163
One Change
“You stopped smoking,” I said to Nanny as the sun set on us in Alabama. We were hours from home.
Nanny glanced at me, her eyes full of tears, and said, “Thanks for noticing, Winston.”{ 268 }
164
How Did I Feel?
How did I feel about Momma doing what I, somehow, knew she would do?
How did I feel about Nanny being so heartbroken?
How did I feel about me?
Losing my momma again?
Well, I felt awful for my grandmother. And achy at what I had lost.{ 269 }
165
Real Friends
In Daytona, Nanny and me and Steve cleaned the motor home from tip-top to bottom.
We vacuumed, washed, and sanitized. We threw away garbage, got dog hair and rooster feathers out of corners, and buffed all the windows till they shone.
“Listen, Miss Jimmie,” Steve said when we got back up on the road, “my dad and mom don’t take this vehicle anywhere. And you know I’m covering for you if they even notice.”
Nanny smiled with her mouth, but not a bit of happiness leaked upward toward her eyes. She looked like she was in pain. “I’m gonna tell your daddy what I did,” she said. Nanny sucked in air. “Then I am quitting Leon’s.”
“What?”
I wasn’t sure who had said the word, me, Steve, or Thelma.
“What do you mean, Nanny?”
My grandmother didn’t answer for a good half mile, and I knew better than to ask again. New Smyrna was getting closer and closer.
“I mean,” Nanny said, slowing down as we drove the { 270 }
old canal road, “that I am tired of living a lie. I thought your momma would come home with us, Winston, and I was wrong.” Nanny swallowed so loud Thelma looked at her. “I have loved your daddy, Stevie, for I don’t know how many years. I’m not putting myself through it a minute more. I’m getting me a job in Orlando.”
I was speechless.
Steve seemed to be too.
Only Denny had something to say, and I think it was that he wanted to get back to his chickens. He seemed a little wilted. He even had a few bald spots.
Truth be told, we all looked a little worse for wear. Traveling all over the United States of America, even with the foxiest boy in all of Florida with you, and doing it in just a few days, sure was draining. Add a stupid mother into the mix, and a traitor dog with a broken leg and horrible world events and the end of summer and us coming into school a few days late, and the whole thing seemed like a wasted trip.{ 271 }
166
One Thing to Be Thankful For
Thank goodness there had been plenty of kissing.{ 272 }
167
Advice
“Talk to him when he gets home, Miss Jimmie,” Steve said. “I got a feeling my dad’s trip to Europe didn’t work out that good.”{ 273 }
168
Results
Mark Spitz won seven gold medals. Shane Gould got three golds, a silver, and a bronze.
I couldn’t get the blurry photo image of the man in a black ski mask out of my head.
Thelma’s leg healed so she only had a limp.
Denny stayed bald in a few spots.
And Nanny went to talk to Leon, who came home from overseas, where he had watched the Olympics and Mark Spitz swim to victory, without his wife.{ 274 }
169
Moving On
My first real day to high school my sophomore year, I came into the halls long before anyone else and a week late. I’d been to check out the swimming pool (they wouldn’t let me in, not even to practice on my own, because swimmers take priority, but I was thinking of maybe becoming a swimmer and if I didn’t, I still knew that secret way in) and now I stood at my locker, spinning the dial on the lock.
Patty Bailey nearly knocked me off my feet when she ran up and hugged me. “Hey, girl,” she said, “we got math and physical science together. I am so glad you are home. Man, do I ever have things to tell you.”
She smelled all vanilla-y and wore fat bell-bottoms that covered clunky clogs.
I grinned right in her face. “Me too,” I said. “I got some things to tell you.”
Not a bit of it had to do with Nanny, but I would, for sure, mention Steve and my momma. No need to tell her the felony part of things, though.
“Catch you third hour,” she said, and clomped off in a crowd of kids she was at least one head taller than.
I opened my locker and slipped my old notebook in.{ 275 }
Nanny had come home late the night before. Too late. And then I’d heard her crying in her room. Thelma stood outside Nanny’s door, whining, but Nanny never opened to either of us, even though I whispered to her that everything would be all right.
“It’s okay, Winston,” Nanny had said, and her voice could have broken my heart right in half. “I promise it’s okay. We’re not going to Orlando after all. This is me missing your momma, that’s all.”
Now, I turned to head to class.
The halls crawled with students, but there was Benjy Aufhammer and a couple other football players—wearing lettermen jackets despite the heat.
Steve came up to me, appearing from behind his friends like an angel (where was Angel?) and looking so nice my heart didn’t beat. Or maybe it overbeat. Is that even a word? I hadn’t seen him in two days, since we’d pulled the motor home in his driveway, and then he’d dropped me and Nanny off back at our place. And even though the hall was crowded with more kids than should have been allowed in one place, seeing Steve was like a movie. A slow-motion, blurred-at-the-edges love story where only the two of us existed.
