“Yeah.” I don’t even know what she’s wearing for the pageant. Or what her talent will be. Or if she’s started on her prop for the opening number.
“What’s going on with the two of you anyway?”
“Me and El?” I shrug. “Just having a difference of opinion, I guess.”
“Y’all will figure things out. Me and Luce always did.” She comes in a little further and sits at the foot of my bed. I try to picture the last time I saw her perched there, but nothing comes to mind and it’s like one of those memories you tell yourself is real, but it’s not. You just wanted it to be. “Have you thought any about your wardrobe for the pageant?”
“Uh, no. Not really.” I bite down on the skin around my thumbnail. “Mom, do you miss her?”
“Miss who?”
It kills me that she doesn’t instinctively know. “Lucy.”
“Luce,” she says and it comes out like breath. “Yeah. Of course. All the time.”
We’re both quiet for a moment.
“The year I won Miss Teen, she stayed up all night sewing sequins on my dress. I bought the thing at a consignment shop. I told her no one would notice a few missing sequins, but she wouldn’t have any of it. ‘The difference between winning and losing is all in the details,’ she said.”
So much of my memory is filled with their arguments that I sometimes forget that more than anything else, they loved each other.
She stands up. “The dresses from Cindy’s are pretty pricey and she’d have to order something for you, but maybe we can put something together ourselves.”
I want to appreciate this, that she can take off her former Miss Teen Blue Bonnet hat and be my mom. But it doesn’t feel like enough.
“Sometimes,” I say, “I think I can’t miss Lucy any more than I already do, but then something like dress shopping comes up, and I remember all the things she won’t be here to see.”
For the first time in a very long time, my mom says nothing. I never realized how much was lacking from my relationship with her until Lucy wasn’t here to fill in the gaps. It’s the two of us now, fumbling around in the dark.
FORTY-ONE
It’s homecoming, which means school is a total joke. The day’s schedule is full of pep rallies, contests, and alumni tours. When I sit down for second period next to Mitch, there’s a huge blue, yellow, and white mum spread out across my desk. Long, glittery ribbons hang from a cluster of fake chrysanthemums, and hot glued to that are two miniature stuffed teddy bears. One in a football uniform and the other in a pink dress and a tiara. Mums are like good food. The best kind is homemade.
“Oh.” I suck in a breath.
“You don’t like it?” asks Mitch. He wears a small version of my mum around his arm. His hair is combed and his jersey is tucked into his jeans. “My mom can go overboard, and well, I can’t really—”
I sink down into my chair. “No, it’s not that,” I tell him. “I love it. No one’s ever given me a mum before. Thank you. Really.”
“But?”
I sigh. “I have to work tonight.”
He smiles, but the rest of his face is heavy with disappointment. “I guess you can’t get out of that, huh?”
“I wish I could.” I really do. “But I just started back, and I’m going to have to take off time for the pageant, too.”
He squeezes my hand. “It’s cool. At least tomorrow’s Halloween.”
For a moment, I’m distracted as Ellen and Callie file into the classroom, laughing back and forth about the costumes they have planned for tomorrow night. I hated dressing up with her. She’d always try to put together some couples costume that suited both of us, but no matter how hard she tried, it never quite worked. She doesn’t even look in my direction.
There are lots of things I can’t remember. Like, the periodic table. My mother’s birthday. Or my locker combination at work.
But if there’s one thing I can’t forget, it’s those words we spat at each other.