Blooming at the Texas Sunrise Motel

by Kimberly Willis Holt

  Before taking the stairs, I try to help her into her chairlift, but she pulls back. “Stevie, you and I are going to be together a lot, but you won’t be around me twenty-four hours a day. I need to do things on my own. I can’t get used to anyone helping me. I have to stay independent. Understand?” Her tone is firm.

  “Yes.” Then I add, “Ma’am,” remembering Roy. I want to fit in.

  Mrs. Crump eases into her chairlift, rear first, then her legs. When she settles there, she tells me, “Now wait here just one moment.”

  Down, down, down she goes. After she gets out, she pushes the button and sends it up to the second floor. “Give it a go.”

  And I do. The chairlift moves slow and steady. I slide by the ceiling of the first floor, and when I catch sight of my reflection in a huge mirror hung in the hallway, I crack up. I look up at the bee and laugh harder. It’s as if I’m releasing some of the bad stuff that’s happened, letting it seep out a little as I travel down the staircase in Mrs. Crump’s chairlift.

  She waits for me at the bottom of the stairs. “See? I told you it was jolly fun.”

  A spicy aroma fills the air. My stomach growls. Mrs. Crump tells me to sit at the dining room table and that she will bring my bowl to me. A drawer squeaks open and there’s clanking. Then I hear a crash and something shattering.

  Mrs. Crump curses loudly.

  I scoot my heavy dining chair away from the table just as she calls out to me. “Don’t get up, dear. I have a cleaning lady coming later. She’ll get it.”

  The dining room walls are covered in gold wallpaper that has started to peel away. A portrait of George Washington stares at me. A moment later, Mrs. Crump walks into the dining room with her cane in one hand and my bowl of soup in the other. She’s smiling and seems to be unaware of her hand quivering and soup splashing out of the bowl and onto the floor. I get up to rescue my lunch.

  “Thank you!” I say, easing the bowl from her hands.

  The soup, minestrone with lots of vegetables, is lukewarm but good—homemade, not oversalted like Winston’s Campbell’s collection.

  When she joins me, she asks all kinds of questions about the motel and the people who live there.

  I want to ask about Mom but don’t. It’s probably best to bring that subject up a little at a time, kind of like savoring a chocolate Easter bunny for an entire week. But I think of the questions I’ll ask. How long was Mom her student? What was her favorite subject? And what I want to know more than anything: did she get along with my grandfather?

  After lunch, we make our way upstairs. Mrs. Crump rides, but this time I walk. I continue to write about my journey to Little Esther. For a long time, the words come. About a half hour later, my hands ache and I drop my pen to stretch my fingers. Across the table, Mrs. Crump’s eyes are closed and her head rests on her left shoulder. I watch for her chest to rise, but it’s perfectly still.

  “Mrs. Crump?” I whisper. Then a little louder I say, “Mrs. Crump?”

  My heart pounds in my ears. I rush to Mrs. Crump’s side, but I lack the courage to touch her. My body twists from side to side, but my feet are concrete. I slowly stretch my arm toward her.

  Just before I reach her wrist, I hear a flat whistling. Zzzz, zzzz. Mrs. Crump’s shoulders crouch forward a little, but then they move back into place, like she is fighting sleep. I’m so relieved, I return to my seat, pick up my pen, and go back to writing.

  When the church bell chimes two times, Mrs. Crump awakens and says, “If you like, you can finish your essay for homework. I think we’d better move on to geography.”

  She opens the atlas. “Any place in particular that you’d prefer to study?”

  Without hesitation, I tell her, “Australia.”

  Chapter Eight

  ON THE WAY BACK to the motel, I’m quiet and Winston is too. I close my eyes and see Dad and me scuba diving near the Great Barrier Reef. We’d find pieces of coral, and back onshore Mom would take pictures of our treasures. If only it had really happened.

  Roy must be trying to break a world record for fastest lawn-mowing guy. Even at his quick speed, his rows of clipped, dry grass are perfectly even.

  After Winston goes to the office, I go over to Roy. He stops the lawn mower when he sees me walking toward him.

  “Played hooky again, huh?” A bead of sweat trickles down his cheek.

