Lady Sunshine

by Amy Mason Doan

  So she’d tested this—I liked her all the more for it. My cousin and I were different in almost every way, but we had this one secret, taboo pleasure in common.

  I said it with complete understanding and admiration: “Willa, you spy!”

  9

  You Show Me Your World and I’ll Show You Mine

  One week later

  Squeeeeeeeak.

  Willa’s bike chain outside my cabin. Next would come her gentle knocks.

  Tap, tap, tap. “Jackieeee...”

  As she opened the door, I closed my eyes and breathed heavier. I liked to prolong my wake-up ritual. The questioning softness with which my cousin said my name, the way she almost sang it, made me excited for the day, no matter how obscenely early it was.

  “Jackieee... Are you up?” She sat at the bottom of my bed and I could smell her hair, wet from the ocean. A salty-kelpy freshness. She’d come straight from the beach; she always surfed from five ’til eight.

  “Hmmm. What time is it?”

  “I have no idea. But c’mon. I’m taking you to the swing this morning, remember?”

  I pulled on the cutoffs I’d made from my Glorias under the shirt of Willa’s I’d slept in, not brushing my hair. Patricia would have taken one look at me, pursed her lips at the sight of my unruly ends, and whisked me off to Giovanni’s Salon.

  “Url, eez,” I said, through a mouthful of toothpaste, circling my index finger in the air. Twirl, please.

  Willa turned, modeling today’s costume: a lacy lavender blouse, a red scarf as a belt, and a mustard-yellow peasant skirt, knotted at the hip so it wouldn’t catch on her bike chain. I never knew what Willa would be wearing when she showed up at my cabin, only that it’d be bright and floating and something I’d have looked absurd in. I’d been here for sixteen days and hadn’t seen her in the same outfit twice.

  By the time I hopped on my bike she was far ahead, sun flashing off her chrome fender.

  We ditched the bikes when the trail got too steep, hiking the rest of the way up to an ocean-facing cliff, to the Flying Swing. It hung from a tree so wind-battered that every limb was horizontal.

  “This isn’t our land, it’s the state’s, but hardly anyone else knows it’s here,” she said, holding the plank seat for me. “So it might as well be ours. Our magic little scrap of earth, Daddy calls it.”

  I stared up at the ropes, knotted to a limb so high I couldn’t tell how secure it was. At least I didn’t have to climb again—only sit. I settled myself, gripping the ropes.

  She pulled me back slowly, dramatically, and I felt it, the creak-creak-creak anticipation in the pit of my stomach, the delicious dread of ascending a roller-coaster hill. “Did your dad put it up?” I asked nervously.

  “A friend did, when I was a toddler.” She always referred to Graham’s summer visitors as “friends.”

  “That’s far enough,” I said. She’d pulled me so far back I couldn’t see anything but the ocean, hundreds of feet below.

  “Okay. But don’t worry, even if you fell off, you’d just land on the grass. Promise not to look down, though...it spoils the illusion. Watch the patterns of sun on the water, try to find words. I do that sometimes.”

  She didn’t push me, only released her fingers so I could fly. The first swing was terrifying, and I peeked to find a gently sloping hill cushioned with soft ferns. Even a bad spill wouldn’t be fatal. I relaxed, but exhilaration made me admit it—“I looked!”

  “It’s okay...” Whoosh, as I lost her voice under the wind in my ears. “...time!”

  I knew what she’d said. It’s okay, you’ll do it next time.

  Willa hopped on easily then, and never looked down, never hinted that she was tempted. She gazed straight up at the sky, her long hair flying behind her in a bright mass, its ends hiding the swing’s seat.

  After my swing initiation we retrieved our bikes, crossed the Kingstons’ makeshift parking lot, and headed to the beach, as we’d done every day since our détente. The first time I’d followed Willa down this trail on one of the Kingstons’ battered, brakeless cruisers, I’d dragged my feet. The route was rutted and bumpy and full of dicey turns, and ended in a hair-raising trip through a metal storm drain under the road. But I was learning the way, trying to memorize every switchback and dip and low-hanging tree limb that required a perfectly timed duck.

