Blooming at the Texas Sunrise Motel Read online

  “For a minute, I thought you were the Avon lady,” the man says. “But you’re just a girl.”

  I smile. “I guess I am.”

  “Did you stay here last night?” His long ponytail touches the heart tattoo on his large biceps. The letter I is in the center of the heart.

  “Did you?” the man asks again.

  “I’m sorry”—I look away from his arm, my cheeks warm—“did I what?”

  “Did you stay here last night?”

  “Yes, I live here now.” Now. The word feels like a lump in my throat.

  “You do?”

  I nod.

  His eyes squint. “Are you Winston’s granddaughter?”

  For the first time since arriving, I feel a little encouraged. Maybe Winston was excited about me coming.

  Then the man says, “Mercedes told us about meeting you yesterday.”

  Of course. “I’m Stevie.”

  “That’s a funny name for a girl.”

  “I guess it is.” I don’t bother explaining the Fleetwood Mac connection.

  “The only girl I’ve heard of with that name is Stevie Nicks.”

  “My parents were fans.”

  “Sorry, can’t say the same.” He stretches his arm toward me and we shake. His grasp is firm, and I have to resist rubbing my knuckles when he lets go.

  “I’m Horace. And this is my wife, Ida.”

  The I in the heart.

  Ida smiles at me, and her fingers smooth her hair.

  “Nice to meet you.” I move closer to her and hold out my hand. She grabs my fingertips and squeezes.

  “Until yesterday, I didn’t know Winston had any children, much less a granddaughter. Of course, he’s a private man. No crime in that.”

  “Do you and Ida stay here a lot?”

  “For the last eight years,” Horace says. “We moved right after we got married. Still haven’t gone on our Pensacola honeymoon, have we, Ida?”

  Ida makes a little sound that I think is a sort of laugh.

  “But we will,” Horace says. “I can promise you that. Today I’m just wanting to know where that Avon lady is. She’s supposed to bring Ida her Sweet Honesty cologne. Have you ever smelled it?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Smells sweet as Ida. If that lady would just get here. We’ve been waiting two days for her.”

  And even though it’s only seven fifty in the morning, I find myself looking out to the highway in search of her too.

  Chapter Six

  I’VE TURNED MY ROOM upside down trying to find anything that my mother left behind. I want to know her secret life. The life before me. I raise the mattress, hoping to discover a diary. Instead a tiny spider scampers out, escaping to the floor.

  Whenever I went to Carmen’s house to spend the night, I’d get homesick. It didn’t help that Carmen and the other girls liked to do séances. Someone would want to bring back their crazy aunt, and Carmen would turn out the lights and gather us in a circle. A tree branch would scratch against the window, causing us all to scream. It never failed to happen. Later, when everyone else was asleep, I’d close my eyes and remember a favorite dream. And that’s exactly what I do now. I’m at the ocean. There’s laughing, music, and waves. I must be a toddler, because Mom’s holding my hands, leading me to the water’s edge. The ocean’s foam kisses my chubby knees.

  I’ve remembered bits of the dream through the years. I see a bonfire on the beach. My mom is there, and a man playing a guitar, singing. Even though the man doesn’t look like my dad, I know it is him. It must be him. People sometimes look different in dreams. In this one, he has a head of curly hair. It’s a good dream, because every time I think about it I feel warm all over.

  Since I’m not going to school today, I decide to walk around with Mom’s camera. She’d just traded in her old one that needed film for this digital one. Dad and I had tried to convince her for years to switch, but she was stubborn about taking photos the old-fashioned way. I can take a hundred pictures if I want. The land surrounding the motel is flat and bare. I focus on the Texas Sunrise Motel sign and take a long shot. Then I move in closer and concentrate on the base, where a patch of short stems poke through the weeds. The leaves look familiar, but I can’t remember what they remind me of. A cloud of pink blooms enters my thoughts. “Phlox!” I say it so loud and glance around to see if anyone heard me, but I’m alone. It’s quiet except for the highway traffic whizzing by.

