At this, I throw my hands up. “I’m sorry, Char. I’m so sorry.” I pause, stand up, tug at my one, two, three cardigans, doing nothing to ease this cold ache. “There’s so much I’m sorry for,” I tell her. A heavy sigh escapes me in one guilty breath. “Say something, Char,” I say, then I pull my shoulders back, stand up straighter, demanding a verdict.
Charlotte finally turns around, her face full of tears, and musters nothing but silence.
“Don’t you dare tell me it’s okay, Char. What I did was shitty.” My voice now screams the truth as I reach my crescendo of guilt. “It was so super fantastically shitty!”
She leans into the counter, trying to settle her trembling legs.
I walk over to her, forcing eye contact. “What? Want specifics? Okay. I abandoned my best friend, the only friend I ever had. Without as much as a phone call. Or a goddamned Christmas card. Not even when you were sick. Who does that?” My eyes well, and I try to will my tears to obey, but when I say, “I don’t even know your kids’ names,” my tears unleash.
“Connor,” she tells me as she looks past me toward the kitchen doorway at her second-born child. “This is Connor, my little sweetheart.”
When I turn around, I see her Connor—all freckles and strawberry-blond hair—standing in the kitchen doorway. He waves and then places his trombone case on the linoleum floor. Connor and I look at each other with the knowingness of recent acquaintances.
“And this,” she says when her sullen-faced teenage daughter sulks up and stands next to Connor, “is Janie.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Haughty, crude daggers shoot from the girl’s eyes. “Janelle,” she says in a biting tone that rivals mine when I’m dressing down a pompous producer. I tilt my head back to avoid the blow. “I like to be called…Janelle.” Unlike Charlotte’s muted red hair, Janelle’s is fiery, the waves angrily straightened out, and her flat, teenage midriff is on display without apology. Her nostrils flare, teenage-girl style, and OMG, she is not LOL. I’m not sure if I should cry over my best friend naming her daughter after me or apologize for it.
“It’s okay. I don’t like Janie either.” I give her an awkward smile, looking as out of place in this kitchen as a foreign film playing at the Déjà Vu Theater.
“I don’t hate the name,” Janelle-Not-Janie says, enunciating each word like it’s a sucker punch. “Only where it comes from.”
“Janelle Elizabeth Davis!” Charlotte’s eyes scold her daughter like only a mother’s could.
If Charlotte is an exhausted Julianne Moore, and Connor is an irreverent Opie Taylor, Janelle is a really, really mean Molly Ringwald. But I can’t help but side with her. Who can blame her? Janelle Davis is only protecting her mother from a best friend who abandoned her. She represents what everyone in True City thinks of me—just without the polite filter. Underneath her pissed-off exterior, I see a glimmer of softness, something that looks like she might have the capacity to forgive. When this shines through for a fleeting moment, the thought of having a child to love—to love me back—makes me sink even further into my chair.
Connor Davis now seems to be the yin to his sister’s yang, as he stands sweetly, at attention in the doorframe, prepared to tend to his mother, his sister, whomever might need it. He emits something that begs to be gobbled up, the kind of something a young girl might not yet know she wanted. Something simple but comforting.
Charlotte herds Connor and Janelle to the red Formica kitchen table, the same one her own mother had called her to each night growing up. The three of them sit down next to me, one on each side, and they stare, sober-faced, at the centerpiece: a giant pan of meatloaf. Perfect, tried and true.
I break the silence. “Smells amazing, Char.” A pregnant pause fills the room. “Is Steve back yet?”
Both kids now look even more uncomfortable hearing this question, and Charlotte doesn’t answer. Her gaze belongs to a woman who is somewhere else. “It’s the Mona Lisa, you know.”
My confused look prompts her to elaborate.
“The number one most recognizable painting in the world. Not American Gothic.” She comes back from wherever she was, slices up four pieces of meatloaf, and plops them on four Corelle plates. “The power of just one woman.” She speaks in a murmur. “Imagine that.”
