The beach was cool and misty, and as I ran I kept thinking of Mira, too, remembering what Isabel had said the night before. What we do to ourselves because we’re afraid.
I knew one person whom I saw as mostly fearless. And I knew she was the only one who might understand.
“Colie?” I could hear the phone jostling around as she sat up in bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
My mother was in Spain. I’d had to go through three operators, two hotel clerks and one new, irritated assistant to get to her. “I miss you,” I told her. It was always easier to say it over the phone.
“Oh, honey.” She sounded surprised. “I miss you, too. How’s everything?”
“Good.” I pulled the phone further into the kitchen and sat down on the floor. I filled her in on my job, and Isabel doing my hair and eyebrows; I was surprised at how much had happened since we’d last talked. She told me about signing autographs for three hours, how rich the food was in Europe, and how she’d had to fire yet another assistant for being argumentative, could I believe that.
Finally, I got to the real reason I’d called.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“Did you know Mira’s, well . . . a little eccentric?” I whispered, even though she was upstairs.
“What?” My mother was still steamed about the assistant.
“Mira,” I repeated. “She’s not like I remembered her. She’s kind of . . . out there.”
“Oh goodness,” my mother said. “Well, Mira always had that artistic sensibility.”
“It’s more than that,” I said. “People here . . . they’re kind of mean to her.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I knew she’d had some run-ins with the locals. . . .”
“I know about that.”
“Oh.” She paused. I could see her on the other end of the line, biting her lip in thought. “Well, Mira has always been Mira. I never realized it was that serious.”
“I wish we had,” I said. “I just feel so bad . . .”
“Oh, Colie, I am so sorry,” she said, talking over me. “I feel just awful about this trip and leaving you anyway, and now this. . . . Look. I’ll just send Amy, my assistant, home to Charlotte on the next flight. You can take the train back and just stay with her while I finish up this tour.”
“Mom,” I said. “No. Wait.”
But she wasn’t listening, already had her hand cupped over the receiver, while she called to someone in the room. “Look into flights back home, will you. . . .”
“Mom.”
“. . . Today or tomorrow would be best. And tell Amy . . .”
“Mom!”
“. . . that she should pack and call the cleaning service, plus book a train ticket—”
“Mom!”
I had to yell. Once my mother set something in motion, there was no stopping her.
“What!” she yelled back. “Colie, just a second, okay?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to go home. I’m fine here.”
Another pause. I pictured people still scurrying in Spain, planning my instant departure. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” I switched the phone to my other ear. “I’m having fun and I like my job. And I think Mira likes having me here. I just feel bad for her. That’s all.”
“Well,” she said hesitantly. “Okay. But if you feel the situation is getting too strange, you call me and I will send someone. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, as I heard her tell someone not to bother, everything was fine. “I promise.”
She sighed. “Poor Mira,” she said. “You know, she always had a hard time with people. Even when we were kids. She was just different.”
“Not like you,” I said.
“Oh, I had my hard times,” she said easily. This was comfortable territory for her; the hard times were what made her Kiki Sparks. “But it was different with Mira. People have always had difficulty really understanding her.”
“Mom?”
“Yeah.” When it was just the two of us, she’d eventually drop most of her Kiki-ness and become my mom again. But you always had to give it a while.
“Were you,” I asked hesitantly, “were you always so brave?”
There was a pause as she absorbed this. “Brave?” she said. “Me?”
“Come on,” I told her. “You know you are.”
She thought about it for a second. “I don’t think of myself as brave, Colie. You don’t remember how hard we had it in the Fat Years. And I’m glad for that. I wasn’t always so strong.”
I did remember. But she didn’t need to know that.
“You know what I think it is?” she said suddenly. I could hear her moving around and I pictured her in the hotel bed, pillows fluffed behind her. “I think that losing the weight was a big part of it, me starting to be unafraid. But more, I think it was when other people really started to believe in me. All those women who looked to me to be strong and capable for them, to show them the way. So I faked it.”
“You faked it,” I repeated slowly.
“Yeah, I did. But then, somehow,” she went on, “somewhere along the way, I started to believe it myself. I think that being brave and self-confident doesn’t necessarily start inside, honey. It starts with the rest of the world, and it leads back to you.”
The rest of the world, I thought. Okay.
“Why are you asking?” my mother said, suddenly suspicious. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just wondered. That’s all.”
I was at the table eating cereal when Mira came downstairs. I could hear her in the kitchen, opening cabinets and starting coffee and talking to Cat Norman, who eventually found his way to me and leapt up on to the table, knocking my spoon out of the bowl and splattering milk everywhere.
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you,” I said as he bent his head to lap it up, his tongue scratching against the tabletop.
“Good morning!” Mira said cheerfully as she came through the door, carrying an overflowing bowl of Trix, the paper tucked under her arm. “How are you?”
“Good,” I said, nodding toward the paper. “What’s your day looking like?”
“Ah!” she said, putting down her bowl. She unfolded the paper, smoothing it out on the table. “ ‘Today is a seven.’ Ooh, that’s good.” She cleared her throat. “ ‘A day for solitude and quiet: you have a lot to think about. Recycling, renewal, big things to come are on your mind.’ ”
“Wow,” I said.