  “I went to school today.”

  “You did? How’d I miss you?”

  He doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “Are you in honors classes? Hey, you didn’t register for that Spanish class, did you?”

  “Well, that’s because I wasn’t at your school.” I’m feeling like a freak, the girl who eats Pop-Tarts and soup and rides in an old lady’s chairlift.

  “Are you at the private school?” Roy asks. “If so, I need to inform you their football team stinks.”

  “My school doesn’t have a football team.”

  We’re interrupted by a UPS truck that has turned into the parking lot. Seeing it reminds me of the record player. I still haven’t unpacked it. The driver waves and we wave back.

  Roy rests his forearms on the lawn mower handle. “Are we doing riddles? Because I’m not good at those.”

  For a second, I’m caught up in how cute his forehead is when he wrinkles it. Then I end the mystery. “Winston took me to a tutor. Beatrice Crump.”

  Roy slowly grins. “Old Lady Crump?”

  “You know her?”

  “Not personally, but she’s famous around here.”

  “Why?”

  “She used to teach elementary school—sixth grade, I think. She left before I got there. I heard they made her retire because she had epilepsy.”

  “Mrs. Crump has seizures?” I really need to find out where she keeps her phone.

  “Nope, she falls asleep all the time. Even in the middle of sentences.”

  “Do you mean narcolepsy?”

  “Yep, Sherlock, she falls asleep at the drop of a hat.”

  “I think she’s wonderful—I mean, for someone her age.”

  “What’s that? A hundred and four?”

  I hardly know Mrs. Crump, but for some reason I feel protective toward her. I don’t tell Roy how I thought she was dead, how she didn’t wake up until the church across the street sounded its bell at two o’clock. “So you mow the grass at the motel?”

  “More like weed mowing.”

  I grab the base of a dandelion, and the soft ground allows me to pluck it up easily, including the taproot. I wave it under his nose. “Did you know you can eat dandelion greens?”

  Roy pulls away. “You mean you can eat dandelion greens. Is that the kind of food you eat in New Mexico?”

  I roll my eyes. “They’re very nutritious, but they’re an acquired taste.” Something I’d never acquired. I almost shudder remembering Mom trying to persuade me to sip her green juice concoction. When I refused, she’d say, “I’m going to live to be a hundred.” She might as well have eaten potato chips and fried food for three meals a day.

  “You gotta have a football team to root for,” Roy says. “Guess you’ll have to go to the Panthers games with me next year.”

  The UPS truck leaves the parking lot, and Roy starts up the lawn mower again. I walk away, dreaming about sitting in the bleachers with him, cheering for every touchdown scored by the Little Esther Panthers.

  Chapter Nine

  WINSTON LETS ME OUT in front of Mrs. Crump’s house for my second day of class. “See you at three.”

  I’m about to say thanks, but I’m caught off guard by a girl banging on the front door with her fist. “Come on! I’ve gotta pee!”

  I glance back, expecting to see Winston making his way down the street, but he’s sitting out there in the driveway watching, and I guess waiting for Mrs. Crump to answer. You never know. She may have died in her sleep.

  “Are you Flora?” I ask the girl.

  She turns around. She has big dark eyes and black hair with one thick white streak. It
looks like it’s been dipped in paint, but I think it’s natural.

  “Frida,” she snaps.

  I’m confused.

  The door opens. “Good morning, girls,” Mrs. Crump says.

  She waves to Winston, who lifts his hand up for a second before backing out onto the road.

  “Flora, it looks like you’ve met Stevie.”

  “Frida.” Then she spells her name. “F-r-i-d-a.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Crump says. “Forgive me.”

  “That’s what you said the last hundred times,” Frida mutters. She stomps up the stairs.

  By the time Mrs. Crump and I are on the second floor, Frida is nowhere in sight. Then I remember. She needed to go to the bathroom.

  * * *

  MRS. CRUMP GIVES EACH OF US an old, dusty English textbook and asks us to turn to a short story, “The Lottery.”

  “Would you mind reading it aloud, Stevie?”

  I hate when a teacher asks me to do that. At Christmas, my parents would watch me as I opened each gift. I couldn’t stand that. It felt like I was under a spotlight. Reading in front of classmates felt the same way.

