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“Well, he certainly is nice-looking—”
“Stop it.”
“Avril, honey, I know you loved Chet. We all loved him, but you’re a young woman. There’s no harm in giving a good-looking guy your phone number.”
I haven’t even been home for a full hour and already she’s pushing my buttons.
“He didn’t ask for my number. Okay? Besides, I don’t have to hook up with the first guy who’s nice to me.”
“I didn’t suggest anything of the sort. But you’ve got to start somewhere and well, why not go for one with looks?”
One of my bags pops out of the chute and I retrieve it with hopes this interruption will preempt further discussion about the cowboy. I don’t want to argue with my mother on my first day back. Now that I’m home, I’ll have the rest of my life to do that.
When I turn to haul the big, black bag over to her so she can watch it while I collect the rest of my things, she’s not there. I make a slow circle until I finally spot her on the other side of baggage claim talking to Max, pen and paper in hand.
“IF HE WANTED MY telephone number, he would’ve asked me for it.” I feel murderous as I heft my bags into the trunk of Mama’s pristine 1955, cherry-red T-Bird, which she’s parked catty-corner across two spaces in the airport garage.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her parking like this is begging someone to key the gleaming paint, but when I turn around, she’s standing there watching me with her arms akimbo, one hip jutting out, an undaunted smile on her face.
Vintage Tess Mulligan.
“Oh, don’t get your panties in a wad, baby. Do you really think I’d give your phone number to a total stranger—even if he was a tall hunk of handsome man? Even if the number I’d be giving out is my phone number? Hmm. Maybe I should’ve given him the number.” She mutters this last part under her breath and I want to tell her to go for it, to knock herself out.
I love my mother. We’re close, despite her ability to drive a stuffed elephant up the wall. If I’m completely honest, I suppose the things I do don’t make sense to her. It’s one of those weird codependent relationships.
I can get mad at her, but if anyone else uttered a cross word about her, they’d have to deal with me. And it wouldn’t be pretty.
When I lived in California, the miles between us helped. She flew out to see me about four times a year—and about every two months since I lost Chet—because of my fear of flying. In fact, I haven’t been home in years since she was so good about coming out to visit.
The distance was our friend. When she meddled, I could curtail the phone conversation, and the next time we talked she’d be on to something else.
The staccato honk of someone locking a vehicle echoes in the garage and a car whooshes by belching a plume of exhaust as the driver accelerates.
Mama brandishes a cream-colored business card like a magician making a coin appear from thin air. “I got his number for you. The ball is in your court, missy. You’ve gotta call him.”
“I’m not calling him.” I spit the words like darts over the top of the car, but she ducks and slides into the driver’s seat.
I slam the trunk and fume for a few seconds.
Why did I think she’d give me even a short grace period before she started her antics? It’ll be a small miracle if we don’t kill each other living under the same roof and working in the same salon—even if it’s only for the interim.
Moisture beads on my forehead, my upper lip, the small of my back. It’s warm for February—but that’s Florida for you—and my Dolce & Gabbanas suddenly feel like suffocating plastic wrap.
I don’t need someone collecting business cards for me. I can get my own dates. If and when I’m ready to do so.
Feeling trapped inside the four walls of chez Tess Mulligan—well, her car, anyway—finding a place of my own leaps to the top of my mental priority list.
Mama cranks the engine, and I open the car door and buckle myself in for a bumpy ride.
As she slips the gearshift into Reverse, her nails, the same red as her car, click on the metal shaft. Then she stretches her right arm over the seatback. Her compact little body lists toward me as she looks over her shoulder before cranking the wheel with her left hand and maneuvering the car out of the parking spaces.
In the graying garage light, I see the deep etchings time has sketched on her face. They seem more pronounced, shadowed, in this half light. At this angle, the crepey skin of her throat looks loose and paper-thin. In this quiet moment, I see beneath the bold, brassiness of her facade down to the heart and soul. She looks older, mortal, vulnerable. Funny, how these things go unnoticed during the daily razzmatazz of the Tess Mulligan show—until the camera fades and the lights go down and she’s not performing for an audience.
I swallow the harsh words sizzling in my mouth and wash them down with a little compassion. Even though the zingers stick in my throat, I turn the subject to a more amiable topic.