  We had phlox all around the Rockasita. The memory of it makes my heart leap. The blooms aren’t here yet, but I focus the lens and click, click, click.

  Back home, flowers meant work. I had my share of the chores—watering, pulling weeds, turning the compost pile. But now, as I look around the motel grounds, I can’t help thinking how much better even a dump like this would look with some flowers and green. For a minute, my head is like a lighthouse, turning right and left, then back right again, searching for the perfect place for a garden. But planting a garden would mean I’d be putting down roots. And I’m getting out of here as soon as I’m old enough, to return to the farm.

  A UPS truck turns into our parking lot as I make my way back. The driver hops out with a box, goes inside the office, and returns to the truck. She waves to me as she drives off. I open the door, wishing there was a way to get into the apartment without going through the Bloomin’ Office.

  “You have a package,” Winston says, tapping his pen on the box.

  The record player, records, and photo albums have arrived.

  Chapter Seven

  IT’S MY THIRD DAY HERE, and Winston still hasn’t said when he’s going to enroll me in school. He hasn’t mentioned my parents, either. Doesn’t it matter to him that Mom isn’t here anymore? My eyes do the blur-and-burn thing again. They did that when my other stuff arrived too. That’s why the box is still under my bed.

  Since the sun is up, I change so that I’m ready in case Winston decides to take care of my “education needs” today. At seven thirty, Roy walks from his apartment toward the road. I open the window and softly call out his name.

  He stops, glances about, then keeps walking.

  I say it a bit louder. “Roy!”

  He spins around. When he sees me, he smiles and hurries over to my window. He’s all legs and arms, and he moves like a whirligig gathering speed.

  “Playing hooky again?”

  I shrug.

  “Winston will probably enroll you today. Remember what I told you—don’t take Spanish. The teacher piles on the homework.”

  I don’t tell him that I already know a good bit of Spanish and that I’ll probably take it as my elective. Everyone needs an easy A.

  “Do you want to hear the Bloomin’ Office story?” he asks.

  “Sure.”

  Roy checks his watch. “I’ll make it quick. We had a few Aussies staying here a couple of years ago. They were doing a road trip around Texas. They started drinking in the mornings and didn’t quit until after midnight. Come checkout day, they were so drunk that they circled the motel, walking laps around the parking lot. We couldn’t figure out what the heck they were doing. One of them asked Dad, ‘Where’s the bloomin’ office?’”

  “That’s funny.”

  “Yeah, it was. After they left, we all had a good laugh about it. Dad made the sign.”

  We hear the roar of an engine, and then the bus turns into the parking lot.

  “Better go!” he says. “See you in school! Remember: don’t take Spanish!”

  “I’ve already forgotten,” I tell him.

  Roy sprints toward the bus, his backpack dangling from his arm. He probably has a girlfriend.

  I make my way to the kitchen, where Winston is fixing a fresh pot of coffee. He must live on the stuff. I toast two blueberry Pop-Tarts for breakfast. In less than forty-eight hours, I’ve managed to destroy all the healthy eating habits Mom enforced my entire life. We raised practically everything we ate.

  “Do you want some coffee?” Winston asks.<
br />
  “No,” I snap. “Never touch the stuff.” I’m hoping to get a reaction out of him, but it doesn’t work. He hardly looks in my eyes when he speaks, and the few times he has, he quickly fixed his gaze on some nearby item.

  “I called your teacher, Beatrice Crump. She said today would be good as any to begin.”

  “Do you mean my homeroom teacher?”

  Winston sighs. My questions seem to cause him to do that, as if to answer takes a lot of energy. “Well,” he says, “the class is in her home, so I guess you could call her a homeroom teacher.”

  “I’m not going to the middle school?”

  He stares at me a long minute before speaking. “When I agreed to take you in, I made a commitment to raise you. And I will raise you as I see fit.”

  My face burns. I reach for the coffeepot and pour myself a cup. The liquid is strong and hot. I swish it around in my mouth, burning my tongue before swallowing. Black coffee is bitter. Like my new life. The image of me catching the bus with Roy each morning and making friends with the other kids on his school bus evaporates.