“I know.” She scanned the page. “And your day is a four. Listen to this: ‘Sometimes, words are louder than actions. Keep your eyes open. Pisces involved.’ ”
“Hmmmm.”
She turned in her chair, glancing at the calendar behind her. “So for me, ‘Big things to come’ has got to be that lunar eclipse . . . or maybe the church bazaar?”
“Or the Fourth of July,” I offered.
“Pssh,” she said. “Not my kind of holiday: lots of tourists, too noisy. I’ll go with the eclipse. Or a bountiful day at the bazaar.” She dug into her cereal, chewing thoughtfully.
“You know, Mira,” I said, “I wonder what else you could possibly need at the bazaar.”
She looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” I said, somewhat delicately, “it’s just that you have so much here that’s already secondhand and not quite working. I just wonder . . .”
“Not working?” she said, putting down her spoon. “Why, everything works, Colie.”
I glanced at the TV—JIGGLE TO GET 11—then at the toaster, which was labeled BURNS THINGS FAST! “Yeah,” I said, “but don’t you ever want something that works perfectly, every time?”
She considered this, looking out at the birdfeeders. “I don’t know,” she said, as if it had never occurred to her. “I mean, perfect is a lot to expect from something, right? We all have our faults.”
“It’s not a
bout us,” I said gently. “It’s a toaster.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She sat back in her chair. “If something doesn’t work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don’t just throw it away. Everything can’t be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the patience to give something the little nudge it needs.”
“To jiggle eleven,” I said.
“Exactly,” she said, pointing at me with her spoon. “See, Colie, it’s about understanding. We’re all worth something.”
She went back to her cereal and I glanced around the room, thinking of all her little notes—FAUCET OFF IS HARD LEFT, BIG KNIFE IS SLIGHTLY DULL, WINDOW NEEDS GOOD KNOCK TO OPEN—and her secondhand things, all eventually to be fixed—or at least partially fixed, but used in some way. For Mira, there were no lost causes. Everything, and everyone, had its purpose. The rest of the world, too often, might have missed that.
That afternoon I was working with Morgan. She showed up with two dozen deviled eggs. Isabel had warned me about this.
“What?” Morgan said suddenly, putting down the tray of eggs, all white and yellow and perfectly formed, between us. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“You don’t like deviled eggs?”
“I love them.”
“Then what is that look for?” Clearly she wasn’t her normal cheery self. Still, as she went behind the counter to start the tea machine she picked up my stack of rags and folded them quickly, setting them at a right angle to the silverware station.
“Nothing,” I said again, watching her folding, folding, folding, her face irritated. The kitchen door slammed and I looked through the food window to see Norman coming in, a book tucked under his arm. He waved and I was suddenly embarrassed, remembering him shirtless, asleep. I told myself to smile.
“You don’t have to eat them,” Morgan snapped. When she was angry her face seemed more square. Her hair was newly cut too, straight across her forehead, adding to the effect. “I was trying to be nice.” She flipped over the napkins.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t want Morgan mad at me. “It’s just that Isabel told me you’d probably bring in deviled eggs today.”
She just looked at me.
“So it was kind of funny.”
She wasn’t smiling.
“When you did,” I finished. “Forget it. I’m sorry.”
She sighed and moved the spoons. “Oh, I’m sorry too.” She leaned back against the coffee machine. “It’s just that Mark left early, and things didn’t go the way I wanted them to.” She paused. “And I always make deviled eggs when I’m upset. I mean, I guess it is kind of funny.”
“No,” I said solemnly. “It isn’t.” Norman ambled out of the kitchen, heading toward the storeroom. He came to a sudden, whiplash kind of stop when he saw the eggs.
“Hey!” he said. “Those deviled eggs?”
“Yes,” Morgan said quietly.
“With paprika?”
Morgan nodded.
Norman lifted up the edge of the cling wrap, examining the rows and rows of perfect half-eggs underneath. “Wow.”
They did smell good.
“Can I, uh, have one?” Norman asked Morgan, who just covered her eyes with her hand and nodded. He took his time picking one out, selecting it from the top left corner and cradling it in his palm as if it was precious. “Great,” he said happily, carefully replacing the cling wrap. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Morgan murmured. We watched him walk to the storeroom. He disappeared inside, came out with a bag of hamburger buns, and passed us again, the egg still cupped in his hand.
“Want to savor it,” he explained. He went back into the kitchen.
Morgan sighed. “I,” she announced, “am so pathetic.”
“You are not,” I said.
“I am.” She went over and straightened the cling wrap, corner to corner. “Do you know how many times I’ve brought in deviled eggs? This is, like, the only time I haven’t been sobbing and that’s only ’cause I cried all night. And Norman,” she said, her voice rising to a wail, “sweet Norman, always just acts so surprised to see the eggs, and pleased, and he never, once, has ever acted like he knew what they meant.”
I looked over at the eggs.
“I hate my life!” Morgan cried, breaking down completely, her shoulders shaking. Behind her, the spoons rattled.
