“In a little while,” said Aunt Jo, stuffing soft drinks into a cooler of ice. “You two have your own jobs to do before the party. Syd, you’re in charge of spreading this tablecloth. And Cass, will you close the storm cellar doors? We can’t have someone falling through that thing like a tiger trap.”
“Aw, how come I get the girlie job?” Syd whined.
Uncle Clay chuckled as he resecured Ye Olde Piñata Whacker to his worktable and began to carve its official name into it.
“Can it, Syd,” said Aunt Jo as she handed me the railroad spike they used to fasten the cellar doors.
I loved any excuse to peek into Aunt Jo’s storm cellar, that tiny underground room on the side of their house nearest ours. It’s not a regular shelter, stocked with things their family can’t live without. Instead it’s full of things their family can’t live with. Stacked on old shelves are dozens of jars with little notes crammed inside. Complaints. Bad ideas. Thoughts they don’t want to think anymore. Instead of canned goods, they call them canned bads. When Aunt Jo and Uncle Clay and Syd tell each other to Can it!, it means to put it in a jar and get over it.
The sun through the open cellar doors put a shine on some of the topmost jars, and I leaned till my neck hurt to try and read one of the notes.
“You know you can add something to that collection if you ever need to,” Aunt Jo said.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But all I’ve got is good thoughts today.”
“Well, we sure don’t want to put away the good stuff,” she said. “But if some bads ever show up, you know where to send them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Syd told me once that the first thing he ever canned was a napkin that said, Okruh is grose. Now I imagine Syd would write things like I hate repeating the sixth grade. Or I sure wish my dad could play football with me. The only complaint I could even muster at that moment was I wish moms had faster cars. It took my whole self pushing against those thick wooden doors, one at a time, to close up the cellar. Each thud made the jars tinkalink.
Syd waited for Aunt Jo to disappear into the house before he wadded up the tablecloth and stuffed it under the grill lid instead of spreading it on the table.
“If your dad is going to sell meat again this summer,” he said, “you think he could score me some mud bugs?”
Syd had told everybody at school he could pull apart a crawfish and eat it in three seconds. I figured he wanted to prove it.
“Doubt it,” I said. “Why don’t you get Fearless Fenwick to find you some? Maybe he’d let you fling them at his behind.”
Syd popped open a Fresca, gulped a mouthful, and skutzed it between his front teeth right at my face. “Flood of Misery!” he sputtered.
Scrambling to the cooler for something worse I could spit back, I caught sight of my dad standing puffed-up proud across the way on our doorstep.
“Got ’em!” he called out, waving a bulging bag of birds in the air like a winning bingo card. But no sooner did he stoop at the edge of the driveway to grant the dizzy birds their freedom, there came a little white Volkswagen Rabbit zooming up like a blur and stopping just shy of his feet. Panicky peeps came from every which way as Dad and doves scattered for their lives, the birds taking to the sky and my dad checking to see that all his parts were still there. When the exhaust smoke cleared, there was my mom, her knuckles wrapped tight around the steering wheel. Her car sat crooked on three good tires and one bad.
“You don’t mean it,” said Aunt Jo, holding a bowl of Funyuns and a fistful of bendy straws. Aunt Jo always said that when she could hardly believe something.
“Now, that’s what I call disturbing the peace!” Uncle Clay garbled out.
My dad stood stunned, holding that empty paper sack like he might well need to breathe into it. The car door swung open and my mom stepped one foot out onto the gravel, her hot pink sandal more high-heeled than I ever knew a sandal could be. A cluster of shrunken fruits sat just above the toe hole, and her toenails were painted to match the cherries. She gave a hold on a sec finger-wave out the door and reached to the floorboard for her things.
“Mercy me,” Mom said, unfolding herself from the driver’s seat. She came out with stuffed-full grocery bags hanging from all her fingers and a pink plastic box under her arm. I’d never seen my mom so tall or so tan. There were more little fruit clusters printed all over her dress, and the light breeze made the hem of it flap against her knees. Her hair looked more on-purpose than it ever had before, with layers and layers of flowy flippiness and flippy flowiness. To draw it, you’d have to take out all six of the browns from the crayon box and hold them in your fist together.
