Blooming at the Texas Sunrise Motel

by Kimberly Willis Holt

  “It’s Greer Garson week!” she squeaks, bouncing on her toes. “Back-to-back Greer movies. We’re going to have fun!”

  Winston raises his eyebrows. “Greer Garson? They still show her old movies?”

  “You need cable, Winston,” Violet says.

  “Guess I won’t be seeing Greer Garson anytime soon,” he tells her.

  “You could watch John Wayne movies.” Violet says it like she’s dangling a mouse in front of a cat.

  “I didn’t like those when they were in the theaters,” Winston says.

  “My dad loved John Wayne,” Violet says softly.

  Winston glances at his watch. Then he reaches out and taps my shoulder. “You take care.”

  It’s the closest he’s come to showing me any affection. He leaves through the front door, but I rush over and catch the knob before it closes.

  “Have a good time,” I tell him.

  He turns, startled.

  And then I reach over and give him a quick hug.

  Winston opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but nothing comes out. He lifts his hand in a quick wave.

  While I watch Winston make his way to the van, I remember how whenever I’d go anywhere for more than a few hours, my parents gave me a send-off that made me homesick before I’d even left. I hope Winston is careful driving all the way to New Orleans. It’s going to take him all day. He’s old, and New Orleans is a big city. And now I’m wondering why I care and why I bothered hugging him. Maybe because I’ve been thinking about how Winston made all the changes at the hotel for Horace and Ida. Maybe, like Horace said, “there’s a heart in that man’s chest.”

  Violet joins me on the porch, and together we wave to the back of Winston’s van. When it vanishes from sight, Violet says, “Let’s make grilled-cheese sandwiches. We can have popcorn later, when the movie comes on.”

  Violet pulls some bread and Velveeta from a deep pantry and places them on the marble countertop. Even the kitchen hasn’t escaped her pastel touch. Pink Depression glass plates are stacked inside glass-front cabinets.

  “Tonight Greer is in Mrs. Miniver,” she says. “Have you seen it?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  An hour later, we’re sitting on the couch with big bowls of buttered popcorn and a box of tissues between us. For some reason, wiping tears away feels good.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I WAKE UP TO A PERIWINKLE CEILING and angels smiling down on me. It takes me a second to remember where I am. I’m not at the Rockasita or the Texas Sunrise Motel. I’m at Violet’s. I wonder if she painted the ceiling. If she did, she’s not half bad unless you count the angel with a big smile and the big dots on the cheeks that I guess are supposed to be dimples.

  After dressing, I head toward the kitchen, hoping to find Violet. I’m hungry, but I feel funny snooping around for something to eat. Sunshine streams in through the kitchen window over the sink, creating a hazy beam across the room. Since Violet isn’t here, I pull out a chair and wait. After a while, I wonder if she’s already left for the motel, but her green Volkswagen convertible is parked out front in the driveway. The top is down, and I think nothing of it until I realize it’s raining. A sun shower. I loved when that happened back home, because sometimes if the sun was low enough in the sky, a rainbow would follow. Mom would say, “Go fetch your pot of gold.” I watch the drops slide down the windshield. Violet’s car is going to turn into a pond if someone doesn’t pull the top up.

  I rush outside and try to raise the convertible top. I pull and pull, but it won’t budge. The rain is picking up, so I look for a magic button to push. I give up and honk the horn.

  “Oh, dear!” Violet is at the front door. She’s wearing a shower cap and a large plastic garbage sack as a poncho. Barefooted, she rushes to the car, gets in, and puts the key in the ignition. She pushes a button, and the top slowly rises and shuts in place.

  For some dumb reason, I stand close by and watch helplessly. By the time I head to the porch, I’m drenched.

  “Oh, Stevie, I’m sorry. Blame it on Greer. This happens every time I watch one of her movies. I forget my routine. Stay here a second and I’ll get you a towel.” Before walking away, she pulls off the shower cap and the garbage sack and throws them on the porch. She’s fully dressed for work.

