My mother stared at me like she was trying to bring a blurry blob into sharp focus. “Oh, Mary Jane. I hope I like the Mary Jane those people saw, too.” She turned and marched toward my father’s office. I followed.
My mother knew exactly where the tape recorder was. She pulled it out, set it on my father’s desk, and then pointed at it, as if to direct me to it.
I hit stop/eject, and the plastic door popped open. I slid in the cassette, shut it to hear the satisfying click, and then hit play. Jimmy said, “Mary Jane! What the hell, girlie, you are missed! Here’s the title track of my new album. I sure as fuck hope you like it.” My mother’s body jolted. She closed her eyes and put her hand up as if to say enough. I pressed stop/eject.
My mother opened her eyes. “You know this language is exactly why you shouldn’t fraternize with people like him.”
“I understand how you feel about it. But if you can get past the language—”
“And the tattoos. And the drugs.” My mother shut her eyes again. She held them like that for so long, I thought maybe she was praying. Finally she opened them and said, “I’d like to hear the song.”
I hit play again. Before the first word was sung, I put my thumb on the dial and turned up the volume. My mother watched the way people in movies watch someone cutting the wires to stop a bomb from exploding.
“Mary Jane!” Jimmy sang, and my mother’s eyes blinked rapidly at the sound of my name. I couldn’t bear to watch her any longer, so I stared at the tape recorder.
It wasn’t until the song ended when I finally lifted my head. My skin was instantly chilled, electric, as I saw that my mother was smiling. Her bottom lip quivered, just slightly.
“Oh my goodness.” Her smile broadened and that electric feeling turned into a buzzing that covered my body in something that felt like happiness. I could tell just then that my mother was proud of me.
16
“MARY JANE!” Izzy threw her arms around me and clasped on like a little vine. “I missed you so much!”
I looked behind me at my mother. She was smiling. It was hard not to smile at Izzy Cone’s exuberance, her curls, her unbridled affection. I leaned down and kissed the top of Izzy’s head. Her loamy smell was so familiar, so close to my heart.
At the sound of footsteps, my mother and I both looked up the narrow staircase, made narrower by the stacks of books and laundry lined up on one side. Mrs. Cone trotted down, barefoot as usual. She was in jeans and a soft orange sweater that showed nothing of her nipples. Her red hair was darker than it had been at the end of the summer, and her lips were waxy and bright with lipstick. “You’re here!” she said. Mrs. Cone hugged me, and then she stuck out her hand and grasped my mother’s hand more than shook it.
“We have to hurry!” Izzy said.
“Let’s go!” Mrs. Cone said. “Izzy and I made cookies. The radio’s on already.”
The house was narrow with windows only in the front and back. We walked past the living room into the eat-in kitchen that looked out to the tiny backyard. On the center of the round oak table was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, the edges blackened and burned.
“Do you want coffee?” Mrs. Cone asked my mother. “I started to make a pot this morning, then got distracted and never finished.” She laughed and my mother laughed too. I think Mom had grown used to Mrs. Cone by now. We’d been coming every week since Jimmy’s album was released. My father never asked where we went on Sundays after church. As far as I knew, he was content sitting alone in the kitchen, eating the lunch my mother had left out for him.
“Let me help,” my mom said, and she and Mrs. Cone went to the counter and quietly talked while Izzy took my hand and led me to a seat.
A silver transistor radio with a long antenna sat on the table. It looked exactly like the one I had purchased at RadioShack with my summer earnings. The volume was on low, but I could hear Labelle singing “Lady Marmalade.” It was one of my favorite songs and I’d recently bought the 45. Izzy turned up the volume and climbed into my lap when Labelle started singing in French. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” Izzy sang, and I laughed and hugged her and kissed her some more.
“Do you girls want milk?!” Mrs. Cone shouted as if we were down a hall although we were only a few feet away.
“Yes!” Izzy said.
“Sure,” I said.
“I think you’re right about the witch,” Izzy said. We’d been discussing her every time we saw each other. And last Friday, when I’d babysat Izzy at the Roland Park house where Dr. Cone now lived alone, we searched for the witch using flashlights I’d found in the mudroom.