“Aunt Toodi, you look like a model!” said Syd. Aunt Jo mmm-hmmm’d in agreement as she helped Clay out of his wheelchair and held him steady by the back of his belt.
“Syd, you’re way too kind,” Mom said, wobbling in my direction first, just like I’d hoped she would. When she got within hugging distance of me, her eyes got little shines in them. And not those window-shaped fake shines you put on drawings of apples and balloons, but real shines.
“My girl,” she said, bending over me with her eyes closed and pressing her chin to the top of my head. I felt a tear land on my scalp and run right down the part in my hair. Mom smelled tons better than I ever imagined floodwater smelling. I held that first mom-air in my chest until it hurt.
“I’ll have to take a rain check on the giant hugs,” she whispered, nodding toward the grocery bags. “I’m losing the feeling in my pinkies.”
I’d never heard of a rain check before, but hoped it was something storm rescuers bought bags of souvenirs for their kids with. Over my mom’s shoulder I saw my dad across the driveway struggling to flick the last dove feather off of his sweaty arm. But when Mom turned in his direction, he suddenly got all frozen as she made her way toward him with the plastic bags bouncing off her hips.
“Sorry I almost flattened you,” she said.
“Water under the bridge,” said Dad. “Flood rescue has sure been good to you.” Then Mom and Dad hugged like two wrong ends of magnets, an invisible wavy-wiggly force keeping them from getting too close.
“Can I help you with the bags?” Dad asked.
“Oh, it’s a short walk, hon. I got it,” Mom said.
“Then I guess I’ll change that bad tire,” Dad said, struck with a shyness that wouldn’t let his eyes any farther off the ground than the tires anyway.
“Thank you,” she said, spinning around and flinging a smile in Aunt Jo and Uncle Clay’s direction.
“I see Funyuns. It must be a party,” Mom said.
“All for you,” said Aunt Jo.
“Can’t wait,” Mom said. “Would you all be so kind as to excuse me while I go put on my face real quick? The long drive’s given me a terrible case of the greasies.”
Aunt Jo lowered Uncle Clay back into his chair. Syd stuck a straw in each ear. Mom teetered back to the car and pushed the door shut with her behind.
“Come on, Cass. Let’s be girly,” she said over her shoulder, on the way up the back door steps. I moved so quick to catch up with her, the screen door didn’t even graze me as it closed. I’d never heard my mom use the word girly before, and it was sure worth leaving some Funyuns behind to find out what she meant.
From the corner of the kitchen, I watched as Mom dumped her bags out all over the floor, sending halter tops and capri pants and flowered dresses piling up near as tall as our washer. Once or twice when I was younger and more tender about things, I’d ask why she had to go on these trips, and she’d always say, “Cass, they just need a smilin’ face to help clean up the place.” The first time she ever told me that, she went straight out and had it airbrushed on a tank top: Here’s a smilin’ face to help clean up the place! I looked for that shirt to land on the pile, but didn’t see it.
“It smells kind of pet-store-ish in here,” Mom said. She sniffed at the air as if something was burning, but I didn’t mention the doves. Then she sca
nned the room from wall to wall, corner to corner, like when I check the shower for crickets.
“It looks like the church ladies haven’t let you go hungry,” Mom said, straightening the leaning tower of empty foil pans on the counter. “So what kind of potpies did you all get this time?”
“Mostly chicken and turkey,” I said. “There was a bologna potpie too, but we threw that one out, pan and all.”
“Well, speaking of wise moves,” Mom said, spotting our game board still set up on a TV tray next to the fridge. “I see you and your dad have been at the Scrabble again.”
“A little,” I said. We had actually been at the Scrabble a lot, but in Dad’s special way of playing, where he spells out a word like hero and then says something like, “You know, that mom of yours sure is one.” In fact, Dad does lots of goofy things to try and make things okay when Mom goes away. Like twisting little storm rescue scenes out of pipe cleaners. Or putting paper drink umbrellas on everything. Or making fog in a jar. My dad tries to fill in the empty part of the pizza when the Mom slice is taken away. Dad tries really hard to be the cheese.
