Molly's Promise

by Sylvia Olsen

  The cramps in Molly’s belly and the thudding sound in her head reminded her that she had no choice. The people were there to hear her.

  Grandma put her fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. Within a few seconds, the noise had subsided and it was perfectly quiet.

  “Now I have your attention,” Grandma said. “If you can’t find a seat, lean against the wall. You are in for the performance of your life.” Grandma edged her way through the maze of chairs to the stage and climbed onto it. “We’ve done a lot of things in this living room, but this is the first concert.”

  Molly looked nervously around the room. There were people she recognized and some she had never seen before. She spotted a small woman with red hair and pale skin at the back of the room, half hidden behind other latecomers. Molly’s stomach clenched. The woman didn’t look First Nations. Molly thought of her own light hair and pale skin. She thought about how short she was compared to the other girls in grade seven. The lump in her stomach got caught in her throat when she tried to breathe. Maybe today was the day she would sing for her mom. But it wasn’t the right time for that. There were too many people here.

  “Hey, Gloria.” Grandma pointed at the woman. “Don’t hide there in the back. Come right up here. There’s one more chair.”

  Molly’s stomach churned.

  “Wow,” Murphy said. “Danny’s mom. I never thought she’d come.”

  Molly’s body felt weak. It almost hurt. Then she realized her dad wasn’t there. Why hadn’t he shown up?

  “We are ready, Molly, my girl,” Grandma said.

  Molly was limp. Her head felt like it was floating above her shoulders. Her voice was trapped in her throat. All she could hear inside her head was a dull thudding behind her ears. There was no music.

  She pulled herself up onto the stage next to Grandma and looked at the audience—at one face and then another. The people were smiling. They wanted to hear her sing.

  “We are in for a treat this afternoon,” Grandma said. “Our next Long Inlet star is about to be born on the stage.” She hugged Molly and said, “Take it away, Molly Jacobs.”

  Molly took a breath and looked around. No one moved. She still didn’t hear any music. She waited. She watched the crowd as it watched her. Suddenly she felt a faint rhythm in her pulse. And then, gradually, she began to hear music, as if an orchestra were playing in her head. Molly tapped her foot. She breathed deeply again. She found her note and began, “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy, fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high…”

  When she finished the song, the room exploded with applause. Uncle Maynard, her dad’s cousin, stood up and clapped so loud with his big hands that it sounded like he was beating a drum. Before he stopped, Molly said, “That was a George Gershwin song that Billie Holiday sang. I love her music. Next, I’m going to sing a Patsy Cline song. She’s dead, like Billie Holiday. But she’s one of my favorite singers too.”

  Molly closed her eyes and began. “I go out walking after midnight, out in the moonlight just like we used to do…” As the words came out, Molly forgot about the audience and about Murphy. She didn’t think about Paige or Nell or whether the other girls liked her. Molly sang and nothing else mattered.

  At the end of the song, Molly opened her eyes and looked at the people cheering. Grandma wiped her eyes, and Murphy’s mom blew her nose. Molly jumped off the stage and sat next to Murphy.

  He stood up and shouted to the crowd, “Do you want one more?”

  The people cheered, “More! More!”

  Murphy said, “Come on, Moll, they want more.”

  “I don’t know what to sing,” she said.

  “You must know tons of songs.”

  “I do, but I can’t think, Murphy. Not here, with all these people,” she said. “I’m not like an iPod.”

  When the clapping didn’t stop, Molly slowly climbed back onto the stage.

  The deafening sound gave her goose bumps. But she wasn’t afraid. She was excited, and she liked being on the stage.

  She stood quietly until the noise subsided. “I don’t know what else to sing,” she said.

  Then, without thinking, she began, “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas…” Everyone laughed to hear a Christmas song sung in March. When she finished, she said, “That’s all I have for you today.”

  Before she had even jumped off the stage, people crowded around to congratulate her.

  “Oh my, what a big voice for a little girl!”

  “You are going to win for sure.”