  The rain has already turned to a slow drizzle, as if Mother Nature was playing a prank. I hope it rains like this after we plant our garden. Then it dawns on me: I haven’t taken care of the “we” part yet. I need to ask Arlo and Roy soon, tomorrow at the latest. I have the money to buy the plants, but I’ll need Arlo to take me to the nursery and back to the motel with them. And I’ll never be able to clear a space for the garden and plant it by myself in time for Winston’s return.

  Violet comes back with a big fluffy towel and helps me dry off. “Your hair is so long. It’s going to take forever to dry. Do you want to use my hair dryer?”

  “Sounds like a good idea.” I forgot mine at the motel.

  A few minutes later, I’m sitting in Violet’s dusty-pink bathroom under a turquoise bubble-head dryer, the kind I’ve only seen in old movies, being used by ladies with spiky rollers. The dryer’s hum is loud and the air blowing on my scalp is hot. I sure hope I’m ready in time for Mrs. Crump’s lessons.

  Violet bends down and hollers in my face. “Can I get you some toast? Toast makes everything better.”

  By the time I’ve eaten the wheat toast with butter and orange marmalade, the top part of my hair is dry. And I agree. Toast is comforting and almost as tasty as blueberry Pop-Tarts.

  “I’m sorry I can’t take you to Mrs. Crump, but I’m already running late. Arlo is probably wondering where I am. If you want, you can take my bicycle.”

  “You have a bike?”

  “Yes, I haven’t ridden it in a long time, but I’ll put it on the porch if you decide to use it. I’ll even leave the helmet.” Violet studies her image in the tall foyer mirror and puts on a quick coat of lipstick. Then she heads outside. “Have a good day!”

  I loved my first bike. Mom and Dad took me to the park near the plaza and I rode until they begged me to stop so we could go home. It’ll be fun to ride again.

  Before leaving for Mrs. Crump’s, I triple-check the front door to make sure it’s locked. The rain has completely stopped, and the sun is shining so bright, it casts a haze around the yard. Leaning against a porch column is a pink banana-seat bicycle with a wicker basket fastened to the front of the handlebars. The shiny purple helmet’s strap is looped over one of the handles.

  I guess it has been a long time since Violet has ridden. Maybe since Pluto stopped being called a planet. I should leave the bike and dash off to Mrs. Crump’s before the rain decides to return. But I can’t quit staring at that bike.

  After I outgrew my first bike, I never rode again. I don’t know why. I guess I wasn’t interested anymore. They say once you ride a bike, you can always ride one. I look toward the street. It’s empty and quiet.

  I throw my backpack in the basket and climb on. I try on the helmet. It feels like my brains are being squeezed into a pulp. I leave it on the porch. The bike seat is a little too low for my long legs, and when I pedal, my knees narrowly miss the handlebars. It’s a wobbly start, but in a moment I’m off the curb and onto the street. It feels good to glide through the puddles in the low spots. The fresh smell of rain reminds me of how in Taos rain arrived almost every afternoon around four o’clock. Gentle and quick. Mom called it a spit bath. Until this morning, I didn’t realize how much I missed the rain’s daily visit.

  Mrs. Crump’s house is around the corner and up a block. An old white pickup truck, coming from the opposite direction, slows as it nears me. When it stops, my heart pounds and I pick up my pace.

  “Hey, Stevie!”

  I look over and discover Nancy, the landscape lady, in the driver’s seat. She’s wearing a baseball cap with GAVERT’S PLANT CENTER on it.

  I slam on the brakes and almost fall.
“Hi, Nancy!”

  “Like your wheels. Are you at recess again?” She says it with a chuckle and a wink.

  “No, I’m on my way to class.”

  “Looks like you’ve been swimming.”

  I touch my wet ends. “Long story.”

  “Need a lift? You could put your bicycle in the back of the truck.”

  “Thanks, but I’m almost there. The bike isn’t mine.”

  Nancy grins. “Hey, I’m not judging. Study hard. Hope to see you around soon. You never know. I might put you to work.” She drives off, and I watch until she disappears down the street. At least it wasn’t Frida and her mom. I pedal the princessmobile the rest of the way to Mrs. Crump’s. I’m hoping Frida is already there so she won’t see me, but then I hear a motorcycle. Mrs. James pulls onto the driveway. A bunch of sponge rollers cover her head. Frida gets off quickly and walks past me. She looks down like she’s embarrassed. I figure it’s because of the rollers. I’d be horrified if my mom left the house like that. For a second, I forgot Mom is dead. And that realization is killing me. I’d give anything to have Mom here with rollers or blue hair, or even bald.

