Hard Work
Big Tips
Hot night
Soft Lips
Needed a little work, but it was going to be fun. She could feel it: she’d turn it into a boogie, an anthem for girls everywhere who worked go-nowhere jobs and rocked the clothes they bought at Walmart and who might never ride in a Lexus, who had rough edges, big hearts, and big dreams and made a mark on the people in their worlds.
The song had started to nudge that little cloud squatting over her mood. And when that glutton for affection known as Peace and Love, a tuxedo cat who lived with Eden and Annelise Harwood at the flower shop, flung himself upside down on the sidewalk in front of her with a delighted chirp, she paused to pet him.
The shop bell jingled, and Annelise Harwood, Eden’s daughter and Sherrie and Glenn’s granddaughter, slipped out. Her strawberry blond hair was up on her head in a high spray of a ponytail and wrapped in a scrunchy that had little black-and-white cats printed all over it.
“Oh my gosh! Glory! Glory! Hi, Glory! Hi!”
“Hey, sweetie, howareyou?” She held out her fist and Annelise bumped it with her own little fist with great gusto.
“I’mgreat. Glory, oh my gosh, my grandma gave me a guitar because I love to hear you sing, just a little one. The guitar is. She says you’re as good as Janis. The only Janis I know is the receptionist at Dr.Mulgrew’s office. I’ve never heard her sing. She always gives me a green sucker, though.”
Annelise ducked down to help Glory pet the cat.
“Hey, green is my favorite flavor of sucker, too,” she told Annelise. “And a guitar is the best kind of present! Your grandma is so smart. I think she knew you’d love it because she loves you. I think the Janis your grandma was talking about was a singer called Janis Joplin who was a famous singer back when your grandma was a little girl. And ooooh, my goodness, Annelise, she had a big, big voice, like nothing you ever heard. And she could make you feel so many things, so strong and happy or heartbroken, but in a delicious way. And everyone knew who she was and felt like they knew her, so they called her Janis. That song about Bobby McGee? That’s by Janis.”
Annelise was listening to this as raptly as if it was a bedtime story.
“That’s just like you, then!” Annelise said brightly, oblivious to the grandeur of the compliment. “Everyone calls you Glory.”
“Well,” Glory said, touched and honored down to the soles of her feet.
Peace and Love was in hog heaven, getting both his back and front scratched simultaneously, and he was purring all over.
“The song about Bobby McGee, Glory. That’s my favorite. And the one about the preacher’s son. And the one about Billy Joe. I like songs about boys.” She giggled here. “I wrote a song about a boy. Wanna hear it?”
“Damn straight, you bet I want to hear it.” She could have addedpractically all my songs are about one boy in particular, because boys are a pain and a wonder, but if Annelise stuck with the guitar as she grew up, she’d probably figure that out on her own.
“Okay, Okay, hang on, I have to do it right.” Annelise stood up.
Then she pulled the scrunchy out of her neat ponytail and Glory watched, amused, as she shook it out thoroughly.
She planted her feet apart and put one hand on her hip and whipped her hair back over her shoulder in a brilliant, saucy imitation of Glory.
Glory was absolutely riveted by the tribute.
And then, using her fist as a microphone, Annelise soulfully sang, with great brio and surprising tunefulness:
It’s sunny outside and it’s not fair
That I’m not allowed to go out there
Until I clean my room
But Gregory is riding his bike
And Gregory is climbing a tree
And I’m so sad that Gregory
Is doing all of that without me
