Best part: when Mom laughs. The kind that starts in her stomach and tumbles out when she forgets to be “a proper Southern lady.” She’s usually so tightly wound that if you pulled her ponytail, she’d snap. But tonight, it was like she became someone else for a few hours—someone who remembered how to have fun and didn’t care what anyone thought when she danced and sang.
And Jo Ellen? She’s so much fun! She just kind of brings out the best in Mom. She even let us paint her toenails Bubblegum Blitz and didn’t flinch when Kate smeared some on the carpet. She said it gives the house character and without that, a house isn’t a home! So cool but of course Mom went into full cleanmode, whipping out the polish remover and scissors to snip out the pink threads. You can put Maggie in a party, but you can’t stop her from cleaning.
By the end of the night, all four of us girls crashed in sleeping bags in the living room. The moms went out on the porch to “watch the rain,” which is code for whispering secrets that can’t be shared with teenagers.
I like this version of the moms. It makes me wish I’d known my mother when she was young and made macramé.
I wish I could bottle nights like this. I’d call that color Delta Love and add glitter because tonight, everyone sparkled.
~Viv (Secret Tri-Delt sister nickname is Snickerdoodle. Don’t ask.)
Day Three of The Great Miami Caper unfolded with high hopes and good spirits. But not too much in the way of radio stations, since the fossil on four wheels only got a few. But Maggie really didn’t mind and was, if truth be told, quite enjoying the sojourn so far.
They’d had a great night at a historic hotel in Apalachicola, which Maggie would forever call “Apa-coca-cola,” and were still talking about the Key Lime pie they’d shared at an unforgettable little restaurant called Up The Creek.
Determined to make progress and get well and truly out of Florida’s Panhandle and all the way to what Oscar labeled “a hidden gem of an island called Cedar Key,” Maggie pushed the truck to its limit. Yes, it could theoretically go sixty-five, but she could sense that fifty-eight was about all the old clunker—and Maggie—had in her.
“I need music!” Jo Ellen said, finally giving up on the radio. “Wait. Wait. I’ll ask my boyfriend.” And out came the phone and Oscar.
Maggie peered at the long highway ahead, grateful there was so little traffic on the slow but safe back highways.
“Oh, I did it! Get this, Mags,” Jo said, waving her phone. “He just made me a playlist, and my grandson Matt taught me how to put that into Spotify—do you know what that is?”
“Is that like a Tide Stick?” Maggie asked, gripping the steering wheel.
“Oh, you’re so funny. We’ll have to listen through my phone, but that’s okay. Yours has the GPS and we shouldn’t run out of battery.”
“Famous last words,” Maggie muttered, keeping her eyes on the road as they went through a “town,” though it truly was generous calling it that. Sopchoppy—really, what a ridiculous name—had one flashing light, a faded gas station with a hand-lettered “bait” sign, and at least one Dollar Store for every resident.
Leaving it in the rearview mirror, Maggie settled in and let Jo Ellen fire up some Motown and, God help them, sang along. The road had literally no cars, but an unending vista of flat scrubs, the occasional cow, a surprising number of churches, and bales of hay.
“This is perfect,” Jo cooed, sipping on a can of Diet Coke. “I couldn’t be happier. I knew everything would be perfect.”
“Do you not understand the concept of a jinx?” Maggie fired back. “Plus, we’re only…” She frowned when the truck made a weird thumpity-thump. “What was that?”
“I think you ran over a cow patty,” Jo said with a snort.
“No, no. Listen. Do you hear that hum? Turn down the music.” She tapped the brake and frowned, the noise getting louder. Then a low, whinywheeze, followed by a series of clanks that sounded distinctly…bad. Really bad.
Jo Ellen leaned forward. “You’re right. That’s the sound of…”
“A jinx,” Maggie shot back, underscoring it with a look.
“Oh, please, Mag— Oh!”
They both cried out when a puff of smoke curled up from under the hood. Was it a fire? An explosion?
“Pull over!” Jo yelled.
Slamming the brakes, Maggie yanked the wheel toward a patch of gravel. The truck gasped again, gave a last dramatic huff of steam, and rolled to a stop. The engine died and left them in silence but for a distant ticking.
“Is it going to blow?” Jo asked, scrambling for her seatbelt.
“I don’t think it’s going to do much of anything,” Maggie muttered, already out of hers.
“Give it a minute,” Jo said, “then start it up again. That always works with my TV or computer.”
“Which were made in this century,” she grumbled, pushing the door open. “Plus, cars don’t work that way.”