“Hey, Stevie,” I said. Everything on my body felt awkward, even my ankles. I touched my hair. Since when did I care about the way I looked?
“Winston,” he said. He dropped his books, grabbed me { 276 }
so tight I didn’t even try to breathe, and kissed me in the biology wing of New Smyrna High.
“Get a room,” someone called when the kiss went on as long as a real movie kiss, and someone else let out a wolf whistle.
“I been waiting to do that since I drove away Wednesday,” he said, his breath hot on my neck. Then he kissed me again, before I had the chance to say, Well, I’m glad you did.{ 277 }
170
Being Related to Someone Famous
Momma, it turned out, was General Hospital’s new star. And everybody who knew Nanny at Leon’s had something to say about it.
Busing tables, I heard Mr. Wilson say, “That daughter of yours looks like a mirror image of you, Jimmie. Can you believe she’s made it big? What do you say you and me go to the Dew Drop Inn for a nightcap.”
“I cannot, Randy,” Nanny said, and I wasn’t sure if she meant no to Momma’s stardom or no to the offer of a drink. “You need your ice tea topped off?”
Doris said, “Maybe your trip out to Vegas turned out to be the good-luck piece that girl needed.”
“Maybe,” Nanny said.
Miss Clealand said, “Jimmie, Judith Lee has become such a looker. I always wondered if she would grow into those buckteeth of hers and she more than did.”
“Skye,” Nanny said, and Miss Clealand looked at Nanny like she had lost a few marbles.
It seemed everyone talked to Nanny about the one thing she didn’t want to hear.
At home, Nanny refused to speak to me about anything { 278 }
that was important. Including Momma. And her late evening with Steve’s daddy. Or how I was doing in school and whether I had made the swim team and how me and Thelma were doing in general.
It was like we had left the most important part of Nanny back in Vegas on the Strip—her heart.{ 279 }
171
Another Letter
Nanny was at work when I pulled the letter out of the mailbox .
Misses Momma and Winston Fletcher, the envelope said, 605 East Lake Drive.
And there in the corner, Skye Harper, your momma and d
aughter.
I’m not kidding. That’s how she addressed the envelope.
I stepped out of my school clothes and put on my busing uniform (no bra, shorts, T-shirt, apron). I tucked the letter into the big pocket and started on foot and in a hurry to Leon’s restaurant.{ 280 }
172
And What . . . ?
Steve met me halfway to work.
“Something’s getting ready to happen,” he said, after he’d pulled to the side of the road to pick me up. Led Zeppelin screamed from the eight-track. Steve turned the music down a little. “And why didn’t you call me to give you a ride?”
“Are you kidding? And what?” I touched Momma’s correspondence. What was she writing so soon for? We hadn’t been gone from Vegas even two weeks. I climbed into the car.
The sky was overcast, heavy with clouds. A September storm was on its way. A hurricane maybe? Or a tornado?
“Huh?” Steve said.
“I mean, of course I wouldn’t ask you for a ride. I’ve always gotten to Leon’s on my own or with Nanny.”
Steve looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Why not? Aren’t we . . . You know.”
Now I stared at him. “Aren’t we what?”
“You know.” He stopped at a red light, then shrugged. Someone behind us beeped when the light changed and we still sat there. “You know.” Steve drove on.{ 281 }
I’d run out of spit. “What are you saying?”
“Some people are meant to be together, Winston. Like you and me. So next time, call me.” He took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. “Now listen.”
I smiled at him. Fingered the letter with my free hand.
“My dad called and told me to make sure Miss Jimmie was going to be at the restaurant.”
We were almost to Leon’s.
I gasped. “Why?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I told you when you got in the car. Something’s going to happen.”
“What? Do you think he’ll try and buy her out?”
Maybe we were moving to Orlando after all. My nose holes closed up and I became a mouth breather right then and there.
Far out over the ocean, lightning splayed like limbs on a tree. The water and sky were a smudge of gray on the horizon.
“I don’t know,” Steve said. “But my father has never asked me to do anything like this before, not even with my mother.”{ 282 }
173
Will . . .
Nanny was there already. The old Blue Goose was parked under a streetlight.
And as we pulled into the lot, Leon Simmons drove in too. He didn’t see me and Steve. He ran inside the restaurant.
And me and Steve, we followed his father, fast as we could.{ 283 }
174
Happen?
Leon caught Nanny in the Deepfreeze.
