I laughed, but my brain immediately stuck to this clue about Micki. Had she grown up in a religious household? My mind scrolled through great nature versus nurture debates. Micki held a pen the same way I did, too tightly and with the middle finger curled in. She flattened her lips when in deep concentration, just as I caught myself doing when focusing on a particularly challenging client. We both had a fairly dramatic arch to our brows, and the wrinkle running from my inner right eyebrow to the bridge of my nose would one day mimic Micki’s deep crevice in the same spot. That was nature at work, passing things along, deepening a connection between two people whether they were aware of it or not. I made a mental note to try to get some alone time with Micki. I wanted to explore these connections, to clarify them before my time with her had to come to an end. And it did, I admitted to myself. I couldn’t keep up the ruse. When I’d told my mother I was driving out to Willow Falls for a client’s event, she’d scoured me with her eyes and only said, “Sure thing.”
“Send him a message,” Kylie demanded, interrupting my thoughts. “Tell him you’re awesome, and you’re looking for someone awesome.”
“I don’t know if that will come across the right way, sweetie,” Heather said. She hesitated, hands poised above the keyboard. “This is harder than I thought. Maybe I should think about it for a few days.”
I slid the laptop away from her. “Want me to take charge?”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Nope.”
Heather turned away. “Do what you will. Just don’t tell him anything really personal. Keep it light. Don’t mention . . . anything. Tell him nothing. Maybe just say hi.”
Cupidworks direct message:
Heather to Mel
Hi, Mel! Want to meet for coffee?
I hit “Send” and flipped the laptop around to show Heather.
“That’s it?” she said. “That’s all you wrote? He’ll think I’m a cheerleader or a gold digger or a totally jaded serial dater who doesn’t even bother to engage.”
“You’re the one who said not to tell him anything,” I said. “He’s going to think you want to skip the small talk BS and meet in person. That means you’re direct and wonderfully old school.”
“Really?” Though she sounded skeptical, I detected a note of hope in Heather’s voice.
“Really.”
Micki grabbed a couple of dresses from the couch where we were sitting. “Okay, ladies, it’s time to get to work. Operation Cleanup is under way. We might not make it out alive.”
I took in the mess before us. “You might be right.”
Heather and Kylie scooted off to the front of the shop with Micki. Before they could notice I wasn’t with them, I logged on to Cupidworks, curiosity getting the better of me. A small number 1 next to my name told me I had a direct message.
To my surprise, my heart shuddered with equal parts alarm and dread. Who would it be? Every nerve in my body vibrated. I had to admit—anticipation for a situation I controlled held a certain kind of allure. I could respond or not respond. I had the ultimate say-so. Entirely. Up. To. Me.
I took a deep breath and clicked. A message box appeared. It was shaped like a heart.
Cupidworks direct message:
Matt to Ally
Be careful on here. Don’t settle. Don’t jump in without thinking. Don’t accept anyone less than worthy of you.
You became less than worthy of me, I thought, my hope sinking. And I of you. I started typing.
Cupidworks direct message:
Ally to Matt
Then I couldn’t think of anything to write. And in a moment rare for me, I didn’t say anything at all.
“Let’s make a shopping list,” I said, grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen from Micki’s desk. “We need to organize this in a way that makes sense for your particular kind of client.”
“A shopping list?” Micki frowned. “I don’t have much of a budget.”
“More like a list of things we need to do,” I assured her. “My mom taught me how to do this.”
She blinked at me, and glanced around to make sure Kylie was out of earshot. “Am I ever going to meet her? We never . . . had contact. Can I sit down with this woman who raised my niece?”
“She’s my mom,” I said. “Not this woman.”
“I know, honey. I just want to meet her.”
“I told Kylie who you really were, but I haven’t told my mother I’ve been coming here,” I said, ashamed to admit it. “It’s not you, I just don’t think she’d like it very much.”
