Mysterious ways, p.19
Mysterious Ways, page 19
“You are not getting on an airplane.”
“Thank god for that. I hate airplanes.”
“How many did you take?”
“I thought I should take extra. And it wasn’t kicking in, so I took one more. So, like, three.” She held up three fingers of her wiry, gnarled strumming hand, stared at it for a second, and then added another finger.
“Four! Mom! We have to leave now and you’re headlining.”
“Can’t you let little Plum do it? Or the scary girl from math class?”
“It’s Peach. People are coming to see you. Haven’t you been getting fan mail all week?” Maya saw her mom tenderly remember the adorable, heartfelt video Sasha had sent her and a tear slid out of the corner of her eye. Then she shook it off and let out a sound like a whoopee cushion deflating.
“Mom, what happened? Why have you never told anyone about what happened to Pet Rock?” Why don’t you ever even think about it? Maya wondered.
“You want the ‘Behind the Music: Pet Rock’ story where we all get too full of ourselves and do too many drugs and sleep with each other’s boyfriends until we break up the band? Well. Whatever. It didn’t happen exactly like that. They broke us up.”
“Who?”
“The execs. All those Phil Spector creeps. And I sold out and trusted them like a stupid ingenue. I gave them the copyright to all my lyrics, and then because I didn’t give enough blow jobs or because I gained a little weight or something, they canceled our record deal and signed Alanis Morissette. They booked her in all our venues and canceled our tour and then hired Laura and Susan to play in her band. I was already thirty, which was old for a rock star. This tour was our one break, and they gave it to Alanis, who was twenty-one.” It took a lot for her mother to get all those words out and she took a big sigh and almost fell asleep on the spot, but then she opened her eyes and started again.
“I didn’t sing after that, not even in the shower, because singing comes from the heart and my heart was pulverized. I hope you never feel that.” She pointed to Maya’s chest. “Heart pulverization,” she slurred. “I practically forced your father to impregnate me. Give me new life. But it took us some years. Fuck them. I have you. We have each other. We have the store. What does Alanis have?”
Maya suddenly realized there were zero Alanis Morissette albums in their entire record store. Not even Jagged Little Pill, which was considered a feminist classic. They didn’t even have the cast recording of the Broadway show, and they had the cast recordings of every Broadway show. “Um, I think she has three adorable children and access to private jets and whatnot?” Maya said.
“Fuck. Isn’t it Ironic?”
“No,” Maya said.
“Well, nothing in that stupid song was ironic, either. Here, help me get dressed, I’m going to do this thing.”
“Mom, you don’t have to do this thing. I thought this was what you wanted. Another chance at music,” Maya said.
In the weeks after Maya had accidentally discovered the Pet Rock memorabilia, singing was almost all that Stacy could think about. She’d played the fan video that Sasha sent her almost a thousand times, still in awe of the fact that she had a fan who was younger than forty. She had a fan!
Maya would find her tucked behind the register at the store just ruminating about what it felt like to make something that actually moved people. She would luxuriate in the memory of hitting the perfect note—one with a cylindrical clarity that could actually permeate a person and vibrate at their very core. Finally, she had taken her guitar out, something Maya’d only ever seen Glen do, never Stacy, and she’d pluck away at her old songs, trying to put them back in her brain.
“I’m doing it because I thought it’s what you wanted,” she said.
“Well, that is ironic,” Maya answered.
“She’s not better than me. Alanis.”
“I know. She’s not. But like you tell me all the time, it’s not a meritocracy.”
“It’s a patriarchy, I guess,” Stacy said.
“You’re just figuring that out now?”
“No, obvioushly,” she slurred. “But maybe the implications of it. Yes. I mean we have never, and now, after the event-that-should-not-be-named, we will never have a female president. We are and always will be second-class citizens. It’s so inthidious we don’t even realize we’ve been groomed to eat shit our entire lives. There’s no getting outside it. And if you are outside it, then nobody ever sees you. And I think I’m anxious all the time, because I’m trying to help you fit into it, because it’s the path of least resistance. And then that makes me angry and there’s rage. It’s so confusing.”
