Hotel Miranda is one of the nicer hotels in the area. Mom must have been saving this one for last, before we leave Sacramento. I bet she was hoping Emjay would be with us so we could all enjoy a nice hot shower before departing on our new adventure. I wish he was with us too, kind of. He’s not very nice to me, but when he’s around, Mom relaxes a bit. She smiles more. The worried look on her face disappears—until they start fighting again.
We plan on heading south the day after tomorrow. Our goal is to reach Los Angeles. The City of Angels, where dreams come true. Mom lived there when she was a teenager. She ran away at sixteen. She hitchhiked to California all the way from her home in the Grand Portage Reservation in northern Minnesota, and ended up in Hollywood. Where all the rock-and-roll musicians and movie stars live.
She got a job cutting hair on Sunset Boulevard. She told the owner she was a pro. Truth was, she never actually cut hair before getting that job, but she asked herself, How hard could it be? They supplied the scissors, the mirror, and the chair. The job practically did itself. All she had to do was stand behind the person and snip snip snip.
That job lasted a few months. And since she was super attractive and liked to dance as she worked, no one complained about their awful haircuts. In fact, she became pretty popular. She was raking in the dough. People wanted to get their hair cut by the Native American girl who danced around the salon and who they imagined looked like Pocahontas.
One day, Mom gave a haircut to this mega-famous guy named Bob Hope. And even though she accidentally snipped his ear and stained his expensive shirt with his own blood, he saw something in my mom that made him offer her a new job. A job far away from sharp scissors.
She says it was the way she danced that brought all the men in to sacrifice their heads and ears to her. Music and dancing are powerful medicines, she says. And all people need good medicine, but not all people need a good haircut. Bob Hope was no exception. Because a week later, she was hired as a professional dancer for his upcoming tour with the USO, which stands for the United Service Organizations, which provided entertainment for soldiers. Bob Hope would perform on navy ships for all the sailors and on base camps for all the marines. He even performed on aircrafts for the US Air Force. And even though Mom was underage, she told Bob Hope she was eighteen and ready for a new adventure. So, she left the Job Corps housing complex, where she shared a room with three other girls, and set out to start her new life as a dancer.
She went by Lady Chippewa—that was the stage name they gave her. And the way she tells it, she was the most popular dancer on every base they toured. Word of her spread fast, and soldiers packed in just to see her shake it onstage. Each dancer had a song to perform to. My mom’s song was “For Your Love” by a band called the Yardbirds. I know it by heart. She still dances to it when we do our street performances for cash. Usually I sit near the bucket and make sure no one tries to steal her tips, but every once in a while, I get up and dance with her. Having good rhythm connects you to the earth, she says. And our people are from the earth, so dancing is like your body returning home. Until the song ends.
The USO took her all the way to a place called Fairbanks, Alaska. It was her first time on an airplane. She felt like a star up in the sky. A dancing star.
Although most of the other dancers were jealous of my mom, she did make a few friends. Her favorites were Elizabeth, who danced as the Vixen Viking. She was a tall blond girl who had legs for days and would dance to “White Room” by the band Cream. She had a Swedish accent, but Mom never knew if it was real or part of her act. And Sarah, who was actually from Michigan but went as the African Lioness. She was a beautiful Black girl who danced to “Baby Love,” by the Supremes. There were others, but those two were the ones who she liked best.
Still, those friendships didn’t last very long. Everyone was coming and going at such a fast pace. Some girls got swept up by a sailor, and they’d run off together and get hitched. Some girls got pregnant and left the tour. Others, like my mom, just simply stopped when they’d had enough. Mom said that one day she danced her last dance for America, grabbed her coat, and went back to Hollywood to see what else the world would offer her.
It’s always important to know when one ride is over and the next is about to begin. She says that’s how adventures work. You can’t enjoy them forever. But to be honest, I think she quit dancing because her feet got too sore. I mean, when we dance on the side of the street for money, my feet get tired after about an hour. I can’t imagine dancing on a stage night after night after night.
We pull up to Hotel Miranda. The game is about to begin.
“This place has a huge lobby, so head toward the elevators. And hunt for a good elk. Make sure it’s a woman. Older-looking. Rich-looking. Got it?” Mom says as she removes her jean jacket and puts on one of her nicer coats.
“Am I selling candy for school? Church? Boy Scouts?” I ask.
“You’re the hunter. You decide,” she replies, and hands me my blue backpack.
I open it and see six packs of peanut M&M’s and three Snickers bars and four Butterfingers. I’ll use these sweets to set the trap.
“I think I’m going to say I’m selling these to raise money for my hockey team,” I say.
“Hockey? Here in Sacramento? It’s risky. People may not believe there’s a hockey team here,” she says.
“Which is why we need the money. We want to bring hockey to this place. But ice rinks are very expensive, I bet,” I say.
She smiles. “I’m sold. Hockey it is. I’ll be outside waiting. When I see you open the door for the lady, I’ll swoop in. Any questions?” she asks.
“Which floor do you think we’ll get? There’s so many. I hope we get the very top,” I say excitedly.
My mom touches the tip of my nose with the tip of her finger. And even though I don’t like the smell of cigarettes, and I can smell them when her fingers are this close to my nostrils, I still love it when she does this part. She lowers her voice, looks me right in the eye, and talks to me the way a coach would to their star player. I get goose bumps before every game. And in a few seconds, it’s game time.
“Did you know that Geronimo once fought the entire US Cavalry off with just sixteen warriors? Imagine that. He and sixteen of his friends took on thousands of troops and lived to tell about it.”
“Did they win?” I ask.
“If you don’t die, you don’t lose. And if you don’t lose, guess what?”
“You win.”
“That’s right.”
She ruffles my hair and plants a kiss on my cheek. “How do I look?” she asks.
I stare at her face. My mom is thirty-eight, which sounds so dinosaur, but with her, it doesn’t matter. So many men ask her out when they meet her. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times. And truth be told, she’s even been approached by some women. She’s like the opposite of Medusa. When people see her, they don’t turn to stone, they turn into mush. Silly Putty. Mashed potatoes. They all stumble over their words, trip over their feet, and have that same stupid smile on their faces. “You look okay,” I say back to her.
She laughs. “Just okay?”
“You look tired. And sad. But no one will know that except for me. Everyone else will think you’re beautiful,” I say.
“Oh, the irony. The only set of eyes I care about is yours, Opin. The world will find me beautiful, but you just find me … old.”
“I didn’t say old. I said tired and sad.”
“Tired plus sad equals old. It’s a deadly combo,” she says.
“Sometimes I’m tired and sad—does that mean I’m old, too?” I ask.
“No, it just means you’re growing up. But rage against it. Keep fighting. Try to be a kid for as long as you can, because once it is gone, it’s gone for good,” she says.
“In that case, I’m ditching the hockey team idea and going with something way more fun.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet. Kids don’t plan things. We just do things,” I say.
She smiles. “Then let’s do it, kiddo,” she says, and exits the car.
I get out of the passenger seat and put on my backpack. We’re parked all the way in the back lot of the hotel. We go from one game to the next.
It’s high time for a hot shower.