. For not sticking around to take care of her and to take care of you girls, when you needed her. But the only truth there is is that your mom was sick. She had a disease and she spread that disease to Colleen, too. It was something no one could cure them of but themselves.”
“I don’t understand that,” Rose says. “Colleen had everything. Mayor Chamberlain was good to her, and her mom was, too.” Rose’s voice gets quiet and small. “She had everything.”
Mrs. M. shrugs. “We might not ever understand the choices people make. But we can’t let it own us. We can’t let it become a part of who we are.” She draws Rose in close to her and then leans my head against her chest too so that the three of us are locked in this hug that’s so real and full. Being held by a mother should feel like this.
My eyes meet Rose’s eyes. They’re wet and tired, maybe from the pain of getting old. Too soon. Too fast.
Mrs. M. rubs our backs. “It’s time to let it go. Let Colleen go and the words go and your mom go, too.”
Like I have so often since I met her, I think of Chloe. I think of her bridge. “Someone once told me that you can’t make people do or feel or think what you want them to. You have to let them come around, on their own time. Or you have to let them go. I know that now. But even when we’re gone, I won’t stop loving Summerland. I won’t stop loving her, either.”
Mrs. M. strokes Rose’s long head of hair, and my short one. “Summerland will always be what’s inside of you. Just don’t let it become who you are.” She smiles, sadly. “Or it’ll eat you alive.”
Rose nods and I nod and together, we take the deepest, longest breaths I’ve ever known. Mrs. M. is right. Our lives don’t belong to Summerland, or the people in it. Our live are ours. Ours to do what we want with.
Finally.
THIRTY-FOUR
The first thing Rose notices when we step outside the airport is the air. Portland’s literally like twenty degrees colder than LA
was, and the air here’s heavy, not from smog or pollution, but there’s this thickness here that actually makes it hard to swallow. But the first thing I notice is that there aren’t cameras anywhere. We’re just in Oregon. It’s not LA. I’m not on show for anyone here. Not anymore.
Rose hails a taxi and we climb on in. “Summerland,” she tells the driver.
He peers back at us. “That’ll be at least fifty bucks. You girls got that kind of cash?”
I open my wallet and hand her my thirty bucks. The show paid for everything.
I’m coming home with everything I left here with. Rose waves me away and digs to the bottom of her purse. She pulls out a small stack of crisp twenties.
I stare at the bills in her palm. “Where did you get that kind of money? Did your boyfriend—” I stop. Take a deep breath and try again. “I mean, does Joey—”
“He doesn’t support our life. Even though he’d like it if I’d let him every now and then. He doesn’t take care of us. We take care of us.” She shrugs. “I’ve been saving. Just because your foot’s broken, doesn’t mean our dreams have to be, too.”
The sight of her bills is enough for the driver. He pulls out of the airport and onto the highway, heading toward the coast.
Exactly an hour and a half later, we pull into Summerland. We pass the Pic ’N’ Pay and Summerland Liquors. We pass Xanadu Mini Golf and the disco bowl. We pass Miller’s Bakery and we pass Deelish and Mr. Moutsous’s car, there, in front of it.
Everything’s exactly the same as when I left. Why shouldn’t it? It’s not like I’ve been gone long. But as I stare at this town—my town—the only town I’ve ever known and lived in since I was born, I notice how everything looks so different, too.
Smaller. Older. Sadder.
“Look!” Rose squeals as we pass Katina’s studio. Hanging above the door is a gigantic banner. White, with red and black block letters, professionally done, not hand drawn. GOOD LUCK, GEORGE AND MAGNOLIA! WE DIG YOU! it says.
“Katina must have had Old Lady Miller do it with her printer.” Rose laughs. “I wonder how much she charged her to have it done.”
I smile, thinking of Katina going to bat for me against Mrs. Miller, one of the ones who couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it go. I wonder how much of the show she watched, if any of it. I wonder how much of the show the rest of them watched. I know it doesn’t matter. Not when I was the one living it.
As we pass the sign, I stare under the words, at the picture of me and George, our faces smooshed together so that they’re more like one head than two.
I remember that picture.
Someone from the Summerland Sun took it on the first day of Season, the summer before George and I started high school. I remember that day, because that was when I decided that George was gay and could never be my boyfriend. That afternoon, George napped next to Sammy Baker, just feet away from the tide’s end. He played with Sammy’s hair while Sam dozed. And when he finally woke up, George rolled over and kissed Sammy. Softly, on the lips, like the two of them were the only two beings on the whole entire planet. While I sat on my own towel and watched, from several feet behind them.
But this picture. This picture was taken before all that happened. When I still hung on to the memory of that other day, under the pier, when we were twelve. George and I were hanging out down there, talking about the kinds of things that twelve-year-olds talk about. Teachers and school assignments and the new clothes that so-and-so’s parents bought them in Portland. And then suddenly, without warning or reason, George leaned over and kissed me. On the lips. My heart stopped. Time stood still.