“Disappointment. Disapproval. Dismay. The occasional Pride and then maybe Envy,” Maya mumbled.
“What? Yes. If I express disapproval, it’s because I’m trying to protect you from other people’s disapproval. I don’t want you to get hurt by the mean people of the patriarchy, but empirically I approve. I approve of everything you do…”
“So how do I escape it?”
“Only Frances McDormand has escaped,” she said, waving her sloppy hand that did not look like it could control the strings of a guitar right now. “Meh. I’m feeling petty about the patriarchy. Write that down. Actually, that’s terrible. See. I just don’t have it, Maya. My brain doesn’t work that way anymore. You can’t make art with a pulverized heart. Write that down. No, don’t.” She puckered her lips, then pointed to them and said, “Do me lipstick.”
“You can’t go on like this.”
“The show must go on, Maya. Do you think I haven’t performed in worse states?”
“Like Alabama? That’s the worst state.”
“Rim shot,” Stacy said.
“Maybe your state is why they canceled your tour and hired the sober, spry Alanis Morissette,” Maya said.
“Pffft. She wasn’t sober. She was singing about all those jagged pills,” Stacy slurred.
Glen was already at the venue. It was just Antonio’s, but Maya liked how official it sounded calling it “the venue.” He had hooked up the sound system and rigged Maya’s laptop up to a projector so she could play some cute bobcat footage to open the show and encourage folks to show up for the town council meeting in three weeks.
So far, from their polling, they had found out that it was going to be a close vote. Three of the council members were avid hunters/anglers and three were Green Party sustainability freaks. The swing vote would be Mayor Randy McBride, who was a townie, but with a heart. He gave to animal charities, but Maya couldn’t tell if it was just to keep them alive so he could hunt them down himself. If they could put enough pressure on the mayor, they could obstruct the ordinance. Concerning fun fact, though: He had a cat named Trigger.
When Maya arrived with Stacy, Sheila was behind the espresso machine pre-pulling shots for the signature drinks they’d dreamed up for the event. Maya had shown her the secret menu from Starbucks—a bunch of rainbow-colored chemical concoctions—and Sheila figured out how to make similar things with healthier ingredients. Her own homemade strawberry compote, for example, or honey from the local apiary, lavender sauce, and sweet potato powder. They figured out that if they frothed the milk enough, they could suspend boba pearls throughout the drink and make it look like it had spots. That one was called “The Boba-Cat.”
The plain “BobCattuccino” was a cappuccino with a dolce caramel swirl that Sheila made herself, and “The Kitten” was a decaf vanilla steamed milk with honey drizzle, honey sticks, and chocolate chips. Maya was reluctant to include anything with food coloring, but she knew she had to include something colorful for the freshmen. She also wanted to keep it woodland themed, so they created “The Easter Bunny,” which was half all-natural strawberry milk and half purple sweet potato latte. Topped with two floating jelly beans and a homemade Peep.
“And this is coffee, how?” Sheila had wondered.
“I don’t know. Just trust me,” Maya said. The point was to make it photogenic for TikTok. It didn’t have to be coffee, per se.
Now, Maya walked in with her arm around her mother’s shoulder and guided her toward the kitchen behind Sheila. She plopped her on a stool and let her slump there.
“Caffeine, stat,” Maya said to Sheila.
“What’s wrong with her?” Sheila asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
“I’m fine, Sheil. I’m just relaxed,” Stacy said, and she tried to cross her legs, but couldn’t quite manage getting one leg to lift on top of the other. She finally gave up, sat knock-kneed, and said, “Hi.”
Sheila grabbed Stacy by the cheeks with one hand so she could get a better look at her. Sheila looked at Maya with sad eyes and just thought, Oh amore mio. Not tonight.
“She took airplane medicine,” Maya said.
“Does this look like an airplane to you?” Sheila asked.
“Scary,” Stacy said, and Maya couldn’t tell if she was referring to Sheila, airplanes, or performing at the coffeehouse, because all three of those things were swirling around in her mother’s drunken thought tornado.
