The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder.

A Novel.

Rebecca Wells.

This book is for Tom, who ran many marathons, with the many changing finish lines.

This book is for Tom, to rest.

The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall.

-CHINESE PROVERB.

PROLOGUE.

The Moon Lady.

I know the moon and the moon knows me. I am the moon and the moon is me. I am life itself. I am not who they think I am, that old white man with the long white hair whose judging eyes try to force fear into their very pores. I am the moon mother, and I hold my children on my lap, night and day, in the heat and in the shade. When they wake and when they sleep, I whisper to them: Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. The ones who feel my lunar light pause before they walk out into the day. They take a deep breath, greet the morning with love, and invite grace to enter them at every moment. All have pain, but not all suffer. The body might ache, loss might occur. But for those who embrace my light, there is dancing.

There is a hamlet named La Luna in the center of Louisiana, on the banks of a river with the same name. It is a piney-wood river town of 1,734 souls. I watch them as they try their best to live each moment in their little town named after the river, on this fragile spinning planet. This world is made up of stories-every person's story, those that are hidden, and those that are outright and clear. This is the story of one named for a flower.

I danced with her mother on an old wooden floor where rhythm was queen. I danced with her father as he held her mother. I danced with her mother when her belly was big, a sail blown full with the wind. I held her mother as she let go of the earth's pull, as her family did its best to let the sweet dancing mother come home to me.

The sun shines hard and bright on my people. The air hangs heavy and humid in this swampy state where the quiet La Luna River flows into the Mississippi. That wide, robust river carries life and dreams, commerce and poisons out into the Gulf of Mexico. There I watch the Louisiana coast recede, losing a football-field piece of land every twenty minutes. Saltwater rushes in through canals cut by the oil companies into the fragile, freshwater marshes that struggle to nurture life. I see crazy flames dot the coast from gas and oil rigs that extract from deep in the earth what, eons ago, were once living plants. All that oil provides energy, and carries a cost. It both gives and takes life.

Whether or not they see me, moonlight bathes my raggedy, tender people. Sometimes they are capable of unimaginable kindness. Other times they are filled with near-paralyzing fear. Even when it is dark, though, when all light seems to be eclipsed, there is light on them. Light in them. I see it. I see it every day under the sun, every night under my lunar glow.

Oh yes, I know the moon and the moon knows me. I watch my children as they dance in La Luna, the hamlet named for me, in the beating of the heart of the crazy, holy state of Louisiana.

PART I.

Chapter 1.

My name is Calla Lily Ponder. I was born in 1953 in La Luna, Louisiana, on the banks of the La Luna River. That is where my mother cut and curled hair, and my father and mother together taught tango, waltz, and the Cajun two-step. They said they named me for their favorite flower because they wanted me to spiral open into radiant beauty, inside and out. Even when I was born, a red, tiny, hollering thing, they claimed they could see the beautiful, creamy-colored, velvety bloom of a calla lily.

My eyes are blue like my mother's-I call her M'Dear-and my complexion is olive like Papa's. I guess the only thing that resembles the flower I'm named for is my long, strong legs. They've served me well so far, and I'm grateful for that. I was taught not to care much what other people thought, unless someone said you were mean to them, and it was true. Then you better pay attention. My big brothers and I learned this at an early age: That it is kindness that makes you rich.

I also learned very early that I loved my mother's hair. Family stories have it that when I was young, nothing soothed me more than being held in M'Dear's arms, playing with her long, shiny chestnut-colored hair. It fell down to her waist, but photos of her at that time show how she held it back in combs so only part of it fell forward. I'd reach up, let it fall over me, then part it, pat it, and curl my fingers in it. I'd play with it the way other children did with new toys, only my mother's hair was new to me over and over again. After a spell of playing with it, I would settle in and just gaze up at her. She would look back, and when she did, she let me see myself reflected in her eyes. It was as if she held this little mirror inside her, just for me, to see me, to know who I was.

