The thing I wanted to erase? Okay, I hate talking about it, but I guess I’ll just come right out and say it. Four months and twenty-three days ago my mom died. Her heart just stopped beating and, almost in a snap, she was gone.
The night she died I moved in with my best friend, Violet, and her family and stayed with them until school let out. Then Violet flew off to spend the summer with her favorite grandmother in Paris, and I boarded a plane to El Paso, forced to face my new life sentence.
By late afternoon we pulled into Truth or Consequences. It was like a ghost town. There wasn’t a soul on the streets, just row after row of thrift shops selling everyone’s cast-offs. I thought about climbing into one of the display windows with a “for sale” sign slung around my neck and waiting for someone to buy me for a bargain.
“How’d you like to see where you’ll be going to school in August?” she asked.
“Is it where my mom went when she was a kid?”
“No. They tore that dump down years ago. It was crumbling to pieces.”
Kind of like my life.
My grandmother sped onto a desolate road, bordered by total colorless nothingness. In the middle of a flat field was a single hulking windowless brick building. Truth or Consequences Middle School. This was a place that would never crumble. It was built like a maximum-security prison.
“Okay, honey. Are you ready to hightail it home?” Then she hit the gas.
Home? I couldn’t imagine I’d ever feel at home anywhere other than in my shingled house in the woods on Bainbridge Island. And I especially couldn’t ever in a million years imagine feeling at home living with my grandmother.
I remembered the first time I met her. I was five. My mom and I were on a road trip, passing through New Mexico.
When she answered the door I’d said, “Hi, Grandma.”
She just about choked on her chewing gum.
“Madison, darling, do I call you Granddaughter?” she’d asked.
“No,” I’d said.
“What do I call you?”
“Madison.”
“And why do I do that, do you suppose?” She’d held my chin in her hand and made me look her in the eye. It was weird.
“Because that’s my name?”
“Yes, Madison is your name. And my name is Florida. Florida Brown. I don’t want to hear you call me Grandmother, Grandma, Nana, Grandmumsy, Granny or anything else that might make me feel the slightest bit old. I work very hard not to look old. Do you understand?”
I’d nodded, even though I didn’t understand at all. My mom rolled her eyes.
My grandmother—excuse me—Florida, turned onto Grape Street, gunned her Cadillac, and shot up the driveway to her red brick house. She hit the brakes and stopped inches short of the garage door. On it hung a black iron cutout of a cowboy ready to lasso any car that dared to come too close.
I breathed in a little courage and reached for the door handle.
“Stay here. Don’t get out,” she whispered.
Florida fiddled with the rearview mirror, swiveling it to get a better angle on someone lurking at the house next door.
Was it a prowler? A murderer on the loose?
“Okay, now you can look. She’s not watching.”
I peeked over at the neighbor’s house. An African American lady about Florida’s age was checking her mail. She wore layers and layers of clothes, even a pair of sweatpants pulled over her jeans. Her kinky jet-black hair was twisted in a tangle of braids encircling her head, ending in a fat topknot. Her skin was the color of coffee, and she was singing so loud I could make out the words even through our closed car window with the air conditioner on high.
“That woman is possessed by the devil,” Florida told me. “Number one rule? Stay away. She’s crazy as a loon.”
She did look a little odd, wearing all those thick layers in the hot New Mexico sun. I watched as she slid an enormous stack of mail into a small beat-up leather fanny pack. I couldn’t imagine how it all fit. Weird.
We waited for her to go back inside before we got out of the car.
Inside Florida’s house it was dark as a cave. My eyes struggled to adjust after the bright New Mexico sunlight.
I followed my grandmother to the end of the hall, my suitcase clickety-clacking behind me on the hard tile floor.
“Prepare to behold a true vision of sheer beauty.” She said it in the most dramatic way, as if she was revealing some well-kept secret of the universe. Then she opened the door.
“Ta-da!”
My new bedroom was pink. The bedspread, the curtains, the throw rug, the fluffy stuffed poodle, and the ballerina lamp. It was all cotton-candy pink.
“Isn’t it divine? I bought the entire ensemble on The Shopping Mall Network.”
I hate pink.
It’s true that plenty of girls like it, and that’s perfectly okay with me. I would never hold it against them. Give me any other color in the universe and I’m happy.
“Honey, isn’t this room just you all over?”
“It’s, uh, nice. Thanks.” What could I have said without hurting her feelings?
Then I noticed a wall of boxes stacked to the ceiling.
“Don’t worry about those. They’re just a few must-have goodies I bought from my shopping shows. Or I thought they were must-haves when I bought them.” Florida shrugged. “But I might need them someday. You never know! Now, are you ready for a TV dinner? Glazed turkey Lean Cuisine?”
“No thanks. I’m not hungry,” I said.
“We could watch the Shop ’Til You Drop Channel together. They’re featuring hair accessories.” Her eyes sparkled and gleamed as if hair accessories were the best things in the entire universe.
“I think I’ll just unpack and go to sleep.” I slung my backpack onto the girly-girl bed.
“It’s awfully early, but suit yourself. If you need me, I’ll be looking for treasures on my shopping shows. Nighty-night.”
I shut the door and sat on what was once my mom’s bed. I pulled my most prized possessions from my backpack. My drawing book and colored pencils. My good-luck soccer ball that my whole team had signed after I scored the winning goal in the championships. My two favorite framed photos—one of Violet and me in our soccer jerseys, and the other one of my mom and me at the beach, our matching hair blowing in the wind. I set them on the nightstand, beside the ballerina lamp.
At the bottom of my backpack was my mom’s Washington State Ferry jacket. It was the one she’d worn at work, directing cars on and off the ferryboat that went back and forth between our island and downtown Seattle.
I unpacked my suitcase—mostly T-shirts, shorts, and blue jeans. Most of my stuff I’d left at Violet’s house for safekeeping. Maybe I was trying to convince myself that moving in with Florida would only be temporary.
Even though it had just turned dark outside, I curled into a ball on top of the covers and buried myself under my mom’s jacket. It smelled just like her. When my eyes were closed it was almost as if she were beside me. I inhaled the sweetness of