  Frida is waiting for me on the front porch. She’s standing tall in her cocky, don’t-mess-with-me pose. “Hey, Barbie! Did Ken take the keys to your pink convertible today?”

  I guess a pink bicycle with a banana seat trumps a mom in rollers for Most Nerdy Drop-Off.

  * * *

  DURING MRS. CRUMP’S NAP, I keep working on my algebra. Even Frida is doing hers. She’s nibbling at her eraser as she clicks away at the calculator. I’m still wondering what she’s up to with this good-girl routine. When I finish my work, I go to the other side of the room. One shelf is filled with leather-bound photo albums with the years typed on labels and in chronological order. They take up an entire shelf, from 1960 to the current year. Mom would have attended sometime in the 1990s, but I have no idea when she started with Mrs. Crump. Did she ever go to school? If so, did something happen to make my grandfather take her out?

  Frida stares at me across the room. Without thinking, I snap, “Mind your own business.” I regret it as soon as I say it.

  Frida goes back to punching numbers.

  We’ve exchanged attitudes. What am I thinking? Bad girls don’t think looking through someone’s photo albums is a big deal. I open up the 1994 album and thumb through photos of European trips. Most of this one is of places in Paris—the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Moulin Rouge. Another album is filled with pictures of Mexico City.

  I study the dozing woman in front of me. Mrs. Crump may be old, but she’s had adventures. These photo albums prove it. Her head rests on her right shoulder, and her chin melts into her face and the folds of her neck. This may seem strange, but I think her wrinkles are beautiful. I loved Angelina Cruz’s wrinkles too. “A line for every year,” she’d sometimes say. “Heartache and joy, it’s all there.”

  As Mrs. Crump softly snores and Frida does math, I pull album after album off the shelf, returning each one, as I finish, to its proper place. The pictures are interesting, but I don’t see my mom in any of them.

  The church bell chimes. Frida looks at my empty chair and then in my direction. I quickly return the last album to the left side of the shelf and hurry back to my chair. I make it in time. Frida claps like she’s applauding my race to the finish line.

  Mrs. Crump’s eyes open just as I realize I replaced the book in the wrong order.

  Chapter Eighteen

  IT’S THE SECOND NIGHT at Violet’s, and we’ve watched six Greer Garson movies. We decide to get in our nightclothes and stay up late to watch Blossoms in the Dust. I’m enjoying the film, until the part with all those orphans when I realize I’m one too. Carmen would get a kick out of me watching these old movies. She’d probably think they were corny, but I don’t care. I’m becoming a big classic-movie fan. Not as big as Violet, though. She’s thinking of going on a TCM cruises. Old movies play around the clock on the ship, and people go to parties dressed up like their favorite movie characters.

  “If I go,” Violet says, “I’m dressing up like Marilyn Monroe in The Prince and the Showgirl.”

  While I slip on my pajama bottoms and Dad’s Pink Floyd T-shirt, I plot how I’ll get Mrs. Crump’s photo album back to the right spot. Tomorrow I’ll move it as soon as she falls asleep.

  Back in the parlor, Violet is thumbing through a well-worn copy of Good Housekeeping. Her nightgown seems familiar. Then I realize it’s the nightgown left behind in the first room we cleaned together. She doesn’t even seem to care that I might recognize it.

  “That little rain we had this morning didn’t account for much moisture,” she says, examining her face in the gigantic mirror in the foyer. “We need to do something for our parched skin and hair.”

  I glance at my image in the mirror and discover I have a pimple on the tip of my nose.

  A few minutes later, we pile gobs of mayonnaise on our roots and pull the excess down to the ends. Violet twists Saran Wrap around our heads, forming turbans. Then she mixes plain yogurt and cucumber pulp and smears the concoction on our skin. We smell like the salad bar section of Western Sizzlin. But the mask feels refreshing on my face.