  * * *

  DAD WOULD CALL WINSTON’S VAN a gas guzzler. Although Dad’s old truck wasn’t much better. He always blamed his frequent trips to the gas station on the mountain climb. We drive toward town, and for that I’m grateful. I long to see something besides highway. I loved our farm, but I also loved the plaza. We went there a lot for all kinds of events—music, art shows, or just sitting on a bench and people-watching. There were all kinds of crazy tourists. The tourists probably came there to watch us.

  Soon we begin to approach houses that look as if they were built at the turn of the last century, large and lovely with wide porches and gingerbread trim, like pretty, plump women dressed in lace. I can see the square, but before we reach it, Winston parks in front of a grand Victorian house. It’s a pale-blue two-story. A Southern magnolia tree in the front yard towers above the roofline. The lawn is mowed, but the roses and shrubs are overgrown. The flower beds next to the house are crowded with weeds and grass.

  “This is it,” Winston says.

  We climb the steps that stretch across the entire front porch. Winston rings the doorbell. No one answers. We wait for what seems long enough to boil water. I’m beginning to wonder why Winston doesn’t try again when he presses the buzzer and knocks loudly.

  Another long minute passes before we hear someone unlatching a lock. Then another. And another. The door creaks open.

  An old woman—a very old woman—with a badly dyed black pixie haircut and bright cherry lipstick stands before us. Her tiny body seems to be held up by a cane with a leopard-print handle. Even so, she quakes from the effort. She raises her chin, peering through her green-framed glasses, and smiles at me. Then she turns her attention to Winston.

  “Winston Himmel, haven’t seen you in a dozen years.” She says it like she’s not expecting us.

  Winston rubs at his beard. “Has it been that long? It can’t be.”

  “At least. I ran into you at the convenience store. We waved at each other between the pickled eggs and beef jerky. No, sir, haven’t seen you up close since right after Daisy’s last class.”

  My heart skips a beat. Was this old lady my mother’s teacher?

  Winston nods fast as she speaks. His face turns white as sand and he holds up a hand to stop her. “Um, yes, I guess it has been that long. Well, this is your pupil.”

  She looks up at me. “Hello, young lady. I’m Mrs. Crump.”

  “Hi, I’m Stevie.”

  She touches my wrist with her icy hands. “We’re going to have an exciting journey together.”

  How could this old lady take me anywhere exciting? I wonder what Roy is doing at the middle school, what my friends at my old school are doing, what Mr. Connor is saying. Something exciting, probably.

  “Three o’clock?” Winston asks.

  “Seems you do remember some things,” Mrs. Crump says.

  As Winston turns to leave, Mrs. Crump tells me, “I’m so sorry about your mother and father.”

  When she says that, Winston’s back tenses. He walks away and is gone. It may have bothered him to hear those words, but I’ve needed to hear them. I didn’t realize how much until then.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Mrs. Crump motions me inside and toward the mahogany staircase with a worn runner hugging the steps. “Shall we? We’ll need to get to the second floor.”

  I wonder how she will make it up, but she lowers her body onto a compact box seat attached to the side of the staircase. She pushes a button and the chairlift moves her up, up, up.

  I stand at the bottom watching until she reaches the top. I’m still watching when she gets out and stands.

  “Do you need a ride?” she asks. “I can send my chairlift to you.”

  My face feels hot. I didn’t mean to stare. It’s a bad habit of mine.

  “No, I’m sorry. I just never saw—”

  “You’ll need to try it sometime.” Both hands rest firmly on her cane in front of her like she’s a dancer on a chorus line. I picture a top hat on her head. A giant bee hangs from the ceiling, not a real one, but one that looks like it’s made from papier-mâché. I start my climb. Some of them squeak.

  “Best thing invented since sliced bread,” she says.

  “The bee?”