“How’s Kally?”
Mama’s jaw tightens. She shifts forward on the seat, her posture rod-straight, and shrugs.
Kally and I have known each other since we were in diapers. Once, she was my best friend in the world. Chet’s, too. In fact, she and this guy, Jake Brumly, and Chet and I used to be known as the fearsome foursome in high school.
Then we grew up.
She and Jake broke up. Chet and I got married and moved away. I’d like to say life just got in the way, but it’s not that simple. In fact, it got downright ugly—all because of money.
It’s awful. It really is.
About four or five years ago, Chet told her we’d invest in this business of hers, this artsy—or so I’ve heard, I’ve never seen it—coffee shop called Lady Marmalade’s. As much as we both adored Kally and as much as Chet wanted everyone back home to believe we were living the beautiful life in L.A., we didn’t have that kind of extra cash. I had to be the heavy and say no.
She got mad when we pulled out. Just like that. Can you imagine?
Then she had a kid and our paths sort of forked off in two different directions before we could make amends.
I suppose I didn’t help matters.
I’ll admit it, I was a little jealous when she got pregnant. Okay, I was a lot jealous because she had the one thing I desperately wanted and couldn’t have. A baby.
I would’ve traded all the Hollywood glitz and glam, all the movies I worked on, all the parties and elbow-rubbing with the stars for one precious little baby.
But when you’re infertile, all the bargaining in the world doesn’t make a difference.
And Kally wasn’t even married. Still isn’t as far as I know. If you don’t think that raised a few Sago Beach brows?
Mama is still ticked at Kally. Not because she had a baby out of wedlock. Because come to find out, even after I put my foot down about not lending her the money, Chet went behind my back and funded her business. In the aftermath of his death, I discovered Chet had a checking account I knew nothing about. Through it, I followed a messy paper trail of canceled checks made out to Kally. He was funneling her the money that was supposed to go into our 401K. Four freakin’ years of this. I had no idea the money wasn’t going where it was supposed to go. Chet was the financier of our relationship, paid the bills, set the budget—which is why I was flabbergasted when he suggested we invest in Kally’s business. He knew better than I that we didn’t have the extra cash.
This is not a good thing to uncover just weeks after your husband dies. This secret felt like I’d discovered they were having an affair—thank God for that twenty-seven-hundred-mile chastity belt. Or I might have suspected something, which was stupid because in all the years we’d known each other, never ever did I pick up one iota of a vibe that they might be interested in a little hanky panky.
It was too much to handle all at once, these two disasters. It’s not like I could get answers from Chet, and Kally was pretty tightlipped when I asked her to explain.
Mama went totally ballistic. She called up Kally, read her the riot act and asked her how she could take that money from us? I suppose she felt Kally had betrayed her by virtue of betraying me and took it doubly hard because Kally had always been like another daughter to her. Especially after Kally’s mother, Caro, passed away, gosh…not too long before Chet started giving Kally the money.
Mama went off, insisting Kally give me a stake in Lady Marmalade’s since the money that kept the place afloat should’ve gone to take care of me after my husband’s death.
For the record, I want nothing to do with that coffee shop. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll go five miles out of my way to avoid it, which might not be so hard since she chose to set up shop over in Cocoa Beach.
I’ve had months to make my peace with the situation. And I have, for the most part. Really.
Kally and I haven’t talked. But I’m at peace. Which is a good thing since I’m bound to run in to her now that I’m back.
All I know is if Kally Fuller could take the money and still look at herself in the mirror—Well, I suppose she’s ventured farther down that divergent path than I realized she was capable.
As my mother nears the line of tollbooths, she grabs her purse and roots around in it, alternately looking down at her lap and back at the road.
“Here, Mama, let me pay for this. How much is it?” I unbuckle my purse for my wallet.
She pulls out a twenty and waves me off. “I got it.”
“I wish you’d at least let me pay the toll. You drove all the way over here to get me—”
“I’m your mother. Of course I’d do that. You just hush.” She rolls down her window and hands the toll-taker the money.
I sink into my seat, twelve years old again, my mother running the show.
CHAPTER 3
I’d forgotten how pretty natural Florida is this time of year. When the cycle of afternoon rains cooperate and show up on schedule, everything is lush and green and tropical. Crepe Myrtles, hibiscus and oleanders dot the highway in a kaleidoscope of color.
