Spin the Sky

by MacKenzie, Jill;

  “But Rose—”

  “No buts.” He heads for the door and then turns around and slaps his own ass. “The only butt worth talking about around here is the one you’re lookin’ at.”

  Two hours later, I’ve cleaned every table and restocked the ice cream and the last of Deelish’s customers has eaten and left. I lock the door and bike on home. The lights are all off, so I tiptoe through my front door so I don’t wake Rose up.

  Not like it matters, though. Just like my mom, Rose is usually in bed by nine, especially during Season. She swears that it’s her true love for clamming that drives her to her early nights, but I know that’s nothing more than a big fat lie. More like she’s so exhausted from all of her overtime at work that she needs to hit the sack early on the nights she can.

  I sling my jacket and bag over one of the fold-up kitchen chairs and open the fridge. There’s a container of cottage cheese, three ripe tomatoes from George’s mom’s garden, and a jar of peanut butter—the healthy kind—next to the tray of Rose’s fritters. There are at least twelve of them in here, which is how I know Rose went back to the beach after she and I clammed this morning. I lift the cling wrap and pluck two of the smaller ones from the tray. I grab the handle of the toaster oven and prepare to plop them both inside, but then pull my hand back, quick, like something’s bitten me. The oven’s still hot, I guess, from Rose’s recent use, and now I’ve burned my index finger and thumb, bad. My skin is red and the heat is fierce, so I shake my hand through the air. With my forearm, I flip on the tap and stick my fingers under it, waiting for the cool relief to come.

  The water pours over my burn, dimming the pain, but the second I take my hand out the hurt returns with a vengeance. I pull the freezer open with my foot and reach for the bag of frozen peas I know will be there. It cools my hand in seconds. It brings the memory back to me like it never, ever left.

  I burned myself when I was little—same fingers on the same hand. I think I was three. Four, tops. It must have been the toaster oven that got me that day, too. Mom was by my side in a flash, hoisting me up so that my small legs straddled her bony hip. She ran my fingers under that water for what seemed like forever and then pulled out a bag of frozen peas or carrots or something from the freezer and pressed them to my skin, wrapping the bag around my fingers, like a shield.

  At some point, she sat down. Just me and her and that bag of frozen vegetables, curled up in her lap like we were always meant to be there.

  One of Mom’s friends came into the kitchen to sit with us. He touched my cheek. “You’re lucky to have such a good momma. Got so many fine skills, she does.”

  I drop the peas back in the freezer. My eyes dart to the clock on the stove. Eleven thirty.

  George has been here and gone. I can only imagine how it all went down.

  I slide the two fritters in the oven. When the toaster dings, I hover over the sink and scarf down both fritters using my uninjured hand. My mouth barely registers the familiar salty, crispy taste. Usually, I prefer to douse them in hot sauce from the Taco Stop, but tonight I don’t bother. I think about grabbing another fritter from the fridge, but then decide against it. I don’t want to eat them all by myself when I didn’t help make them and barely even helped pull them. So instead, I replace the cling wrap over the tray and close the fridge. I tiptoe to Rose’s room and peer in, expecting to see her body curled up on her bed. Expecting to hear her snore reverberating from the walls like thunder. But she’s not there. And as much as I don’t want to think about where she is, I can’t help it. I stride into her room, staring at her unused bed. I sit down. Open the bottom drawer of her bedside table.

  It’s still there. Not that I thought it’d be gone. Not thought but hoped, maybe.

  My fingers loiter above the pipe, air-tracing its curved base and long, slender handle. Its sour stench attacks my nose, so I slam the drawer before it wins. I won’t let it seduce me, too.

  From the bathroom across the hall, I hear a noise. A kitten’s mew. A balloon, deflating. She’s home, after all.

  I creep to the door and push it open. She’s there, sitting on the lid of the toilet, head resting in her hands.

  She doesn’t look up, but I know she’s heard me.

