A Mother's Gift
Rozdizał pierwszy
Gossip is the first language in small Southern towns. Biscay, Mississippi, is no exception.
Gossip drifts through the school yards in whispers and giggles and seeps through the coffee shops
and steepled churches. Gossip makes the world go round in Biscay.
Biscay is an itsy-bitsy little
place, only ten thousand folks or so. "Biscay is definitely dead" is the usual declaration of anyone
under sixteen.
And they're kind of right.
Biscay's only connection to a highway isn't concrete, but
two lanes of grooved asphalt with chuckholes deep enough to rupture a glass-belted radial tire. That
old road is the reason that no fast-food chain will ever open up in Biscay. There won't even be one
of those major service stations with a food mart and self-service gasoline pumps with slots for
credit cards. The biggest business in town, the post office, is the only reason Biscay is even a
legal township. There's no shopping mall in Biscay. You have to take two buses all the way over to
Hattiesburg for that.
Kids who grow up in Biscay don't have much opportunity. Some of them quit
school early so they can help their parents farm. A few manage to go away to college. But most of
them stay there. Get a job. Get married. Get older.
Life doesn't change much in Biscay.
One thing Biscay does have, is a whispered secret, a nasty rumour that makes mamas shush their
children when they mention it. It's pathetic, most agree, that the biggest thing that ever happened
in Biscay is the one thing the town wants to forget. People say that once, a terrible thing happened,
and people died.
That's about all the townspeople will tell strangers. And they tell only those who
ask and ask at least twice about the mysterious plot of burned earth still sitting ugly at the edge
of Biscay. Maybe, just maybe, the emotional wounds that still run deep will eventually heal.
At least everyone hopes they will.
...
Because people are people, with hopes and dreams and faith in
their hearts and stars in their eyes even those who were born in Biscay, Mississippi.
"Here it comes, Mama," fourteen-year-old Holly Faye Lovell said, bumping the side of the old
television set with a practiced hip. The fuzzy grey screen blipped out, then blinked back in
wavering color. Holly dropped next to her mother on the saggy yet comfortable old brown couch
as the familiar toe-tapping notes of The Haverty Talent Hour's theme song drifted through the small
ranch house.
Holly's mother, Wanda, reached for some hot buttered popcorn from the bowl on the coffee
table. "I wonder what we'll see tonight." Holly grinned. Her mom said the same thing every week.
Everyone in Biscay watched The Haverty Talent Hour. It was like a local law or something. Holly though
she'd probably fallen in love with music even before she could walk - her mother had always made sure
music was a part of their lives. They woke up to Elvis (born in Tupelo, Mississippi, thank you very much),
spent the day bopping along with the Top 40, and drifted off to sleep with some easy listening.
And
they had a regular Friday-night rendezvous in front of the TV.
"Sorry, I've got a date tonight,"
Holly used to tell Tyler Norwood when he had first started asking her to come hang out at the Ten
Pin Lanes with his group of friends on Fridays. His face would crumple up each time when she turned
him down, and finally she couldn't keep a straight face any longer and had to tell him the truth -
her big date was her mom.
The famous Haverty School of Music and the Performing Arts, located in
Hattiesburg, televised a weekly show featuring its best students of music and performance. Each week
there was something different. Wanda loved the abbreviated operas, which always brought a smile to
her pretty red lips. Neither of them was a huge opera fan (why didn't singers who were smart enough t
o learn a foreign language sing in English so listeners could understand them, Holly always wanted
to know), but they would both sit in awed silence when one of the students attempted an aria and
clap wildly when he or she pulled it off.
Holly loved it when someone chose to perform an old gospel
song, letting the emotional power of the words rush over her. She was a fan of country music too,
although she could do without songs about people feeling sorry for themselves, songs about getting
your foot run over at the bus stop or about how your husband ran off with your best friend and left
you barefoot and crying in the kitchen.
Her favorite was pop music, the songs that they played on the radio, songs that got under her skin and made her and her mother jump up and dance, laughing as they bumped into furniture.
Holly had dreamed about being a student at Haverty. Wondered what it would be like to walk out on that stage and belt out a song. But Haverty wasn't for regular people like her and her mom and their friends were. Haverty was filled with the best and brightest students from all over the country - students whose parents had the big bucks to afford it.
Holly and Wanda had little bucks.
Wanda Lovell was the best seamstress in the county. She ran her own business, Wanda's Sew & Sew Shoppe, out of their home in Biscay. She had a new Singer sewing machine the she'd gotten on sale at Wal-Mart last year, but she often preferred to stitch by hand. No one could tell the difference between her handiwork and machine sewing. Wanda made all the dresses she wore, and all the dresses, blouses, slacks, and shorts Holly wore. Wanda even did reweaving and could make holes invisible. Business was good, and although she'd never get on the Fortune 500 list of moneymakers, she earned enough money for her and Holly to live on. They just had to pinch pennies. And sometimes nickels and dimes too.
