Gently, I returned Grandma’s glasses to her face. I stood up and stepped back to admire my work.
“Patrice Beaumont,” I announced. “I now declare you an honorary ancestor of Eva Mae El Dorado Two-Birds Ransom. But instead of collecting the rock-solid sparkle of gold dust, you have a power that lets you gather the shimmer moonbeams and the glimmer of freshly fallen snow.”
Grandma gave me a funny look, then stared down at the sparkle on her hands and arms. “Well,” she said under her breath. “Would you look at that? I am glimmer-shimmering. That’s different.” After studying the glitter a moment longer, Grandma looked up at me and smiled.
Smiled!
“Why, that’s just fine,” she said. “I didn’t even have to fall into a muddy river to get some magic.” Grandma’s smile grew even wider. She liked the sparkle!
“Grammy?” Tucker turned to look up at Grandma as the show on TV cut to a commercial. “Grammy?” he said again, yanking on her skirt.
Grandma’s eyes took on a confused, faraway look, as though the word grammy was as meaningless to her as the words bumfuzzle, mumpsimus, or ratoon. But eventually she said, “Yes?”
“Is there something you’ve ever wanted more than anything else in the whole wide world?”
Grandma reached up and absentmindedly adjusted her tiara. She watched her hand move as she slowly rested it back on her lap, turning her wrist this way and that to make the glitter catch the light. Grandma’s voice wobbled as she answered Tucker’s question.
“I think there was something I wanted . . . once,” she said. “Only, now I seem to have forgotten what it was.”
Tucker nodded as though Grandma had confided something important. “For as long as I can remember,” he said, “I’ve wanted to be big. And I’ve wanted a cat.” Tucker gently stroked Cap’n Stormy, who was sleeping in his lap. “This week, I got both—and you didn’t spank me again, the way I thought you would. So that was good too.” Tuck sighed happily. “Do you like cats, Grandma?” He looked up hopefully, wiggling his pink, painted-on cat nose.
Grandma furrowed her brow as she stared down at Tuck and Cap’n Stormy. “I . . . I don’t think I do.”
Tuck’s rainbow whiskers twitched as he contemplated her answer. He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s okay,” he said. “You might change your mind after you’ve spent more time with one. But if you ever want something—something important—let me know. Now that I can grow big, maybe I can help you get it.”
“Nice job with the glitter, Specs,” Del said, glancing over his shoulder and nodding his approval of Grandma’s sparkly makeover. The sound of music pumped through the floorboards as he redid Nola’s eye makeup. “Now you and your gran have even more in common. You sparkle on the inside, and she sparkles on the outside.”
Double spoonful, I reminded myself, trying not to blush. Del was all sugar. Sugar and playful pranks.
I adjusted my glasses, pushing them higher on my nose. For once, I didn’t prickle at the notion of sharing a likeness with my grandmother. It helped, I supposed, that I’d finally begun to see small traces of ordinary magic hidden deep inside her. I’d gotten a glimpse of the young woman she had been before she decided that growing up meant toughening up. Before she forgot that the world was full of sparkle.
I wanted to take Grandma’s crooked hands in mine and tell her that everything was going to be okay. Tell her that, magic or no magic . . . savvy or no savvy . . . memory or no memory, we were family.
Maybe Del was right. Maybe I was lucky to still have my grandma. I tugged on one of my curls—maybe I was lucky to resemble Grandma too.
“Grandma Pat and I even have the same birthday,” I told Del, feeling my life-long horror at sharing a birthday with her begin to melt away. “We were both born on October eleventh.”
“Seriously? No way!” Del dropped the palette of eye shadow he was holding, and bent quickly to pick it up.
“It’s true,” I said. “Right, Grandma?”
Grandma dismissed my words with a wave, barely listening now that her attention had returned to the television.
Del faced me. “October eleventh,” he echoed, his tone disbelieving.
“Yes . . . why?”
“I was born on October eleventh also! It looks like all three of us have something in common.”
“That could explain a thing or two,” grumbled Samson, still sitting with his eyes closed across from me, cradling his arm in its sling.