“Oh, Morgan,” I said helplessly.
She kept crying. In the kitchen, Norman was slowly eating his egg, watching us solemnly.
“It’s so awful,” she sobbed. “I finally get to see him and he’s so distant, he doesn’t want to talk about the wedding at all. . . .”
“Oh, Morgan,” I said again. What was I supposed to do? In the movies women hugged and cried and held each other, but that was as foreign to me as another country. I decided to sort the Sweet’n Lows.
She kept crying. I ate an egg. And it probably would have kept up like that forever if Isabel hadn’t come through the door.
First she saw the eggs. Then she looked at Morgan.
“Morgan,” Isabel said softly, which just set her off again. Isabel came behind the counter and I knew to step out of the way. “Morgan, come on.”
Morgan was still crying, that blubbery bouncy kind of sobbing you can’t control. “It was bad,” she said. Her nose was running. “He didn’t even stay for breakfast.” The rest was lost in her sobs.
“Oh, honey,” Isabel said, stepping forward and putting her arms around Morgan. “What a jerk.”
I kept my head down and moved on to stocking straws.
“Don’t say you told me so,” Morgan said finally into Isabel’s shoulder, her voice muffled. “Please don’t.”
And Isabel shook her head, one hand smoothing Morgan’s hair. “I won’t.”
“Thank you,” Morgan sniffled. “I know you’re thinking it. . . .”
“I am,” Isabel agreed.
“But just don’t say it.” She pulled back; her eyes were puffy and red, her bangs stuck to her forehead.
“Oh, my God,” Isabel said suddenly. “What did you do to your bangs, Morgan?”
“I cut them,” Morgan said, bursting into another round of tears.
“What did I tell you about messing with your hair when you’re upset?”
“I know. I know . . .” Morgan tried to fluff them with her fingers but they were much too short. “I’m having a bad hair day, okay?”
“It’s all right,” Isabel decided. “We’ll fix them later.”
“Okay.” Morgan sniffled again. “Good.”
Isabel looked at the eggs. Then she reached under the cling wrap to slide one out, making a mess in the process. She popped it into her mouth, whole.
I could tell Morgan was itching to fix that plastic but she didn’t move.
“Come right home after work,” Isabel told her through the mouthful of egg. “We’ll do your hair and have a few beers and open the Columbia CD package I got last week.”
“A package?” Morgan said, blowing her nose in a napkin. “You didn’t tell me we’d gotten another one.”
“I,” Isabel said, dragging out another egg and putting on her sunglasses, “was saving it for a special occasion. See you later, okay?”
Now, finally, Morgan smiled. “All right. You don’t have a date for the fireworks already?”
Isabel chucked that egg in her mouth too, grinning the entire time. Then she shook her head. “Nah. These are good,” she said. Then she looked at me as she pushed the door open. “You come too, Colie. Okay?”
I was surprised. “Sure,” I said.
“Good. It’ll be Chick Night.” She stepped outside. “Later!”
We watched her walk over to the Rabbit, then make another one of her trademark gravel-scattering exits. As she pulled into traffic, someone speeding by in a pickup truck whooped and beeped at her. And then she was gone.
“Chick Night,” Morgan said slowly, walking over and lifting out two
eggs. Then she wiped the back of the plastic wrap. “You know, I think that’s just what I need right now.”
I nodded. She handed me an egg and I took it. We stood there, chewing, until our first customers pulled up.
Chick Night, I thought. Another first for me. I didn’t quite know what to expect.
But I would find out soon enough.
We could hear the music from the end of Mira’s driveway. I was carrying the tray with the few eggs that were left; I myself had eaten six and was trying not to look at them.
“Ah,” Morgan said, as we came closer, the music getting louder and louder. “Disco.”
“What?”
She nodded towards the little house. All the lights were on and the door was open. “Disco,” she explained, “is great for healing. Not to mention dancing.”
At this I froze, my fingers tightening on the egg tray. No one had mentioned anything about dancing.
“I don’t dance,” I said.
Morgan looked at me. “What?”
“I said I don’t dance.”
“Everyone dances,” Morgan said simply.
“Not me.”
She pulled open the door, letting out a burst of music: Sister Sledge, singing “We are Family”; a standard on Kiki’s Disco Years Workout tape. On it my mother wore a purple leotard and bell-bottoms, doing the Hustle, while three rows of overweight people huffed and puffed behind her.
“You will,” she said. And she reached behind her, holding the door open, the music spilling out to greet me.
I didn’t dance. And I had my reasons.
As a fat girl, I’d experienced a wide range of humiliations. Add in the fact that I was almost always new, too, and I hit trouble everywhere I went.
Once, in elementary school, I came home after a particularly bad day and gorged myself on Oreos. I sat down with a full package and a half-gallon of milk to drown my sorrows, twisting off the tops and licking out the white insides, one after another.
Thirty minutes later I was in the bathroom, kneeling before the toilet and throwing up black stuff, which swirled away only to be replaced by more black stuff, and more black stuff, for what seemed like an eternity.