The first performer on tonight's Haverty Talent Hour was a skinny boy in khakis and a white turtleneck who looked to be around Holly's age. He introduced himself, then sat down at the piano and began to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, a classical piece that Holly thought she'd heard in a detergent commercial.
"He's very good," her mom said, shaking her head in admiration.
"He's okay," Holly admitted. She'd been hoping the show would get off to a more exciting start. She imagined the boy turning to the crowd and breaking into a heavy metal number, startling the audience. Now that would be exciting.
Dusk was just beginning to fall, and Wanda had turned on the small fake Tiffany lamp, washing the living room in pink light. Holly studied her mom for a moment. She was so pretty, with her curly brown hair that just grazed her shoulder blades, and her nice warm almond-shaped eyes. If it weren't for the birthmark, she'd be drop-dead gorgeous, even for a mom, Holly thought, then hated herself for being so critical.
But it was true. Her mother's birthmark made calling Wanda Lovell a beauty queen impossible.
About two inches wide, the red mark stretched down one side of Wanda's round face, from her thinly plucked eyebrow to the bottom of her chin. Its crimson was a striking contrast to Wanda's lightly tanned skin.
Holly knew that some people looked at Wanda and immediately looked away because they didn't want to be caught staring. Their uneasiness was as pronounced as Wanda's birthmark. Most people in Biscay knew each other, though. Wanda's birthmark wasn't big news. It was just part of Wanda Lovell.
Holly and Wanda were closer than any other mothers and daughters Holly knew. There wasn't anything she couldn't tell her mom - she could even ask her about sex. Not that she'd done anything that she had to worry about spilling. Wanda still loved telling the story of Holly's first grade school crush. Holly had stood on a stool and puckered, waiting for little Tucker Ritchie to kiss her. After she'd counted out loud to three and felt nothing, she'd opened her eyes in time to see Tucker running away. She'd asked Wanda what had gone wrong. "Next time count faster and stop at one," her mom had advised sagely.
After that, Holly realized that when it came to romance, Mom really did know best.
A rustle at the back door startled Holly from her thoughts. It was a second before she recognized the familiar footsteps.
"Did we miss anything yet?" Juanita Weaver and Ruby Simmons bustled in, putting overstuffed pocketbooks on the kitchen table and giving Wanda and Holly hugs before taking their regular seats in the twin knobbed rocking chairs.
Juanita and Ruby were really Wanda's friends, but somehow they'd become Holly's too.
"Not yet," Holly said, wondering as she always did how Juanita managed to tease her black hair so high it scraped the ceiling.
"I'm sorry we're late - someone dropped by the house to pick up another one of Fifi's pups. We've found homes for almost all of the babies." Fifi was Juanita's dainty toy poodle, the most pampered pooch in all the South. She'd had puppies two months ago, and Juanita had been busy trying to match them all up with good people.
Juanita's trademark hairdo looked a bit wilted today, but her shimmery pink lipstick and starched flowered dress more than made up for it. She ran a beauty shop in her basement and was responsible for the recent wave of beehives and perky flips that were showing up on Biscay's Main Street.
Holly didn't trust her thick honey-blond hair to anyone else's red-manicured hands. But Holly would never get a beehive. Luckily, Juanita knew that.
"Whoo! He sure can tickle those ivories," Juanita said, her own fingers tapping on the rocking chair's armrest.
Ruby put a platter of pecan tarts on the coffee table, her rosy cheeks dimpling. "Just a little something to nibble on, ladies." She winked at Holly, who licked her lips appreciatively. "I was hoping you'd make them," Holly said before taking a bite. Ruby's pecan tarts were a favorite in the Lovell house.
As was Ruby's devil's food cake. Her warm apple strudel. Her sky-high lemon meringue pie.
Ruby's anything. As the boy continued to play, Wanda hopped to her feet and headed for the kitchen.
"Let me get a pot of coffee brewing."
Wanda's kind heart and Holly's singing made their home a popular spot for friends to visit.
"I heard about a book that describes you," one of the neighbors once told Wanda. It was called If You've Got a Lemon, Make Lemonade.
"That book wasn't about me," Wanda had said. "Who can afford lemons? A book about me would be titled If You've Got Ketchup and Water, Make Tomato Soup."
Most teenagers would probably find it boring to hang out with a bunch of women of Friday night, but Holly didn't. Well, sure, she wouldn't mind being with Tyler, but when she'd explained to him that Friday night had always been her night with her mom, he'd been totally cool with it. Friday's were their mother-daughter bonding time, Wanda liked to say. They laughed over the outlandish outfits some of the Haverty students wore, or shook their heads in amazement over the talent some of them had. But it was more than just watching the TV show.
It was spending time together. After all, they only had each other.
Holly's father had died years ago, when she was just a baby. Her mom didn't like to talk much about it. In fact, she didn't even keep any pictures of him. Holly often wondered what he'd looked like, and if she took after him - did he gobble up caramel corn like she did? Did he laugh at the same kinds of jokes? Were his eyes the same ice-crystal blue as hers were?