“You don’t want to hurt her.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
Micki frowned. “We can’t have much of a relationship then, can we?”
My heart fluttered. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t have much family left,” Micki said. “Sandy, Radha, even Bernie. Those are my people. I’d like you and Kylie and Heather to be my people too.”
I wanted to say she barely knew me. I couldn’t. Time didn’t matter much when hearts aligned, and that’s what was happening between us. I could feel it. “I want that too. I don’t know how to do all of this. I love my mother very much, and I feel a hundred pounds of guilt on my shoulders when I walk into this shop. But I keep walking in, you know? That’s mostly because of you.”
She nodded. “That you want to is good enough for now. So, how do we write this shopping list?”
“We jot down everything we absolutely need to happen. Then we check them off while we do them so we stay organized.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been organized,” she said, laughing, “but I guess now is as good a time as any.”
That didn’t come as a surprise. The Not-So-Blushing-Bride held a variety of products, but the stock was so jumbled, it was difficult for a bride-to-be to get a handle on what she needed. Micki had set up a one-stop shopping emporium—she offered makeup and skincare for the over-forty set; Spanx, lingerie, and hosiery; shoes; jewelry; hair accessories, including extensions and wigs; and of course, the bridal and bridesmaids gowns, many designed by Micki herself. She had a corner devoted to advertising materials from local florists and photographers, and a white, shabby chic bookshelf stuffed with hundreds of bridal and travel magazines. A Willow Falls lawyer specializing in family law had made a banner declaring 10 percent off on prenups for Aunt Micki’s clients. The problem was, it obscured a destination wedding display when it should have been covering up the section of the store related to bachelorette parties. I tried to keep Kylie away from the penis straws, Kama Sutras, and feathered handcuffs. Given the clientele, that section also had information about Viagra; eco-friendly, nontoxic lube; and something called vaginal rejuvenation, a process I hoped I never had to learn the details of.
“Women come in here for the perfect dress,” I said. “Everything else is necessary, but secondary. We need to set up everything in a U shape, your most impressive dresses hanging right by the door, then intersperse racks of dresses throughout, with bridesmaids dresses adding dashes of color.”
Micki gave me a side hug. “My niece is so smart. Glad you aren’t just a pretty face.”
We got to work. Everyone pitched in, even Bernie, who sported a pillbox hat with a veil, a la Jackie O. “I’m trying it out,” she said when I asked her about it. “You have to live with something for a while to know if you really like it.”
Radha smiled but rolled her eyes when she heard that one. “She’ll reject it,” she muttered to me, “just like everything else.”
Today’s sari was purple with pink piping. I wondered where she got them.
Sandeep showed up a few hours later, in full zombie regalia, and pitched in. When we’d gotten the main room in some kind of order, Micki and I attacked the storage room, making a clean line of separation between overstock and her workstation, where she sewed dresses and made alterations. I noticed a familiar fabric in the stack next to her Singer.
“Do you make Radha’s saris?”
<
br /> Micki ran her hand over the fabric. “It’s something we started doing together when she moved in.”
I didn’t know how to politely ask what I wanted to know, so I just let it spill out. “Can you really adopt her?”
“I hope so,” Micki said. “I’m optimistic, but Sandy is more realistic. We’re older than is usually allowed. On the other hand, it’s definitely more difficult for a sixteen-year-old to find a home. Most of the older kids live in state-sponsored facilities, waiting for their eighteenth birthdays. Her birth name is Rolanda, by the way. She said she wanted to be called Radha after living with us for a few weeks, and we obliged. She’s really taken to Sandy. He had a daughter, but his ex-wife took her back to India years ago. Deval is an adult now, and they only have sporadic contact. It’s been hard on him.”
I tried to imagine Kylie becoming a stranger to me. I couldn’t.
“I really hope it works out,” I said, squeezing Micki’s hand.
“So do I,” she said. “I mean, it worked out for you, right?”