“So we’re in second place.” I nod and look out the window at the photo-op cutout in the front yard, and two college kids who are putting money in the donation box and taking their picture in front of Charlotte’s American Gothic. “Second place isn’t so bad.” And then I notice Charlotte bristle. Was it second place that troubled her or my assumption that I’m part of it?
“Sorry for our mood, Janie.” Charlotte hangs her head, scrapes her fork in no particular direction across the meatloaf. “It’s… I don’t know if you’ve heard.” Connor and Janelle break all eye contact, a popular teenage coping mechanism. “Janelle’s best friend, Bliss… There was an accident.”
Janelle bursts into tears and scoots out her chair with teenage urgency. Mid-cry, her manners flare up, a sign of good rearing. “May I please be excused, Mom?” She sniffles.
Charlotte says yes by saying nothing at all and continues to poke at the perfect square of meatloaf.
I am amazed, horrified by the levels of sorry one human being can feel, and collapse further into my chair. Three more reasons to make it right, kid.
“Don’t eat this,” Charlotte says after she takes a bite of the meatloaf, the cornerstone of a happy family. “It’s cold.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Connor says, rescuing his mother from what any good midwestern boy knew was a failure. “I’m not hungry anyway.”
“Go ahead, honey,” Charlotte tells him, pointing her head toward the nearest exit before he even asks.
“Come again tomorrow,” he says to me on his way out. “You were good.” He stops, gives me a sad smile. “Linart’s right. She’d want us to keep going.”
“I met Connor earlier…happened to be walking by the new theater,” I tell Charlotte after Connor is gone.
So now it is just Charlotte and me, once again, like old times. Almost. “At least I didn’t ruin the corn,” Charlotte says with a resolve that makes me want to cry.
“Char, it’s okay, you went to the trouble.” I plunge my fork into the biggest portion of red meat I’d seen since the eighties. “Let’s just eat.”
Charlotte reaches over, puts her hand on mine. “Don’t. We waited too long. It’s not good cold.” She hangs her head. “And some things just shouldn’t be reheated. Maybe you should go.”
So this is what giving up looks like.
Charlotte gets up from the table, walks into a small room off the kitchen, and comes back with some sort of big scrapbook. “Here. Take it, Janie. It’s yours, really.” She manages a Mona Lisa smile.
I look at my friend, think about the time we’ve lost and that if I would’ve known, I would’ve called the meatloaf hotline just to hear Charlotte’s voice.
It’s not about the meatloaf, after all.
It’s never, ever about the meatloaf.
Chapter Twenty-Two
1993
I was sixteen years old, consumed with sixteen-year-old things, but all people were talking about were the crops.
Could they save us?
Our farmer neighbors focused on my birthmark one afternoon to take their minds off the impending farm crisis. With determined squints, then raised eyebrows, they all chimed in with their observations. I’ll be damned—that’s an ear of corn, Janie Willow. Farmers debate things only farmers would consider. Look at the hull. It’s not field corn—no dent in the center. It’s definitely sweet corn.
But like my birthmark, the bad news was here to stay. The news told me things I didn’t really understand. Interest rates skyrocketed. Land values plummeted. Reaganomics had done whatever it had done. John Cougar Mellencamp and Willie Nelson sang
songs about the farming crisis, and Farm Aid showed up on MTV’s Friday Night Videos. The Hawkeye football team wore ANF on their jerseys to show that America Needs Farmers. To make matters worse, it hadn’t rained in six weeks, and after the dry winter, the drought threatened the harvest crop, the only hope our farmers had. Charlotte worried her family would lose their farm, and families all around Crocker County braced for the financial devastation that was on the horizon if rain didn’t come soon.
All across Iowa, especially in True City, congregations prayed for rain. Methodists and Presbyterians filled their church marquees with God-inspired puns. Even God’s lawn is brown and Dear God, I’m thirsty. Love, Corn. Even the Lutherans attempted humor. May the rain be with you…and also with you. Right on cue, Catholics joined in with jokes about holy water. But no one laughed when two more weeks went by with no rain. Children started performing rain dances at recess. Teachers talked about worst-case scenarios. Parched cornstalks drooped alongside our dwindling hope.