“Sweetheart, would you mind carrying this last one for me, please?” said Mom, handing me the pink plastic box she had under her arm. It was like a mini pink version of the one Uncle Clay kept his tools in, and it had a squeaky handle.
“Whew…With all that weight off, my arms feel like they’re floating,” Mom said, play-flying her way down the hall.
“Come on, Cass. Fly with me!” she sang out, bumping framed SMART certificates and assorted “Thank you, Toodi Bleu, from the Mayor!” letters. I followed close behind, straightening each frame. In the bathroom, I plopped myself onto the counter, where a new Response Team recruit is probably too big to be sitting, but it seemed okay just that one time. Then Mom gave me a sudden squeeze that was longer and tighter than any time she’d come home before, a journal-cover-worthy squeeze that made me wish someone behind the shower curtain had a camera.
“Now, let me have a look at you,” she said, cupping my chin in one hand and smoothing my hair with the other. Even with a case of the greasies, my mom was so beautiful they could have designed a Storm Rescue Barbie after her.
“Cass, what’s this sticky all over your face?” she said.
“Fresca.”
Mom grabbed the washcloth and turned on the warm water. As she gently scrubbed my face, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was a poor storm victim she was helping. Like, if only I had some stuff for her to bandage, I could sit there all day with her tending to me. But without the actual blood and hurting, of course. When she stopped to wring out the dirty water, I let the questions flow like my own little flood.
“Did your cell phone not work in the storm area this time?”
“No phone reception in those parts, baby,” she said. “No power, no nothing. They were hit really hard.”
“So then, what’s Misery, I mean Missouri like?” I said.
“You know, Cass,” she said with a grin. “I’d really like to find out someday…when it’s not covered in water, that is.”
Mom dabbed at my mouth with the washcloth.
“There’ll be plenty of time for my stories at the party,” she said. “Now, you hold still just a sec.”
I could smell fresh nail polish as Mom lightly scraped at my face with her pinkie. She held her finger so close to my eyes it made them cross trying to focus on the two eyebrow hairs she’d lifted from my cheek.
“A wish for each of us!” she said, blowing the tiny hairs to nowhere.
That’s just like Mom. She’s always wishing on things. But not just on regular stuff like fallen eyebrows or shooting stars or coins in fountains. On weird things, too. Like on typos in the newspaper. Or on broken pieces of glass. One time, I even saw her make a wish on a cereal flake that looked like her old gym teacher.
But unlike Mom, I don’t make a habit of saying wishes out loud. I really only ever had one wish—to see the world with Mom—and Syd says that if you say the same words out loud over and over again, they’re in danger of losing all their meaning.
“Know what I wish?” she said. “I wish you’d tell me about Cass. I do hope you’ve kept that journal of yours filled in for me to see.”
“Sure did,” I said. “I’ve noodled every day.” And while Mom inspected every inch of her own face, with her nose almost touching the mirror, I was more than happy to tell her about Cass. In fact, I’d planned on my next words being, Mainly, Cass would very much like to become a storm rescuer. But instead, they came out more like, “I made a cyclone out of two Coke bottles for my final project last week, and the whole fifth grade thought it was cool except for Mean Maritucker Mentz, who called me a fartsy-artsy, thumb-sucking, goo-goo baby for talking about my weather-loving mom so much.”
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s patoot,” Mom said, fussing a fog circle onto the mirror. I’d planned on her next words being, Well, you just get me that girl’s phone number and I’ll make sure she doesn’t mess with my baby again. But somehow, instead, they came out, “I’ve got myself a zit.”
She said it like zeeyut.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, hon,” she said, with a pat to my knee. “But this here is one powerful blemish.”
I had to agree with her. It was an enormo pink shiny one at the top middle of her forehead.
“Is that your first-aid kit?” I asked as Mom slid the pink plastic toolbox over toward us.
“Sort of,” she said.
“Would you maybe teach me how to use that stuff?” I asked.
“I’ll be happy to,” she said. “Although, it may not be the kind of first aid you’re expecting.”