M'Dear was the owner and sole practitioner at the Crowning Glory Beauty Porch. The name of her business came from two sources. First, the Bible. Second, the fact that we had a porch that ran all the way around our house.

M'Dear taught me about the Bible early on. "'A woman's hair is her crowning glory,' the Bible says. It's a beautiful quote. Along with the Beatitudes and the Commandments, it's one of the teachings I hope you and your brothers will learn. And don't just learn them, let them into your heart."

Papa said, "Just be kind. Period."

When M'Dear and Papa first moved into our house, M'Dear had the big side porch enclosed and turned into a beauty parlor. It was there that she washed, dried, curled, dyed, bleached, permed, and gave manicures-but not pedicures, and I don't blame her. Down off the porch was the Beauty Patio, with a fountain that had a lady with mermaids swimming under her like they were holding her up. The Crowning Glory Beauty Porch was where most all the La Luna ladies came to catch up on the latest news. Even ladies without appointments stopped by in the afternoons for coffee, bringing some sweet baked goods to share with everybody. As Papa put it, "Lenora has made her beauty porch the Crowning Glory Gathering Place!" I always got goosebumps and felt slightly disoriented when I heard my mother called by her name. It reminded me of her life that was separate from being my mother. As close as M'Dear and I were, it was good to be reminded. It kept things in balance. In their classes, I watched her at Will and Lenora's Swing 'N Sway, Papa and M'Dear's dance studio. I'd see her cha-cha, swirl and dip, waltz, fox trot, and samba with other men on a regular basis. She had two chiffon skirts, and when she dressed up in one of them, she looked so different from the M'Dear I knew in her cotton dresses, or shorts and a starched white blouse. On the nights when she was demonstrating dances and teaching certain moves, I was both proud and a little jealous. When I told her that, she hugged me, and said, "Oh, little Calla, there's enough of me to go around. I have enough love for you, and other people too."

On the days that M'Dear washed her hair, she called them "Days of Beauty." She spent the whole day pampering herself, and she taught me how to pamper myself as well.

"If cleanliness is next to Godliness," M'Dear said, "then pampering is next to Goddessness." My mother would say those kinds of things and then give a little laugh and a wink like we had a secret club.

On Days of Beauty, we had fans made of vetiver root so that when we fanned ourselves we smelled the wonderful, spicy, of-the-earth smell that is the vetiver plant, grown on the Clareux plantation not far from La Luna. M'Dear made it a game for us to create facials from ingredients out of the kitchen and the garden. This was all before I started school, and was graced to spend days on end with my mother, so rich and private that even now I can close my eyes and relive them. I do not mean to say that those days were perfect. Even at that age, I heard the edge in M'Dear's voice when she and Papa sat at the kitchen table, at night, talking about money. Sometimes we had very little, and that was scary, although I didn't know then what it all meant. It was just as well, since it all worked out. In the world of La Luna, my parents were too creative to go broke.

During the wet, cold months that make up a Louisiana winter, M'Dear's hair was so long and thick that drying it could take all day. On those days we'd stay inside, cleaning, ironing, and cooking up huge pots of gumbo. I'd climb up onto the big soft chair next to the fireplace in the kitchen, and shine shoes or sew on buttons or do the other tasks she was teaching me. I'd sit there and watch her work, watch her go in and out of the washroom like a breeze was blowing her in.

On hot Days of Beauty, we'd put on our swimsuits and stand outside on the wooden platform of the outdoor shower. It was my happy job to scrub clean buckets and other containers and set them outside to gather rainwater to wash our hair. M'Dear would undo my braid, pour the rainwater on my head, put on a little Breck shampoo, and wash my hair. The sun shone down, my mother's hands touched my head, and her fingers lathered love into me. Never has my hair been so soft. Sometimes I still wash my hair in rainwater, to remember.

