Hello Stranger(3)

Just as I walked in, my phone rang. It was my dad calling me back.

Now that the initial rush had passed, I debated whether to answer. Maybe I was just setting us both up for disappointment.

But in the end, I picked up.

“Sadie, what is it?” my dad said, all business. “I’m boarding a flight to Singapore.”

“I was calling you with some good news,” I said, ducking into the cereal aisle and hushing my voice.

“I can’t hear you,” my dad said.

“I just have some good news,” I said a little louder. “That I wanted”—was I really doing this?—“to share.”

But my dad just sounded irritated. “They’ve got dueling announcements going over the loudspeakers and I’ve got one percent battery. Can it wait? I’ll be back in ten days.”

“Of course it can wait,” I said, already deciding that he’d forfeited his chance. Maybe I’d tell him when I had that ten-thousand-dollar check in my pocket. If he was lucky.

Or maybe not. Because right then the line went dead.

He hadn’t hung up on me, exactly. He’d just moved on to other things.

We were done here. Without a goodbye. As usual.

It was fine. I had a party to go to. And wine to buy.

As I moved into the wine aisle, Smokey Robinson came over the sound system with a song that had been one of my mom’s favorites—“I Second That Emotion.”

Normally I would never sing along out loud to anything in public—especially in falsetto. But I had many happy memories of singing along to that song with my mom, and I knew it was all too easy for me to stew over my dad’s toxicity, and it kind of felt, in that moment, like Smokey had showed up right then to throw me an emotional lifeline.

I glanced over at the owner. She was on the phone with somebody, laughing. And as far as I could tell, there was no one else in the store.

So I gave in and sang along—quietly at first, and then a little louder when Marie didn’t notice me at all. Shifting back and forth to the beat, there in my ballet flats and my mom’s pink party dress, I just gave in and let myself feel better—doing a shimmy my mom taught me and throwing in an occasional booty shake.

Just a little private, mood-lifting dance party for one.

And then something hit me, there in the aisle, singing an old favorite song while wearing my long-lost mother’s dress: My mother—also a portrait artist—had placed in this contest, too.

This exact same contest. The year I turned fourteen.

I’d known it when I applied. But to be honest, I applied to so many contests so often, and I got rejected so relentlessly, I hadn’t thought too much about it.

But this was the one. The one she’d been painting a portrait for—of me, by the way—when she died. She never finished the portrait, and she never made it to the show.

What had happened to that portrait? I suddenly wondered.

If I had to bet? Lucinda threw it away.

I’m not a big weeper, in general. And I’m sure it was partly all the excitement of placing in the contest, and partly the unexpected harshness of my dad’s voice just then, and partly the fact that I was wearing my long-lost mother’s clothes, and partly the realization that this contest was her contest … but as happy as I felt singing along to that old favorite song in an empty grocery store, I felt sad, too.

I felt my eyes spring with tears over and over, and I had to keep wiping them away. You wouldn’t think you could do all those things at once, would you? Dancing, singing, and getting misty-eyed? But I’m here as proof: It’s possible.

But maybe that song really was a talisman for joy, because just as the song was ending, I spotted a wine with a celebratory polka-dotted label on sale for six dollars a bottle.

By the time I made it to the register with my arms full of wine, I was feeling like Sue had the right idea. Of course we should celebrate! I’d have to put my dog Peanut—who was even more introverted than I was—in the closet with his dog bed for a few hours, but he’d forgive me. Probably.

I picked up some little taco-shaped dog treats as a preemptive apology. They’d take me over budget, but Peanut was worth it.

At the register, I eyed a little bouquet of white gerbera daisies, thinking it might be nice to have one to tuck behind my ear—something my mom used to do when I was little. It felt like she might like to see me celebrate that way. With a flower.

But then I decided it was too expensive.

Instead, I set the wine and dog treats on the counter, smiling at the store owner, and I reached around for my purse …

Only to realize I didn’t have it.

I looked down and then felt my other hip, to see if I might have slung it on backward. Then I glanced around at the floor to see if I’d dropped it. Then I left my wine and dog treats on the counter, holding my finger up like “one second” as I dashed to check the empty aisles.

Nothing. Huh. I’d left it at home.

Not all that surprising, given the flurry of today.

Marie had already started ringing up the wine by the time I got back and so, not wanting to interrupt her conversation, I shook my hands at her, like, Never mind.

She looked at me like, Don’t you want this?

I shrugged back in a way that tried to convey, I’m so sorry! I forgot my purse.

She dropped her shoulders in a sigh, but before she could start to cancel everything, a man’s voice from behind me said, “I’ll get it.”