  “Would you?” she repeats.

  Frida smirks.

  “Okay,” I say.

  While I read, Frida doodles in her notebook, and when I finish, Mrs. Crump says, “Oh, that was nice. You read beautifully.”

  Frida snorts. “Yeah, beauty-full-lee.”

  I look at her doodle. Either she’s playing hangman by herself or she’s a little obsessed with nooses.

  So much for us being good friends.

  At lunch, Frida picks her peanut butter sandwich into tiny pieces and makes a hill in the middle of her napkin. When she catches me watching her, she mouths, Boo!

  I’m not used to anyone like her. Carmen was a little rebellious, but she wasn’t mean. Even the teachers loved her and forgave her whenever she skipped school.

  Mrs. Crump tells us to work on our geography reports. “Frida, what are you going to be writing about?”

  “Pluto,” she says.

  Mrs. Crump smiles. “That should be fascinating.”

  I wonder if she heard Frida. I start reading about Australia’s export products. Mrs. Crump drifts off to sleep. Frida glares at me as she eases back her chair and gets up. She doesn’t say a word, just heads down the stairs and out the front door.

  Chapter Ten

  ROY TELLS ME Frida was kicked out of school for skipping.

  “Kicked out?”

  “Well, suspended,” he explains. “Did you see her mom?”

  I did, and I know what he’s getting at, but I just kind of nod. Frida’s mom rides a motorcycle, and today she wore a black leather vest and pants. When we came out of the house, she was talking on her cell phone. Not once did she look or speak to Frida. Not even after she hung up. Frida looked at me like she was daring me to say something. I hollered, “See you tomorrow.”

  She rolled her eyes, then pulled on her helmet and climbed onto the back of her mom’s motorcycle. They took off, with her mom’s thick braid dancing in the wind.

  “Her mom is in a motorcycle gang,” Roy says.

  “A gang? You mean like the Hell’s Angels?”

  “Something like that,” Roy says. “They hang out at the diner all morning on Saturdays. I don’t think they break the law or anything. But they’re a scary-looking bunch.”

  “I try not to judge people by how they look.” I wonder what Roy would have thought of Dad’s tattoos?

  “Well, excuse me for judging,” Roy says. Then his wink causes me to look away.

  * * *

  AT DINNER, Winston asks me about Frida. “Who was that girl this morning?”

  “The one at Mrs. Crump’s door?”

  “Yes, the one who had a bee in her bonnet to get inside.” He slurps a spoonful of tomato soup.

  “Frida. She’s Mrs. Crump’s other student.”

  “Frida who?”

  “I think her last name is James.” I remember seeing it on her notebook.

  “She’s a James?”

  “Well, a Frida James.”

  “Stay away from her,” he says.

  And just the way he says that makes me want to be her new best friend.

  “What’d she do?” I ask.

  “I don’t know Frida, but her mom gets this town in an uproar with all of her motorcycle friends.”

  “What’s wrong with riding a motorcycle?”

  Winston grimaces. “Nothing’s wrong with motorcycles. I had one for a while.”

  “You did?” My dad had an old Harley, but he never got it fixed. So he never rode it. He always acted funny when I said, “When are you going to fix it so you can take me for a ride?” One time, he snapped when I asked. “Enough with the motorcycle. That takes money.”

  Winston drums his fingers on the table. It’s weird the way he does it. Not like most people who are impatient, tapping their fingers quickly. His fingers seem to dance to a tune, like someone playing the piano.

  * * *

  TONIGHT I LIE IN BED and stare at the Australia jar. I wonder how much money is in there, but I don’t dare count it. I’m afraid the amount will depress me. Then I remember the book Mrs. Crump lent me. I pull it from my backpack and crawl into bed with it. There aren’t as many pictures as I’d like, but the words take me there.

  There’s a little island off the south coast of Australia called Kangaroo Island. Koalas, penguins, sea lions, and of course kangaroos live there. Rugged cliffs overlook isolated beaches, and beyond that, land stretches across the hills. Visitors can rent out the lighthouse-keeper’s cottage at Cape Willoughby on Dudley Peninsula.