  We spent our morning kicking foam, collecting sea glass, talking.

  “Tell me a school story,” Willa said, bending to pick up a struggling baby crab, settling it gently closer to the water.

  “Hmmm. Once I stole my calculus teacher’s mint wrapper box because of Tina Alverson’s period.” This was how I always began my stories for Willa—with something outrageous and true. My version of once upon a time.

  Delighted: “What?”

  “So there was this girl named Tina Alverson...”

  As we sloshed through the shallows, I told Willa how I’d stolen Mr. Stengwatts’s prized box, the one it had taken him years to make from hundreds of Andes mint wrappers. Payback because he’d shamed Tina Alverson at the blackboard for the rusty stain on her pants.

  “Justice with Her Flaming Sword,” she said dreamily. Willa enjoyed my school stories so much that I was tempted to embellish. But the truth impressed her plenty. Apparently, I’d spent most of my time in San Francisco avenging wrongdoing. I hadn’t realized. I’d thought I was just messing around.

  But I liked this reflection of myself in her clear blue eyes.

  “He was nicer to Tina after that,” I said. “I suppose if I was really noble I’d have confronted him.”

  “You’re too modest. Tell me another—”

  “Look!” I’d spied something deep blue between my feet, a telltale stillness in the restless tide. I scooped it up, showing it to her in my palm. Indigo sea glass—the rarest color, and the hardest to spot underwater.

  She was next to me in a heartbeat, so fast my palm was still sieving water. “It’s gorgeous,” she said, brushing her wind-whipped hair out of her eyes to inspect it. “Almost a perfect circle.”

  “For your collection.” I tried to hand it to her.

  “No. You keep it. Start your own collection.”

  I put it to my eye like a monocle. The fog was burning off, and the dark blue glass gave the bright beach a moody, vintage tint. I held it over Willa’s eye to show her.

  “Not rose-colored glasses, but...what?”

  “Sky-colored glasses,” I said.

  “You always put things the exact right way.”

  * * *

  When our hands were full and our feet were numb, we walked our bikes back uphill and lazed in Willa’s bedroom. I loved looking at her pictures on the shelves next to her sunny window seat. A family photo taken last spring, with Graham between Willa and Angela in the sun, on the field. One of Willa at seven, standing between Angela and Graham at Woodstock, helicopters in the background. Graham with his long arms slung casually around various muddy but intense people.

  “He didn’t play there or anything,” Willa’d said. “He only went to see some friends.”

  I was slowly making my way through her albums—two bookshelves full—and today I reached C. She organized her albums by first name, not last, as if the rows of gods and goddesses were old friends. I’d brought a dozen of my favorite LPs with me, and while Willa had taught me about her J singers—Joan Armatrading and Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins—I’d introduced her to Blondie, Andy Gibb, Shaun Cassidy, and Hot Chocolate.

  I wasn’t always sure it was a fair trade, but Willa analyzed the lyrics of “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Shadow Dancing” as seriously as the poetry woven by her folk geniuses. She said all songs were stories.

  “Willa, are you kidding me?” I said, picking up a copy of Cat Stevens’s Tea for the Tillerman signed To little Willow, grow up strong, above an a
ctual sketch of a willow tree.

  “Oh, that. Some guy at my dad’s label arranged it years ago. It’s not like we met. But that was neat of him.”

  Neat. Just neat. I slid the album back into place between Carole King and Donovan. Willa was always like this, blasé about things other kids would’ve bragged about.

  “Do you miss that stuff?” I walked to the window and watched Graham laughing in the pool below, the center of a small circle of friends. I held my indigo sea glass over my eye, and the sky turned dark blue. Instant storm clouds.

  “What stuff?” she asked.

  “Your dad traveling, the big shows?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “He’s happier here. Apart from all that.”

  “You’re a nicer person than me. I’d miss it.”

