Charlotte tried to glare at her daughter, but she’d never been able to hold on to mad too long. She grinned instead. It was the smile that hooked men every time: wry, bittersweet, dazzling because every man thought she harbored some secret sadness, which wasn’t far wrong. “Every strategy has its risks.”
Two husbands had come and gone since Henry “Hank” Greenleaf crashed his car into a freeway meridian and flipped it three times off an overpass when Glory was three years old and Jonah was six. Two husbands who had given Glory two stepsiblings—her sister, Michelle, who had three kids (who all had different fathers) and lived two towns away, and her younger brother, John-Mark. Truth was, Charlottewasn’ta great husband picker but she was, against all odds, an optimist who tended to see the best in people. That was both her nicest quality and her fatal flaw.
Hank’s ashes went on the mantel and the 1963 Martin 000–18 he’d gotten in trade instead of a paycheck for doing some off-the-books house painting went in the corner of the living room, more a monument than an instrument, dusted but otherwise ignored until Glory got her hands on it in one of her “I wonder what would happen if...” moments.
It had been like letting the genie out of the bottle.
Writing songs was the closest she’d ever come to being able to impose some kind of order or meaning onto anarchic feelings, the ones that outright made you suffer from the beauty or awfulness of them.
Which was how she’d ended up writing something like five songs about Eli.
Five sofar.
They didn’t say the wordEliin the house anymore. They didn’t sayJonah, either.
Not after Glory had refused to go with her mom to visit her brother in jail three times in a row.
Jonah had apparently been paying his ownandher mom’s mortgage with his ill-gotten gains.
All that money Glory saved toward leaving Hellcat Canyon had gone to keeping that roof over her mom’s head.
And now that money was gone, and the silly bank still wanted to be paid.
“Pass me those cigarettes, sweet pea, will you?” Charlotte added.
Glory handed her the crunched pack of Camels next to the napkin holder. “You better take it easy on those since (a) we don’t have much money for vices and (b) if you get a disease we can’t afford to send you to a doctor.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Glory Hallelujah, I’m still your mother.” It was reflexive and distracted and she said it over a Camel stuffed between her lips. “And I’m indestructible, child.”
This probably wasn’t far wrong.
Still, as a concession, her mother didn’t actually light the cigarette, and then she sighed and laid it down as if she were surrendering arms. And smiled at her daughter. It was absurd, but it made Glory feel loved. And just as when she fought, when Glory loved, she went all in.
How could you want to hold on to something exactly as much as you want to get away from it?
Herplans—which could be captioned as “get the hell out of Hellcat Canyon and get famous”—had long been a subliminal hum in the family. But no one she was related to had ever really talked it about it, unless it was Jonah, who’d allowed vaguely that she should “go for it.” There was simply no roadmap for success in the Greenleaf genetic makeup, and no vocabulary for it, either. Not one of them had ever before felt inclined toward a shred of ambition beyond enjoying each day. They wouldn’t dream of leaving any more than the trees covering the hillside would uproot and voluntarily hop a plane to New York City. They were as indigenous to the place as the forests and scrub covering the hills.
Unless, of course, you counted Jonah. Though the two hours between Hellcat Canyon and the prison cell he occupied hardly counted.
It was Eli who had championed her.
On impulse Glory peeked in the big old ashtray where, per household tradition, they emptied whatever spare change happened to be in their pockets. Last time she’d looked there was probably about five bucks in quarters and dimes and nickels.
Just as she suspected: it was empty except for a Post-it note and two strawberry Starbursts, neither of which had been there earlier. Strawberry was her favorite flavor as it so happened.
She read the Post-it:
Glory—I had to donate the change in this ashtray to my car repair fund and I’ll replace it when I can, but meanwhile, please enjoy these Starbursts.
Xoxo John-Mark
She rolled her eyes. John-Mark earned just enough money to buy the beater car he drove to work and pay for the room he rented. Though the beater car was an endless money hog. At least John-Mark was trying to make an honest living.
Still, five bucks was five bucks.
“Guess John-Mark stopped by,” Glory said dryly. She picked up the empty ashtray and shook it.
Her mom snorted. “I asked him to fix the gutters.” And then she reached over and turned up the radio suddenly. “I like this song.”