  “The bee?” She looks up. “Oh, the bee. The bee was made by my other student. She gave it to me. I thought it was stunning. That bee is a reminder to me of what can happen when you let students do what they want. They learn anyway. She designed and made it herself.

  “But I was talking about my chairlift. The neighbors who are my age haven’t seen their second floors in decades. They could have an entire family of squatters living upstairs for all they know. Too much of my life is up here. My books, my journals. And I adore looking at town through the north window. Life’s hurdles are for jumping.”

  She is jabbering away, but when she takes a breath I ask, “You have another student?”

  “Yes, Flora. She’s about your age. She’s not here today. You’ll meet her soon enough.”

  I’m happy there will be someone else. Someone my age. Coming here won’t feel as strange now. Maybe we’ll end up being good friends. I miss Carmen. I miss all my friends. Carmen didn’t even say good-bye, but I kind of knew she wouldn’t. She hates mush. When we’d go to the movies, she always went to the bathroom during the sad parts. She didn’t go to my parents’ funeral either. She said she was sick. Some people would have been mad if their best friend wasn’t there, but I understand Carmen. When she heard about my parents, she said, “That really sucks!” and I knew she meant it. I saw her eyes tear up before she looked away. She loved my parents. They were a lot better than hers. Every week, her parents went to a casino in Santa Fe and lost most of their paychecks. And in her way, she did say good-bye. The last time I saw her was right after Paco checked me out of school. She walked over to us, and Paco said, “Take your time. I’ll meet you in the car.” As soon as he said that, Carmen had a look of panic in her eyes. Then she lifted her chin, punched my shoulder, and said, “Don’t be so perfect. Skip school sometimes.” She turned and walked toward the bus.

  “Hey,” I called back to her.

  She stopped and faced me.

  “Try going to class sometime. You might learn a thing or two.”

  We laughed and she walked backward for a while, smiling at me. Then she dashed toward the bus. That was only a couple of weeks ago. It seems more like a year.

  On the second level, I follow Mrs. Crump as she inches across the wood floor, her cane tap tapping as she steps. She moves at a turtle’s pace. I shuffle my feet slowly so I don’t run into her. When she notices, she pauses and points to a large library table that stretches the length of the room. “I’ll meet you over there.”

  I settle in a seat across from a thick atlas and wait. The table is shiny and smells of orange oil. Mrs. Crump is at the halfway point. To keep from staring, I th
umb through the pages of the atlas. There are tons of maps, and I get lost looking at the detailed one of Australia. I feel like a rock landed in the pit of my stomach.

  When Mrs. Crump reaches the table, I get up and rush to her side.

  “Let me get your chair.”

  “Daisy did a good job teaching you manners.”

  After I return to my spot, she studies me. “My, oh my, you have your mother’s eyes, blue as the Mediterranean Sea.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So if I call you Daisy, forgive me.”

  Three times. She’s said my mother’s name three times. I like Mrs. Crump.

  Mrs. Crump decides today should be about getting acquainted. “Why don’t you write an essay about your journey here?”

  “The bus ride?”

  “If that’s how you arrived.”

  While I think back to the trip across Texas, Mrs. Crump pulls books from the shelves behind her. I offer to help, but she says she can manage. It’s painful to watch her struggle with the task, but she insists, so I don’t try to help. She chooses a short-story collection, an algebra book, and a poetry anthology.

  I begin to write. I write about saying good-bye to my neighbors and Carmen, and shutting the front door of the Rockasita. I write about the long bus ride across Texas and seeing tumbleweeds. I write about the lady knitting the red scarf for her nephew. I dig in my purse and pull out the candy wrapper where I scribbled, Everyone always stops for a giant on a unicycle. I’m writing about the kids on the bus when I hear twelve chimes coming from the Methodist church across the street.

  “Stevie, you must be a writer,” she says. “Words seem to flow from your pen.”

  I shrug, but I wish it was true.

  “Let’s take a break for lunch downstairs in the dining room.”

  “I forgot to bring something.” Really I’m ticked that Winston didn’t think of it.

  “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Crump says. “There’s a great big pot of soup on my stove.”