  We were so different. If we weren’t cousins, would Willa and I be friends? If she’d gone to Vaughn Academy, would she have been like the rest, and called me Supertramp?

  “What’s that taste like?” she asked, about the Coke I’d bought at the gas station and snuck up here under my shirt so the Kingstons wouldn’t spot it. They had strong opinions about the Coca-Cola company.

  “Hmmm?” I asked, watching the scene on the field below. A woman had joined Graham’s small group on the grass with her dog, a little shaggy thing, and it was running wildly from person to person inside the small circle, enjoying the hands and bare feet outstretched to pet it.

  “Your Coke. What’s it like?”

  “Umm. Sparkly liquid caramel.”

  “That sounds like one of your K-Tel disco albums,” she said.

  “It does, actually.”

  She came and stood next to me at the window, leaning close. “So can I maybe try just a—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just a teeny bit would be fine... You know I regulate my blood sugar better than most adults. I pay attention to my body.”

  True. She bought gallons of custard from General Custard’s but always let it melt, untouched, into yellow soup. I suspected she bought it only because she liked Liam, the surfer who worked in the shop part-time. He flirted with her, too; last time she’d ordered a sundae, and he’d cranked the radio up on “Sunday Girl” as a little joke (and got points with me for being a Blondie fan).

  “I’m not worried about your blood sugar,” I said. “I am worried about tempting you into supporting the military-industrial complex. Your parents’d have a cow if you touched it.”

  “They’ve never made an official rule against it. They just assumed I’d think like they do. I only want to see what the fuss is.”

  I yanked the bottle away fast, joking around, and a few fizzy drops spattered onto her arm. I knew what was next.

  “It’s a sign! I touched it! No, it touched me. Even better.”

  I laughed, knowing it was pointless to argue now; Willa saw signs everywhere, even in a few wayward drops of soda. “One sip, Wills, I mean it.”

  She took a small mouthful, pronounced it “gross,” and handed the bottle back. But she was excited, I could tell.

  “What’ve you never tasted?” she asked.

  “Hmmm. I never ate a carob brownie before I came here, and we know how well that turned out.” I’d spat the chalky brown mess behind a tree when no one was looking.

  “Tasted...or done. What’ve you never ever done because your parents...I mean, your family assumed you’d be a carbon copy?”

  “How long do you have?”

  “Well, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Jackie Pierce has never ever ever...”

  “Slept on the beach.”

  “That’s perfect! We’ll do it tomorrow night, it’s a full moon... You’ll love it. What if...”

  “What?”

  “We write down things we’ve never done, but want to...and check them off. It’ll be so much fun! ‘You show me your world and I’ll show you mine,’ like in my dad’s song.”

  Oh, Willa. She’d never been taught to conceal her excitement, to act cool. It seemed obvious to me that everything about her was a hundred times cooler than me, even—no, especially—her innocent ideas of fun. Cool rhymes with fool, as the song said.

  But Willa was convinced that I was the sophisticated one. I wasn’t about to disabuse her of this idea.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  After an hour of scribbling, we had this—

  Willa

  Try Coca-Cola X

  Eat at a McDonald’s

  See a horror movie—Amityville?—in a theater

  Learn The Hustle

  Go to a real disco (and do The Hustle)

  Jackie

  Spend the night on the beach

  Get up on surfboard

  Memorize Jonathan Livingston Seagull

  Recite JLS out loud, alone, on the tide pools at sunrise

  Train myself to not look down on the Flying Swing at the cove

  Willa approved of my list immediately, though at first she was convinced I’d chosen the Jonathan Livingston Seagull reciting one—something she did all the time—just to flatter her. I hadn’t. I admired Willa’s ritual and picked it because the prospect of being out there by myself on the vast outcropping of rocks scared me. So much aloneness. No one within kissing or arguing distance to fill the void.

  I was less flattered, reviewing her choices. “Coke and McDonald’s and horror movies? Is that my world? Is that me?”

  “They’re not the important things.”

