Page 11 of Spectacular Things

Fairest One of All

To celebrate her middle child’s high school graduation, Dr. Green hosts a party in her spacious backyard the last Saturday in May.

The adult punch is unapologetically strong and the live band shockingly good for a trio of juniors whose matching bangs prevent them from actually seeing their instruments.

Liz and Mia stay late, dancing on the makeshift dance floor, and that night Liz lies down next to Mia after tucking herin.

“My sporty Snow White,” Liz slurs, cradling Mia’s face in her hands. “The fairest one of all.” Pushing Mia’s mop of curly brown hair out of her half-closed eyes, Liz murmurs, “It’s so crazy—you’re all him.”

Mia holds very still. Her mom never talks about her dad. The only thing Mia knows for sure is that she physically takes after him—dark features painted onto light skin that burns while her mother tans.

“It’s like you’re this perfect souvenir from a city that no longer exists,” Liz says.

Mia waits for more information, but the next sound from Liz is a nasally snore.

In the morning, Liz doesn’t remember calling Mia a souvenir, but it’s a line Mia never forgets.

If she is a beloved souvenir, then her value as a person is based on the memory of someone she’s never met, just like her first name celebrates someone she will never be.

But she is a child, and her mother’s best friend, so she tries to be all these other people anyway.

A few weeks later, after a soccer training session on the beach and a pit stop at the bakery, Mia still has buttery flakes of croissant stuck to her cheek when she spots him from halfway down the block.

The strong July sun warms the backs of her shoulders as the man rises from the rocking chair on their front porch and cautiously lifts a hand to wave.

Mia hopes it might be the handyman, finally, to fix the dryer, but then she notices the springy brown curls that match her own, the dark eyes against the fair skin.

He looks like her, like a boy Snow White, short and lean with his kneecaps sticking out of his legs and his thick eyebrows now lifted in uncertainty as he waits for Liz to acknowledge him.

“What the actual fuck?” Liz asks, stopping abruptly on the sidewalk. Mia’s mouth drops open. Her mother never swears.

“Hi there,” the man says, ignoring the language that Liz usually reserves for the gas company when they accidentally bill them twice. He turns his attention to Mia and says hello, calls her by her name.

“Don’t speak to her,” Liz spits at him. “And get off my porch.”

Mia gapes at her mom’s uncharacteristic rudeness, but the man just keeps standing there, smiling pleasantly. When he says how beautiful Liz looks, Mia wonders if he is hard of hearing.

“We should talk,” the man says. “Let me take you to breakfast.”

Liz crosses her arms, says something that is stiff with resentment but not ano.

That day at her nursery school’s summer camp, Mia forgets all about the stranger on the porch until it’s time to go home and Liz is late. This is by no means unusual. One by one, the other parents swoop in and scoop up their children.

When only Mia is left, the two remaining counselors toss a coin over who will wait with her. Mia decides then, at four years old, that when she is a grown-up, she will show up early. She will never make other people change their plans on her behalf.

“I bet she’ll be here any minute,” the counselor who wins the coin toss assures the counselor who didn’t.

Tires in the gravel parking lot, brakes screeching as she takes the turn too fast, a maniacal cackle. Her mother’s soundtrack.

Mia and the counselor look through the office window: There’s her mom—and the man from the porch.

He’s reclined in the passenger seat, one hand draped out the window, the other absently running a finger up and down her mother’s swan neck.

Mia watches as Liz cuts the engine and rests her head on his shoulder, closes her eyes.

She is extremely late but not exactly rushing to retrieve Mia or apologize to the counselor.

From twenty feet away, Liz looks different, unknowable, as she leans into the stranger with her eyes shut.

Staring at her mother’s resting face through the windshield, Mia’s stomach rumbles with concern as she remembers what her mom taught her on the beach: You can only use your head if you keep your eyes wide open.