After our hair was clean, M'Dear would leave hers down, and, still in our swimsuits, we'd hang clean clothes outside to dry on the line, with me handing her clothespins out of a small apron she had sewn for me out of flower sacks. I have a photo of us by the clothesline, doing this very thing. We were working and smiling, squinting slightly in the sunlight. I was just about to enter first grade, just about to leave behind those mother-daughter days of intimacy, of little maternal baptisms. M'Dear prepared me for that leaving so that it was smooth and felt natural. Not all leavings are that easily prepared for.

After finishing chores and when our hair was dry, M'Dear and I would go down to our pier, just before sunset. These memories are so vivid to me that I don't need a photograph to see them. I carry them inside me.

In one memory, it is growing toward twilight. We are sitting on the pier with the La Luna River flowing by.

"M'Dear," I ask, "can I brush your hair with the hundred magical strokes?"

"Of course," she says.

And as the sun sparkled off the cocoa-red water and the wind stirred in the tall pines, I stood behind my mother, my legs on either side of her, and brushed her hair. I lifted her long chestnut hair up off her neck, twirled it up on top of her head, then let it fall, watching its weight settle back down around her shoulders. Then I'd lean my face into her hair and smell it. I can close my eyes and smell it now: sun and vanilla.

What I first learned about love, I learned on that dock with M'Dear. The La Luna River flowing by with its river sounds, the riverbanks with their lovely sweet citrus scent of jasmine, the scent of M'Dear's hair, the oils of her scalp, the fullness of her thick, long curls against my hands, our breathing together, the closeness, her love for me-all of this knit my soul together. When the fading sunlight hit the river, it bounced up to form iridescence, like a halo, around M'Dear's head. She is the most beautiful person in the universe.

On clear nights when the moon was out, we'd return to our pier. On the way, she'd point out fireflies. I'd hear a screech; M'Dear would stroke my hair, and say, "Calla, that's just a barn owl, and nothing to be afraid of. Oh, she's a beauty of an owl, with a white, heart-shaped face."

I remember the first time she introduced me to the one who would keep me company forever. She must have told me even earlier, because my big brother Will later told me that as a toddler I used to waddle around in diapers, saying "Moolay, Moolay." And Mama told me, "Your Papa and I held you up in the moonlight when you were barely six months old. Everyone else in La Luna takes their one-year-olds to dip their toes in the river. But we held you up to the moon as well."

That night M'Dear said, "Calla, now look at the moon!" Her voice was filled with love for me and delight in what she was witnessing. "You see how beautiful She is?" M'Dear always called the moon "She." "See how bright She shines! See Her light on the water? Here, let me hold you while we look. Tell me, Calla, what do you see up there?"

"I see a lady."

"I do too, little darling." Then M'Dear wrapped her arms around me and whispered in my ear, "She's the Moon Lady."

We were quiet as we watched the Moon Lady's reflection dance on the river.

"Remember this," M'Dear said. "When the sky and everything around you looks dark, and you feel lost and alone, the Moon Lady is still there, watching over you, whispering: 'What do you need from me now, little darling, what do you need from me now?'"

Then M'Dear lightly touched the crown of my head. "The moon is our mother, sweet daughter of mine. Call on her when you need her. Call on her."

All my life I've remembered those words. Or tried to.

I miss seeing myself reflected in M'Dear's eyes. I thought I'd lost the reflection when she died. But then I learned that it is not permanently lost. That if you wait, like she told me, then you can lift the gauze, lift the veil, and see her eyes again.

I see her now as she held me above the La Luna River, her long hair lit by a waxing moon. I see my mother as she held my baby body up to the lady in the moon.

Chapter 2.

Sometimes at night, lying in my bed, I could hear the sounds of the La Luna and picture all that water and where it went. I'd get goosebumps just thinking that I lived on a river that mixed with waters from worlds far, far away. In Louisiana, the town of La Luna is thought of as having a little cuckoo magic to it. Papa says that calling La Luna cuckoo is saying a lot, since Louisiana itself is pretty out of the ordinary. I lived an enchanted childhood in our cuckoo magical little town, but my childhood ended sooner than any of us thought it would.

