Spiral of Bliss 03 Awaken (15 page)

“Look, you need to find another place to stay,” I tell her. “That’s it.”

She shrugs, as if it makes no difference to her. I go to the bedroom and change into a nightshirt, then get some clean sheets and pillows from the closet. When I turn, I see her standing in the doorway watching me. I suddenly wish I’d put on my bathrobe.

“You’ve gained weight,” she remarks.

“A little.” No way will I tell her it’s the last few pounds of my pregnancy weight that I still haven’t quite shed.

“More than a little.” Her gaze travels over my body through my nightshirt. “But it suits you. You have the kind of figure that would look disproportionate if you were too much slimmer.”

I have no idea if she’s complimenting me or slamming me. Or both.

“Uh… thanks?”

She smiles. “Sorry. I meant that you look good.”

“So do you.” I go into the living room and spread the sheets on the sofa. “There’s an extra toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom drawer.”

She goes into the bathroom, and I hear her moving around, the water running, drawers opening and closing, before she emerges in a thin cotton robe, her hair twisted into a loose knot at the nape of her neck.

I get out my old quilt and toss it onto the sofa. “So… I’m sorry about…”

I don’t even know what to say.
Your mother? My grandmother? Elizabeth Winter?

“Your mother,” I finally say.

Crystal shrugs. “Hadn’t seen her in well over twenty years. Didn’t even know she was sick.”

An uncharitable thought rises like pond scum in my mind.
Does Crystal know about the inheritance? Is that why she’s here?

I study her as she puts a few things back into her suitcase. Nothing on her face would indicate that her mother’s death affected her in any way.

“You had no contact with her?” I ask carefully.

“Why would I want to? She threw me out when I got pregnant with you. Then she refused to take us in when I needed her help after we left your father.”

“How did you hear that she’d died?” I ask.

“Stella. She had my last address and sent me a note. I’d assumed she told you too.”

I make a noncommittal noise. I wonder if this means my mother never heard from Elizabeth Winter’s lawyer.

I shift the topic of conversation, and we discuss our lives in a polite, cordial manner. Crystal asks about places Dean and I have lived, tells me where she’s traveled and what she’s been doing.

She spent a year in Seattle working at a jewelry store, and has lived in LA, Austin, and Denver. Albuquerque, Portland, San Francisco. She’s worked in nightclubs, hair salons, clothing stores, yoga studios, food co-ops, florists. She’s sold her jewelry at art fairs, beaches, craft shows, street festivals.

“Do you like it?” I ask. “Living that way?”

“Who wouldn’t like that kind of freedom?”

Me, for one, though I don’t bother telling her that. She already knows.

“What’s in there?” I ask curiously, nodding to the black case by the sofa.

“My jewelry.”

“Can I see some of it?”

A faint surprise flashes in her eyes. “You want to see my jewelry?”

“Sure.”

She hefts the case onto the coffee table and unlocks it. She opens little compartments and drawers to show me dozens of pieces—gemstone necklaces, beaded earrings, shell brooches, dozens of the woven bracelets and anklets I remember from years ago.

“The detail work is beautiful.” I study a blue-and-white bracelet woven in a crisscross pattern.

“I took a few classes, learned some new techniques.”

I look at a necklace with wire-wrapped green stones and a brooch painted with the image of a flower. They’re pretty, obviously done with care and more expertise than I can recall Crystal possessing.

“Aunt Stella once said you wanted to be a fashion designer.”

My words come out unbidden, almost as if someone else had spoken them. I tighten my fist on the brooch and look at my mother.

She doesn’t respond right away, but the edge of her jaw tenses. “So?”

“Is it true?”

“I wanted a lot of things, Liv.” She puts a few earrings into a drawer and slams it shut. “Doesn’t mean I got any of them.”

I’m struck with the urge to apologize—I know her life didn’t turn out the way she wanted because she got pregnant with me. But I can’t apologize for having been born. I have to swallow hard to push the
I’m sorry
back down.

She continues putting the jewelry back in the case. “So what else has Stella said?”

“She said my… my father regretted how things turned out.”

The words
my father
sound unfamiliar in my mouth. I don’t talk about him at all. Don’t think about him. He’s a ghost, there and yet not there.

He was in my life for seven years—long enough for memories and images to bury themselves like seeds in my mind. But they never grew because Crystal was the sun, bright, hot, blinding. Whatever memories of my father I’d wanted to cling to withered under the force of her light.

Now, unexpectedly, they push through the dirt. There’s a man with close-cropped hair and a youthful swagger. Tall and broad, a silver chain around his neck. He smelled of sawdust and sweat. Worked as a carpenter. He died in a car accident when I was eleven.

Crystal turns to put the bracelet away, slamming the little drawer closed.

“Your father should have regretted a lot of things,” she says.

“Do you?” Again, it’s like someone else is speaking.

“Jesus, Liv.” Bitterness discolors her voice. “My whole life is a regret.”

The next morning, after I tell Crystal about the Wonderland Café, she comes with me to see the building. I take her on a tour of the interior, telling her our plans for the lower-level
Alice in Wonderland
theme and the
Wizard of Oz
rooms upstairs.

“When you were a kid, you used to love places like this,” she remarks, peering out the upstairs window at the view of the lake.

For some reason, the band around my heart loosens a little at her remark. It’s an odd comfort to realize that she remembers something about me when I was a child. Maybe I hadn’t been as invisible to her as I’d so often felt.

“Hi, Liv.” Allie’s cheerful voice precedes her entrance into the room.

“Allie, this is my mother,” I tell her. “Crystal Winter.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were in town.” Allie extends a hand to my mother. “Liv showed me your commercial a while ago.”

My heart drops. Tension rolls through Crystal, straightening her spine.

“I didn’t even know Liv had that tape,” she remarks.

