eyes and arched eyebrows were sticking out above her neon pink, thick-framed sunglasses that were resting on the tip of her nose. Lili Von screeched as her mother pulled up to the curb in front of where Willow and Asher were standing. And almost before the car had fully stopped, Rosie jumped out of the front seat to give each of her children separate, tight hugs.
Rosie looked as cool as she always looked in her cutoff jean shorts and long fur coat even though it was a perfectly temperate fall afternoon. She looked as cool as she always looked with her shoes with the holes in them and her polished red nails. She looked as cool as she always looked with her bright red lips.
“I missed you little noodles!” she said with a full-teeth and full-heart smile as she got back behind the wheel. “Hop in, already. It’s pizza night!”
But just before Rosie got back behind the wheel, she snapped her head around and looked back at her daughter. She tilted her head to the side, pulled her sunglasses down farther on her nose and said, “Cool hair, baby.” She said it quickly and honestly, and then drove off, leaving Willow smiling so big in the back seat.
They hadn’t even reached the edge of the school parking lot when Rosie reached for the volume knob and said to her children the thing she always said on the way to pizza night at Lanza Pizza.
“Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”
And when Rosie said that, she meant it in the literal sense. She turned the volume knob so many revolutions to the right that the speakers started throbbing and the floor started vibrating.
Cymbal. Cymbal. Bass. Bass.
Willow recognized the song right away. It was Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” and it was one of Mom and Willow’s favorites.
Rosie, Willow and Asher all sang the lyrics in tandem and whipped their hair around as the music played.
Cymbal. Cymbal. Bass. Bass.
They sang as loudly as they could until they reached their parking spot at Lanza Pizza. Even Willow and Asher could see how Rosie filled with even more life when they arrived there. It was Rosie’s favorite pizza place in town, tucked on a side street with a neon sign that was rare for the suburbs of Virginia. It had orange and yellow plastic booths, an old pinball machine and a deep bucket of half-used crayons.
The moment Willow, Rosie and Asher walked through the door of Lanza Pizza, they simultaneously tilted their noses toward the ceiling and pressed their chests forward as they inhaled the smells of bubbling cheese and hot tomatoes. As Willow and Asher grabbed handfuls of crayons, Rosie bounced straight to the counter and asked for three large cups for fountain soda. And just like every Thursday, John had them waiting already right next to the register. As Willow sat down to put her crayons to use, she saw her mother wink familiarly at John in his sauce-stained apron. And then she saw John wink familiarly back at Rosie as he swirled a freshly floured heap of pizza dough around his thick sausage fingers. Willow couldn’t help but smile at the warmth between near strangers. The ease between opposites. The electricity created when her mother entered a room.
Asher and Willow snatched their large paper cups from Rosie’s hand and dashed to the soda fountain, where they filled their cups with a fizzing mixture of orange, root beer, Sprite and Hawaiian Punch. Rosie met them at the fountain, but filled her cup with nothing but cream soda. It was her favorite drink. And every time she got her big, icy cream soda from the fountain—not the bottle—she poked her straw through the plastic top, took her first gulp and said, “Nothing like a cold fountain cream soda.” She did it so often that it had become tradition for Willow and Asher to say the words right alongside Rosie and then for all to take a big slurp of soda.
While the pizza warmed in the oven, Rosie took a roll of quarters out of her tote bag and handed it to Willow. And then Willow and Asher took turns on the pinball machine, clicking the flippers and encouraging each other on. They cheered when they hit a bonus and booed when their final ball slid between the flippers.
And when they got back to the table, a big slice of hot pizza was waiting on each of their plates. Willow bit into her slice, and then looked back up at Rosie, who had a big gooey piece of cheese hanging from her nostril.
“Mom!” Willow said half laughing, half embarrassed, but not at all surprised. Asher looked up too. He clutched his tummy and laughed so hard at his mother with that cheese in her nose.
“What?” Rosie said in thinly veiled awareness, now barely able to hide her smirk. Asher pointed right at her nose, unable to get a word out between giggles.
“Is my nose running? I did feel a cold coming on,” Rosie said, restoring her poker face.
Now Willow was laughing too.
“It’s a cheese booger! A huge one!” Asher screeched between breathy giggles as he pointed at his mother’s nose.
Asher peeled a piece of cheese from his pizza, still vibrating with laughter, and stuck it in the gap where his front teeth should have been. He shook his head back and forth, the cheese swaying too. “Look! It’s cheese teeth!”
Now Rosie was giggling uncontrollably too.
Rosie looked at Willow with urging eyes. And then Willow peeled a piece of cheese from the gooey pizza and draped it over her right ear. “Cheese earrings!”
Right there, in the middle of Lanza Pizza, Rosie, Asher and Willow were just one big pile of cheese and giggles and love.
For Willow, every time she was with Mom was like having all the pizza and soda and candy and ice cream in the world and never getting a tummy ache.
Twelve Years Ago
Rex and Rosie planned to walk around Central Park for their next date. Rosie thought about it every night as she fell asleep in her downtown apartment with the creaky stairs and tattered comforter. She wondered if she and Rex were going to hold hands. Or kiss. Or continue falling in love.
* * *
When 2:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon finally arrived, Rosie was scanning the crowd for Rex on the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She spotted him right away when she looked up as he leaned against the base of one of the Corinthian columns next to the entrance with his left leg crossed over his right and his hands in his pockets. He was so tall and handsome with his broad shoulders and thick black hair. And Rosie was giddy at the sight of her strong, sturdy man leaning on that strong, sturdy column. She skipped up the steps, two at a time, and surprised both herself and Rex when she did a little hop right in front of him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. She didn’t plan to kiss him right away like that so early in their relationship, even if it was on the cheek, but it felt so natural.
* * *
Rex raised one eyebrow at Rosie, and then hooked his arm around her shoulder and said, “Hey, you.” Then they walked down the steps slowly in lockstep toward the park so that they could soak in every moment of each other as they listened to each other with full attention. They each told stories about living in Manhattan and the sets of events that got them there. They talked about art and philosophy. Music and stories of past travels. They paused every few moments to digest each other’s words. They nodded in agreement and sometimes blissful disagreement. And, in no time at all, on that fall afternoon, Rex was drunk with Rosie and Rosie had Rex sloshing around in her tummy. The air was crisp and clear in the height of a Manhattan autumn, but neither of them noticed the weather. There was only each other. In the whole park, the whole city. Among all the buildings and people and planets and stars.
When they reached the boathouse lake, Rex sat down on the grass and Rosie joined him. Rosie was pleased and surprised that he hadn’t brought a blanket. Pleased that he wasn’t worried about getting little pieces of crunchy leaves stuck to the back of his pants. And Rex and Rosie simultaneously opened the bags they had each been carrying. Rex’s had turkey sandwiches, two bags of chips and two apples. Rosie’s had old scraps of scribbled-on paper, a dozen flat stones