8. Eight
Eight
Driving toward home, I cue up a podcast.
THE PERFECT MOM PODCAST WITH ABBIGAIL BUCHANAN
EPISODE 209: Finding Your Confidence with fashion expert Mara Weekly
Abbigail: Okay, perfect mamas, I’m excited about today’s episode. Today we have Mara Weekly who will be talking to us about feeling desirable again and giving our wardrobes a boost. I don’t know about you, but for me, my fashion took a nosedive when I had babies.[Chuckles.] Mara, is this something that you see frequently?
Mara: Absolutely, Abbigail. Thanks so much for having me. So, what I notice most is a lot of moms accidentally let themselves go at first. You know, we’re tired, and our bodies are different. The last thing we want to do is put buttons around the belly that just had a baby, right? [Laughter in agreement.] But then what happens, at least what I see, is a sort of guilt associated with getting dressed up. Maybe some moms feel bad for not making income, so they don’t want to spend money on themselves. Or they think, I’m a mom now, I can’t wear trendy clothes, I need to look like a mom. Always in leggings and some loose-fitting shirt. We adopt, what I like to call, unfashion.
At her words, I frown, looking down at my own black leggings and baggy chambray shirt as I sit at a red light. A gold-star standard of unfashion.
Abbigail: You are so right, Mara. I know for me, too, a lot of times I’ll ask, “What do I need nice clothes for if they are just going to get ruined by kids anyway?” [More laughter in agreement.]
Mara: And that’s valid, but my argument would be, even if the clothes might get messy, how do they make you feel the rest of the day? Is there a way to combine them: be fashionable and confident and functional for your lifestyle? And I don’t think I’d be on your show if I didn’t say yes!
Abbigail: What do you say to the mamas that just don’t know where to start? Like, they are listening to this as they do dishes or drive around in their minivans and think—I have no style and no clue how to fix that.
Mara: I got you, girlfriends! [Chuckles.] In all seriousness, there are a couple hard and fast rules I give to all the mamas I work with when we get started on revamping their wardrobes.
One, color is your friend—dare to be bold!
[Abbigail gasps.]
I know, I know, this probably made a few of you turn the podcast off, but I’m here to help—promise! Women tend to hide behind blacks, greys, and tans, so getting away from those can be a freeing thing. We don’t need to look like we are going to a funeral or in some kind of depressing uniform every day of our lives. So, unless it’s a little black dress you are wearing on a date night, ditch it. It might even be making you look more tired than you already are. Do not be afraid to buy a hot-pink shirt or a bright-blue skirt!
Abbigail: Okay, I’m glad this isn’t video because I’m definitely wearing a black shirt right now.
Mara: I won’t turn you into the fashion police. [Chuckles.] Okay, and the second thing I tell women, don’t be afraid to show some skin. We’ve been conditioned to believe that because we have children, because we aren’t twenty-three and our bodies are different, we need to dress in burlap sacks, but it’s just not true. You have my permission to wear the cheeky swimsuit, show off some cleavage . . . whatever you like about your body, don’t be afraid to show it off. And if you’re self-conscious, do it anyway. When you go shopping, use it as a time to reinvent yourself. Be someone different. Bolder. Brighter. Better! You are great as you are, of course, but give yourself a chance to be You 2.0!
Abbigail asks a follow-up question, but the words of the podcast fall on deaf ears as I slam my brakes at the sign that comes into view.
Ledger Art House is written in a contemporary black font against the whitewashed brick building on Main Street.
An art gallery? In Ledger?
“When the hell did this show up?” I mutter to the windshield, a truck honking at me as it drives around where I’ve stopped.
I ignore it, parking haphazardly along the street, craning my neck around my steering wheel to get a closer look.
Large canvases fill the front windows, and a woman with a dark pixie cut, white flowy blouse, and gauzy pants emerges from the propped-open glass door and sets a chalkboard sign on the sidewalk.
Now Open, Featuring North Carolina Local Artists.
I slip out of the van, floating to the windows like a moth to a flame, unsure if I even turned the ignition off.
In one window there are black-and-white photographs of women, nude, but not showing too much, and double exposed. The edges soft and the silhouettes filled with landscapes. The title, WOMEN OF THE EARTH, is written on a large placard.
In the other window: paintings. Vibrant and loud, they are mostly covered with flowers and what looks to be Lake Ledger. The color alone makes them stunning, but it’s the textures that hold my attention. The paint is thick, almost globs, sticking off the canvas in piles of oranges and purples and yellows, bringing the petals to life. Calling to my fingertips to touch them.
The woman with the sign is next to me, patting the side of her dark pixie cut which I now notice has hints of silver. I study her, guessing she’s in her sixties, and oddly familiar, but not enough for me to place her.
With a tight smile, she gives a curt, “Afternoon,” then squats to rewrite something on the sign with a piece of chalk before dusting her hands.
“Afternoon,” I parrot, gaze returning to the pieces in the windows.