Allie glances at me with uncertainty, appearing to sense that this is forbidden territory. “Um, it was fun to watch.”

“I’m sure it was,” Crystal says.

“So, Allie, isn’t Brent coming this morning?” I ask.

“He should be here any minute,” she replies. “I’m going to finish up in the front room.”

She gives me an apologetic glance before leaving. Crystal is still looking at me.

“I thought I got rid of that tape years ago,” she says. “I distinctly remember throwing it away.”

“I… I got it out of the trash.” I’d been nine years old. Crystal had gone out for a singing gig at a nightclub, and I’d rummaged through greasy TV dinner trays to retrieve the tape from the garbage.

“Why did you do that?” she asks.

I have no idea. I didn’t understand my mother. I just wanted
something
of her, even an old VHS tape of a cereal commercial. A cherub-faced blonde girl who looked so happy and seemed like she had a bright future.

“I wanted to keep it,” I finally admit. “You can have it back, if you want.”

“No.” Her voice is chilly. “I don’t want it.”

A clutter of voices drifts up the staircase. I tilt my head toward the door.

“We should probably go,” I suggest.

“I thought you needed to work.”

“Yeah, but you don’t want to hang around here.”

“I can help out.” She digs into her pocket for a rubber band and starts to tie her hair up in a ponytail. “Just tell me what to do.”

That’s a role reversal, if I’ve ever heard one. She was always the one who told
me
what to do. After suggesting that she help strip the wallpaper from the front room, I go back downstairs.

I step onto the porch and call Dean on my cell. He answers before the first ring ends, but to his credit he waits for me to bring up the subject of my mother.

“As soon as I’m done here, I’ll call around and find a place for her to stay,” I assure him.

His breath escapes on a sigh. “Okay. You call me if you need me, right?”

“Of course.” My stomach knots. “What time is the meeting?”

“Three.”

“Look, why don’t I come to the Firefly Cottage tonight?” I ask. “I know we have stuff to talk about, and I want to hear about the meeting. No one will bother us there.”

“What time?”

“Seven. But promise me you won’t get all blustery and caveman, okay? Just be cool.”

“As a cucumber, baby.”

Though he forces a light tone and I laugh, the tension between us doesn’t dissipate much. We discuss our plans for the day before I end the call, waving at Max Lyons who is crossing the street with a tray of takeout coffees.

“Trying to stay on your daughter’s good side, huh?” I ask, holding the door open for him.

“You got it. She’s like a piranha if you get on her bad side.” He puts the coffees on a table and looks around at the disarray of the place. “Good start.”

“The tearing down is always easier than the putting back together,” I remark.

He smiles. “But the putting back together is always worth it.”

We both glance up as Allie comes downstairs with her portfolio in hand, Crystal following.

“Liv, your mother was just telling me about her jewelry design,” Allie says, and her worried expression elicits a wave of apprehension in me.

“I offered to help with the murals,” Crystal explains. “Allie said you weren’t sure what to do with the borders, or along the tops of the walls.”

“Um, a few friends of mine are going to help too,” Allie says. “Don’t want there to be too many cooks or anything.”

While I’m grateful that Allie is trying to provide me with an excuse to reject Crystal’s offer, I give her a reassuring shake of my head. It’s not Allie’s job to play referee between me and my mother.

“That’s nice of you,” I tell Crystal. “We’d appreciate your help.”

Allie moves to pick up one of the coffees, shooting me an encouraging,
it’ll be okay
smile. She introduces her father to Crystal before heading back upstairs.

Max steps forward to shake Crystal’s hand, and I see him look at her with that purely male appreciation that she’s so accustomed to receiving. She’s beautiful with her long hair pulled back to reveal the elegant lines of her neck, wearing a soft, pastel pink T-shirt that stretches across her breasts and slender waist.

To my shock, my reaction is visceral, as my heart kicks into gear and my stomach tenses. That
look,
that blatant appreciation of her beauty, was always the beginning.

After that, the men would invite Crystal—and me, by extension—into their houses, trailers, apartments. I’d try to be invisible, try not to exist, try not to wonder how long we’d live with
this
man
this
time.

Inevitably Crystal would go into the man’s bedroom with him, and I was alone and anxious in another strange place, unable to avoid hearing the moans and grunting as I waited for my mother to come back out again because she was all I had.

I turn away, grabbing a cup of coffee. I take a quick swallow, hoping the heat will burn off the anxiety icing my whole body.

I hurry into the other room, where Brent and his friends are working. I get a wallpaper stripper and start tearing off long strips of paper. Kelsey comes in through the back door, her arms loaded with catalogs of kitchen supplies.

“Marianne asked me to drop these off,” she tells me. “And I took out a few ads for the head chef position, so you should expect applications soon.”

“Great, thanks.” I follow her to the front room, somehow calmer in her no-bullshit presence.

Crystal and Max are still talking, but they break apart when I step in to introduce Kelsey to my mother. Kelsey’s eyes narrow behind her glasses, but her voice is pleasant as she and Crystal exchange greetings.

A rush of affection for Kelsey fills me. Like Allie, she doesn’t know all the details of my relationship with Crystal or my childhood, but she knows it’s both painful and complicated. For her, that’s enough to be wary of my mother.

“So how long are you staying?” Kelsey asks.

“I don’t know yet.” Crystal reaches back to tighten the band around her ponytail, the movement arching her back just enough to press her breasts forward. “I just wanted to see Liv. My mother passed away recently, so I was thinking I should go to Phoenix and see about her house and belongings at some point. Sooner rather than later, I suppose, since Liv won’t let me stay with her.”

A hundred curses race through my head and heat my blood. Somehow I manage to keep the anger from my voice as I say, “You know how small our apartment is. There isn’t room.”