“Don’t let her have any signature drinks. Just espresso and some water. Maybe a little bread.”
STACY
At this age, Stacy was supposed to have a platform. A voice, a platform, a foundation, a nonprofit … a 501(c)(3), a place to rest on her laurels and put them to use for the betterment of other people. She was supposed to be recycling the fucking LAURELS. She was supposed to be on boards of trustees, for Christ’s sake. At the last PTA meeting they asked her what boards she was on, and she almost choked on her seltzer water. “I, um, own a record store, sort of,” she mumbled (the bank owned most of it). “Sometimes I teach Zumba.” She had $857 in her checking account.
It was Psych 101. Erikson’s stages. She was stuck languishing in the seventh stage and couldn’t help reminding herself about it. Stage Seven: Generativity or Stagnation. If she failed to generate goodwill for the next generation, she would stagnate. It was true; fucking Erikson, he was right. She was dead inside, living beneath the weight of a pathetic broken dream. Langston Hughes knew what she felt. When you ceased to dream, or when your dream was deferred, he wrote so famously, “life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly.”
Tiny violins, she thought. Boo fucking hoo. You couldn’t be a Rock Star. Wahhh.
It was not even that she felt entitled to her preposterous dream; it was just that she had gotten so close; she was playing the big stages; and she didn’t know how to do anything else. She couldn’t “job.” She could barely add. Spreadsheets were beyond her. She wasn’t good at keeping track of things and wasn’t that what jobs were about? And now when she saw Dolly Parton saving the world, or Joni Mitchell, or Stevie Nicks, or Cyndi Lauper out there rocking their generativity stages, she was just reminded of all her unfulfilled potential gone to waste. She was supposed to be giving back.
Her blackbird was struggling, too. Maya was her blackbird. She’d sung the Beatles’ “Blackbird” as a lullaby to Maya every night in the womb. “That’s life, baby,” she would think. “You need to learn to fly, even though you’re inheriting all the brokenness. Even though all conditions conspire against it, you need to learn to fly. No one else can do it for you.” And she knew Maya would fly. She knew she would, but first she needed to set a better example. She needed to fly herself. So she googled “How do you give back, when you have nothing left to give?” And she asked the universe, “How do I give back, when I have nothing left to give?” And she waited for an answer.
She could teach music at a nursing home; she could play music at a nursing home; she could be a Big Sister; she could teach people to read; she could read books to blind people; she could walk dogs at the shelter. But Google didn’t know how low a per son like her could get. Google didn’t know how little confidence she had. People in nursing homes had been successful once. What could they learn from her? Little Sisters needed someone successful to show them paths to success. She felt like an impostor, trying to help. But then the universe responded, too. The universe said, “Do it anyway.”
So now she had a schedule. Nursing home Monday, literacy tutoring Wednesday, and Friday reading books to the blind. She even started writing a fucking song for the first time in fucking forever. It was called “Life Is a Broken-Winged Bird.”
Pounce
Tori opened with a smooth, mellow alto jazz number reminiscent of Adele, but with more gravelly undertones and without Adele’s meandering anticlimax. Tori’s song, “Bae,” actually went somewhere. It had a funky breakdown and a big finish. Even Stacy noticed, and, reaching a new manic state of intoxication, probably from the espresso, she stood up whistling loudly through her fingers and then held up a lighter for an encore.
Everyone turned around to look at her and thought: What the? Wow. Obnoxious. Who is that? Crazy. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maya pictured herself physically pushing these thoughts out of her mind with a snow shovel (a tactic Amy had taught her) so that she could take the stage and show her bobcat video. It was well received and elicited a few golf claps, except, again, for Maya’s mother, who stood up in the kitchen, whistled and screamed, “Woooo! Save the bobcats!”
Maya gave Glen a look, like, “Deal with her.” And he left his sound mixing post to talk Stacy down a bit.