There were so many questions. And never enough answers.
Never any answers.
"Oooh, look at her, girls," Ruby said, biting into a pecan tart as a girl in a shimmery lavender top and matching pants walked confidently up to the Haverty Talent Hour stage. The girl nodded to Frank Shepherd, the host, and bent her head toward the microphone. "My name is Melody Gates and tonight I'll be singing 'I Will Always Love You,'" she said confidently. "I guess her parents knew she could sing when they named her," Wanda said with a smile as she returned with a tray holding steaming mugs of coffee.
Holly frowned. "Shhh, Mom! I want to hear her."
The girl's voice was clear and strong, and she sang with an assurance that must have taken many years to achieve. When it came to the really high parts of the song, though, Holly could hear that her voice didn't reach them.
Without realizing she was doing it, Holly started mouthing the words to the song. She almost always knew the words. She'd go from mouthing to softly singing. And then, as the music swelled, Holly would start singing more loudly. And even more loudly.
Right now she was in the middle of hitting the last note, her clear soprano voice one octave higher than Melody Gates's. Music swept Holly up and carried her off to a place only she could reach… a place only music could take her. Tuning out the rest of the world was easy when music filled her head.
As the song came to a close, Juanita, Ruby, and Holly's mom burst into applause.
Holly's face turned as red as Ruby's name. "I wish you guys would tell me when I start doing that!" she said, completely mortified. She knew she could sing - and she loved doing it - but she never wanted to show off.
But the women would have none of that. "If you don't have a voice that beats out every one of those Haverty snoots, then I'm a monkey's uncle," Juanita declared.
Ruby nodded enthusiastically."Holly, dear, you have just got to get yourself into that school. You'd blow them away with that sweet song of yours."
"Why, the moment they heard you, they'd change that show and we'd be sitting here watching The Holly Lovell Hour," Juanita added, squeezing Holly's hand with so much conviction that Holly almost believed it herself. Holly stared down at her toes, as usual embarrassed by the praise of her singing. She wasn't sure why it embarrassed her - it happened often enough that she should have been accustomed to it. A natural soprano, she could shift into alto easily. When she sang with boys in her church choir, she even improvised bass lines. Miss Fogarty, Biscay Elementary's music teacher, had once told Wanda that Holly had a four-octave range.
Holly was eleven.
That was a long time ago. Holly was fourteen now. And she was smart enough to know what was what. And what was what was that she, Holly Faye Lovell, daughter of a widowed seamstress in one of the smallest towns to dot the Magnolia State of Mississippi, had no chance whatsoever of saying hello to Frank Shepherd on the stage of The Haverty Talent Hour.
She'd sing in her church choir. For her mom and her friends. And in the privacy of her own room, where she could close her eyes and imagine letting her voice fly.
The television image began to flutter again. "Shoot. I'll never get a lick closer to Haverty than right now," Holly tried to joke, bumping the set with her hip once more. "But that's okay," she said, trying to ignore the sad feeling that swelled up in her just as the music did when she thought about Haverty. "I wouldn't fit in with all those hoity-toits anyway, right?" She smiled over at her mom.
Wanda held her steaming coffee cup between her hands. "The sooner you get going, the farther ahead you'll get, you know."
Holly fought the urge to roll her eyes. Her mom was always coming up with little inspirational quotes to motivate her. Wanda never failed to tell Holly she could do anything she put her mind to.
"Then I better get going into the kitchen to get y'all some more joe," she said as the strains of an all-girl a cappella singing group sang out from the television. She knew that the high school had a music department where she could receive training for her natural talent. That would be just fine, she thought. And then she busied herself with measuring out the coffee, wondering just who she was really trying to convince.
June 18
Dear Diary,
I keep telling Ruby I'm going to gain a gazillion pounds with all those good things she brings over. But does she listen??? When Holly hit that high note tonight, I felt chill bumps all the way down my back. She wants so desperately to do something with her life, to make it out of Biscay. And I want to help her. But what can I do? I would give anything to help her realize her dream, anything at all. Maybe God will give me the answer. He's sure heard me pray enough about it lately!
Don't get me wrong - I know my life is filled with blessings. Having Holly has made my world brighter than I could have ever imagined. I guess it's just that after working hard your whole life, and doing the right thing, you like to think there's some reward out there for you, a light at the end of the tunnel.
But I can't complain. My life has been filled with plenty of little lights all along.
Better go. Marge Maslow's daughter's wedding is just a month away and I've got the whole bridal party's alterations still to do! A mother's work is never done.
Tonight my evening quote comes from the cutest little photocopy Juanita had. Someone got it for her off of the Internet (darned if I understand how that works!).
"Yesterday is the past. Tomorrow is the future. Today is a gift - the present! We shouldn't waste it."
BBC
|