My parents were Lenora and Will Ponder, and they taught dance at their studio: Will and Lenora's Swing 'N Sway. We were a family of five. Papa was tall, with dark wavy hair and hands that were so beautiful. He played fiddle and squeezebox accordion for Cajun tunes, and trumpet for his 1940s music. It's no wonder he was such a great musician, with fingers like his. Long, tapered fingers.

My mother, with her long hair and blue eyes, seemed to be dancing even when she was still, like there was a dance always going on inside her. My oldest brother was Sonny Boy, who was big, loud, and happy. From the time he was little, his favorite thing to do was building things. He was never happier than when he had a hammer, a nail, and a piece of wood. Will, my other brother, was just a year older than me. He was slender, with beautiful hands like Papa's. He could play just about every kind of instrument, and he was always at Papa's side, learning something new about playing. When Will was six, Papa gave him a fiddle made by one of Papa's buddies, and he was screeching along in his room for what seemed like an eternity, but in a year he was playing in front of Papa's band, the other musicians clapping him on and teaching him more.

My parents taught ballroom, swing, jitterbug, tango, and every other style of dance you can imagine. Grown-ups and children alike came to Swing 'N Sway. Little kids got taught the Cajun two-step, since contrary to some folks' belief, kids in this part of Louisiana are not born knowing it from birth. Wednesday nights were Ladies' Nights, and not even Papa was allowed in sight. The most popular was the first Saturday of the month, which was family time at the dance studio, when we'd open as early as nine in the morning. M'Dear and Papa and all our friends made a big pot of gumbo that they cooked in a big cast-iron kettle over a fire that Sonny Boy helped tend. Big ones, little ones, mamas, papas, grandmas, grandpas, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins, or friends visiting from out of town-everybody was welcome. Papa's band, Willy and the La Lunatics, played Cajun music on and off, all day long, with different fiddlers, accordion players, and other musicians from all around sitting in. My brother Will loved when these Saturdays would roll around, because he had the chance to sit in with the older Cajun musicians.

Dancing didn't just mean "lady and gentleman" couple-type dancing. It meant any combination of people that wanted to happen. Grandpas dancing with their little grandchildren, old people dancing together, little kids running around causing trouble. People brought picnic blankets and lawn chairs. I always liked seeing the little babies taking naps in their mothers' laps, right under the live oaks outside. I'd go over and visit, and end up holding the baby so the mother could get up and dance-that is, if she didn't want to dance and hold her baby on her hip at the same time, which was a sight you always saw on Saturday mornings. At the Swing 'N Sway nobody felt left out.

No matter what kind of music or people or group, everybody was influenced by my mother's belief in dance. She called it dancing "from the bottom of your heart," or De plus profond de ton coeur. Both my parents taught that everything in the world dances, in its own way. Trees dance, stones dance, hats and dogs and candles dance. Pencils dance, flowers dance, telephones and peaches dance. And if we listen, we can dance to the same music.

It was because of M'Dear and Papa that people in La Luna danced so much-not just on those Saturdays, or at a fais do-do, our Cajun country dances. Much more than that! People in La Luna danced on their way to the post office if the spirit moved them, and it was not rare to see bankers lock their money drawers and then do the Watusi. Mister Chauvin, the barber, tap-danced regularly in front of his barbershop. He was asked by Mister Bordelon, the druggist, simply not to tap-dance while he was giving haircuts. But Mister Chauvin insisted that's how he got his exercise. Pregnant mothers danced, and old people danced with their canes. And everyone knew that the biggest dancer was the river herself.

Some of my happiest moments were during dance lessons. I was content to lie, head in hands, on the edge of the perfectly polished dance floor, studying my parents as they danced by, illustrating different types of dances. My mother's strength and beauty captivated me as she swirled across the dance floor in my father's arms. Her long, flowing hair, her wide open eyes, her power as she swung out and back in, the muscles of her upper arms like no muscles I saw on the arms of the other women in this country town. Her back, so tanned and muscled like the swimmer she was. Above all were the times my parents waltzed together. Watching them waltz made me feel that nothing in the world could ever go wrong. I was so young when I thought that. Yet, it is how I see my mother now-still dancing with strength, power, and grace.