“What do you mean?” I demanded. Samson’s eyes popped open. He looked from me to Del to Grandma. Then he sat forward with a wince.
“You said neither Grandma nor Del freezes when you stop time. Right?”
“Right . . .” I answered slowly. “And there were those two girls,” I added. “The ones Del and I saw waving at us through the window of the dance school, after we left the bus station. They looked like twins.”
“Twins? That makes sense too.” Samson nodded. “Remember Tuvalu?”
“Tuvalu?” I repeated uncertainly. Then I did remember. “Tuvalu!” I thought back to the day Samson had searched for facts about shared birthdays on the computer, trying to reassure me that Grandma and I weren’t connected in any cosmic, unpredictable ways, just because we had the same birthday.
“That’s right,” I said. “Millions of people celebrate their birthday every day. Even twenty-seven people in Tuvalu.”
“Where’s Tuvalu?” Del and Nola both asked at the same time.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, climbing to my feet. “Don’t you see, Del? Grandma and I are connected by our shared birthday. So are you! I’ll bet you anything those girls we saw earlier were born on October eleventh too. Why, there must be thousands of people in the city who aren’t affected by my savvy. But they’re all spread out.”
Del’s eyebrows drew together. “So you’re saying that you stop time for everyone except the people who share your birthday?”
“Nothing else explains it.”
Samson’s theory had to be right. Whatever magic or science lay at the heart of my family’s powers, it did have a fondness for toying with people’s birthdays. Generations of savvy-folk could attest to that. And even most regular people know that birthdays are special.
Five minutes later, Nola was transformed. Del had cleaned off all of her tear-streaked makeup. Then he’d lightened and reshaped what was left of her heavy eyeliner, adding subtle hints of color and even a bit of shimmer. He’d scrubbed off the remains of her dark, plum-colored lipstick, giving her lips and cheeks a soft glisten of pink instead. Del had worked his own kind of magic, a magic passed down to him from his grandmother, taking Nola from raccoon-rebel to fresh-faced glam in a way that showed off her natural beauty.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Del said, smiling in satisfaction as he set down his brushes and applicators and backed away from her.
“Wow,” Samson whispered as he took in Nola’s new look. Then, as if he’d forgotten he’d said it once already, he said it again. “Wow.”
Nola blushed. Then she snatched her cosmetics case back from Del and pulled out a hand mirror. “Let me see!” She studied herself for a moment before she too whispered an almost silent “Wow.”
“It’s good, right?” Del said.
“It’s great,” replied Nola. After admiring herself for another few seconds, she lowered the mirror and said: “Now make me look more like myself, and I’ll be ready to rock and roll.”
Del dropped his chin to his chest and sighed, but he took up Nola’s challenge. He quickly added a bold contour of black liner around each of Nola’s eyes, then he wiped away her pink lipstick and replaced it with two rowdy swipes of Twisted Tangerine. After a few more artful adjustments, Nola was satisfied.
Nola still looked so beautiful, and Del brimmed with such unconcealed pride, I clapped my hands together and bounced on my toes. “Yo
u do have a savvy, Del! Or a superpower, or whatever you want to call it.” I looked from Tucker’s artistic cat face back to Nola’s glamorous, pop-star transformation. “You could be a makeup artist to the stars, making other people shine every day. If you’re looking for a new superhero name, Del, I think it should be Mr. Makeover Man.”
“Really?” Del cocked one eyebrow thoughtfully. “You don’t think being good at makeup is an embarrassing talent for a guy?”
“Don’t be dumb,” Tucker said, looking up from the sofa and twitching his rainbow whiskers. “Boys can like face paints and makeup too. Right, Gypsy?”
“Right, Tuck,” I agreed, beaming fondly at my little brother. Turning back to Del, I said, “You’re good at this stuff, Del, and you like doing it. Why should anything else matter?” Samson and Nola nodded their agreement.
Bolstered by our enthusiasm, Del squared his shoulders, puffed out his chest, and held up his arms like he was flexing mighty muscles. “Aw, yeah—get ready, people of planet Earth, Mr. Makeover Man is here!”
