1
One Strange Cookie
A short stranger will come into your life this year.
“That’s specific.” I wave the paper at my mother, who’s sitting across the table from me in our favorite Chinese haunt.
Golden Dragon is not the best or trendiest restaurant in Nashville, but we’ve been going to it since before I could wield chopsticks. I’m still not a pro. Half the time my dumplings slither out and plop into the sauce bowl, spraying the salmon-colored tablecloth with brown spots.
Mom tucks a short strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Her pixie cut makes her look like a rock star, but decorating houses for people in the music industry and paying for my music classes are as far as her involvement in that world goes. She prays I’ll grow out of my aspirations, but music is my life.
“You don’t have any plans to make me a grandma, right?”
“Ew.” I wrinkle my nose. “Definitely not. Besides, I want a career.”
With or without my mom’s blessing, I’m going to be the next Mona Stone. Sometimes I think Mom doesn’t want me to become a musician because Dad was a musician, and even though she must’ve loved him at some point—the point when I was conceived—she no longer harbors fuzzy feelings for him. Anytime I listen to one of his songs, her lips thin. He’s not even alive anymore, but whatever went wrong between them has endured beyond the grave.
“What does yours say?” I ask.
She cracks her fortune cookie open and extricates the tiny white scroll. “Your shoes will make you happy today.”
“No way.” I snatch the paper from her fingers. Sure enough, that’s the message. “So? Do they make you happy?”
She stretches out one of her legs and scrutinizes her brown suede bootie. “You know what? I am feelin’ mighty happy right now.”
“And here I thought sharing spring rolls with your lovely daughter was the source of your happiness.”
“Nah.” She winks. “It’s the shoes.”
I fake pout.
Although she smiles, it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m gonna miss these weekly dinners next year.”
“Mom—”
“I want you to get out of this town and see more of the world.” In other words, she wants to send me away from the music scene. It’s funny that she thinks my passion is geographically induced. I simply take advantage of what my town has to offer.
Sometimes—especially when Mom wants to shove me out of Nashville—I wish I’d been born to Mona Stone. Like Mom, my idol’s self-made, but where Mom contented herself with settling among the stars, Mona conquered the freaking moon.
I want the moon, too.
Mom signals for the check and digs out her wallet. “I got one of my customers to write you a recommendation letter for Cornell. I’ll email it to you when we get home.”
I sit on my hands. “Not all singers become train wrecks.”
Her mouth flattens, then: “Angie…”
“Look at Mona Stone. She never got into drugs or alcohol, and she started at eighteen.”
“Mona Stone shouldn’t be your idol.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
Miss Ting slides a plastic tray with our bill over one of the brown sauce spots. When I was younger, Mom and I played a game: if I could eat a meal at Golden Dragon without dirtying the table linen, I got to play DJ in her car the entire week. If I lost—which was the usual outcome—I was stuck listening to Mom’s favorite satellite preset: Classic FM. I don’t dislike Vivaldi, but I have a preference for songs with lyrics.
Mom drops two twenties in the small tray, then stands and hoists her fringe bag over her shoulder.
I stand up and follow her to the glass door. “Why do you dislike her so much?”
“Because she chose her career over her family!” Mom’s voice booms out of her and rings through the parking lot.
I clench my fingers around my phone. “The choice wasn’t hers!”
Mom folds her arms. “Really? Whose choice was it, then?”
“Her husband’s. He left her.”
Mom shakes her head, and her dangling gold coin earrings jingle and gleam. “Angie, I’m glad you’re driven and stubborn, but don’t be naive. Mona’s husband left her because the woman cared more about her fans than she cared about their kids.” Her grip on her biceps turns white-knuckled. “Same way your daddy cared more about his guitar than he did about us.” She adds this in such a low voice it barely registers.
But it does.
It’s never been a secret that Dad was passionate about music, but this is the first time I realize how wildly jealous my mother was of his passion. Maybe Mona reminds her of Dad. Maybe that’s the fatal flaw in my trajectory to stardom—idolizing someone who hits too close to home. Maybe if I worshipped a singer with a stable family life, she’d be supportive.
“I’ll never do that, Mom. I’ll never abandon you.”
“Me?” Mom croaks. “Oh, baby, I’m not worried about you abandoning me, ’cause that’s simply impossible. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. I love you too darn much. But I really want you to see what else is out there. You’re only seventeen. Gosh, at seventeen, I had no clue what I wanted to do.”
But I do. I’ve known since I was a kid.
No good has ever come of cornering Mom into conversations she doesn’t want to have, so I back away from it, from her. She might think I’m naive, but I’m not.
I stare at the sun dipping on the horizon, swathing my hometown in pastels. “I promised Rae I’d stop by her place tonight.”
It’s our ritual. Every year, on the eve of the new school year, I hang out with my best friend. We don’t braid each other’s hair or anything, but we make a list of things we want from the year to come, then stick our lists into her metallic-pink piggy bank and check them over on the last day of school to see how much we’ve accomplished.
“You want me to drop you off?” Mom asks, beeping open her silver Volvo SUV.
“No, I’ll bike there. And I promise, I’ll be home by nine.”
Mom nods.
As we drive away, I fiddle with the radio dial until I catch the tail end of a Lady Antebellum song. I’m about to tune in to another station when the radio host mentions Mona Stone’s sitting next to him and has an announcement.
I side-eye Mom, wait for her to tell me to change the station, but I don’t think she’s even listening.
“Hi, Mona.”
“Hi, Ned. Thanks for having me on your set.”
“So I heard you had some big news for your fans.”
“I certainly do.” Her speaking voice is honeyed and melodic, exactly like her singing voice. “First off, I’d like to thank y’all for the outpouring of kindness for my latest album. I’m so honored by your love and devotion.”
“It’s a fantastic album.”
“Aw, Ned, you’re sweet.” She laughs. She has such a great laugh. “Anyway, I was invited here today so I could speak about a little contest I’m hostin’.”
I sit up and sneak a glance at Mom again. She still hasn’t looked my way or changed the station, which is a miracle.