  While we wait for the movie to begin, Violet asks, “What did your mother look like?”

  I’m startled by her question. After a long pause, I settle on, “She was beautiful and kind to everybody.” Then I add, “She had curly blond hair and blue eyes.”

  “Like your eyes?”

  “That’s what most people say.” Everyone but Winston.

  “I knew she’d be nice,” Violet says.

  “Why?” I expect her to say something like, Because you are.

  Instead she says, “Because she’s named after a flower. You can’t have a name like Daisy—or Violet or Rose, for that matter—and be a disagreeable person. It would be contradictory, and you’d always be lopsided. Although I guess there are a few lopsided people in this world with flower names. I know one. That grumpy cashier at the Dollar Store, her name is Lilee, but she uses a double e on the end.” Violet carefully scratches her scalp with an index finger.

  The time seems right to reveal my big plan. “Violet, how would you like to see some real flowers at the motel?”

  “I used to bring in a vase of flowers, but Winston said they’d cause customers to sneeze.”

  This might be a bigger challenge than I’d thought. “A garden out front will get the hotel more attention, and then we’ll have more customers.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Seems like most people just head on to Dallas. We get mostly traveling salesmen who have to pay their own expenses.” The movie begins playing the opening credits. She pulls her knees to her chest and sighs with glee. Then she adds, “But I’ll think about it.”

  It’s a start. Then I ask her something I’ve been wondering about for a while now. “How does Winston stay in business? How does Winston make enough money to live?”

  “He made a bunch of money in the stock market. That’s what I hear, anyway.”

  If that was really true, why would he keep the motel? Then, as if she reads my thoughts, Violet says, “He uses the motel for a tax write-off. That’s what Horace thinks.”

  The opening music is starting.

  Once again, Greer makes Violet cry. She gently dabs her eye with a handkerchief, careful not to disturb her beauty mask.

  I’m not paying attention to the movie. I’m thinking about the garden and what it will take to convince Violet and Arlo that it’s the right thing to do.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE FIRST FEW MINUTES I open my eyes, I think the angels on the ceiling are really floating around on the clouds. Another morning at Violet’s. Just when I’m thinking I can get ready early so that she can drive me to Mrs. Crump’s, I discover the bike at the foot of my bed with a giant red bow. A card is attached. To Stevie, A just-because gift. From, Violet.

  Violet meets me outside the bedroom door. “Oh, I wa
nted to see your expression when you opened your eyes.”

  “Gosh, Violet, you shouldn’t have.” She really shouldn’t have.

  “Well, since you rode it yesterday and I figured that I’m never getting on that thing again, you should have it.”

  “I’m not sure what to say.”

  She stares at me, waiting.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome!” She hugs me and squeezes hard. “I loved that bike, but I love giving it to someone who appreciates it.”

  I stare at the banana seat, the little bell, the wicker basket. Any nine-year-old girl would love seeing this pink number under her Christmas tree.

  Violet’s hands are locked together like she’s trying to keep her excitement from bursting into a fireworks show. How could I ever tell Violet I don’t want the bike? I don’t bother asking for a ride to Mrs. Crump’s.

  * * *

  FRIDA ISN’T IN CLASS TODAY, and I don’t know why but I kind of miss her. At least I’ll have a chance to put the photo album back without having to explain it to her. Mrs. Crump falls asleep almost right after her last bite of lunch. I wait a couple of minutes before easing out of my chair and moving toward the bookcase. Then I read the albums’ spines—1993, 1994, 1995. I check the years again. I must have been mistaken. I must have returned it to the right place. Or maybe somehow Frida did. She’s so sneaky.

  Instead of planning the garden or taking a walk about town, I go back to the table, open my algebra book, and do the next lesson. Math is my least favorite subject, but the problems calm my nerves and distract me. Soon the clock sounds and Mrs. Crump shakes her head like a dog after a swim. She waits for me to finish the formula.

  “Stevie?” She reaches across the table and touches my hand with her cold fingers. “Would you like to know about your mother when she was with me?”

  My skin prickles.

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  She smiles softly. “Daisy was creative and intelligent. It’s not difficult for me to see you’re her child.”