I can’t remember who pulled away first on that glorious June afternoon, nearly six years ago, but I do know two things: One, I had been hoping and dreaming that George would kiss me like that for an entire twelve months before he actually did. And two, although I thought our kiss was warm and perfect and everything, George never kissed me again. Even though I knew and accepted Sammy Baker and the lifeguards and all the other people George wanted to kiss—and maybe even had—I held on to our kiss for so long. It’s what made me believe that anything was possible, even the things that feel like they weren’t. I knew then that no matter what happened between me and George, we’d always have that kiss. And maybe it’s more than most people get. Maybe it’s even enough.
But now, staring up at that banner, that photo of the two of us, it kind of hits me that most of the time, dreams don’t come true. Or at least, not in the way you thought they would. Sometimes they shift—change—into the kinds of dreams you didn’t even know you wanted, instead.
The cab turns the corner, and a second later we pull up in front of our house. Rose tosses the driver his cash and helps me out of the cab on the opposite side. Standing with our shoulders touching, we stare at our weathered house for a long, long time.
Rose nudges my side. “It doesn’t really feel like ours anymore, does it?”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.” I link my arm through Rose’s and together we hobble up the three steps toward our front door. “Maybe good-byes aren’t supposed to be hard. Maybe that’s why you say them. Not because you have to, but because it’s time.”
THIRTY-FIVE
The next ten days are so crazy busy I feel like my head is going to explode. Even though Rose’s boyfriend, Joey, stops by to bring us a new TV, I barely have time to think straight, let alone watch the show that felt so much a part of me less than two weeks ago. In fact, when I do sit down the Thursday after we get back to watch it, I almost forget that it’s the results show I’m watching, not the performance one, it being Thursday and all. So it makes it even harder to watch when Hayden and Jacks get eliminated, when I haven’t even been there to witness why—from the bits of their performances they play on the screen, both of them looked amazing and solid and exactly how they should have. And it’s harder still to watch Olivia crumble to her knees at the sound of their names being announced, not just because it leaves her and George going into Week Six—the final episode—but because I know her tears are partly for her friends who won’t be going with her.
When Rose and I actually start our big “clean up and get out” initiative the next day, I feel more ready to do this than ever.
I limp to the kitchen with a photo album, periwinkle blue with little white polka dots on it. I open the cover and flip through it. Rose looks like she’s about eight in most of the photos and my face only makes an appearance a handful of times. But this album is one of the only ones Mom ever put together, so it’s coming with us. Rose doesn’t even glance over my shoulder as I finger through the yellowing pages, but when I close it, she plucks it from my hands and puts it in her gigantic box.
“Tell me again. Tell me about the palm trees we’re going to nap under. Tell me about all those beautiful bodies.”
I laugh. “That was Los Angeles. I don’t know if San Diego will be like that.” But inside, I know it will. Know it will be sun-filled and warm. Know that it won’t have the perma-chill thing that Summerland has, even in the summer. The kind that’s good for preserving heartaches and not much else.
“I didn’t get the chance to see either one. I spent my only time there in that hospital.” She puts her finger to her lips. “Hey, I wonder if my new store will only carry summer clothes all year ’round?”
I want to ask her about him, but I hesitate. Not because she’s still hiding her relationship with Joey from me, but because I’m afraid of her answer. Afraid that saying it out loud might make her change her mind. “Aren’t you worried the distance will change things between you?”
Rose shrugs. “It’s like Mrs. Moutsous said. We need to think about us for change. We need to be who we want to be.”
I hand Rose a vase to wrap but I don’t say anything else. I know what Rose and Mrs. Moutsous are saying is true. But I also know I won’t ever stop thinking about my mom. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wondering where she is, what she’s doing, who she’s with, or if she’s with anyone at all.
The anger I felt toward her in the hospital feels different now. Kind of like the show, actually. Something I did for a while. Something I did to learn who I was and grow and figure things out and now it’s over. While I know my anger was justified, it doesn’t feel right to take it with me. I guess that’s what Chloe was trying to tell me all along. That I had to let it go in order to be the person I’m really meant to be. And if I’m able to let this house go, this town go, this childhood that wasn’t always good and wasn’t always bad go, I think I can say good-bye to the anger, too. While we’ll always be Mom’s daughters and talk like her or have her love of the beach and clamming, the fact is we’re not her. Other than her name, we really don’t share anything with our mom at all.
But I’d be lying if I said a part of me won’t always hope she comes back here one day. Not a different mom altogether, but one who’s no longer sick. And if that day happens, I know Mrs. Moutsous will be here to tell her where we are and how we’ve been waiting for her for a long, long time. That’s the kind of thing I don’t think I’ll ever stop dreaming about. Because if we don’t have our dreams, we don’t have much at all.
Rose hands me another stack of newspapers and then saunters off, whistling. She does this comical little arabesque and tosses a few more fake plants and household knickknacks into her box. And even though she doesn’t say it, I have the feeling that she and Joey will work out. She seems too happy about him for it not to.
When she first asked him for the transfer, he was totally supportive. He said he was sad to see her go, but he also said he knew she was better than this. I don’t know if he meant this life or this place or this state of mind or what, but part of me wonders if he didn’t actually mean all three.
When I called the California Ballet School in San Diego and asked them if I could audition for their program, they signed me up right then and there. Because they saw me on the show and knew my name. My name. Magnolia Grace Woodson. Fan favorite from Season Six, Live to Dance.
Spin the Sky Page 28