The scenery washes over me like a soothing bath as the black ribbon of flat Florida highway slices through the landscape, eventually reaching the subtropical marshlands that bridge the city to the coast.
Silent rivers of grass succumb to a watery wilderness of cabbage palms, cypress trees and teardrop-shaped hammock islands, formed of their own decomposing selves gradually accumulating over thousands of years.
In the middle of the slough, a great white heron spreads its wings as an ibis searches the shallows, against a brilliant backdrop of devastatingly blue, late-afternoon sky. If Monet had painted Florida, this could be his canvas.
For some reason the scene reminds me of the story of Persephone. I wasn’t familiar with Greek myth until I moved to Hollywood. I’d never really studied the classics, but I did hair on the movie Persephone; the scenery we’re passing now reminds me of how Hades, the god of the underworld, broke through the earth in his chariot, grabbed Persephone and carried her back to hell.
I imagine the place where Hades entered was similar to this. I half expect him to come crashing through and drag me back to L.A. Funny, in a roundabout, convoluted way, Mama could’ve likened Chet to Hades, swooping me off to Hollywood far away from her.
I glance at my mother, who looks content as she quietly drives me home. She smiles at me and turns on some music. Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” drifts from the CD player and Mama sings the part, “Crazy for feelin’ so blue…” Her rich alto veering into a velvety harmony.
I suppose, like Persephone, the urge to go home has niggled at me for a while. I just had to get over feeling like going home to Sago Beach meant I’d failed. I mean coming home again after all these years without a whole lot to show for myself—my dream of acting didn’t exactly pan out, I’m childless and my husband died.
But that’s not really failure. Not like three strikes and you’re out. Is it? Because I tried. I really tried to do it on my own. Honestly, it’s taken me this long to come to terms with the fact that I’m a widow.
A widow.
DOWNTOWN SAGO BEACH consists of one long, bricked street stretching through the center of the tiny town like a makeshift movie set.
Main Street runs parallel and two roads west of A1A, which fronts the beach. I’ve always liked how downtown is set apart from the beach-going day-trippers. Still, enough of them find their way over to support the Sago Beach businesses, but since there are no hotels and the town rolls up its welcome mat at five-thirty, they all go back over to Cocoa Beach or the other more touristy destinations for the night.
My first glimpse of home hits me like a favorite flick I’d seen over and over in my youth, but had forgotten how much I loved it. Downtowns like this don’t exist anymore. Certainly not in L.A. They’ve been abandoned and torn down to make way for strip malls and Gallerias. But it’s as though someone has waved a magic wand over downtown Sago Beach, and made time stand still—right down to the banner stretched across the road that reads: “Founder’s Day Celebration and Street Dance.”
It’s been years since I’ve been home, but I recognize the banner. It’s the same one they’ve used every year for as far back as I remember. Everything looks exactly as I last remember it—no, better. Fresher. Lovelier, despite the sameness. Much more comforting than anything since I lost Chet.
The street is lined with locally owned businesses and quaint little one-of-a-kind shops. Even the bank looks pretty and inviting, with its unique sign shaped like a palm tree and window boxes of flaming geraniums. When I left Sago Beach, I didn’t realize all this prettiness was out of the ordinary. Coming home, I recognize it for the rare treasure it is, and I marvel at the wide, clean sidewalks and huge ceramic planters full of sunflowers, all turned toward the street, vying for a place in the soft, late afternoon light.
I wonder if they still change the flowers to celebrate the seasons?
Mama slows the car to a crawl and motions a car behind us to pass, to take it all in.
Oh, there’s the toy store full of games and dolls, hand-crafted stick horses and model trains. My heart contracts when I think of how I used to dream of shopping there for toys for the babies Chet and I would have.
As we inch down Main Street, tears well in my eyes. I roll down the window, and breathe in a great gulp of Sago Beach—air hot as a furnace, laced with a humid, lazy brine. The essence of home. It goes straight to my head and fills my heart with eager apprehension. If eager apprehension is an oxymoron, well, that’s exactly how I feel. Like an oxymoron.
Too young to be a widow. Too old to be on my own and back at square one in this town I left so many years ago…Still, I can’t help but fall in love with it all over again. Changed in so many ways, but longing for everything to still be the same.
