Dear Crystal Beach Angel and friends,
My name is Samantha Mills. I live in Tonawanda, not too far from the University of Buffalo. Everyone who grew up around here went to Crystal Beach Park as a kid. I wish I could share some wonderfully nostalgic stories with you. Sadly, my long-term memory isn’t what it used to be.
Last week, I attended one of your circles. Think nothing of it if you can’t remember me. I’m not known to stick out in a crowd. Besides, I was seated behind two rather large men, both of whom were openly weeping. Despite my own personal reservations, I took a collectible from Crystal Beach as you instructed. My item was a postcard from the 1920s that said, “Business Section Crystal Beach” across the top. For starters, that gave me a laugh. The business section was nothing but fast food signboards, hot dogs, frozen custard, old lager, waffles, loganberry drink and the like, with a very small sheriff’s office in the middle of it all.
I ended up keeping your postcard to show it to my eighty-six-year-old mother. Right now she is in hospice and confined to bed. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in several weeks, which is the real reason why I came to see you. I’ve never been a religious person. Visiting an angel circle was what you might call a last resort.
When I showed Mom the postcard, she switched on again. Not only could she form words and sentences, she was able to tell a little about frequenting your “business section.” She said she was too scared to go on any of the rides, but she sure did remember sunbathing and dancing at the ballroom.
By the next day, she was humming a tune that I recognized as “Moonlight Serenade” by The Glenn Miller Orchestra. Turns out she had danced to that song at least a dozen times at the Crystal Ballroom. A few of those times must have been with my father. They got married in 1940.
I ran right out and bought The Glenn Miller Orchestra Golden Hits on cassette. Mom sat up at the edge of her hospice bed, and she and I held hands and danced, swinging and swaying to “Moonlight Serenade” and “In the Mood” as best as we could.
She died peacefully listening to that cassette.
I believe she was waiting to be happy one last time before she died. She was always such a happy person. I just didn’t know how to reach her until I visited your angel circle. You said the Park was sacred, and while it sounded like balderdash at the time, I see now how it is true. That Park was sacred to my mother, and that’s more than good enough for me. Please forgive me, but I’m keeping your postcard. I’ve enclosed more than enough to pay for it, and to thank you for your help. Also enclosed is a copy of Mom’s obituary.
Tell your angel to look out for my mom. I hope she’s dancing, wherever she may be.
Yours truly,
Samantha Mills
A three-legged Betty Page hangs above me. Tamara’s Butthole Surfers poster. She leans through her bedroom window, smokes a cigarette, blows a long plume outside.
“You don’t smoke,” I say. I’m wearing lavender teddy-style pajamas, and I badly need to pee. Tamara butts out the half-smoked cigarette on the window glass.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” She makes a peace sign.
“How long have I been here?”
I have been sleeping on and off in Tamara’s bed for nearly eighteen hours, she tells me. Prior to my long sleep, she and Dolores also took me to the hospital where I communicated astonishingly clearly with the doctor and was sent home for bed rest. “Doc probably thought you were crashing from a coke binge or something. ER always sends druggies home for bed rest.” Her room smells like nail polish and cigarettes and candle wax. She says she’s been in the room with me the entire time, but the place beside me on the bed is smooth and unrumpled. Has she slept? Or has she been watching me sleep?
“The Point!” I say, sitting up. My left breast creeps out of the skimpy teddy pajamas. Couldn’t Tamara at least have given me a T-shirt to sleep in?
She grabs a glass of water from the nightstand and puts it in my hand. There’s a mauve-pink lip print on the glass. My shade. At least I’ve been drinking water. “Lay back down. You can’t hold a circle if you’re attacking people and blacking out.”
“Oh my god, please tell me I punched Jaguar?”
“It was pretty cool, actually. I think he left the next day with a black eye.” Tamara smirks for a second and I want her to get into bed with me. “Anyway, Rose and I decided it was best for you to have a break.”
“Rose decided? Is she mad at me?”
“Duh. Of course she’s mad at you.”
“I’ve got to get back to The Point! I can fix this.”
“Yeah, we knew you’d say that. But your idea of fixing everything is to be all possessed by a ghost. How messed up does that sound? Even saying it is weird—‘you are possessed by a ghost.’ That’s why you’re here. Miles away from The Point and from Etta.” It stings me to hear Tamara say Etta’s name. She sees me wince.
“Dolores brought your mail on her way to work this morning. I’ve been reading you letters as you sleep, so it’s not like you’re totally cut off.” She holds up the newspaper clipping. “Francis ‘Fanny’ Mills. February 19, 1913 – July 18, 1990.”
She carefully fixes Fanny’s obituary to a bulletin board across from the bed. It joins the child’s drawing of an angel flying over a stick-figure family, and a half a dozen other thank-you cards. “I pinned them all up so you could read them yourself when you’re up for it. Really sweet letters. Fucking misguided, but sweet. Here’s one from a peach farmer who says his crop recovered. He included a clipping too.” The headline on Today’s Farmer News reads “Farmer Credits Crystal Beach Angel for His Ribbon Winning Peaches.” I clutch at my naked chest, feeling for the missing pendant. “No necklace, no ride tickets, no postcards. I even got rid of anything from the Park tucked in your mail. I’m serious about a break, Star. More than a break—this needs to quit.”