  “Where did you get a voice like that?”

  “We’re so proud of you.”

  “You’re going to make Long Inlet famous, Molly Jacobs.”

  They kissed and hugged her. Molly had never been the focus of attention like this before.

  Finally, Murphy held up his notepad and said to her, “Okay, when you are done hugging your fan club, we have things to talk about.”

  “Not now, Murphy,” Molly said. “Can it wait?”

  “Okay,” he said. “But we gotta talk.”

  When the last person had gone, Molly was alone on the front porch with Grandma and Celia.

  “The people who were here today are your family,” Grandma said. She squeezed Molly’s shoulders. “I want you to remember that when you are up there on the stage being famous.”

  Molly knew she would never forget. She loved how it felt to have family—a great big reserve family.

  “And this is from Uncle Maynard.” Grandma pressed a napkin into Molly’s hand. Inside it was a roll of bills. “He said to buy what you need. It’s on him.”

  “That’s awesome,” Celia said. “I volunteer to be your fashion consultant.” She laughed, then teetered as if she were wearing high heels.

  “Do I really need to dress up?” Molly asked, thinking how she hated wearing anything but old jeans and T-shirts.

  “You have to look exactly the way you want, honey,” Celia said. “But think about it. That money means you can try out some cool clothes. Why not?”

  Molly hadn’t thought about it that way.

  “Or,” Celia said, “it means you can get your hair cut, or get a manicure.”

  Molly spread her fingers out and looked at her grubby, ragged fingernails. She laughed. “Do you think a manicure would help me sing?”

  “How about Saturday morning?” Celia asked. “We can go to town.” She pointed to the napkin. “My guess is that you have enough for a great shopping trip. I’m going to chip in as well. And maybe you can scrounge a little from your dad.”

  Chapter Eleven

  When Molly got home, her dad was sitting in his favorite chair, watching the news. She flopped on the sofa across from him.

  “You missed some kind of crazy event at Grandma’s house this afternoon,” she said, covering herself with a blanket. “How come you didn’t come?”

  “I couldn’t get off work early enough,” he said, not taking his eyes off the TV.

  “Even Danny’s mom was there,” she said. “Uncle Maynard gave me some money. I’m going shopping with Celia Saturday morning. She said she’d chip in and that I should scrounge something from you as well.” Molly couldn’t believe how brave she was being. She usually didn’t like asking for money.

  “Of course, honey,” he said as he pulled out his wallet and looked at her.

  “I wish you’d been there,” she said. “At Grandma’s.”

  “I’m sorry, Moll,” he said, leafing through the bills in his wallet. “I support you, I really do, it’s just that…”

  “It’s just that what?”

  “It’s just that I’ve been really tied up with work. I’ve got a lot of things on my mind. But here.” He passed her five twenty-dollar bills. “Is that enough?”

  “It’s plenty,” she said. “I wish Mom had been there today.”

  He swiveled his chair so that they were face to face. “Molly, we’ve talked about this. Why do you keep torturing yourself with dreams that one
day she’s going to show up?”

  Molly stared out the window at the budding tree in the front yard. “I made a promise when I was little.”

  “And?” he prodded. “What promise?”

  “I promised myself that Mom would be the first person to hear me sing. That’s why I only sang in my head, to myself. Then you heard me, and then Murphy, and now everyone on the reserve,” Molly said. “Pretty soon everyone will have heard me sing except Mom. I broke my promise. But my voice couldn’t wait for her. I just had to sing.”

  He said, “I’m sorry, baby. I really am. But I’m glad you decided to break your promise and finally sing.”

  Molly sat up. “I’ve made a new promise though,” she said. “When I finally see my mom, I’m going to sing just for her. It’s going to be the first thing I do when I see her. My voice—it’s still a present for her.”

  Her dad looked confused.

  “Thanks for the money, Dad,” Molly said, changing the subject.

  “Get something that makes you feel great.”

  She put the money into her pocket. “I’ve never gone shopping like this before.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it,” he said.

