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Willow got up and shook her head back and forth, expecting flakes of soft yellow wood to flutter out of her hair, but nothing did. The shavings hooked themselves so assiduously into her jagged curls that not a single one fell to the ground. Willow walked into the bathroom to find a mirror, thinking perhaps there would be enough time to pick out the pieces before lunch was over. But on the wall next to the mirror, in thick black Sharpie, it said, “Willow, Willow, hair like Brillo.” She wondered if someone had just added it here or whether it was left over from last year.
Either way, after the quick glance she got of herself in the mirror before turning around, Willow thought the yellow flecks looked sort of cool in there. They had that same jagged in-motion effect as the design on her Keith Haring T-shirt. Mom would like that. Plus, tonight was pizza night so she could show her then.
Twelve Years Ago
Although Rex was not Rosie’s usual type, her soul had already succumbed to Rex in so many ways. Rosie was equal parts nervous and excited for their first date.
She mixed and matched printed dresses with vintage jewelry until she was pleased. She twirled around in the mirror and blew herself a kiss after applying her favorite red lipstick and scanning her final choice of outfit.
Rosie shouldn’t have been surprised when their first date included a highly coveted reservation at a fancy Manhattan restaurant with high ceilings and a bathroom attendant, but she was. She was surprised and uncomfortable in her twenty-dollar dress on a six-hundred-dollar gold-adorned chair. And she was annoyed and uncomfortable as Rex ordered an appetizer of oysters for the two of them to share without consulting her.
Rosie hated oysters. And Rex didn’t even pause for one moment to consider that he wasn’t going to impress Rosie with them. He was going to scare her with them. He was going to gross her out with them. Because Rosie thought they looked like boogers. And tasted like them too.
Rosie considered putting one of them up her nostril when the oysters arrived to ease the tension between them, but Rex was too enraptured by the wine menu to have noticed.
When their second course was set down by a waiter with a napkin folded over his forearm and the one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar wine was poured by a sommelier, Rex finally looked up at Rosie.
“Cheers,” he said innocently.
But Rosie was indignant and it bubbled out of her immediately.
She positioned her tiny arms to push her stupid, gold-adorned chair back and leave Rex alone at his expensive fucking table with its boring white tablecloth and its overly formal waiters who bent from the hips with straight legs and backs when you walked by.
“I hate oysters,” she stated a little too firmly and a little too loudly. “And this wine is, like, stupid expensive.”
A pause.
“And so is this stupid tablecloth and this stupid napkin, I bet!”
“Ugh, I think you’re right,” Rex said, finally dropping his shoulders. “Let’s finish this stupid bottle of stupid expensive wine and get out of here. I know a good pizza spot around the corner.”
And just like that, Rosie nuzzled her knees back under the table, finished her wine and found herself ready to be smitten all over again.
As they munched on cheap pizza while expensive wine coursed through their blood, conversation flowed easily between them. Neither Rex nor Rosie had any idea what the other was saying because Rosie was focused on Rex’s deep, dark eyes. And Rex had his eyes locked on Rosie’s expressive, red lips. And just as Rex was about to take the last bite of his crust, Rosie grabbed his hand and whisked him out the door.
“Music time,” she whispered in his ear as she pulled him in toward her on the sidewalk, and then twirled her body around.
They walked a few brisk blocks, and then ducked under the red awning of Ray’s, Rosie’s favorite piano bar. Rosie loved everything about Ray’s. The dark corners and the red lamps at the tables. The smoky scent of cigars and the bottle-lined bar. The sexiness of it all.
She loved that she could never guess who from the audience might stand up and play a tune for the rest of the room. She loved that one minute, a man with quiet eyes and deep wrinkles would be slowly sipping a whiskey neat, and the next minute he was slamming his fingers against the keyboard and filling a room with music. She liked the idea that anyone, everyone, in a given space might have a gift to share.
Rex and Rosie sat in the back with another bottle of wine as, one by one, different members from the audience took a seat onstage and used their entire body to make sexy, full, stunning music. Rex and Rosie searched around the room and tried to guess which patron they thought would perform next. They tried to guess what song might be played. Billy Joel for the man about their age in the rugged baseball hat. Frank Sinatra for the gray-headed man with strong and wrinkled hands tapping his foot in the back. And while they were never right, not even once, Rex and Rosie both opened themselves fully to the game and to each other.
When Rex slid away from the table, Rosie assumed it was to order another round of drinks. But then he was onstage under the foggy red lights. In a thousand-dollar jacket on a five-dollar piano bench. And he looked great.
The crowd sang along to Rex playing “Bennie and the Jets” as he pressed his fingers deliberately but naturally into the keys. And right there, Rosie saw the most important thing she could see in a man. Rex Thorpe had soul—and she could work with that.
So Rosie joined the rest of the room and sang along as her soon-to-be boyfriend moved the crowd and Rosie’s heart into motion.
Rex left the stage after a standing ovation and a familiar handshake from the bar owner. And then Rosie kissed Rex deeply and proudly linked her arm in his as they walked out of the red-lit piano bar.
She didn’t mean to stumble into Rex’s arms when he walked her back to her apartment, but she was drunk with wine and whiskey and new love.
Willow fixated on the second hand of the clock in Mrs. McAllister’s classroom as she waited for school to be over. As she waited for pizza night. Waited for her mother to come around the bend of the parent pickup circle in her rattling blue car with its googly eyes stenciled on the front of it. Waited to spend the night swaddled in fun.
When the three-thirty bell rang, Willow shoved her spelling list into the bottom of her backpack, confirmed that her laces were tied on both shoes and fast-walked all the way to Asher’s classroom. She grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him toward the parent pickup circle. Then Willow exhaled for the first time all day and locked her eyes on the entranceway.
Rosie was typically late to pick up Willow and Asher from school. She never wore a watch and often found herself in a daze somewhere, completely oblivious to the time. But Willow didn’t want to miss one second with her mother, so she rushed to the pickup circle anyway every Tuesday and Thursday after school. Willow noticed that all of the other moms wore jeans, a T-shirt and dark sunglasses. They drove black or white cars that sparkled permanently. They kept their hair in neat ponytails and never got out of the car to say “hi” to their children.
But that wasn’t her mother. Her mother’s car was bright blue and made loud clanking noises. Rosie had named her car Lili Von after her favorite character in Blazing Saddles. The googly eyes that were stenciled just above the headlights always caused side-eye glances from the other mothers too. But that didn’t faze Willow or Asher. They loved that car and they loved those googly eyes.
After only three games of tic-tac-toe, Lili Von appeared around the bend with Prince blasting out the window. Willow saw her mother’s left knee poking