“Are you in the market?”
I look at her.
“For art?” She points to the paintings in the window.
I laugh softly, still dazed there’s an art gallery in Ledger. “Sorry. Not really, just looking. They’re beautiful. The photographs too.”
She smiles again, softer this time. “Ah, yes. Come in then, we have more.”
I smooth my hands on my quasi-wrinkled shirt, my mom-chic fashion, or, as Mara from the podcast called it, unfashion, and follow the woman’s gentle, leather-flat footsteps into the gallery.
Inside, the creamy walls are covered in art of various mediums. Watercolors of downtown Ledger and the lake, abstract sculptures on podiums, asymmetrical wooden bowls, textured paintings, and, of course, photographs. Even the furniture—several pieces of live edge wooden tables—are labeled as being made by local regional artists.
We stop in front of a landscape photo. A black-and-white image of the Blue Ridge Mountains, showcasing the familiar scene in an artistic way. High contrast, grainy, and raw. A modern Ansel Adams.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell her. “The composition of this seems straightforward, but the photographer made it interesting. The lines of the mountains pulling the eye to the horizon and textures of the fog . . . the depth of field is shallower than I’d expect, but it works brilliantly.”
“You know photography,” the woman says, seemingly shocked.
“I do—did,” I clarify, stepping to another photograph.
She follows. “You either know it or you don’t, there’s no ‘did.’ It’s like a bicycle. You can or you can’t.”
I laugh under my breath. “It’s been a while. I raise you a maybe.”
She makes a sound—half puff of breath, half laugh—and folds her elegant arms across her chest as we study the next photo, another landscape, as familiar as the woman next to me but still I can’t place it . . .
“I’m Irma—”
“London!” I blurt, recognition clicking into place as I shoot my hand out toward her. “You’re Irma freaking London! World traveller and landscape photographer! Youngest woman to win a Pulitzer in photography.” Gushing, I have no shame. “Holy shit!”
Her eyes widen but dance, and another soft laugh puffs out of her as she extends her hand. “Yes, that’s me, I suppose.”
I shake her hand, soft beneath mine, disbelieving laugh bubbling out of me. “Sorry. It’s just that—wow. I’m June. Cannon. Gosh, I studied your work in college.” I gush, starstruck. “I wanted to be you when I grew up.”
She chuckles. “I’m flattered.” She runs her fingertips through her short hair, then adds, “I think.”
“Why are you here? In Ledger?” I ask, looking around the room, at the landscape photos I now very much recognize as hers, dumbfounded. “You-you-you’ve seen the world.”
“Ah,” she says with a wry smile, as if I’ve revealed something to her with my observation. “Ledger is part of the world, too, June Cannon.”
I try not to stare at her, at this queen of her craft, and reach through the cobwebs of my memory to try to make sense of why she’s here. She’s a North Carolina native, that much I remember. Charlotte born, I think. But the places she’s been. Remote islands in the Pacific, quaint villages in the Alps, fjords of Scandinavia. I can’t wrap my brain around getting all that but choosing to have a gallery here.
As if she’s reading my thoughts, she studies me, slender face cocking slightly to the side as a slight smirk pulls at her lips. She has a secret that I want to know, and she sees it.
With a nod, I force myself to stop staring at her—at Irma freaking London—and return my attention back to the art, now beside one of the pieces from the same collection of photographs in the front window. A woman’s body fills the frame, seated but facing away. The lines of her are obvious, curved and soft, but the inside is more abstract, filled with ripples of water. Subtle compared to the edges. The title: Woman of the Water . Next to it, a similar image, except inside the woman, there’s a rocky coastline.
“So this is your gallery?” I ask as we wander around, giddy smile plastered on my face. “I recognize the landscape pieces now that I know who you are.”
“It is,” she says. “This is my gallery—and back here,” she says as she leads us down a short hall, to a large open room, “is a shared space for creatives. That corner is for the mess makers.” She points to an area with drop cloths, small tables, paint splatters, and a utility sink. “And over here we have a setup for photographers. Mostly portrait work.” I nod, studying it all. Bathed in natural light, a few stools sit in the corner, and a neutral-toned backdrop hangs down the exposed brick wall. It’s perfect.
“I love this.” Translation: I can’t believe this.
Out of the room, she—Irma freaking London—follows a few steps behind me. Commenting on the pieces in my silence. She tells me about local artists I didn’t know existed though I’ve nearly lived here my whole life. We stop at a table covered with art books, and I pick one up to thumb through. None of the images register in my brain, but I do it for no reason other than not wanting to leave her. This room. The idea that this life could have existed for me in some alternative universe.
“We have a wall that needs to be filled. If you know anyone . . .” she says, one eyebrow arched.
