Page 22 of Spectacular Things
Family MVP
The morning the three Lowes plan on driving the four hours to Yale, Liz asks Mia if she’d mind taking the bus instead.
“Today?” Mia manages.
“I’m really sorry but Dr. Green called and she has emergency back-to-back root canals,” Liz explains. “So now I have to call all of her scheduled patients who are going to be so upset and—”
“I can’t go, either,” Cricket says through a mouthful of toast. Ignoring Mia’s wilting soul, she adds, “Sitting for that long is so bad for circulation and preseason starts next week.”
“What about my stuff?” Mia asks, pointing to the six green storage bins she has already packed, labeled, and staged by the front door. She swallows hard, too shocked to think beyond logistics. “Would they let me bring all of those on the bus?”
“Maybe you could drop me off at work early?” Liz suggests. “Then you drive down to New Haven in my car, unload your stuff, and then drive back here, and then take the bus back down there?”
Before Mia can formulate a response, or at least a snarky remark about a four-hour car ride turning into twelve, Cricket volunteers to load Mia’s bins to make sure they fit.
“They fit,” Mia says flatly, watching her younger but now significantly taller sister deadlift a green container up over her head and kick open the front door. “I already measured—four go in the trunk and two go in the back seat.”
When Cricket returns moments later, she’s shaking her head. “Don’t get mad at me, but there’s no way they all fit.”
“Of course they do.”
“No, they don’t.”
Too angry to argue, Mia storms past Cricket to show her what a little spatial reasoning can do.
She should have known a weekend devoted to her college departure—not an expedition in the name of soccer—would be an impossible sacrifice for her mother and sister.
Also, screw the emergency root canals, and all those patients with all their teeth who have ruined her plans for the weekend: a family jog in East Rock Park, pizza at Pepes, a ghost tour in Grove Street Cemetery.
Mia was going to make the trek so fun that her mother and sister would be excited to visit regularly.
Now they aren’t bothering to come at all.
Mia stomps off the front porch, down the stairs, and into the driveway, where she confronts Liz’s car but can’t get in. “It’s locked!” she calls out, fury bubbling in the pit of her stomach. Peering through the window, she adds, “And the bin isn’t even in here, Cricket!”
“Wrong car,” Liz says, floating onto the porch and into view. She nods straight ahead to the silver minivan parked across the street.
“A rental?” Mia asks, her blood pressure skyrocketing as she estimates this unforeseen expense. She still does her mother’s accounting. “What’s wrong with your car?”
“Nothing,” Liz says dismissively, taking her time walking down the steps.
Cricket, who has always best expressed herself through physical spectacle, leaps off the front porch, skipping the stairs altogether, holds out a key fob like a wand and incants, “Open Sesa-Mia!”
The minivan door slides open.
“It’s yours,” Liz says, her sled-dog eyes sparkling. She is thirty-six now but has retained an air of youthful mischievousness.
“She got it for you!” Cricket shouts, unable to contain herself. “Mom got you your own momvan! A mini-Mia-van! A mama-Mia-minivan!”
“Wait, what?” Mia asks, unable to discern the truth from the chaos of the moment.
“Listen to me,” Liz says, walking toward Mia. “I wouldn’t miss dropping you off at college for all the emergency root canals in the world.” She wraps her arms around her firstborn daughter, who decides to laugh because crying would be too embarrassing.
“What about your legs?” Mia asks, turning to Cricket.
“What about ’em?” Cricket shouts with her feet over her head. She is mid-cartwheel in the middle of the street. “We’re taking the train back, so I can walk around as much as I want.”
“Oh cool,” Mia says, forcing herself to keep smiling. Already, she can feel the onset of Lowe family FOMO, and she hasn’t even left yet.
But then her mom’s arm cinches around her shoulder. “What am I going to do without you?” Liz asks, and Mia doesn’t have to force the grin that spreads to her eyes. It’s a fair question.
“I helped Mom make a playlist for the drive,” Cricket volunteers, now cranking out push-ups in rapid succession.
“Ask me what I titled the playlist,” Liz says.
“What did you title the playlist?” Mia asks obediently.
“The only thing that makes sense,” Liz says, squeezing her tight. “Family MVP.”