  Our house is old and no one’s really given it much love in the last few years. Pretty much all DIY projects around here died right about the same time that our grandma did. Grandma loved this house with her whole heart—loved tinkering with loose doorknobs and stuck windows, creaky doors and slack floorboards. Loved planting gardenias in the front window boxes overlooking our beach, that kind of thing. But not us. Rose and I just sort of wander through this house with our arms tucked to our sides, trying not to break anything. I guess we figure there’s enough fixing to do around here without us making it worse.

  I take a step toward her. “Rose?”

  She sucks in this huge gulping breath that sounds all mucusy, like it’s full of snot and sorrow. The kind of thick gasp produced by hours, not minutes, of crying. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s been a year. A year.” She looks up at the ceiling, her face smeared with mascara and melting foundation. “What are we going to do?”

  It’s not me she’s asking the question to.

  She reaches for a wad of toilet paper, but the roll is empty, so she just paws at the curved cardboard without looking at it. I pull two sheets of tissues from the box on the sink and crouch down next to her. I wipe under her eyes. Dab the tissue over her cheeks.

  “You don’t get it,” she says. “We can’t run away from our problems. You think this will fix things. It won’t.”

  “It will. We can change their minds. When I’m on the show we’ll prove to all of them that we’re not who they think we are.” My head falls to my chest. “What they think we are.”

  “It won’t matter,” Rose says. “Those people. They formed a picture of us in their minds a long time ago. Even before Colleen.”

  “That’s not true. People liked her. Liked us. George says—”

  “George?” Her head shoots up. “What the hell does he know? He isn’t part of this family. I don’t give a shit what he says.”

  I chew my bottom lip. “Mrs. Moutsous was friends with Mom. She loved Mom. And others. I remember.” The faces, smiling faces take shape somewhere inside me. I pluck another tissue from the box and hand it to her. She can blow her own damn nose. “We used to go the Pic ’N’ Pay with her. Before the Safeway was built, remember? People said hi to us. Gave us balloons and free cookies and everything. When she was good, things around here were good. We could be like that again. We just have to show them.”

  “You don’t remember things right, Magnolia. Even when Mom was okay, she was like this ticking time bomb. People were scared of her. At least, the ones who knew what she was capable of.”

  I turn away from her.

  “You remember those summers that Mom woke up with us early to clam?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “She was turning tricks. She even did it right here in our house, after we got back with our pulls. She did it with all kinds of men. Men in this town. Married men. Mr. Springman from the diner. Mr. Gibaldi, too.”

  “No way. We know their kids. Their wives. They’ve lived in Summerland forever, just like us.”

  Rose stares at the ground. “We didn’t know them the way she did.”

  I close my eyes, trying to retrace the lines of Rose’s picture, her version of our life, but I can’t. My lines are different. The colors are different. Prettier. I’m sure of it. When I open my eyes, I’m staring right into my hand. I hold it up for Rose. “She took care of us. I burned it once a long time ago, too. Mom kept it cold and hugged me for hours after.”

  “That’s right. I remember that time. I saw you guys in the kitchen. I watched the two of you while I was still in the living room with her friend.” Rose shudders. “He got up. Went to sit next to you and Mom.”

  “See? You saw her holding me. You saw she had friend
s who liked her. You know she was a good mom.” I stare down at my skin, pink and angry. “Everyone else did, too.”

  Rose grits her teeth. “Is that what you really think?”

  “It’s what I know.”

  She grabs my wrist and holds my burnt hand in front of me. Her face gets red, redder than my skin. Her eyes go this kind of blue I’ve never seen on her before. Dark blue, like the hottest part of a flame. “Do you even remember how you burned your finger that day? Do you even know who that guy was?”

  I try to pull my hand back but she doesn’t let go. “The toaster oven. I remember its fire. I remember her friend.”

  Rose flicks my wrist away from her. “You burned it on a fire, all right. The flame from Mom’s crack pipe being lit. She was holding that flame, Magnolia. She was holding it, lighting her drugs. You were by her side coloring pictures. You were so damn proud of whatever it was you had drawn. You just wanted to show it to her. You grabbed at her hand, but your fingers got that flame instead. The burn was bad. You screamed so loud.”

  My breath stops. “No. That’s not how it happened. I remember.”