“I—”
The rumbly roar of a motorcycle fills the air, stealing both my words and our attention. A man on a Harley parks on the street, pushing the kickstand down with a booted foot before slinging his other leg around to stand. Helmet off his head, his eyes meet mine and send a surge of shock straight to my belly. In worn jeans, a faded T-shirt, and a black leather jacket, a blast from the past—twenty-two years older, yet still very much the same—strolls into the gallery with a laugh and a deep, “Well if it isn’t our little Ledger sweetheart, June Downing.”
My grin turns to an unexpected laugh as he wraps me in a hug, his body much broader now than it was in high school. A gangly boy replaced by a man. He lifts me off the ground like I’m a child.
“It’s June Cannon now, thank you very much, Reed Simmons ,” I say, unexpected weakness in my voice as we pull apart and I take him in.
Different than he was when we were teenagers, new lines and edges with the vibe of James Dean and the scent of cloves and soap.
But his bottom lip? Still full, pouty, and highlighted by a faded white scar. His hair? Still dark, thick, and something between windblown and styled.
Reed Simmons, the only other man I’ve kissed on this planet, stands in an art gallery with me. In Ledger. Looking like that .
Instantly, I’m self-conscious. Smoothing my hair. Wishing the bang situation wouldn’t have happened. Or wardrobe situation. Or the fifteen pounds I’ve gained since I last knew him.
“Ah, yes. How could anyone forget that June married the famous baseball player?” he asks, teasing me as he folds his arms across his chest. Though his tone lacks heat, my face warms like it’s been blasted by a blowtorch hearing the truth of my life being said aloud.
“You two know each other?” Irma asks, reminding me she’s there.
“We went to high school together,” Reed says, looking from me to her to me again. I fidget with the hem of my shirt. “Not sure what she’s told you, but June here is a helluva photographer.”
“Not true.” I laugh, nervous. “I’m just looking. And you, Mr. Simmons? Are you in the market for art all the way from wherever it is you went after we graduated?”
He laughs, easy, scratching his scruff-covered jaw, blue eyes dancing. “I went everywhere, but my dad passed last month . . . I’m here sorting his estate for a few months.”
A look passes between him and Irma.
“Don’t be modest, Reed,” she interjects. “He’s the gallery’s first visiting artist too. WOMEN OF THE EARTH.” She gestures to the wall of double-exposed women. “That’s him.”
At this, my jaw drops, eyes bouncing around the canvases like a bouncy ball. “ You shot those?”
He grins, sheepish, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Guilty.”
“These are gorgeous,” I say, moving toward them again. Seeing them differently. Seeing him differently.
Our gazes hook, hold, and then the gallery phone rings, slicing the moment.
“I should go,” I tell Irma.
“Bring me your work,” she calls over her shoulder as she moves toward the ringing phone. “If he says you’re a photographer, you are.”
Then she’s gone, into an office, and I’m awkward, looking at Reed in all his bad-boy, artistic Reedness.
My, “Sorry about your dad,” comes at the same time as his, “I’ll walk you out.”
When we get to my minivan, lame next to his motorcycle, I fumble with my keys.
“I never would have predicted the girl that drove a cherry-red convertible in high school would drive a minivan, Junie.” He grins, leaning easy against the side of it.
I laugh under my breath. “Yeah, well, would you believe it if I said me neither?”
I fumble to get the door open, my heart pounding in my tonsils, looking him over one last time and letting our history gush through me like floodwaters through a broken dam. All the what ifs .
“How do you know Irma London?” I ask.
He smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. “She was a friend of my dad’s.”
I nod, wanting to ask a million more questions but don’t.
“Maybe I’ll see you before you leave,” I say as I drop into the driver’s seat.
“Maybe you will,” he says with a wink and a smirk, revealing a brand-new truth I didn’t need to know: Grown-man Reed looks sexy as hell when he winks and smirks, and it dries my mouth.
I clear my throat. Twice.
All I can say is: “Right.”
He knocks his knuckles against the roof of the minivan before stepping away. “Give my best to Camp.”
I snort a laugh as I shake my head. He knows damn well I will not be doing that.
It takes a full block of driving before I can breathe again.
Irma London.
Reed Simmons.
What the actual hell?
At the next light, heart still hammering in my chest from the unlikely scenario that just played out, the open sign at a local boutique has me slamming on the brakes. Again.
Reinvent yourself. Don’t be afraid of color. Show some skin.
Another honk—this time a fellow mom in a minivan shaking an angry hand at me as she circles around where I’ve stopped.
I give an apologetic wave and turn into the parking lot.
With just enough time before I have to get the boys, I will myself into the shop and buy every item of clothing I can that isn’t black and shows more skin than I’ve shown in years. I don’t think, I just buy, not wanting to talk myself out of whatever this is.
An embarrassing number of bags in hand and money spent later, I hurry across town, pick Hank and Ty up from preschool—complete with a fifteen-minute lecture from Ms. Mitchell on how they taught the entire class to make spitballs, and now the wall is covered—and make a four thirty spite dinner of meatloaf just to prove a point.
For the first time in years, Camp is right on time.