Sway (3 page)

“Aunt Toodi, you look like a model!” said Syd. Aunt Jo
mmm-hmmm
'd in agreement as she helped Clay out of his wheelchair and held him steady by the back of his belt.

“Syd, you're way too kind,” Mom said, wobbling in my direction first, just like I'd hoped she would. When she got within hugging distance of me, her eyes got little shines in them. And not those window-shaped fake shines you put on drawings of apples and balloons, but
real
shines.

“My girl,” she said, bending over me with her eyes closed and pressing her chin to the top of my head. I felt a tear land on my scalp and run right down the part in my hair. Mom smelled tons better than I ever imagined floodwater smelling. I held that first mom-air in my chest until it hurt.

“I'll have to take a rain check on the giant hugs,” she whispered, nodding toward the grocery bags. “I'm losing the feeling in my pinkies.”

I'd never heard of a rain check before, but hoped it was something storm rescuers bought bags of souvenirs for their kids with. Over my mom's shoulder I saw my dad across the driveway struggling to flick the last dove feather off of his sweaty arm. But when Mom turned in his direction, he suddenly got all frozen as she made her way toward him with the plastic bags bouncing off her hips.

“Sorry I almost flattened you,” she said.

“Water under the bridge,” said Dad. “Flood rescue has sure been good to you.” Then Mom and Dad hugged like two wrong ends of magnets, an invisible wavy-wiggly force keeping them from getting too close.

“Can I help you with the bags?” Dad asked.

“Oh, it's a short walk, hon. I got it,” Mom said.

“Then I guess I'll change that bad tire,” Dad said, struck with a shyness that wouldn't let his eyes any farther off the ground than the tires anyway.

“Thank you,” she said, spinning around and flinging a smile in Aunt Jo and Uncle Clay's direction.

“I see Funyuns. It must be a party,” Mom said.

“All for you,” said Aunt Jo.

“Can't wait,” Mom said. “Would you all be so kind as to excuse me while I go put on my face real quick? The long drive's given me a terrible case of the greasies.”

Aunt Jo lowered Uncle Clay back into his chair. Syd stuck a straw in each ear. Mom teetered back to the car and pushed the door shut with her behind.

“Come on, Cass. Let's be girly,” she said over her shoulder, on the way up the back door steps. I moved so quick to catch up with her, the screen door didn't even graze me as it closed. I'd never heard my mom use the word
girly
before, and it was sure worth leaving some Funyuns behind to find out what she meant.

F
rom the corner of the kitchen, I watched as Mom dumped her bags out all over the floor, sending halter tops and capri pants and flowered dresses piling up near as tall as our washer. Once or twice when I was younger and more tender about things, I'd ask why she had to go on these trips, and she'd always say, “Cass, they just need a smilin' face to help clean up the place.” The first time she ever told me that, she went straight out and had it airbrushed on a tank top:
Here's a smilin' face to help clean up the place!
I looked for that shirt to land on the pile, but didn't see it.

“It smells kind of pet-store-ish in here,” Mom said. She sniffed at the air as if something was burning, but I didn't mention the doves. Then she scanned the room from wall to wall, corner to corner, like when I check the shower for crickets.

“It looks like the church ladies haven't let you go hungry,” Mom said, straightening the leaning tower of empty foil pans on the counter. “So what kind of potpies did you all get this time?”

“Mostly chicken and turkey,” I said. “There was a bologna potpie too, but we threw that one out, pan and all.”

“Well, speaking of wise moves,” Mom said, spotting our game board still set up on a TV tray next to the fridge. “I see you and your dad have been at the Scrabble again.”

“A little,” I said. We had actually been at the Scrabble a lot, but in Dad's special way of playing, where he spells out a word like
hero
and then says something like, “You know, that mom of yours sure is one.” In fact, Dad does lots of goofy things to try and make things okay when Mom goes away. Like twisting little storm rescue scenes out of pipe cleaners. Or putting paper drink umbrellas on
every
thing. Or making fog in a jar. My dad tries to fill in the empty part of the pizza when the Mom slice is taken away. Dad tries really hard to be the cheese.

“Sweetheart, would you mind carrying this last one for me, please?” said Mom, handing me the pink plastic box she had under her arm. It was like a mini pink version of the one Uncle Clay kept his tools in, and it had a squeaky handle.

“Whew…With all that weight off, my arms feel like they're floating,” Mom said, play-flying her way down the hall.