  “You got it right about her holding you. But later. Too late. And after a couple of minutes, she dropped you straight into his lap and locked herself in her room for the rest of that day, and the night too. I don’t know why.” Rose squeezes her eyes shut. “Maybe she was high. Or maybe she was sorry. But you should have gone to the hospital to have that burn checked out. But instead, she checked out. When we needed her, she left us alone with him.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, I do. We sat outside her door, waiting for her to come out, to make us dinner, to give us a bath. We sang songs through the night while people came and left and came and left. None of them asked if we were okay, even when you wouldn’t stop whimpering about your hand. They didn’t care. They were like that, too. Lowlifes. Losers. Trash.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Of course you don’t. How could you? You were four. I was six. We were babies.”

  I swallow, hard, trying my best to summon the picture of small Rose and small me, crumpled together, holding on to each other on the outskirts of Mom’s life. But I can’t. The images just won’t form.

  “But she came out,” I say.

  “Yeah, days later. In the meantime, we had no milk. We had no anything. I took your hand and we walked to the Pic ’N’ Pay. I don’t know why. It’s not like we had any money. The guy from produce said hi and gave us a balloon. The woman in the bakery asked us how we were doing and gave us cookies. But none of them tried to help us. Because to them, we were an extension of her. To them, we still lived in her gutter.”

  “You’re making that up.” My voice cracks.

  “I was six. I remember more than you.”

  “No. You’re lying!” I kick the side of the bathtub. It doesn’t satisfy me, just sends tingles up my left leg. I need to throw something. Smash something to pieces, the way Rose smashed Mom’s picture, my memories.

  My gaze crawls from the vase of fake pansies to the vanity and the ceramic soap dish on top. There’s just no way it was always like that. Rose is making it all up so that I hate Mom, too. I mean, why would she have stayed here—kept us all here—if they always wanted us gone?

  But the truth is, she didn’t stay. She didn’t.

  I’m so pissed. So I know I shouldn’t say this, not now, but I’m going to. I’ve held on to it for too long. “Then why are you doing everything in your power to be like her?”

  Rose shifts on the seat. “What?”

  “How can you hate her so much when you’re doing the same crap that she did?”

  Her voice shakes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The pipe. And your boss.”

  “Mags, no. It’s not what you think.”

  “I know what you do with him.”

  Rose’s eyes widen. She leans away from me with this real scared look on her face like I’m a stray dog. Unpredictable. Rabid. How she said they looked at us at the Pic ’N’ Pay. “You think I—” She swallows. Breathes deep. Her eyes fill with tears. So much water, and so much shame.

  “Don’t you dare try to lie to me about this,” I say. “I know why we have enough money to pay the phone bill and buy the good brand of cheese. And my dance classes. I know how you get the money to pay for those, too.”

  “Mags, stop. Listen to me—”

  “No. You stop. You listen to me for once. You’re the one doing this. Selling yourself. Making them hate us worse, on purpose. Just like she did.”

  Rose folds herself in half, but I don’t stop. Can’t stop. “I can’t be here with things like this anymore. I’m going to win that money and make us famous so they see we’re not like her. I have to do this. You know I do.” I squeeze her hand. “It’s our only chance.”

  Rose stands up and splashes water over her blotched face and then dabs it with the guest hand towel—the one adorned with little pineapples across the top. When she’s finished, she lets the towel fall to the ground like she did with Mom’s shovel.

  It lies, crumpled and discarded, on the floor of our unwashed bathroom. I remember the morning it had mysteriously come home with Mom. She thought it was hilarious, that towel. Like the idea of something tropical and almost cheerful in the rainiest, most brooding place in the country was just the right amount of irony for our messed-up household.

  Rose turns to me. She’s scrubbed her skin, but I can still see the hurt all over her face. “I don’t support this. I’m not going to help you change what is. What can’t be changed. Don’t you see that? It doesn’t matter what they say. It only matters what we know.”

  “It matters!” I shout. “We’re the ones who have to live here!”