“And now back to the music,” Maya announced. Peach set up with Sam acting as roadie and, with their adorable bops, had everyone fixated. The side conversations just came to an immediate halt. Sasha played the bongos and a whole host of other miscellaneous percussion, like windchimes and cowbell and even triangle, which all added layers to the joyful if sarcastic lyrics belted out by Snow and Jackson. Their final tune, “Gap Year Girlfriend,” was kind of the Bangles meets Suzanne Vega meets Rex Orange County meets Sesame Street. It was retro-bop Sesame Street soul. They had their own sound.
Lucy, who was game enough to wear a cat ears headband and a leopard print money belt for making change, had set up her merch table next to the stage because that was the only place it would fit. The bobcat socks were getting some play, but Maya hoped more things would sell at the next break. She gave Lucy a thumbs-up. And Lucy thought, OMG, Cringey. Thumbs-up back, I guess.
The plans for saving Lucy, the Bobcat, were moving in the right direction. She shared her poker winnings with Terry. Terry did some research and hired a marketing consultant for her pop-up, which was happening soon at an as yet undisclosed supercool location. At first, Terry gave pause when Lucy showed him her cash winnings for her investment, but then she said, “Don’t ask me about my business,” and Terry decided not to pry. Lucy’s mom was thrilled that the two of them were getting along. They were a great little team. Dare she say, family? And in one fell swoop Maya had saved an entire pounce of Bobcats, which was what a group of bobcats were called when not called a clowder or a clutter.
Maya climbed up to the stage to tell people about the merch table and announce the next act—Spencer and his magic.
Spencer, dressed in satiny pants, a white shirt, and a yellow kerchief, asked for a brave volunteer from the audience and the room quieted to a muted hush. The audience just stared back at him in silence as if he were an eighth-grade science teacher who had just told a joke. Tyler, who had snuck in through the back door, tried to rescue the whole operation by leaping to the stage in a single bound with his taut high-jumping thighs, volunteering for Spencer’s card trick.
Maya almost choked on a boba. Seeing Tyler rush in, bounding to the stage and smiling to the audience and waving at them using his big, knuckly drawing hand that had such a fine sense of line, seemed to have paralyzed all her autonomic systems that were supposed to function on their own without thinking. Breathing, Swallowing, Blinking, all those things suddenly locked up and became impossible.
“You need the Heimlich over there, Storm? Can you speak?” Lucy asked her.
But Maya was in deep. It had been a few days since their date, and she and Tyler saw each other or FaceTimed every night between ten and midnight. It became intimate quickly because Maya knew the workings of Tyler’s mind, and contrary to popular opinion, a teenage boy mind could be beautiful and generous and true and naive and curious and funny, which her parents told her was the most important thing for a mind to be, because laughter could heal you when everything else turned to despair.
“Maya!” Lucy said and nodded toward the front. She had been in such reverie about Tyler that she didn’t see Spencer wrap up his magic act or witness her mother taking the stage.
“Taking” was sort of an overstatement, though. She was … What was she doing? Wooing the stage? Stalking the stage? Teasing the stage? She crept toward it like a drunken bobcat, sort of interpretive dancing, but then as she got to the three small steps that would take her to her destination, she’d spin around and dance the other way.
The crowd began playing into it. Cheering mockingly when she got close to the steps and then letting out a collective “Awww” when she spun away. Finally, they started chanting, “Rock, rock, rock, rock” (short for Pet Rock, Maya guessed), and her mother did it, bounding spryly up the steps and waving at them, but never really looking up from the ground. She was timid, shy, reticent, exactly like a bobcat or Chrissie Hynde.
Stacy plugged in and made some final adjustments, tuning the guitar she called “Madge.” Maya had recently learned all her mother’s guitars had names. There was Madge, Mr. Stinky, Big Red, Slippery Devil, and Saucy Minx. Maya’d never known about them until this week, when her mother began creepily referring to them as her “siblings.” Until now, her “siblings” had been packed away in a storage unit in Trenton so as not to provoke a single memory, thought, or inkling of the rock star career. Madge was her mother’s first guitar and the one who was most dear to her—a well-oiled extension of her own body and mind. Stacy and Madge were symbiotically connected at one point, giving each other life … each feeding off the other. Intimately related as if they shared DNA.
