Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [83]
I heard the sliding door open. Momma, wearing her infamous muumuu, stood in the doorway.
“Oh,” she said.
Like it was perfectly normal for her daughters to congregate in and around an old baby pool that hadn’t budged through two winters, one daughter in her underwear, the other wrecking the pageant dress into which she’d sewn all her superficial hopes and dreams.
“You didn’t even know she was out here,” I said accusingly, scrambling to my feet.
“Don’t be silly. Of course I did.”
“That’s not true, Momma! You couldn’t have known—you’d be freaking out!”
Even though I was yelling, for once Momma didn’t raise her voice. She looked at me and said quietly, “I always know where you girls are.”
You girls? I shook my head, thinking of all the far-flung nooks and crannies where Mandarin and I had assembled. “No you don’t. You have no idea where I go.”
“I know more than you think.”
“How?” I demanded. “How do you know?”
“I have my ways.”
Thinking of Polly Bunker, I narrowed my eyes. “Gossip.”
“That, and other methods.”
“You could have just asked.”
“You never would have told me.”
She was right. “But it would have meant something,” I said. “The asking.”
At last, Momma came over and stood in front of us. Her eyes wandered from one daughter to the other. I could tell it took her every milligram of willpower not to swoop Taffeta out of the baby pool and dunk her, pageant dress and all, in a soapy bath. But she just stood there with her arms crossed.
“I know I’m not a good mother,” she said at last. “But I know I’m not a terrible mother either.”
I sighed. Did she expect me to be thankful? In my opinion, there were far too many mediocre mothers, and fathers, and not nearly enough good ones. In Washokey, at least. Maybe my sample was too small.
“You know, Grace, I didn’t mean to be pregnant with you,” Momma began.
“Momma …” I glanced at Taffeta.
“Just let me finish. Things like that don’t necessarily happen when you’re ready. Hell, I wasn’t much older than Mandarin. Eighteen’s just a number. I wasn’t anything near an adult … It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, growing up that fast.”
“Then why, Momma? Why’d you have me in the first place?”
The question shot out before I could stop it, burning my eyes, my throat. I ordered myself not to cry. Not now. Not worth it.
Momma shrugged helplessly. “You were my baby.”
She took a step closer.
“After everything I went through, I promised myself I’d make life easy for you girls. That’s what the pageants were about. I wanted the world to fall down at your feet. When you wrecked your Little Miss Washokey … it was like you were flipping me off. All that time I’d spent—I thought it was our time.”
“The road trips,” I said. “Not the pageants. The pageants were your time.”
It felt strange saying them out loud, the words I hadn’t been able to articulate for years and years. They came easier than I’d have ever believed.
Just words. Nothing more.
“I guess it was how I knew to be close to you,” Momma said. “And we were close, way back when. Weren’t we?”
“We were,” I agreed quietly.
Neither of us said what should have followed: Maybe we can become close again. But I knew we both were thinking it.
We stood there for a while longer, our eyes flickering away from each other’s. Finally, Momma reached down and lifted up Taffeta. She didn’t resist. Brown water streamed from her dress, seeping onto Momma’s muumuu.
“You don’t have to be in pageants anymore,” Momma said to Taffeta. “You don’t ever have to sing again, if you don’t want to.”
“But I want to.”
“Really?” Momma and I exclaimed at once. I felt like my brain was about to spontaneously combust. All my memories of pageants were tinged with irritation. It had never occurred to me that my sister had actually enjoyed some part of them.
“I just get to choose the songs I sing,” she said. “Songs I like singing. How about that?”
“Sure, honey!” Momma’s eyes looked misty. “Like what songs?”
Taffeta thought for a moment. “Maybe something disco.”
I waited until Momma was busy in the kitchen