Jill Barnett - New Beginnings

“Oh, we couldn’t find the nine-layer cake so we got chocolate banana from Henshaw’s.” Renee closed the refrigerator door. “Was the baby okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“Neiman’s has the most beautiful suede jackets, Mom. You have to get one. Look at Keely’s shoes,” Molly insisted. “They are to die for.”

March glanced at Molly. “What did you do to your hair?”

There was utter silence. The words had slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“I had it layered last week, Mother.” Molly shook her head defiantly and her deep auburn hair, once sleek and gorgeous, went every which way possible.

Keely checked her watch. “Two minutes,” she said to Molly and Renee. “You owe me lunch.”

March was at the kitchen island…feeling like one. The girls had bet on her reaction, which really should have been funny. She should have been laughing, but it stung a little instead. “It looks nice,” March lied, thinking her daughter looked as if she had a run-in with a lawnmower. “Change is good.”

For a few seconds no one spoke, so March opened a nearby drawer and took out the foil, which she might have rather chewed than stand there in the telling, heavy silence of generation gaps between women.

Miranda sidled up to her and tugged on her shirt. “I made this for you in art class, G-Mo. It’s a bird-feeder. Look. Look.”

For one brief moment March wished Molly were still six and their relationship were simpler. She squatted down to eye-level with Scott’s daughter. The bird-feeder she held was large, made from a milk jug, and awkwardly covered with silk leaves and sparkles. “Wow…Did you really make this?”

Miranda nodded.

“Let’s go fill it.” On the backside of the feeder, written in sparkles, was G-MO. In a strange new world reduced to initials J-Lo and BFF, “Grandmother” simply became G-Mo.

“I really didn’t do everything,” Miranda admitted quietly. “Mrs. Burke helped me with the sparkles.” She looked up to March for approval. “But I did all the leaves.”

“You know, I think I love the leaves the very best.”

Miranda’s whole face brightened. March could encourage her granddaughter and not feel as if something she said opened wounds or created new ones. She wondered if Molly would take a bet on what she said to Miranda. Somewhere in their mother-daughter lifetime, she and Molly had become real adversaries. “Come along. You can help me find the perfect spot for this most wonderful of bird-feeders.”

A ten-foot fichus tree she had grown from only knee-high dominated one corner of the courtyard. There were other bird-feeders in different shapes, along with all those old wedding wind chimes hanging from the painted beams and lathe. March hung the bird-feeder on one of the fichus branches. “What do you think? Here?”

“It’s perfectly perfect, G-Mo.”

March stepped down from the brick planter and stood back. “I believe this is my favorite gift ever.”

Miranda melted against her and they stood there like that, the fugal sounds of the city outside, overhead, the tinkling of a few wind chimes with a whisper of a breeze that skirted the courtyard, young women’s laughter coming through the slightly open French door, one of her sons shouting about a play in the back room and, through her cotton slacks, against her thigh, March could feel the flutter of her granddaughter’s heartbeat.

“Look! Look!” Miranda broke away, jumping and pointing at a hummingbird that flitted from a giant fuchsia in a hanging basket right to the lip of the feeder. “It works! I’m gonna go tell Daddy!”

And her little hummingbird of a granddaughter flew into the house. The next sound March heard was the phone ringing.

Mike followed his youngest son down the front steps of the juvenile wing of the San Francisco Police Department in tense silence. Mickey and his friends were brought in for stealing a local icon, the brightly painted grinning cow sculpture from the neighborhood drive-thru dairy, then hoisting it up their high school flagpole. All because stooge Mickey Cantrell and his clown buddies had thought it would be fun to concoct a little surprise for the student body on Monday.

Mickey stopped at street level. Since he didn’t know where to go from there he was forced to wait, his back to Mike, his hands shoved into the kangaroo pockets of a dark hoodie emblazoned with the new season’s slogan Elevate! Eliminate Snowboredom and the Cantrell logo.

“The car’s this way,” Mike said, walking to where he’d parked. They would laugh about this someday, but there was little room for family jokes inside the tight confines of Mike’s German sports car. Mickey needed to get the message that getting arrested wasn’t okay. His son hadn’t looked him in the eye again since he’d first walked into the detention room, and somewhere in the release process had taken on that typical boy-in-trouble attitude, mumbling or grunting responses. Behind his act and I-don’t-give a-damn demeanor, the truth was his fearless son was scared shitless.

Mike didn’t start the car. He called March on his cell, told her they were on the way home, then rested his arms on the steering wheel, still searching for what he could say that would make an impression on a bull-headed teenager without yelling at him like his own dad would have done. A couple of deep breaths and the best he could do was: “What the hell were you thinking?”

“It was a joke. We wouldn’t have even gotten caught if Gabe would have moved the car like we told him.”

“This discussion isn’t about getting caught. It’s about doing something stupid. Really stupid.” Mike started the car and headed home. “Where was your judgment?”

“Okay…I’m sorry.”

But his tone wasn’t the least bit apologetic, which really pissed Mike off. “You’re off to college in less than a year. A dumb jackass prank like this one could keep you from getting into the school you want. Your grades are high and your SATs are amazing, better than anyone else’s in the family. You can get into the best schools in the nation. We’re proud of that, son. Those kinds of grades don’t come easily. So why would you blow all that work for a few laughs from a bunch of your buddies?”

Mickey was staring out the window.

“Trust me. It’s not worth it. Your education is your future.” No matter how hard he tried to be different, there was an echo of Don Cantrell in what he’d just said.

After a few miles of prolonged silence, Mickey said quietly, “Maybe education is not my future.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve been thinking…I might not to go to college.”

That got Mike’s attention. “Since when?”

“I’m not going to be a doctor, so what good is a degree? I keep hearing how few graduates actually get jobs in the field they study. Why should I do all that work for a degree I won’t use?”

“Not an option. You’re going to school.” Mike punched the button on the garage door opener and pulled into the driveway. There he was again. Hello, Don.

“I’ve been thinking that I want to make the switch to professional boarding.”

Mike killed the engine and held up his hands. “No way.” He was mad at himself. Madder at Mickey. Mad that this wasn’t going well.

“You don’t think I’m good enough,” Mickey shot back, his voice high and angry. “But I am. I can outboard every person in this family. Just because you’re the big man who invented it, you think you can judge me? That’s fucking bullshit.”

Mike took a deep breath, then another, and said calmly, “What’s fucking bullshit, sport, is you not going to college.”

“You don’t think I can get sponsors for the circuit?” It was clearly a challenge.