“Come on, Cass. Fly with me!” she sang out, bumping framed SMART certificates and assorted “Thank you, Toodi Bleu, from the Mayor!” letters. I followed close behind, straightening each frame. In the bathroom, I plopped myself onto the counter, where a new Response Team recruit is probably too big to be sitting, but it seemed okay just that one time. Then Mom gave me a sudden squeeze that was longer and tighter than any time she'd come home before, a journal-cover-worthy squeeze that made me wish someone behind the shower curtain had a camera.

“Now, let me have a look at you,” she said, cupping my chin in one hand and smoothing my hair with the other. Even with a case of the greasies, my mom was so beautiful they could have designed a Storm Rescue Barbie after her.

“Cass, what's this sticky all over your face?” she said.

“Fresca.”

Mom grabbed the washcloth and turned on the warm water. As she gently scrubbed my face, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was a poor storm victim she was helping. Like, if only I had some stuff for her to bandage, I could sit there all day with her tending to me. But without the actual blood and hurting, of course. When she stopped to wring out the dirty water, I let the questions flow like my own little flood.

“Did your cell phone not work in the storm area this time?”

“No phone reception in those parts, baby,” she said. “No power, no nothing. They were hit really hard.”

“So then, what's Misery, I mean
Missouri
like?” I said.

“You know, Cass,” she said with a grin. “I'd really like to find out someday…when it's not covered in water, that is.”

Mom dabbed at my mouth with the washcloth.

“There'll be plenty of time for my stories at the party,” she said. “Now, you hold still just a sec.”

I could smell fresh nail polish as Mom lightly scraped at my face with her pinkie. She held her finger so close to my eyes it made them cross trying to focus on the two eyebrow hairs she'd lifted from my cheek.

“A wish for each of us!” she said, blowing the tiny hairs to nowhere.

That's just like Mom. She's always wishing on things. But not just on regular stuff like fallen eyebrows or shooting stars or coins in fountains. On weird things, too. Like on typos in the newspaper. Or on broken pieces of glass. One time, I even saw her make a wish on a cereal flake that looked like her old gym teacher.

But unlike Mom, I don't make a habit of saying wishes out loud. I really only ever had one wish—to see the world with Mom—and Syd says that if you say the same words out loud over and over again, they're in danger of losing all their meaning.

“Know what I wish?” she said. “I wish you'd tell me about
Cass
. I do hope you've kept that journal of yours filled in for me to see.”

“Sure did,” I said. “I've noodled every day.” And while Mom inspected every inch of her own face, with her nose almost touching the mirror, I was more than happy to tell her about Cass. In fact, I'd planned on my next words being,
Mainly, Cass would very much like to become a storm rescuer.
But instead, they came out more like, “I made a cyclone out of two Coke bottles for my final project last week, and the whole fifth grade thought it was cool except for Mean Maritucker Mentz, who called me a fartsy-artsy, thumb-sucking, goo-goo baby for talking about my weather-loving mom so much.”

“Well, I'll be a monkey's patoot,” Mom said, fussing a fog circle onto the mirror. I'd planned on her next words being,
Well, you just get me that girl's phone number and I'll make sure she doesn't mess with my baby again.
But somehow, instead, they came out, “I've got myself a zit.”

She said it like
zeeyut
.

“I'm sorry to interrupt, hon,” she said, with a pat to my knee. “But this here is one powerful blemish.”

I had to agree with her. It was an enormo pink shiny one at the top middle of her forehead.

“Is that your first-aid kit?” I asked as Mom slid the pink plastic toolbox over toward us.

“Sort of,” she said.

“Would you maybe teach me how to use that stuff?” I asked.

“I'll be happy to,” she said. “Although, it may not be the kind of first aid you're expecting.”

Mom undid the box's main latch and lifted the lid to reveal an array of lotions, powders, sprays, and every possible shade of makeup. The box got bigger as she unfolded level after level of beauty supplies.

“You were thinking gauze pads and peroxide, weren't you?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said, like I knew what those were. “Where'd you get all this stuff?”

“Oh, from this precious lady whose salon was a mess of sludge,” said Mom. “I helped her salvage some of her chairs, and she gave me all her samples as a thank-you. I've been enjoying being kind of fixey-fixey ever since.

“So,” she continued, “since we got folks and finger food waiting for us next door, how about I give you a few quick rescuing and beauty tips mixed together?”

I thought that was an awes idea.

“Let's see here,” she said, rummaging through the bottom level of the box. “The lesson that's first…Be prepared for the worst.”

I figured there might be a rhyme coming. My mom was born to rhyme. Dad says she burps, sneezes, and snores in rhymes.