  Murphy’s mom arrived at nine o’clock on Saturday.

  “Trev, we’ll be back around three, if that’s okay,” she said. “Unless, of course, you want to come with us.”

  Molly’s dad laughed. “No, you two go ahead. I’ll sit this one out,” he said. “Happily.”

  “Your girl is going to be a star,” Celia said, pulling a chair out and sitting down at the kitchen table. “Can you believe how she sings?”

  Molly’s dad said simply, “Yeah, I can.”

  He and Celia stared at each other for a moment in a way that made Molly realize she was missing something, something being said without words.

  Molly stood in the change room, glaring at herself in the yellow dress Celia had picked out. She looked like a daffodil. She tore it off and looked at her scrawny feet, her thin, tube-like torso and the space between her teeth. She was nothing but a scruffy little kid. Her hair hung in strings over her flat chest. Her butt didn’t even fill out her baggy undies. Her knees stuck out like giant knobs on her bruised legs. And, worst of all, hair had begun to grow under her arms, a pathetic announcement that one day she would be an adult. There were no other hints of maturing taking place, other than the greasy skin she had begun to notice around her nose. She got dressed, leaving the dress crumpled on the change-room floor, and tramped out of the store. “I hate shopping.”

  “Don’t give up so soon,” Celia said. “You have to get good at shopping. It’s like anything else—you have to practice.”

  “Practice, practice, practice,” Molly said. “I don’t want to practice.”

  “Okay, then,” Celia said. “How about we quit shopping for a while and find someone to do your hair?”

  “I’ve never had my hair done at a salon,” Molly said.

  “You’ll love it.”

  Molly concentrated on her face in the hairdresser’s mirror. Her fine, straw-colored hair was parted in the middle and straggled down the sides of her face and over her shoulders. Her eyes were so pale, it was hard to tell if they were blue or green. Her skin was light, but compared to the woman in the chair beside her, Molly realized, she looked tanned. Boring—that’s the best word to describe me, thought Molly.

  “So, sweetie,” the hairdresser said cheerily. She was a tall, lanky young woman with hair as black as shoe leather except for a shock of pink on top. “My name’s Reggi. What do we want to do today?”

  Molly shrugged.

  Reggi turned to Celia. “What does Mom think?”

  “She’s not my mom,” Molly quickly said, and then, worried that she had sounded snappy, added, “I mean, she’s my friend’s mom.”

  “Okay, friend’s mom. What do you think?” Reggi asked.

  Celia told Reggi about the competition. “So we need a winning haircut.”

  “Wow, cool!” Reggi said. “I’ve got a great cut for you.” She explained that she was going to cut bangs, layer the body and blunt the ends. “How does that sound?” she asked.

  Molly said, “Anything will be better than the haircuts Dad does.”

  When Reggi was finished, Molly swung her head from side to side. Her hair didn’t only look great. It also felt great.

  “Thanks,” Molly said. “I don’t look boring anymore.”

  Reggi stepped back and looked Molly up and down. “Girl,” she said, “you are not even close to boring. You got something inside you that most of us only dream about. You go get it, do it, love it, feel it. Just sing, girl, sing.”

  Molly brushed a few hairs off her shirt and felt something changing inside. She flicked her head again and watched her hair slither and glimmer.

  It wasn’t easy, but finally Molly found clothes that were right—a pair of high leather boots, jeans and a red T-shirt. She and Celia found a screen printer, and on the front of the T-shirt they had Sing Girl Sing printed in black letters.

  On Sunday, Murphy showed up at Molly’s house after breakfast, carrying his notepad. “Less than a week to go,” he said. “We have to rehearse.”

  “Morning, Murph,” Molly’s dad said.

  “Ya, hi, Mr. J,” he said, checking his list. “We haven’t even decided what song Molly’s going to sing.”

  “I think we all know she has to sing ‘Summertime,’” her dad said. “The judges won’t believe it.”

  “That works for me,” Murphy said. “What do you think, Moll?”