  “We don’t have to let what they say to us define who we are.” She shakes her head. “I’m not driving you and George to Portland. Case closed. And once Mrs. Moutsous finds out why you two want to go there, she’ll put an end to it, too.”

  I look at her. She’s wearing that my way or the highway attitude of hers. It dawns on me that she and George, the two people that I love and trust most in this world, are cut from the same stubborn cloth.

  Rose rubs her arms. “What are you going to do if your plan doesn’t work? What are you going to do if you lose, screw up on TV, and the town ends up blaming us even more than they already do? Or worse. What are you going to do if she sees you on TV and wants to come back here?”

  I lower my head. “She’s still our mom. If I had the money maybe we could actually help her this time.”

  Rose’s eyes go wide. “You’re nuts. Don’t do this. Don’t allow her to do this to you.” She puts her back to me and pushes open the bathroom door. And that’s when I know. She doesn’t want Mom back. She doesn’t care about where Mom’s sleeping or what Mom’s eating or who it is that’s eating or sleeping next to her. She glances over her shoulder at me, her voice measured and says, “Leave it alone, Mags. If you know what’s good for us, you’d better just leave this show thing done and dead. Just like her.”

  FIVE

  It’s six fifteen and I know I should be out there with her.

  Instead, I’m curled up on my windowsill, eyes straining to see her through the wispy beach shadows cast by the early morning light. I zero in on her about ten feet from the water. She makes this perfect little figure eight stomping around the sand, then drops to her knees. She hurls the gun into the sand. I think I’m going to hurl into my lap.

  Rose is so gung ho about clamming, like none of it ever happened. Like one summer off was enough to heal our wounds and now it’s business as usual. Mom’s gone, so she can finally get on with her life. Or maybe it’s that darn gun. Maybe she’s just so glad to have a new way to move forward, an untainted way to carry on with a timeless Woodson tradition.

  But it’s still clamming. It’s still our clamming—mine and hers and Mom’s—no matter what means you use to get the job done. It’s still
the memory of the three of us doing it that makes me positive things really can be okay again like they used to.

  Rose pulls up the gun and shakes it a few times. Mud piles out. She sifts. Steady. Methodical. I can’t tell from here how many clams she’s scored, but I’m sure there are at least two whoppers. She’s good at this even in the worst conditions, but today the sea is flat and calm and the beach looks ripe for razors.

  I can’t watch this for another second, so I hop off my windowsill and change my clothes from my ratty PJs to my comfiest jeans and tank. I throw one of George’s old school sweatshirts on and weave my hair into a loose braid in front of me. I grab my beanie and then reach for my dance bag from the corner of my room where I usually leave it. But it’s not there.

  Then I remember: it’s in the kitchen where I left it before I found Rose’s pipe and heard Rose’s sad noises coming from the bathroom. Before her yelling and my yelling because our memories look nothing like each other’s memories at all. Before the mess that is my life got even messier.

  I bring my bag to my room and stuff it with my black leotard, a clean pair of tights, and my wallet, equipped with the last thirty bucks I’ve got in the whole world. Then I rummage around in my sock drawer for the photo with the broken frame, its glass now discarded and forgotten and gone. I haven’t looked at this thing in months but now I can’t stop. My index finger traces every line.

  George’s mom took this picture of us, outside the Pic ’N’ Pay, the morning I started middle school. Mom had forgotten to get school supplies like I had asked her to a dozen times that summer, but it was okay because once she remembered, Mom was so happy and excited for my big day. She even bought me a new pack of multicolored three-ring binders and a new first-day outfit too, both of which were way out of budget. Mrs. M. said how pretty I looked, right before she snapped the photo. She said how pretty we both looked. Mrs. M.’s eyes were all misty but at the time, I didn’t really know why.

  Now, Mom’s still face stares back at me. She’s wearing lipstick and smiling but there’s other stuff about this photo that makes it unforgettable, stuff that Mrs. Moutsous didn’t notice or maybe didn’t want to say out loud. Mom’s hair is washed. Her face looks like it’s got some weight on it. Not much, but enough. Enough that she looks like a real person. Enough that she looks the way a mom should look.