“As a rescuer, you never know where you're going next, or what's going to be waiting for you there. But if you're well prepared, you can handle anything.”

Mom unloaded a whole lineup of creams and said, “Take this bump of mine, for instance. A dot of this and a smear of that should cover it right up.”

She held her bangs back with one hand and applied a zeeyut potion with the other. After re-lidding all the jars, she pulled a pointy-handled comb from another level of the box.

“Lesson number two…Comb all the way through.”

Mom ran the comb through my hair so hard it made static crackle in my ears.

“After a devastating storm, never leave a house unsearched, no matter what a tangle it's in,” she said, hitting a knotty speed bump at the back of my head. “Cass, I swear, you're just like your momma with this one piddly wave in your hair.”

I figured if I couldn't have my mom's flippy flowiness, I could at least be proud of having one piddly wave in common with her.

After that, Mom grabbed a little roll-on deodorant from the box and said, “Lesson number three-o…Some deo for your b.o.” We looked at each other and busted out laughing.

“In other words, don't let the people you're helping know that you're so scared your teeth are sweating,” she chuckled.

Right about then, I saw the corner of something familiar sticking out from under a collection of lipsticks in the middle level of the pink box. I pulled at the corner to reveal my wrinkled old fourth grade school picture. When Mom saw it, a tear as tiny as a dewdrop formed in the corner of her eye.

“Just a little friend I always take along with me,” she said, tilting her head toward the light to let the tear slurp back in. “And that, my friend, brings us to lesson number four, for when the tears start to pour.”

From that same middle level, she picked out an eye shadow duo the colors of peas and corn, along with a long tube of mascara.

“Flood-proof eye makeup,” she said. “Want to try a little?”

“Sure,” I said, wondering if this would be our daily routine out on the road together.

As she applied the shadow to my lids in slow, smooth strokes, Mom said, “Just look at how this chartreuse and goldenrod shimmer on you.” She kept having to smush her wrist to her cheeks to smear off some runaway tears.

Usually, you'd rather touch a slug than to see your own mom get all weepy-eyed, but it feels kind of nice when it's because she's been missing you so bad.

“Land sakes,” she said. “That Alabama pollen has
already
got my allergies going, don't it?”

I couldn't remember my mom ever having allergies before, but as she dabbed and dabbed again, something else caught my attention real quick. Something that shimmered tons more than eye shadow. It was my mom's charm bracelet all crammed full of new charms, way more crowded than I remembered it being. A palm tree, a beach ball, a dolphin. It looked like her little Cass-head silhouette charm was squished between a seahorse and a sailboat.

Just about the time I finished studying the charms, Mom did the last swipe of shadow on my lid and reached over to open up a special side compartment of the pink box.

“I've got something here that you might want to have, Cass. It may still be a little big on you, but it seems fitting to go ahead and pass it on to someone who's well on her way to being another smilin' face to help clean up the place.” From the little chamber, she pulled out something that needed to be unfolded in five directions before I could tell what it was. When she laid the airbrushed tank top across my lap, it felt like she'd covered me in a quilt made of fifty satiny first-place ribbons that I myself had won.

Without hesitation, I slipped the top over my shirt as quickly as I could and tugged the creases out as Mom looked on in a speechless, achy-proud sort of way.

“Thank you, Mom. I love it,” I said.

“You ladies just about ready?” Dad called from the kitchen.

Mom took one last moment to puff her whole face with some powdery pinkness before collapsing the beauty box and latching it shut.

“You're welcome,” she said to me as I stared in the mirror at my new shirt, the bright loops and swooshes of its lettering almost glowing.

“Hello?” Dad called again.

Mom and I found Dad standing at the kitchen sink with the faucet going, like he did a hundred times a day, waiting for the water to heat up.

“The flat tire is good as new,” he said, flashing us ten little crescent moons of grime crammed up under his fingernails. “But now
I
need to degrease before the party.”

If a thing about my mom is she's always wishing, then a thing about my dad is he's always washing. Always scrubbing off some mulchy, meaty evidence of the day's work. Every new bar of soap we ever opened was worn down to a sliver in record time.

“Cass and I were just discussing the finer points of rescuing in style,” said Mom, scooting back a chair for me and one for herself at the same time. She propped an ankle across her knee to shake loose the gravel trapped between her sandal fruits.

“I noticed the nice new duds,” Dad said. “But what's with the foo-foo stuff on your face, Cass?”

My dad wears an
It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it
ball cap that has white waves of dried-up sweat salt on it. Mine and Mom's airbrushed tank top would want nothing to do with that hat.