  * * *

  I WAKE UP with the book on the bed next to me. The clock says it’s seven thirty. I get out of bed and dress in a hurry. Then I realize two things: it’s Saturday and I’m hungry. There’s a seashell in the kitchen window that I never noticed until now. It makes me think of the dream I always have about being a little kid at the beach. I can see Mom holding up a seashell, just like that one, to my ear. “Hear the ocean?” she says.

  All at once, I remember the dream I had last night of Kangaroo Island. In my dream, I opened the door to the lighthouse-keeper’s cottage and Mom and Dad walked out, hand in hand. We spent the day on a little farm with goats. I kept thinking here we are in Australia with goats when we should be looking at the kangaroos and koalas. It didn’t matter, though. We were together. I awoke in the middle of it.

  I hope I have that dream again.

  Winston is at his desk in the office with a mug of coffee and the Dallas Morning News.

  “Can you help Violet clean the rooms this morning?” he asks. Before I can answer, he adds, “Mercedes didn’t come to work today.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “No, she’s celebrating some saint’s birthday. She celebrates all of them.” Winston says it like he’s not so sure that’s what she’s doing.

  I can’t seem to wipe away the image of a huge birthday cake with a saint dressed in a long brown robe made of chocolate icing on top.

  “Violet will show you what to do.”

  I quickly change into my grubby jeans and Dad’s Rolling Stones T-shirt. I brought all of his T-shirts—Pink Floyd, Van Halen, and Led Zep. They’re baggy on me, but they’re soft, and they still smell like the Gain laundry soap we used.

  I gobble down a strawberry Pop-Tart. I hate to admit it, but Pop-Tarts are the best thing I was never allowed to eat.

  Violet isn’t dressed shabby at all. She’s wearing one of her floral dresses that I’ve silently started to name. This one is Party Pink—peonies the size of salad plates cover the entire dress. Her headband matches perfectly.

  “Do you need an old T-shirt?” I ask her.

  “No, thank you. I brought an apron.”

  When Violet ties the rickrack-trimmed apron around her waist, she reminds me of those 1950s sitcom moms I’ve seen on the TV Land channel.

  She fetches a clipboard from the
office with the list of rooms to clean. We pass by Room 12, where a bunch of boxes inside the room block the window.

  “Is somebody living there?”

  Violet shakes her head. “No, we don’t book that room.” She doesn’t offer anything more. Together we walk to the laundry room, where the linen closet is. As we near it, we hear a loud racket—punch ker rack, punch ker rack, punch ker rack.

  “Spin cycle,” Violet says, pulling Mercedes’s cleaning cart from the room. Then she slips her hand into her apron pocket and pulls out two pairs of yellow Playtex gloves. She offers me one pair.

  Putting her gloves on over her rosy press-on nails takes a long time. While she does that, I try to imagine her as a child. Violet becomes a small version of herself wearing black patent Mary Jane shoes instead of white pumps. She’s in class, sharpening her pencils and tucking them in a pink plastic case. The teacher asks a question and she stretches her hand up toward the ceiling.

  “Yoo-hoo?” Violet is waving her hand in front of my face.

  I snap out of my daydream. “Sorry.”

  “I’ll clean the bathrooms,” she tells me. “Winston is particular when it comes to toilets and tubs. He wants them spic and span. Why don’t you strip the beds, dust, and vacuum?”

  One of the beds is still made. Obviously no one has slept there, but Violet says we need to change it anyway.

  “A Winston rule,” she explains.

  It’s interesting how Winston is picky about clean rooms but it doesn’t seem like he has painted or updated the motel since the last century.

  At the foot of the bed, I find a white lacy nightgown. When I pick it up, Violet snatches it out of my hand. “I’ll take that to the Lost and Found Department.”

  “We have a Lost and Found Department?”

  “Of course,” she says seriously. “People leave things all the time, especially phone chargers.”

  After pulling the pillowcases off the pillows, I toss them into the dirty-laundry cart. Then I search for a dusting cloth and furniture polish. I find the cloth but no spray. When I go into the bathroom to see if Violet has it, I catch her holding the gown up and studying her reflection in the mirror. She tilts her head to one side and then the other.