“It did,” I said, wondering if I’d only imagined the edge to her voice when she said it. “My mom is a good person. She gave me a lot of love, just like you’re giving Radha. I can see how much she glows in your presence.”
Micki smiled, but it was tempered by sadness. “I know how to do that now, give love. It’s a very hard thing to learn if you didn’t grow up with it. Sandy helped, that’s for sure, but Radha is the first person I ever loved without having to hack through a wall of suspicion to get there. I don’t want to lose her.”
“Whatever happens, I don’t think her heart will ever lose you.”
We began sorting and organizing in companionable silence. I liked Micki Patel. I couldn’t help but wonder—Was it because she was a genuinely nice person, or because of a deeper, blood bond? I gave a sidelong glance at her gold velour sweatshirt, her brightly dyed hair, her bold, colorful lipstick. In some ways, she was so different from me and my family.
“When you walked in the door today, I could tell something was on your mind. What’s going on?” she asked.
And in others, so very much like us.
“A whole bunch of things. Matt, for one. He’s considering dating, and I’m struggling with it. He came with me to Kylie’s doctor’s visit and tried to explain his feelings, but I just don’t want to hear it, you know? And, more importantly, the doctor we’re seeing for Kylie has a plan to help her body deal with her immune issues, starting with her allergies.”
“So she can eat peanuts?”
“That’s the start of it, yes. It might not work, and there are potential risks involved, so my almost ex-husband doesn’t want to do it.”
“I’m guessing those kinds of things don’t come cheap either.”
“Nope,” I said. “That’s his other issue. He’s obsessed with saving for a rainy day.”
Micki shoved a pile of fabric under a table. “If we save only for the days it rains, then we don’t have any money to have fun in the sun.”
“He’s just being careful.”
The side of Micki’s fuchsia mouth turned up. “You’re sticking up for him. So you’re not done with him yet? Is that why you have such a problem with him dating? Is there something still between you two?”
“Won’t there always be feelings there?” I said. “That doesn’t negate the fact that we can’t be in the same room longer than a few minutes without disagreeing about something.”
Micki shrugged. “Some people are into that. Not me, but some people.”
“Not me either.”
“So what are you gonna do?”
I wasn’t sure if she meant Matt or Kylie’s desensitization therapy. Probably the latter. “I was going to try to get more shifts at work to pay for the therapy, but my boss doesn’t have any to give. The salon is closed Sundays and Mondays, or I would try to go in on my days off.”
She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “And your mother? Can she help?”
“She sold the bar she owned, but not for very much. She’s helped me so much already that I don’t want to ask for another handout. She’d do whatever she could in a heartbeat, but I don’t want my needs to make her financially insecure.”
“Aren’t they Kylie’s needs?”
“Still.”
Micki lowered herself onto a white bench we’d uncovered in Operation Cleanup. She motioned for me to join her.
“What if you worked here part time?” she asked. “A lot of the brides need someone to consult about hair and makeup. Some of them would love to hire you for their big day. I think that would bring in some extra money. Sandy and I could help out with the rest. Consider it all the birthday gifts I never got a chance to buy for my niece.”
“I couldn’t ask that of you.” Or of my mother. She’d sell a kidney before allowing me to take money from a stranger.
“Yes, you can absolutely ask. You’re family.”
“You just met me. I could be a con artist, for all you know.”
“I know a lot of those, and I know you aren’t a criminal. What you are is a good mom. That means something to me.”
The few comments she’d made about her family swirled through my brain. Although my biological grandmother had died young, the family had still managed to produce someone as warm and giving as Micki Patel.
“Tell me,” she said. “What was Kylie like before she started having health issues?”
I went silent for a moment. The thing about illness is it attacks the healthy memories, obliterating all but those that revolve around the sickness. It becomes all you can think about. Other memories—good memories—are swallowed up. The bad memories—the ones outlined in fear—invade the rest of the brain. You can call them up in a sensory storm—the feelings they bring on threaten to drown you yet again. Micki gazed at me expectantly, though, and I didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Curious. Funny. Gentle. Just the loveliest child.”