With all of my friends going to church more than usual, I got curious. “Dad, how come we don’t go to church?” I asked one night at dinner. I had gone to Mass with Charlotte several times—Catholics didn’t mind if you wore jeans to church, which was cool—and the repetitive and aggressive stand-sit-kneel combos felt a little like Jane Fonda aerobics for sinners.
“It’s just a building, kid.”
It seemed ironic that our town’s only judge wasn’t a fan of judgment, but I kept my mouth shut. I figured my parents had figured out something everyone else hadn’t yet—that what really mattered was how we treated people, regardless of where one spent his Sunday or what was on their altar of choice. So even if my parents didn’t prescribe to organized religion, they were quite organized about helping others and were the first to volunteer for all of our local churches.
When True City’s Annual Corn Festival rolled around right before my sophomore year, Mom organized a craft booth for the Methodists, a food table for the Presbyterians, and a mock confession booth for the Catholics. Dad was grand marshal of the parade and helped make the Lutheran’s “Aw, Shucks” corntastic float.
When I told my parents I’d been nominated for that year’s Corn Queen and mentioned it was all a bit stupid, my practical mother surprised me with a dressed-down scolding. “Don’t be ungrateful, Jane Marie Willow. It is an honor, and you will treat it as such.”
“Okay, then,” I said, preparing to lose.
Mother dyed my Moonraker-inspired, white halter gown a maize yellow, and with the fresh greenery in my golden hair, I was a not-so-subtle tribute to corn itself. The other nominees, Lisa Heart, Cheryl Smith, Lori Richmond, and Charlotte, planned on playing piano and singing for their talent portions, so I thought I’d do something different. Really, really different.
It was heartfelt. It was risky.
But to me, it was exactly what True City was lacking, what they truly needed: a trip down memory lane and a healthy dose of hope. With the help of Charlotte’s church and my relentless door-to-door skills, I acquired all the necessary props. Then, for days, I practiced my routine in front of my mirror, sorting out the subtle nuances between making arm movements that said anguish versus despair and how to make a shaky pirouette act as a worthy transition of emotion.
On the day of the festival, Dad walked me to the garage, pulled off the tarp, and unveiled the long-awaited reveal of the fully restored Aston Martin. It had taken eight years, but the labor of love that I saw that day was worth every lost Saturday afternoon, every missed matinee.
“Dad,” I said, staring in awe. “She’s beautiful.”
“She is,” he said, looking back at me, taking in the sight of me in my festival gown, nervously adjusting the crown of Mom’s ivy resting on my head.
When Mom walked in wearing a blue chiffon dress that matched the blue Iowa sky—a total departure from her usual housecoat—Dad stood speechless for a beat, until he was able to speak again.
“My corn queens, your chariot awaits.” When he opened up the passenger door, we settled into the newly upholstered seats, rolled down the windows, and in the spirit of the moment, we let the fresh breeze tousle our hair as we headed toward True City.
Main Street was transformed into the nerve center of the festival, and every single person in Crocker County showed up. The residents of True City temporarily suspended their drought fears and celebrated. The smell of sugary funnel cakes wafted down Main Street. Corn was everywhere—corn dogs, corn pudding, grilled corn, roasted corn. Halfway down Main Street was a long table set up for the corn-on-the-cob eating contest. As we passed, True City’s hungriest devoured ear after ear, butter oozed, and mouths of all ages became motorized chomping machines. I imagined a Stand by Me puke fest if they didn’t slow down.
When the noon whistle blew, Charlotte and I made our way to the stage, a borrowed set of risers from our high school choir. We sat down in the first two folding chairs, and both of us laughed at how serious the other girls looked. Lisa sang her way through a creepy rendition of “Every Breath You Take,” Cheryl did a so-so version of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Lori attempted Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean,” and then Charlotte brought the house down with an angelic tribute to Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian.” The ladies’ auxiliary tapped their toes, clearly unaware that the lyrics warned a slutty not-so-Christian sister to tone down her sexual escapades.
