15
TO DO: The family thing (beads, bedtime stories, and . . . back to turkey wings, of course)
MOMLY TEXTED ME a smiley face at almost the exact same time me and Maddy climbed into Uncle Tony’s SUV after school. I knew she had planned it that way—Momly plans everything—to make sure I wouldn’t be checking my phone in class when I heard the ding. I showed it to Maddy, and she smiled big-time.
“Hold that pose,” I told her, and snapped a photo of her—head cocked, big gappy-mouthed cheese—and texted the photo back to Momly.
“Are we going to go see her tonight?” I asked Uncle Tony. “Especially since I don’t have practice.”
“Actually, I think it’d be better if you girls waited until tomorrow,” Uncle Tony said, turning his blinker on so he could pull out into the street. He looked to the right and to the left, to the right and to the left again, being extra careful, waiting for the coast to be clear. “She’s pretty spacey right now since she’s on heavy-duty pain meds since it’s the first day. When I spoke to her earlier, she was talking about putting beads on her fingernails.”
“On her fingernails?” Maddy cried out.
“See what I mean? Painkillers can be a zonk; sometimes it’s just best to give people a rest day.”
“So tomorrow then?” Maddy pushed.
“Hmmm. I’m pretty sure she’s going to come home tomorrow,” he explained, finally turning.
“Can we go pick her up with you?” Maddy followed up, the thump, thump of her feet in my back.
“Well.” Uncle Tony gave me a look. “Skunk’s gonna do me a favor and take y’all to the track. Patty has to run.” He looked at me to make sure that was okay, and I nodded to let him know that it was.
“But I don’t.” Maddy made her point clear.
“Don’t you wanna see Patty race?” Uncle Tony asked.
“Yeah, but maybe we can pick Momly up first,” Maddy pushed more. I reached back and gave her knee a squeeze.
“Maybe,” Uncle Tony said. “The thing is, Patty’s meet starts in the morning, and Momly’s told me a million times that usually hospital discharge stuff takes a while, so people aren’t usually released until early afternoon. That’s the way it normally goes. Doctors drag their feet and take their sweet time.” Maddy pouted in the back, while Uncle Tony took his sweet time driving us home.
That night I called my mother and asked her to help me make turkey wings. Yes . . . turkey wings. Uncle Tony had been married to Momly for forever and never knew how to cook much of nothing, which was ridiculous to me. He would’ve ordered takeout, but I just felt like we needed to have a real meal. Have something regular. A reminder that we were fine. Plus, I wanted to make sure I was ready to really help Momly when she came home, even though Uncle Tony kept saying he had it covered. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the driving thing was all him, and lifting Ma up, and all that, but I was just doing my part. Teamwork. Ha! I almost said, Team wing, which I guess works too.
So I called Ma for a practice run, and she walked me through how to make turkey wings in a way that definitely wasn’t Momly’s way—Momly put hers in the oven, but Ma told me to put mine in a pan on the stove. I was scared they were going to taste like bacon, because that’s how Ma had me cooking them—but they still tasted like turkey. Either way, Maddy and Uncle Tony devoured them, Uncle Tony, of course, being silly, eating his with a fork and knife like it was something fancy.
“Goor-met Tur-Kay Wangs,” he kept saying, struggling trying to cut around the bones.
After dinner, Maddy and I did our nighttime routine. And because it was Friday—five days after I did her hair—it didn’t take long.
“Okay, let me see.” I fingered through her hair, counting each red plastic . . . cylinder? I guess they were kinda like cylinders. Math! “Looks like you have thirty beads left. You started with ninety.”
“That’s not bad!” Maddy whooped. And it actually wasn’t, especially since it was such a crazy week. There’d actually been weeks when by Friday, Maddy would be beadless. I always figured during those weeks she was purposely taking the foil off the ends of her braids and shaking them out for fun. I had never confirmed it, but it seemed like something she’d do.
“Nope, pretty good!” I agreed, squished up beside her in her tiny bed. Her room, so Maddy, full of weird-looking brown dolls with yarn hair and scary-movie eyes. She named them all Addison. Also a stuffed giraffe that was bigger than her, that Uncle Tony won for her at a carnival. She named him Giraddison. Of course. And taped to the walls were a whole bunch of pictures of our family. Some were photographs—Momly always went nuts with pictures, and Uncle Tony always went nuts with camera filters, and together they had the nerve to get cell phone pictures printed—and some were drawings. Crayon on construction paper of smiling pink mother, smiling brown mother with no legs, smiling little girl with big muscles and red circles all over her head, smiling man, and giant girl with shorts and jersey. That was me. But I wasn’t smiling. I looked cool, but, weird, everyone else was smiling. Huh. Then there were pictures of legs. Just legs playing kickball, or legs holding hands, which I thought was kinda funny. But my favorite one was of me, Cotton, Maddy, and Momly, with Ma floating above us, just a head and torso, and above her, for some reason Maddy had scribbled, Merry J Blyj.