When they weren't teaching at the studio, Papa taught music at La Luna River School, and M'Dear ran her beauty salon, the Crowning Glory Beauty Porch, which was on the side porch of our house. Papa and M'Dear planted a wisteria vine there, and in the spring those cascading clusters of pale lavender blossoms made the whole porch feel like a giant, sweet-scented bouquet.

Aunt Helen was M'Dear's older sister, and the town seamstress. She was married to my uncle Richard, and they lived two blocks from us. Aunt Helen was a big part of our lives. She was not as tall as M'Dear, but almost as pretty, and the two of them loved to cut up.

Aunt Helen had to work after my uncle Richard came back from World War II. M'Dear said he looked just as handsome as when he left, but his mind was still at war. He screamed at night; he could never sleep. Sometimes he cried. We'd often all be eating supper together when Uncle Richard would start to cry. Through his tears, he would say, "Won't you all excuse me, please?" And then he'd go out on the porch alone. Olivia, who came to help Mama sometimes, would come carry his food and ice tea out to him. Olivia was taller than anyone else I knew. And her skin was the color of ice tea once the tea bags had been sitting in there for two whole days. We all loved Olivia and her husband, Pana. Olivia helped M'Dear with cooking and cleaning twice a week. She worked next door at the Tuckers' pretty much all the time. Pana sometimes helped Papa with yard work and fixing gates, hauling brush, and things Sonny Boy and Will couldn't do. Pana was Mister Tucker's right-hand man.

Uncle Richard always carried a book with him everywhere he went. He said it was the best drug he knew of to ease pain. With his full head of thick reddish-blond hair, nobody would have guessed that he was so banged up inside. I suppose that's the way it was with everyone, really, that line between what's inside and what's out.

When I was six, a little bit older, I started asking people if I could fix their hair. I loved to touch it and smell it and feel it. It soothed me. It also fascinated me, this line between our insides and our outsides. We have to take very special care I thought, or people's heads could just crack open like eggshells, and everything would come spilling out. So M'Dear's work was important work, like being a nurse, maybe.

M'Dear said the first time I saw a bald man, I thought the world was coming to an end. I must have been around four or five years old. I had never seen anyone who had no hair on their head. It looked like a full moon on top of a man's body.

We were at Kress's Five and Dime Store, where M'Dear was buying me a Coke at the soda fountain, when that bald-headed gentleman walked in. M'Dear said I took one look at him and grabbed her arm so hard she thought I'd break it. "M'Dear," I cried out, "that man hasn't got any hair!"

When M'Dear finally calmed me down, the man was standing over by the gumball machine, and I could not take my eyes off him.

M'Dear said, "Excuse me, sir, but my little girl hasn't ever seen a bald-headed gentleman before. Would you mind if she looks at you?"

"Go on ahead and look, honey," he said.

I saw the light glinting off his shiny scalp and asked, "Can I touch your head please, sir?"

I looked at M'Dear.

"It's all right, baby doll," she said. "If it's all right with the gentleman, it's okay with me."

He just squatted down and leaned his head over to me. I rubbed my palm across his bald head, which was smooth and cool. I never realized that there was something like that underneath people's hair.

"Thank you, sir," I said. "Thank you for letting me touch your pretty head."

The man grinned at me. "Thank you," he said, "for calling my head 'pretty.' Been many a moon since I heard that word having anything to do with me."

After that, I saw people differently. Their hairdos protected their delicate skulls! I wanted to be part of making hairdos that might help protect the full moon that sits on top of each person's body.

M'Dear once told me, "Calla, every day, you have to try to improve your angel-eyesight." She always taught me to believe in angels.

Well, to this day, I think that man was an angel. A bald-headed angel.