“Can I be next?” I asked, wanting to look and feel just as pretty as Nola. Wanting Del to work his same transforming magic on me.
“What?” Del dropped his arms and looked at me like I was crazy. “Nah, no way. You’re all that without a speck of makeup, Specs.”
I stopped clapping and stood still. Not sure what he meant. “All what?”
“All that,” Del said again, dipping his chin for emphasis. When I continued to blink blankly at him, he rolled his eyes. “Are you trying to be thick? I’m telling you that you’re already razzle-dazzle super-Specs-tacular just the way you are. I wouldn’t change a thing about you, Gypsy Beaumont!”
My mouth fell open. I was still trying to let Del’s words sink in when Nola popped up from her stool and snatched a blush brush out of Del’s hand. “Here, let me do it,” she said.
I was about to object, sure Nola would make me look like a clown if she were the one applying the makeup. Del must have been thinking the same thing; he reached out to try to stop her. But all Nola did was bop the brush against the tip of my nose, once. Like she was putting the finishing touch on a painting.
“There. Perfect.” She smiled. “That’s all you needed. Now you’re ready too!”
“Ready for what?”
“Ready to be my backup singer, of course! I’m guessing that you, Gypsy Beaumont, can bang a mean tambourine.”
EVEN THOUGH I’D ALWAYS loved tambourines, I’d never actually played one. When I’d pointed to a ribboned one in a store once, Poppa told me the house was already noisy enough, just with Tucker in it. My mouth went dry as Nola hooked her arm through mine. The thought of standing on a stage in front of a roomful of strangers made me want to send up an S.O.S.
What if there were a million more people like Shelby Foster in the world? What if half of them were crowded into the restaurant downstairs, ready to turn their backs on me at the first clink of my tambourine? Faced with the possibility of making a fool of myself in public yet again, I tried to convince Nola that she should perform alone.
“Are you kidding me?” she said. “You and I are going to throw the switch on this place, Miss Specs. Get ready to get your karaoke on!”
“What about Grandma and Tucker?” I asked as the others push-pulled me toward the stairs. “I vowed I’d never take my eyes off Grandma again.”
“Me and Grammy are fine,” Tuck called out. “We’re watching our shows.”
“I promise, it’ll only take five minutes,” said Nola. “Less than five minutes! Please come with me, Gypsy. The boys can stay up here and look after Mrs. B. I know exactly which song I want to sing. But I won’t go onstage without you. I’ve never actually sung for anyone before. You’re a teenager; you know what it feels like to have everyone staring at you. I really need a friend with me.”
Teenager? Friend? Did Nola really see me as those things? Inside, I secretly began to twirl. Or maybe that was just the nervous twist of my intestines.
“You can do it, Specs,” Del said. I looked to Samson for help, but all my big, dumb brother did was smile.
Two minutes later, I was standing on the karaoke stage. Holding a tambourine. Squinting into way too many lights and faces, and sweating in my pinching snow boots. How I wished my toes were free to wiggle!
If ever there was a time to stop time and run, it was now. But Nola looked so excited, I didn’t want to be the dark cloud that dropped a foot of snow on her parade.
Tap-clink.
Still uncertain, I bumped the tambourine once against my hip. Heart thumping, I looked out into the crowd. Everyone was smiling.
The music started with an energetic piano slide. A ten-second countdown appeared on a screen at Nola’s feet and on the monitors situated throughout the room.
3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . and Nola’s first lyrics popped up on the display.
At first, I tapped my tambourine as softly as I could, trying to match the song’s cheerful disco beat without looking too daffy.
Tap-clink.
Tap-clink.
Tap-clink.
Then Nola began to sing and I stopped tap-clinking altogether, forgetting my part in the production. Nola sang with the same zeal and gusto she’d shown when Samson and I had watched her through her bedroom window. It was an upbeat song. A song about a dancing queen who was seventeen. The only problem was . . .
Nola Kim couldn’t sing.
At all.