After each contestant’s talent portion, Mr. Simon, the host, conducted the question-and-answer segment. The highlight being Cheryl Smith’s one word answer to his question: “What do you think the world needs more of?”
“Me!” Cheryl said, followed by the crowd’s uncomfortable laugh, a testament to midwesterners’ aversion to boastfulness.
When it was my turn, I put on tap shoes I’d borrowed from Charlotte’s cousin and took the microphone. “My dad wanted me to do Bond’s monologue from Diamonds Are Forever, but I thought our current, unfortunate situation calls for something…more personal.”
I cleared my throat and raised my arms. “We are people who value tradition. Am I right, True City?” I yelled, trying to rally the crowd, but they just stared blankly, looking exhausted and parched in the unforgiving sun.
“Um, well, here’s to…um…us?” I said, quieter, holding up an invisible glass full of invisible rainwater. “My performance today will be True City’s agricultural journey as told through…um”—my throat started to dry up along with all of True City—“the medium of dance.”
Mom and Dad, with front-row seats to this train wreck, were now wide-eyed with concern. Their looks said Dear God, I hope she has a plan B.
This was plan B. Plan A was a monologue from Stripes.
Long, uncomfortable silence. Blank faces staring back at me from the endless rows of folding chairs should’ve stopped me right there, but knowing when to stop has never been my strength. I cued my first background sign, one of many I’d painted last week with a set of watercolors I’d found in the garage. When I nodded to Cheryl, she held up her sign, which read 1920s and featured a happy ear of corn.
I started with whistling. Not my best, but clearly “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Then a hint of a notes—“Doo do do doot, do duh doo do doot do dah”—and then I did my best tap dance as recollected from abandoned dance classes.
With two clicks of my metal heels, I cued Mrs. Peterson at the piano, and she began to plunk away as I wielded my still-closed umbrella and attempted the Charleston, hands spastically waving like a flapper on crack. When the happy notes turned sad, I cued Charlotte. She walked my hand-painted tractor sign across the stage, depicting the passage of time, and Cheryl followed with 1929 and a sad ear of corn squished under the failing stock market.
Somewhere between my tossing of “Dust Bowl” dirt at the audience—Mrs. Smith was not a fan of this—and Cheryl’s upside down 1950s sign, I really lost the crowd. The w
atercolor ears of corn on my signs may have been getting happier as time rolled on, but the audience was not. Some were fanning themselves with the pageant programs, and most were just scowling, looking at their watches, bitter reminders of how long it’d been since their fields had seen rain. Mrs. Thomas whispered “Shh, it’s almost over” to her son Leo as she bounced him on her lap.
Was my jitterbug not up to par? I really thought my hand jive and my twist were quite good. Maybe I’d left out key parts of history. I should’ve paid more attention in Miss Fordham’s history class. Thank goodness there was still a lot of show left.
Just how much show was left seemed to show on my parents’ faces.
But they hadn’t even seen my Saturday Night Fever yet. Everyone loved disco, right?
By the time the real farm crisis of the eighties moved across the stage and the minor piano chords slowed to a painful cadence, I was sure I could save the show with a isn’t-it-comforting-to-know-things-have-been-worse? finale. Cheryl showed us a picture of a family being evicted from their foreclosed farm as I did a breathless running man trying to escape a bank note, then I cabbage-patched my way over to the edge of the stage to get the audience involved. With Mrs. Peterson and her piano really hitting all the right notes now, singing the hope of rain, I wondered why the crowd still looked so glum.
I moonwalked the length of the stage, which was hard to do in a tight evening gown and tap shoes, and when I surveyed the faces of True City, they did not appear to be fans of the eighties, but I knew what would save the moment: the dance move of the decade.
The robot.
Before my stilted, mannequin-like moves even made it to the other side of my body, I heard “Oh my God” come from somewhere in the front row.
It was Dad.
Things went downhill from there. In retrospect, maybe doing the sprinkler move during a drought might have been in poor taste. When I ripped my evening gown attempting the worm, I decided to call it quits.
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