Mom always talked about how the secret to the creative process was finding the magic. That, she said, was what you needed to do in life as well. Find the magic. In musical harmony, in the rain on your face and the sun on your bare shoulders, in the morning dew that soaked your sneakers and the wildflowers you picked for free in the roadside ditch, in love at first sight and those sad memories of the one who got away. “Find the magic,” Mom always said. “And if you can’t find the magic,” she added, “then make the magic.”
The three of us were magic, Mom liked to say. She assured us that no matter how famous she became, nothing would ever be more important to her than her two girls. We were a tribe of three, she said. Three was a perfect number, she’d go on. Think of it. The holy trinity, three musketeers, three kings of Orient, three little pigs, three stooges, three blind mice, three wishes, three strikes, three cheers, three’s a charm. The three of us were all we needed, Mom said.
But that didn’t keep her from going out on dates with tire-kickers.
CHAPTER TWO
Over the next few weeks, Mom kept talking about how Mark Parker had “discovered” her. She said it as a joke, but you could tell it actually had a sort of fairy-tale quality that appealed to her. It was a magic moment.
Mom began taking more trips into Los Angeles—sometimes for a day, sometimes for two or three—and when she came back, she was gushy with Mark Parker stories. He was an extraordinary guy, she said. He was working with her on the score for “Finding the Magic,” tightening the lyrics, pushing her on the phrasing, and polishing the arrangement. Mark ghosted a lot of lyrics, she told us. One day she brought home an album and pulled out the liner notes. Mark had circled the lyrics of a love song and had scrawled next to them, “I wrote this about you before I met you.”
Arrangement was Mark’s specialty. On another day Mom brought back a second album, this one by the Tokens, with their hit recording of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Mark had done the arrangement for the song, she explained, which had been recorded a couple of times without taking off. At first the Tokens didn’t want to do Mark’s version, but he talked them into it and even sang some of the backup vocals. You could hear his baritone on the harmonies if you listened closely.
Mom was still pretty for a mom. She had been homecoming queen at her high school in Virginia, where she’d grown up, and you could see why. She had large hazel eyes and sun-streaked blond hair that she kept in a ponytail when she was at home but combed out and teased up when she went to Los Angeles. She’d put on a few pounds or so since her high school days, she admitted, but she said the weight gave her a little extra cleavage, and a singer could never have too much in that department. If nothing else, it got you callbacks.
Mark liked her curves, Mom told us, and after she began seeing him, she started looking and acting younger. Her eyes were animated when she came home, describing how Mark had taken her sailing or made her poached scallops, and how she had taught him to dance the Carolina shag. Mom’s name was Charlotte, and Mark had invented a cocktail for her with peach schnapps, bourbon, grenadine, and Tab that he called the Shakin’ Charlotte.
Not everything about Mark was perfect, however. He had a dark side, Mom explained. He was moody, like all true artists, but then so was she, and their collaboration had its share of stormy moments. Sometimes late at night Mom called Mark—she had paid up the disputed charges, so we had phone service again—and Liz and I could hear her yelling into the receiver, saying things like “That song needs to end on a chord, not a fade-out!” or “Mark, you expect too much of me!” These were creative differences, Mom said. Mark was ready to produce a demo tape of her best songs to play for the big labels, and it was natural for artistic types to have passionate disagreements as a deadline approached.
I kept asking Mom when Liz and I were going to meet Mark Parker. Mom said that Mark was very busy, always jetting off to New York or London, and didn’t have the time to come all the way out to Lost Lake. I suggested that we drive into Los Angeles some weekend to meet him, but Mom shook her head. “Bean, the truth of it is, he’s jealous of you and Liz,” she said. “He told me he thinks I talk about you girls too much. I’m afraid Mark can be a little possessive.”
After Mom had been seeing Mark for a couple of months, she came home to tell us that, despite his hectic schedule and his possessiveness, Mark had agreed to come out to Lost Lake to meet Liz and me the following Wednesday after school. The three of us spent Tuesday evening furiously cleaning the bungalow, stuffing junk in the closet, scrubbing the rings of grime off the kitchen sink and the toilet, moving Mom’s purple butterfly chair to cover the spot where she’d spilled tea on the rug, wiping around the doorknobs and the windowsills, untangling Mom’s wind chimes, and scraping the odd dried bit of Chew-and-Spew from the floor. As we worked, we sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” We joined in on the lyrics together, “In the jungle, the mighty jungle . . .” Then Liz did the “o-wim-o-weh o-wim-o-weh o-wim-o-weh” chorus, Mom hit the “a-wooo-wooo-wooo” high notes, and I chimed in with the bass: “ee-dum-bumbuway.”