“And how did the illness affect her?”
“Well, we figured out she had the peanut allergy when she was really young, and it was terrifying. She was always a smart girl, way beyond her years. She’s learned to be vigilant. We all have.
“She was doing okay, but then she started having signs of other autoimmune disorders. We’ve taken her to so many pediatric specialists, but it’s been difficult to come up with a definitive diagnosis. Unfortunately, autoimmune stuff isn’t an exact science.”
“Few things are,” Micki said. “Can they treat it, whatever she has?”
“They can treat symptoms but not cure the disorder. The doctor she’s seeing now at the wellness clinic? She’s got some unusual ideas. One is that if we help the body to eliminate one autoimmune issue, it might have an easier time with the others. It might be crazy, but then, it might not be.”
Micki hugged me to her. I wasn’t used to a lot of physical touch. My mother was a good woman, but not a very demonstrative one. When she put her hands on my shoulders, or patted me on the back, her gestures were meant to keep me steady in the world, not offer comfort from the challenges of it. Micki’s hug engulfed me with sympathy. At thirty-eight years old this could have horrified me, but instead I sunk into it, into her softness, and listened to the thump of her kind heart. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t, so pleasantly suspended in the comfort of being heard and understood. Our relationship was too new to call this feeling love, but it could definitely classify as its precursor—trust. Micki seemed genuinely interested in my life, and this ease with which we fell into sharing our lives with each other could mean only one thing—we both wanted to make a real connection. That strong blood was talking to us, reminding us of what we shared.
“Lack of money shouldn’t stop someone from something this important,” she said. “Consider yourself hired. You are officially the hair and makeup stylist for The Not-So-Blushing-Bride.”
CHAPTER 13
“How do I know if this is working?” I whispered it, but Kylie’s eyes sprung ope
n. She sat in a chair with me looming over her, my hands supporting her small head, and my fingers pressed into the tender hollow at the base of her skull. Dr. Indigo had decided today was all about relaxation techniques and reflexology. I wondered if we were all going to have to take our socks and shoes off soon. Good thing we were doing this by scented candlelight, as I’d forgotten to get a pedicure.
“Is the pressure light, moderate, or intense?” Matt said. He was there too. Again.
“Light to moderate,” Dr. Indigo said, and Matt added a note to his phone. “Ally, why don’t you sit down, and Matt can get a hands-on experience. It’ll be good for you and Matt to get a practical feel for what this is like. These things take practice.” She glanced from me to Matt. “Often when one family member is suffering, the others become stressed. It’s only natural. This might be a useful tool for all of you.”
Kylie slid off the chair while I stared at Dr. Indigo, deer-in-the-headlights style. She wore an emerald-green caftan with a neon-yellow pendant that could hypnotize even the most resistant client. Her hair coiled on top of her head like a resting snake. Still, it was safer to look at her.
Because looking Matt’s way was out of the question. I was okay with touching his scalp at the salon, but the thought of him touching me sent cold, liquid fear spiking through my veins. And honestly, something even more primal.
“Sit down, Mom,” Kylie said. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”
I took a deep breath and sat. Matt slowly got up from his chair in the corner of the room. I could feel his presence behind me, and his hesitation.
“Ally, lean back. Matt, let her head rest in your outstretched hands,” Dr. Indigo said, all business.
“And what does this do, exactly?” he asked. There was a slight tremor in his voice. Was he nervous too?
“This pressure point is the most effective for relieving pain and tension in the body. You can use this with Kylie at anytime, anywhere that’s convenient. Most people feel a sense of calm after a few moments, almost like a feeling of floating on air. Pain is lessened. Focus is regained. Balance is more attainable. I find it works just as well with pediatric patients as adults. It’s not a miracle, but an adjunct to other treatments.”
The Other Family Page 15