Sometimes I wondered if my mother was an angel herself. Well, except when I misbehaved. Then she gave me the eye and yelled, and banished me to my room. An hour away like that seemed like an eternity. When I'd get home from school, the first thing I would do was go out to the side porch to see if M'Dear was fixing someone's hair.

When she turned our side porch into a one-chair beauty shop, the ladies started lining up with their pocketbooks dangling from their wrists and scarves on their heads, just waiting for a cut, color, and curl. Papa had put in a beauty parlor sink and a little counter too. The Crowning Glory Beauty Porch was screened in and faced a pretty patio where the ladies could go down during good weather and sit and visit. M'Dear always liked to set out pitchers of ice tea and lemonade, and I took care of that. Louisiana never gets a snowy winter, but it does get bone-chilling cold and wet that calls more for hats than hairdos. But that didn't stop the traffic at the Beauty Porch. Papa would bring in the big heater from the fishing camp that kept the Crowning Glory open and comfortable all year long. During those times, I made big pots of hot chocolate in the kitchen and brought it out to the ladies. I'd stand there smiling, waiting for a tip, until M'Dear shooshed me.

One day, M'Dear was giving Miz Lizbeth a curl. Miz Lizbeth was married to Bernard Tucker, and they were our family's dearest friends. He ran the cotton gin, where farmers took their cotton crop to have it removed from the seedpods and baled. This made him a pretty important man around our neck of the woods, which was full of cotton farmers. Papa knew a lot of them too because everyone danced at the Swing 'N Sway, even farmers on Friday evenings, still using their pocket knives to clean the dirt from under their nails. We called him Uncle Tucker because our families were so close.

One day I asked M'Dear if I could watch her with Miz Lizbeth up close. I was spellbound the whole time. M'Dear was putting Miz Lizbeth's hair into pin curls, and she explained what she was doing as she went along.

The pin curl method is not as easy as you might think. You've got to divide out square sections of the hair with a comb. Then you have to place the curls in exact rows, so that one curl covers up the part made by the comb before the next curl.

Well, Miz Lizbeth looked just lovely when M'Dear finished. Her white hair looked full, all thick and fluffy. Now, not a lot of ladies in La Luna had silver hair. They all came to M'Dear to color it on a regular basis.

When M'Dear was all done with Miz Lizbeth, I asked if I could come back and watch her make someone else beautiful. M'Dear tapped her fingers lightly against her lips and said, "Well, all right, Calla. You can watch me this Thursday after school."

So Thursday I got to watch a session with Mrs. Gaudet. Poor Mrs. Gaudet. Her husband, Mister Gaudet, had died three or four months ago, just before school started.

When Mrs. Gaudet came into the Crowning Glory, M'Dear went over and gave her a big hug. "Angie, how are you, sweetheart? Come on in, let me get you a Coke. Go on over there and have yourself a seat."

I said, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Gaudet," then stepped back out of the way and peeked in like a church mouse. Looking back, I would have to say her hair was washed-out gray. If I had to name her hair color like on the color bottles, it would be Exhausted Gray, or Grieving Gray. She was still sad, you could tell. She had that sort of extra-tired look, like there wasn't any amount of sleep that would make things better. I wondered what it would be like to have your husband die. I didn't like to think about it. It was too scary. So I just concentrated on her hair.

M'Dear came back with a Coke and said, "Let's just start with a basic wash today." Then she gently walked Mrs. Gaudet over to the chair at the sink.

"I feel like every single hair is sad, you know what I mean?" Mrs. Gaudet asked my mother.

"Then we're just going to take it hair by hair, okay, Angie?" M'Dear laid her hands on Mrs. Gaudet's shoulder, then very briefly touched her on the forehead. I got the feeling that today's session was one M'Dear wanted me to watch closely. I'd never seen such a sad person have their hair washed before. And then she reached over to get the shampoo, and I watched M'Dear close her eyes first and take a deep breath. Then she leaned Mrs. Gaudet's head back, gently, and got it wet and sudsed it up. "Is that water warm enough?" M'Dear said.

"Well, it could be a little warmer."