Her voice plummeted down . . . wavered . . . squeaked . . . wobbled . . . and then lifted high into the key of yikes for the chorus, making me flinch involuntarily.
I looked quickly around the room, overcome with collywobbles. My stomach somersaulted and my cheeks burned with embarrassment for Nola. I wanted to save her. I wanted to shoo her from the stage before the bachelorette ladies began to boo. Before any babies in the crowd began to cry. Before the soldiers began to throw whipped-cream-covered waffles. It was Nola’s moment in the limelight; I didn’t want anyone to make her feel like she was less than she believed she was.
Should I stop time? I wondered. If I did, I could drag Nola’s time-frozen body from the stage, rescuing her the same way Del and I had rescued everyone from the SUV before it crashed.
Feeling like a traitor, I inched backward into the shadows. But I soon saw that what Nola lacked in talent, she made up for in enthusiasm. And her enthusiasm appeared to be contagious.
As Nola kept singing, I realized that all my worry had been for nothing. There was no reason to stop time. There were plenty of reasons to savor the moment instead.
The bachelorettes weren’t booing; they’d raised their glasses, looking like they were having the time of the lives. The soldiers weren’t throwing things, but were clapping along. Even Laverne was dancing with a busboy half her size, executing two-handed loop-de-loops that made her towering wig jiggle.
I stepped out of the shadows, feeling terrible for having abandoned my duties as backup singer and tambourine player. Nola was counting on her friend. I refused to become another Shelby Foster. I wouldn’t turn my back on Nola Kim, no matter what.
Gripping my tambourine with fresh determination, I began to tap-clink it against my hip again—this time, with the same enthusiasm that filled the rest of the room.
I was surprised to see Del and Samson standing in the entrance to the hallway, enjoying the show. They were supposed to be upstairs with Grandma and Tucker. Apparently they hadn’t wanted to miss Nola’s debut performance. Samson glanced repeatedly over his shoulder, keeping watch over the door to Laverne’s apartment. He was staying vigilant—that was good.
My brother must have seen my concern; when I caught his eye and pointed upward, wordlessly indicating Grandma and Tuck, Samson gave me a reassuring thumbs-up, followed by an “everything’s A-okay” hand signal. Then he fixed his attention back on Nola, like she was a nightingale from a
fairy tale and he never wanted to stop listening to her sing.
Nola’s dream was coming true right in front of us. It didn’t matter that the real-life version wasn’t precisely how she’d pictured it. Or precisely in tune. There was a triumphant spark in her eyes, and her face was luminous. It was clear that in those few precious moments onstage at Volcano Laverne’s, with her name in lights outside, Nola wasn’t embarrassed. Nola was a pop star.
Following Nola’s lead, I began to tambourine my heart out, not caring how I sounded. I became so absorbed in the tapping and the clinking, I was the last person in the room to notice the commotion, the last person to see the sweating, red-faced man who was clutching at his throat. It was the startling thunk-clunk of Nola’s microphone hitting the floor, and the deafening, high-pitched skreeeeee that followed, that drew my attention at last.
“Someone call 911!” Nola pulled the plug on the karaoke machine and leaped from the stage in one fluid motion, headed straight for the choking man.
There was a moment of confusion, a murmured hullabaloo, and then the room fell silent. No one spoke. No one even whispered. We all held our breath as Nola set to work trying to clear the man’s airway. First, she gave him five hard blows to the back where he sat; then, when that didn’t work, she used the Heimlich maneuver to deliver five quick thrusts to his abdomen.
Once again, all eyes were on Nola. Only this time no one was dancing, singing, or tapping toes to a beat. The choking man’s face went from red to purple. His eyes looked like they were about to pop out. Several of the soldiers moved forward to try to help. But Nola quickly warned them off.
“Everyone, stay back,” she cried just before a short rib popped out of her patient’s gullet and flew across the room.
The man sagged heavily in his chair, breathing in ragged gasps. His family flung grateful arms around Nola, thanking her. When Nola freed herself from them and turned around, the crowd exploded into deafening applause. Laverne leaped onto the stage and stood next to me, motioning the crowd to its feet.