“The locket. The locket from the last circle, I need it. That I need, I’m serious.”
Tamara waves a dismissive hand at me. “Maybe later today, we can do some of the stuff those mediums suggested. Try to find her grave or go through public records again. Useful things, you know?”
“Who put you in charge?” I can’t say anything but the worst, most-idiotic thing to say. Why censor it? “You’re jealous.”
“You wanna pick a fight with me? Let’s not, and say we did. I’m going out to clear my head. You count to ten or whatever it is you do to not be an asshole. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. And there’s one letter for you on the nightstand. That one’s from me.” Tamara shuts the bedroom door softly, but the front door to her house slams. She pulls her Galaxy 500 out of the driveway quickly and the tires squeal. I jump out of bed, but not fast enough to wave out the window after her. Pins and needles shoot up my legs. She’s right, of course, I am an asshole. I’m an asshole who receives fan mail thanking me for my dishonesty. My blessed subterfuge. Icons are notorious assholes, though. Charles Dickens. Dr Seuss. Thomas Edison. Ernest Hemingway. Henry Ford. Pablo Picasso. Orson Scott Card. Jimmy Page. What do they all have in common? I really have to pee.
Sitting on the toilet, I wonder why I can’t name historically famous women assholes. Like did Jane Goodall ever kick a chimpanzee in the face? Did Yoko Ono sleep with an under-aged art mentee? Did Penny Marshall torment her actors for the sake of so-called brilliant art? Did she have her crew hurl toys at Tom Hanks in Big? Alfred Hitchcock constantly tossed live birds at Tippi Hedren throughout the filming of The Birds, then threatened her career if she didn’t sleep with him. Major asshole.
Maybe too few women become famous enough for the world to know about their assholery? Maybe in an equal-opportunity world we’d see more women assholes? Margaret Thatcher is an asshole. But I know dick about UK politics. Mostly, what I know is through Sinead O’Conner’s “Black Boys on Mopeds” song.
I do need that locket, though. Etta will literally tear me apart if it’s lost again.
In the kitchen, I drink orange juice right out of the carton. I fight the urge to spit. The juice is acidic. Tamara has left me a break-up letter, I can feel it. Feels like shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit and also fuck. I should leave the letter unopened. Show her!
I get dressed before I read it. It’s just not right to be dumped while wearing your soon-to-be ex-girlfriend’s skimpy pajamas. Her bedroom feels wrong too, so I take the letter outside. Together, the break-up letter and I sit at end of her scraggy privet-lined driveway. Her handwriting is so careful. The letter must be draft two, or three.
Dear Starla,
I love you. Sure, there’s a lot going on for you right now, but can you just pause to realize the meaning of these words. I LOVE YOU!
I’ve never told any woman that before (apart from my family members). I’m out of the closet, as you know. And I’ve had plenty of fleeting flings with other dancers who I’ve met at the clubs. Then, when you came home and we started dating, I got really excited to build a life here together. I was ready for a real relationship. I guess I’m still hopeful that maybe we can be together, but I’m not excited anymore. Mostly I’m tired and worried. I’m tired and worried about you all the time.
Rose told me that you moved your stuff to The Point. You didn’t even tell me that you left your mom’s place. We said we’d move in together. Why would you keep this a secret from me? Or were you just so busy with Etta that it slipped your mind? I don’t know what is worse, you ditching me for Etta or you ditching me to make sure you are smack dab in the middle of everything. Is that why you moved to The Point? So you can constantly be the centre of all this bogus attention?
The times we’ve spent telling each other tender things about our past and all our future dreams were the best times we had together. I didn’t even know I needed a close “companion” to talk to until we were deep in conversation. It’s like I got to go back in time and make some peace with some of my memories. It’s like I got to imagine possibilities that I thought were just daydreams. I hope you did too.
I used to think it was the special bond we had that made you tell me that Etta is actually a ghost, not an angel. I used to think I was special because you told me your darkest secret of all. You reached out to me for help. I guess it’s a lover’s cliché, but that made me feel needed.
Now I’m more of an accomplice than a special confidant. I’ve been growing more and more uncomfortable with what’s happening at The Point. It was hard to figure out what was wrong because so many people have claimed that their lives have gotten better after visiting. So many people have hope now. It’s not easy living around here, watching friends and neighbours go broke or become drunks or bad moms or whatever other problems we have. We need hope. But your hope is fake hope. I mean, it’s really fake. I’m surprised anyone is even falling for it anymore. It goes to show you how hungry people are for hope. But the hope people have should be in themselves, not in some lie you feed them.
I can’t sit around and watch you lie anymore. I can’t watch you get sicker and sicker either. You have a choice. If you want to fix this, I will help you. I will be there for you no matter how long it takes or how hard it gets. I will be there for you even if Hal and Bobby and Rose and everyone gets angry and upset (although I bet Rose will love you no matter what).
But if you are going to go on and on with this, then it is me that has to make a choice. Believe me, my choice will be to break up with you. Don’t make me break up with you.
Love,
Tamara