Oh, there’s The Riviera, a clothing boutique Mama calls “Resort-Mart.” They sell crisp, expensive resort wear in garish shades of magenta, orange, chartreuse and turquoise. All you need is a little sun damage, some baby-blue, cream eye shadow and a tube of frosted coral lipstick and you, too, can look like you belong among the retired resort set.
Across the street is Paula’s Bakery, which makes the world’s very best Parker House rolls. At the crack of dawn on holidays the line to pick up those coveted rolls stretches down the sidewalk. Ah, and there’s the Yum Yum Shop, a real old-fashioned ice-cream parlor where they still make their own ice cream in flavors like mango, chocolate-covered cherry, café latte, and lavender, in addition to the standard chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and cookies and cream, which I swear they invented and everyone else copied. It’s right next door to Joe’s Hardware, with its gleaming white clapboard exterior, which is right next to the Sago Diner, which is next to…I gaze down the street, trying to catch a glimpse of the place I’d been holding my breath waiting to see…. My mother’s beauty shop, Tess’s Tresses, and the small apartment above it, where I grew up.
Right there on the corner—With what looks like white bed sheets drawn across the large plateglass window.
“New drapes?” I ask.
“No.” She keeps her gaze pinned on the road as she accelerates into a left turn.
Okay, I can take a hint. We’re not discussing the sheets or drapes or whatever they are. I’ve haven’t even set foot inside the salon. I’ll hold off redecorating it.
She makes two more quick lefts—the first onto Broad Street, which runs behind the storefronts, then into her driveway.
Home.
“My goodness, it’s nearly six o’clock. You’re probably starving, aren’t you?”
I hadn’t really thought about food because my stomach was a little upset after the flight, but now that she mentions it…“Sure. I could eat.”
“Let’s get your bags in and we’ll grab a bite, but first, I want to show you something real quick in the beauty shop.”
It’s strange walking through this portal to my adolescent sanctuary. My father died when I was five, and my mother never remarried. So it was just us girls all those years, snug in our little apartment above the salon—or beauty shop, as Mama’s always called it. But we were happy, Mama and I.
Stepping inside, I squint in the dim light of the vestibule, and breathe in the familiar scent of permanent solution, fried food and Tess’s perfume. It may not sound very appetizing, but it smells like my childhood.
Five paces straight ahead is the door to the beauty shop; to the left is the narrow staircase that leads up to the apartment. Exactly as always. I follow Mama upstairs safe in this bubble of sameness.
At the top of the steps, on the landing outside the door to our apartment, I stop to gaze out the single aluminum window. Its bent screen and dirty glass looks as though it hasn’t been washed since I left. Still, through the haze, the deep forest leaves of the laurel oak tree that stands next to the driveway wave at me on a gust of wind. I have no idea how old that tree is, but it’s huge, with roots running under the sidewalk and drive, pushing up the concrete as if to prove its dominance. Its arthritic branches stretch all the way to the house, scratching lovingly at the glass as dust motes dance in the muted light.
Beyond it, through the branches, I look down at the orange tree, in all its magnificence. It always yields an abundant crop in the cool months. Then it drops its oranges and a blanket of shade over the side yard. Beyond that, I see the houses on the street with their yard ornaments and hedges and flowerbeds, twilight settling on their rooftops, each house a vessel of continuity and similitude, no matter who lives inside now. Each holding a place in my history and in my heart.
We set my bags inside the door and head back down to the beauty shop. I’m tired and hot and sticky. I long to go in and take a long, hot shower and then go into my room and stretch out on the bed. Mama’s kept it exactly as I left it. But I’m not living by myself anymore and I’ll need to get reacquainted with give and take.
She’s been chomping at the bit to show me something in the beauty shop. I don’t have it in me to ask her to wait until tomorrow.
When we get downstairs, she starts fumbling around in her purse. “You go on in and turn on the lights—you remember where they are, don’t you? I think I left my glasses in the car.”
She’s halfway out the door.
“No, Mama, you set them down on the table just inside the door upstairs. Here, I’ll go up and get them—”
She sidesteps me. “I’ll get them. You go on in there.” And gives me a little push toward the salon door.