  “It works for me, too,” she said. She felt good that her dad was taking an interest.

  “And we haven’t decided if she’s going to sing a cappella or use music. What do you think?” Murphy asked.

  “Let’s go without music. No one else is going to sing that way,” said Molly.

  “Okay, no music,” Murphy said firmly.

  Molly’s dad and Murphy sat on the sofa.

  “We’re ready,” her dad said.

  After Molly had sung, Murphy said, “Good. That was really good. Next time, think of us as the judges.”

  She sang it again, wincing slightly at the thought of competing.

  “You didn’t look as happy that time,” her dad said.

  Molly scrunched up her nose. “I wasn’t,” she said. “I don’t like being judged.”

  Murphy said, “Get used to it. That’s what this is all about.”

  “For you, maybe,” she said.

  “Okay. This time pretend we’re the audience,” he said.

  Molly imagined hundreds of people watching her. She felt them breathing. No one made a sound in her imagination. No one moved. The more she sang, the closer they listened, until in the end they erupted like a flock of geese taking to the sky.

  “Wow, Moll,” her dad said. “I think you’re ready. What do you think, Mr. Manager? How can she do better than that?”

  “You’re right, Mr. J. And I think she likes an audience better than judges.” Murphy read his notes. “We need to check a few things. Clothing. Do you have something comfortable? Hair. It’s awesome, Moll. Tickets. Mr. J, do you have a ticket?”

  “Not yet,” her dad said.

  “No worries,” Murphy said, digging in his pocket. He handed Molly’s dad a rumpled ticket. “Grandma thought you might need one. She bought twenty tickets, or something like that. Everyone is coming early to get front-row seats. Molly’s going to have the biggest cheering section there.”

  Molly stood next to Albert on the sidelines of the soccer field on Sunday afternoon.

  “So, Moll,” Albert said, tapping a ball with the toe of his boots. “Are we going to win?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Molly said, taking her eyes off the boys, who were practicing shooting on Murphy in the net. “We’re a little weak on offense now that you aren’t playing. But we’ve got Murphy—what else do we need?”

  Albert slapped her lightly on the back. “I’m talking about
the talent competition.”

  “Oh, that team.” Molly nudged him back in a friendly way.

  “Yeah, that team,” Albert said. “Sorry I didn’t make your practice this morning. These days I feel like crap in the mornings. It sucks.”

  Molly had been thinking so hard about singing and soccer that she had forgotten Albert had gone for another cancer treatment.

  “And what about your team at the hospital?” she asked, noting the dark circles under his eyes and the grey color of his skin.

  “The doctor said we’re winning,” he said. “Three more trips to Vancouver and that’s it.”

  “That’s it?!”

  “Then I have to wait and see if the cancer is all gone.”

  Molly hated waiting. Waiting for a doctor to say whether or not you still had cancer sounded brutal. “Waiting must suck worse than anything,” she said.

  “I don’t care about waiting so much,” Albert said in a flat tone. “All I care about is not having any more treatments.”

  Molly didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t ever asked Albert what the treatments were like. He went down to Vancouver and then, after a few days, he returned, looking sick and tired.

  They stood quietly for a few minutes and watched the boys drill the ball at Murphy.

  “I have to win the game I’m playing,” Albert said.

  A lump formed in Molly’s stomach. Albert had more pressure on him than she wanted to think about.

  “I think you should sing to win as well, Moll,” he said. “’Cause if you can, you should.”

  “I hear you,” she said. “Thanks.”

  After a few minutes, Albert said, “Whatever you did to your hair, it looks cool.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Hey, Molly.” Nell ran to meet her as she entered the schoolyard the next day. “Your hair. It’s totally fantastic. I can’t believe it’s you. You look so…so…”

  “So…so what?” Molly asked.

  “So…fantastically cool,” Nell squealed.

  Molly laughed. “Settle down.”

  Nell reached out and stroked Molly’s hair. “You look older. You look hot. Paige is going to be soooo jealous.”