Mom undid the box’s main latch and lifted the lid to reveal an array of lotions, powders, sprays, and every possible shade of makeup. The box got bigger as she unfolded level after level of beauty supplies.
“You were thinking gauze pads and peroxide, weren’t you?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, like I knew what those were. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”
“Oh, from this precious lady whose salon was a mess of sludge,” said Mom. “I helped her salvage some of her chairs, and she gave me all her samples as a thank-you. I’ve been enjoying being kind of fixey-fixey ever since.
“So,” she continued, “since we got folks and finger food waiting for us next door, how about I give you a few quick rescuing and beauty tips mixed together?”
I thought that was an awes idea.
“Let’s see here,” she said, rummaging through the bottom level of the box. “The lesson that’s first…Be prepared for the worst.”
I figured there might be a rhyme coming. My mom was born to rhyme. Dad says she burps, sneezes, and snores in rhymes.
“As a rescuer, you never know where you’re going next, or what’s going to be waiting for you there. But if you’re well prepared, you can handle anything.”
Mom unloaded a whole lineup of creams and said, “Take this bump of mine, for instance. A dot of this and a smear of that should cover it right up.”
She held her bangs back with one hand and applied a zeeyut potion with the other. After re-lidding all the jars, she pulled a pointy-handled comb from another level of the box.
“Lesson number two…Comb all the way through.”
Mom ran the comb through my hair so hard it made static crackle in my ears.
“After a devastating storm, never leave a house unsearched, no matter what a tangle it’s in,” she said, hitting a knotty speed bump at the back of my head. “Cass, I swear, you’re just like your momma with this one piddly wave in your hair.”
I figured if I couldn’t have my mom’s flippy flowiness, I could at least be proud of having one piddly wave in common with her.
After that, Mom grabbed a little roll-on deodorant from the box and said, “Lesson number three-o…Some deo for your b.o.” We looked at each other and busted out laughing.
“In other words, don’t let the people you’re helping know
that you’re so scared your teeth are sweating,” she chuckled.
Right about then, I saw the corner of something familiar sticking out from under a collection of lipsticks in the middle level of the pink box. I pulled at the corner to reveal my wrinkled old fourth grade school picture. When Mom saw it, a tear as tiny as a dewdrop formed in the corner of her eye.
“Just a little friend I always take along with me,” she said, tilting her head toward the light to let the tear slurp back in. “And that, my friend, brings us to lesson number four, for when the tears start to pour.”
From that same middle level, she picked out an eye shadow duo the colors of peas and corn, along with a long tube of mascara.
“Flood-proof eye makeup,” she said. “Want to try a little?”
“Sure,” I said, wondering if this would be our daily routine out on the road together.
As she applied the shadow to my lids in slow, smooth strokes, Mom said, “Just look at how this chartreuse and goldenrod shimmer on you.” She kept having to smush her wrist to her cheeks to smear off some runaway tears.
Usually, you’d rather touch a slug than to see your own mom get all weepy-eyed, but it feels kind of nice when it’s because she’s been missing you so bad.
“Land sakes,” she said. “That Alabama pollen has already got my allergies going, don’t it?”
I couldn’t remember my mom ever having allergies before, but as she dabbed and dabbed again, something else caught my attention real quick. Something that shimmered tons more than eye shadow. It was my mom’s charm bracelet all crammed full of new charms, way more crowded than I remembered it being. A palm tree, a beach ball, a dolphin. It looked like her little Cass-head silhouette charm was squished between a seahorse and a sailboat.
Just about the time I finished studying the charms, Mom did the last swipe of shadow on my lid and reached over to open up a special side compartment of the pink box.
“I’ve got something here that you might want to have, Cass. It may still be a little big on you, but it seems fitting to go ahead and pass it on to someone who’s well on her way to being another smilin’ face to help clean up the place.” From the little chamber, she pulled out something that needed to be unfolded in five directions before I could tell what it was. When she laid the airbrushed tank top across my lap, it felt like she’d covered me in a quilt made of fifty satiny first-place ribbons that I myself had won.
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