“I’m gonna tell you a story,” Maddy said, fluffing her pillow. “It’s a good-luck story, about a lady who almost lost her arm, but a girl saved it because she had thirty magic beads.”
“Magic beads, huh?” I propped myself up on my elbow.
“Yep, they . . . they . . .” She was thinking of the next part. “When the girl runs around, the beads go clickey-clickety-clickety and that’s like a magic spell that heals things. It’s like a special hairstyle.”
“And did the beads have to be a certain color for this spell to work?”
“Well . . .” Maddy smiled. And before she could even finish the story, I kissed her cheek and told her I loved her more than all the cupcakes in the world.
The next morning I startled awake, still in Maddy’s bed, my body cramped, her face two inches from mine, her eyes wide open, willing my eyes open.
“Uncle Tony said Momly can come home at noon!” she blurted, way too early, and way too close to my face. Not even a good morning. Maddy might be a YMBC too.
“Okay,” I said, groggy.
“So Skunk gonna take us to your meet, while Uncle Tony gets Momly.”
“Okay.” This was basically what Uncle Tony had already prepped us for. No new information.
“You think he might bring Momly to the track after he picks her up?”
“Hmmm, not if she’s in pain, Maddy. I doubt it.” I hadn’t really thought much about the pain Momly might be in. I mean, I know the medicine is probably pretty strong, but still.
“She’s still gonna be in pain?” Maddy said, the tone of her voice diving into concern.
“I don’t know. I hope not. I’m sure she’ll be okay.” Then I repeated the same things, this time to myself, in my own head, to convince myself Momly was all right.
I don’t know. I hope not. I’m sure she’ll be okay.
“But she might be in pain, right?” Maddy doubled down, like she always does.
I moaned, long and loud, like a train horn. “Maddy, I don’t know. I’m still sleep.” I rolled over and snatched the sheet over my head.
“But you not sleep because you talkin’ to me,” Maddy said.
And she was right, I wasn’t sleep no more. But I also had to get my mind right for the meet. I took a shower, then sat down at my vanity desk to do my Flo Jos and hair. For my nails, I was going to paint different-color squiggles all over them. It’s just part of my good-luck thing. And I could use a little of that. Plus, they made me feel fly. Like Flo Jo.
Now for my hair. Here’s the thing: usually for the meets I either snatch it back into a ponytail, or I comb it straight and leave it out, also like Flo Jo. But today, after I was sure my nails were dry, I reached up and grabbed a chunk of hair, split it into thirds, and started braiding. Starting with the front, I worked the left side, then the right, and then after about thirty-five minutes all I had left was the back, which was always the hardest part to do myself.
“Maddy!” I yelled. She didn’t come, so I yelled again. She was probably in the kitchen, eating breakfast and watching cartoons. Everybody left me alone on meet days because they knew I had my rituals—hair, nails, begging for Flo Jo to give me some of her magic from heaven. Oh man, I really am a YMBC. The sound of Maddy’s feet came skittering toward my door. “You called me?” she asked, knowing full well that I called her.
“Yeah, come in,” I said, combing my fingers through the patch of hair left on the back of my neck. Maddy opened the door, and her eyes went wide. My hair was braided up just like hers. “You like it?” I asked.
Maddy grinned. “Yeah.” She came over to me, pinched the ends of a few of my plaits, then patted my edges as if she was touching up my baby hair. “You did a good job.”
“Well, I’m glad you approve.” I shook my head.
“But you missed a spot.” Maddy noticed the unbraided bit in the back. “Unless that’s the way you want it.” She shrugged.
My face went flat.
“What? It might be a new style.”
“It’s not.” I grabbed the comb off the desk and used the corner of it to pick through my kitchen—the back of my neck—again. “And I need you to braid it up for me.”
“I can’t braid.”
“Yes, you can,” I said, calling her bluff. I knew Maddy could braid because I taught her, and plus, she braided her dolls’ hair all the time. Now, she wasn’t very good, but she could get the job done.
“But not as good as you,” she argued.
“Yeah, well, maybe I want a Maddy braid. Maybe that’s my new style.”
Maddy didn’t look convinced. “You sure?” she asked, now running her own fingers through it.
“Waffle, if you don’t braid my hair—”
“Okay, okay!” she said, focusing in. I watched her through the mirror, the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth, concentrating, weaving the hair slowly, trying her best not to mess up. Ten minutes later, “Finished.”
I ran my hand back there. Three of the fattest, loosest braids I’d ever had.
“They’re perfect,” I said. Maddy crossed her arms across her chest, all cocky. All that. I laughed. “Now it’s time for beads.” I opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out the can.
“You putting beads on ’em?”
“Yep.”
“What color?”
“Hmm.” I pretended to be thinking. “I think I’m gonna go with red.”
“Good choice.”
“But I’m only gonna put thirty on there. That’s it,” I said, popping the top off the can.
“Only thirty?”
“Yeah, only thirty. Thirty red, good luck, magic beads. Just like you got.”