  10

  Mashup

  1999

  Fifteen days after Jackie’s arrival

  Two a.m.

  At home when I can’t sleep, I play the piano—happy pieces. Mendelssohn, the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Fairies and harmless mischief and young love, and everything turning out all right in the morning. I may live in a dark basement apartment, but at least I can play whenever I want without disturbing my neighbors.

  But here, one chord on the Rec Room piano would wake Shane. My new housemate—how odd.

  Instead I stare at the ceiling, picturing the second floor. The main bedroom, hall, linen closet, powder room. And, right above me, Willa’s bedroom. Lavender quilt. Dried flowers on the walls. Posters of her J singers: Joan and Joan and Joni and Judy.

  Jackie’s a J, she’d said to me once, thrilled.

  Well, unfortunately I don’t have a J voice, I’d told her.

  But you have a voice...

  I try to imagine ripping those posters down, offering up her gauzy blouses and flowing skirts for strangers to paw. The thought alone of walking upstairs has me anxious.

  What will I find up there?

  But my piano craving is a physical need, strong as hunger, and there’s another option, besides the battered Rec Room upright, that I know I won’t be able to resist.

  I creep down the hall, past Kate’s dark room off the kitchen, where Shane’s asleep. Down the cramped stairs to the studio, through the first door. I close it behind me, feel my way in blackness to the second, soundproofed door, which I push behind me until I hear it click.

  The winking mixing board lights act as a beacon as I move toward the live room and the final door. Three doors, total.

  I never came down here, never saw Angela or Willa visit, either. It was Graham’s domain, and still looks like him—the saturated colors of the rugs, the faux-medieval needlepoint tapestries on the walls, with patterns of deer and castles. But many of the instruments and mics and stands are new, and there’s evidence of Shane’s obsession everywhere—papers, books, liner notes he’s studying. Someone’s left her purple shawl on a chair.

  It’s a relief; I prefer it this way.

  In the dim light, I sit at the piano and play the Midsummer Night’s Dream overture I’ve been craving. Then a lullaby, a lazy riff on Brahms, or something I dreamed
up. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference.

  I transition to “Mockingbird,” and I sing. My thin, raspy voice has not improved much with time or practice, but I don’t mind anymore. Next up: “More Than a Feeling.” When I was in college, playing supper clubs for spending money, I always made good tips with Boston. I was on a merit scholarship, and I’d stopped cashing my father’s checks by then. I play the theme song from Fame. “Pop Muzik.” I play louder, pounding out “The Love Cats.” “This one goes out to you, Toby,” I say, pointing at the ceiling. My laugh turns into a yawn.

  It’s miraculous, how much better I feel. I stand, instinctively open the bench seat to look inside. Sheet music, pencils, a busted metronome—nothing else.

  I shut the lid.

  “That. Was. Awesome.”

  I spin around—Shane. Clapping. Grinning. Sitting behind a long Orange amp like it’s a café table and I’m the live entertainment. He’s in a rumpled T-shirt, his hair standing on end.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. At first I didn’t want to scare you. Then I didn’t want to stop you. You’re good! I’ve never heard anyone mash up Boston and Brahms.”

  “So you fell asleep working down here?” I finally muster. Wait. He’s wrapped in the blanket from Kate’s bed. He’s got his pillow and book and everything in a little alcove behind the amp, on a neatly folded Persian rug he’s made into a sleeping mat. He didn’t drift off while working; he planned to crash down here.

  “Oh, yeah...” He pulls his blanket tighter around his waist and tucks it in like it’s a bath towel. I don’t see any pajama bottoms—he must be down to his boxers under there. Or his briefs.

  The absurdity of the situation hits me and I can’t help smiling. “I came down here to play so I wouldn’t wake you up. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” he says, grinning. “I enjoyed the show. I mean it—you’re really talented.”

  I roll my eyes. “I haven’t won any prizes.”

  “Lately. Ms. First Place in the All Massachusetts University-Level Classical Tournament, 1984.”