Shut the door when he saw me and Steve standing there, waiting. Nanny’s eyes were huge. The last thing I heard her say was, “You know we can get locked in here, Leon.”
And him: “I don’t give a damn, Jimmie.”
The restaurant grew busy, and waiters and waitresses ran around, taking orders and filling water glasses.
“You could help,” Doris said to me, but I pretended like I didn’t hear her.
“What does he want with her?” I squeezed Steve’s hand till he kissed my knuckles, each one, and said, “Relax,” but I could see he was just as nervous.
I kept thinking how in all my life I had never really even met Leon Simmons. I had only seen him as I came in for a shift and he left. I had watered the plants at his house. Kissed his son. Gone swimming in his pool (almost nekkid). Driven around in his motor home. But had never even said more than a hello to him.
And now Leon Simmons had locked himself in the freezer with my grandmother.{ 284 }
175
?!
“He asked me to marry him,” Nanny said when she walked out of the freezer.
The kitchen went dead quiet.
Leon grinned.
“Dad?” Steve said.
“What are you looking at?” Nanny said. I closed my mouth.
Doris, who’d come in to see where the front-end manager was, let out a whoop. “What did you say? What did you say?” She was screaming.
“Perhaps,” Nanny said, and then she clapped for the workers’ attention. “Let’s get going! We have people to feed.”{ 285 }
176
Here’s the Thing
Some stories have horrifying ends, even when there are seven gold medals.
Some end well. Like this one.
So I wasn’t about to ruin Nanny’s happiness by pulling out that letter from Momma.{ 286 }
177
Hope
“He said”—Nanny drove one-handed toward home—“he had missed me all these years. That we were meant to be together. That some people are.”
Steve’s words. To me. “He did not.”
“He did.”
My face warmed up.
“You think it’s true?” I whispered the question. Hoping for both of us.
Nanny nodded. “I do.”
“And?”
“And he said he forgave me years ago, but that I had never forgiven myself.”
Warm night air blew into the car windows. The storm had passed us by, dropping only a smattering of rain.
The letter was still hidden away in my pocket.
We’d open it tomorrow.{ 287 }
178
Truths
“Dear Winston,” Thelma read. “You will be dating your brother if Nanny marries Leon. And, as you know, that is against the law.”
“Don’t say that,” I said.
“Plus you may have to serve Denny up in a stew at the restaurant.”
“Stop it.” My voice came out slow and thick as Karo syrup. “That’s not true.”
Thelma thumped around my room on her back legs, even though the one was still in the cast. She waved the letter around with her front paws. “It’s my job to keep you honest.”
“May I take your order?” Mark Spitz said. He wore my apron, and the medals hanging from his neck blinded me.{ 288 }
179
The Last Letter
I sat right up.
Thelma looked at me from the floor. Her cast kind of glowed in the moonlight.
I grabbed the letter from under my pillow and ran to Nanny’s room.
“Hey,” I said, poking her in the shoulder.
“Lions and tigers,” Nanny said opening her eyes. She cleared her throat. “What do you need, Winston girl?”
“There’s a letter here from Momma. It came today.”
Nanny sat up like she was a part of the Siegfried and Roy magic show. “What did it say?”
I sat on the side of her bed. “I haven’t read it.”{ 289 }
180
But Not the End
Dear Mommy and Winston,
I just wanted to say thank you. And tell you I love you. And ask you to come out to California at Christmas time. My treat. I will buy the plane tickets, no motor home trips. Steve can come, too.
Mommy, you were there for me all my life.
And Winston, I realized I want to get to know you. Even if I am living my dream. Because guess what? A dream isn’t complete if a little girl isn’t there to share it with her mom.
Love,
Skye Harper{ 290 }
181
It’s Never What You Think
Nanny held my hand.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said. “No, I wasn’t expecting that.”{ 291 }
182
Well, Almost Never
Neither was I. Not in a million years.{ 292 }
183
Promises
I was almost asleep when there came a tap at my window. “Winston,” Steve said.
I got up and tiptoed over. I parted the curtains, smiling.
“Hope it’s okay. I had to see you.”
I pressed my hand to the screen. “Hey.”
“Come outside. I have to show you something.”
Quiet as a girl and a dog with a cast on can be, me and Thelma hurried outside.
Steve sat on the front porch. He grabbed my hand, pulled me in the yard. “Look,” he said, and pointed at the full moon. An arch of white painted at the sky.
“A moonbow,” he said. “I’ve never seen one before, and I thought I should share it with you. You know, before our lives change. It means promises. Just like a rainbow.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. I breathed the words out.
Steve bent to kiss me.
“Y’all!” Nanny said. “Stop that!”
But this time, we didn’t.
Signed, Skye Harper Page 14