Change of Scene: A 100 Page Novella

by Andrews, Mary Kay

  “None of your business,” Lise said. She yawned loudly and her eyelids fluttered. “Tired. Need to sleep.”

  “Don’t play possum with me,” Greer said sharply. “That pill hasn’t kicked in yet. And I’m not leaving here until you give me some answers.”

  “Suit yourself,” Lise said. She raised the arm with the wounded hand over her head and awkwardly rolled over, turning her back to her daughter.

  *

  Greer folded herself into the armchair facing the sofa. She picked up an outdated copy of Variety from the floor, but within minutes her own eyelids were fluttering. From the sofa she heard her mother softly snoring.

  Hours later, she fumbled around in her pocketbook until she found her cell phone. She’d slept for nearly eight straight hours. Her cramped neck and back muscles protested as she stood up and moved around the room.

  She went to the bathroom, and then into the kitchen. The room was a shambles. A heavy black skillet spilled burned eggs in the sink. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, and the trash can overflowed with empty cans and bottles and cardboard and Styrofoam takeout containers.

  Not like her tidy, chronically organized mother at all—but then the Lise snoring in the other room wasn’t much like her old mother either.

  Greer did the dishes, swept the floor, and bagged up the trash, taking it into the hallway to the garbage chute. She went back to the kitchen and looked for something to drink. A glass of wine would have been nice. She opened every cupboard, poked in every corner, and was at once relieved and frustrated not to find a single ounce of alcohol.

  Instead she sat at the tiny kitchen table and poured herself a glass of Lise’s orange juice. Then she reached into her bag for her cell phone and dialed CeeJay, who answered on the first ring.

  “How is she?” CeeJay asked.

  “Like you’d expect,” Greer said. “She’s got second-degree burns on her hand, and, oh yeah, her face is all beat to hell because when she backed into the neighbor’s car, the air bag deployed. You know how I was worried Lise was drinking again? Not so much. I know she’s sober because there’s not so much as a bottle of cooking sherry in her kitchen. Dammit.”

  “Did she talk to you about the breast cancer?”

  “Nope. I tried to discuss it with her but she literally turned her back on me. You know Lise. Denial is not a river in Egypt, it’s Lise Grant’s middle name.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry! What can I do?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, nothing.” Greer took another sip of the juice.

  “Hug her for me,” CeeJay said.

  “I will.” Greer heard the toilet flush. “Look, I’ve got to go check on Lise. She just woke up.”

  “I’ll see you soon. In the meantime, let me know if—”

  “If I need anything. I know, babe. Thanks.”

  *

  Greer walked into the living room to see Lise slowly tiptoeing back toward the sofa.

  “Caught ya,” Greer said.

  Lise carefully lowered herself onto the sofa, wincing as her injured hand brushed the coffee table.

  “This sucks,” her mother said plaintively.

  Greer lunged toward the coffee table. “Let me get your pills.”

  “No, not the pain, although that sucks, too. It sucks not being able to tie up my pants … or anything else a girl needs to do with her hands.”

  “Oh.” Greer laughed. “I’ll help with your pants, but I draw the line at the other.”

  “Ungrateful child. I did it for you.”

  “I was two.”

  “Guess I’ll just have to limit my fluid intake.”

  “Can I get you anything? When was the last time you ate?”

  “I was about to fix myself some eggs yesterday, you know, right before. They gave me some absolutely yummy applesauce at the hospital, but other than that, no, I haven’t eaten.” Lise gestured toward a stack of takeout menus on the coffee table, next to the mirror. “Don’t worry about cooking. Just order some delivery.”

  Greer leafed through the stack. “Chinese? Thai? Mexican? Sushi? Pizza?”

  “Whatever you want. I don’t have much of an appetite these days.”

  She ordered pizza, reasoning that her mother could eat it left-handed. After Greer polished off half a pie, with Lise barely picking at some artichoke hearts, Greer bustled around the room, disposing of the dinner remnants, picking up papers, magazines, stray shoes, and dirty dishes. She found a sponge and wiped off the layers of crumbs on the coffee table, while Lise sat back and watched with growing annoyance.

  “I wasn’t expecting company,” her mother announced. “Would you please stop that? You’re making me dizzy with all this energy of yours.”

  “Fine.” Greer sat down on the armchair and pulled it closer to Lise’s. “You’ve slept, you’ve eaten, you’ve peed. Now talk to me. Tell me what’s going on with your cancer.”

  Lise shrugged. “Nothing much to tell. There’s a lot of bullshit fine print in the diagnosis, but bottom line is, I’m dying of metastatic breast cancer and have been for some time. There’s nothing the doctors can do about it. It’s too late for any treatment. The proverbial horse is out of the barn.”

  “That can’t be right!” Greer insisted. “Tell me everything.”

  Lise sighed. “The doctor says the tumor is actually between the size of a ping-pong ball and a lemon. I prefer to think of it as a lemontini tumor.”

  “Have they done a biopsy? Are you going to have surgery? Lise, you act like this is nothing. You’re scaring me.”

  “Don’t be scared,” Lise said. “They did a biopsy. It’s malignant. And now they tell me it has spread to my lymph nodes and my lungs.”

  “You’ve got to have surgery,” Greer said, panicking. “Right away. Chemo, radiation. Whatever it takes.”

  “Too late,” Lise said. “It wouldn’t do any good. Anyway, I don’t want to be cut on. Chemo or radiation might buy me a little time, but so what? I don’t want to spend the rest of my time on this earth hunched over a toilet and watching my hair clog up the drain.”

  Greer felt the tears rolling down her cheeks, unbidden. Lise pulled out a tissue and dabbed ineffectively at her daughter’s cheek with her left hand. She gave Greer a smile. “Okay? Can we talk about something pleasant now? Like when you’re getting out of my hair and going back to work?”

  “How long has this been going on?” Greer asked, ignoring her mother’s jibe.

  Lise took a drink from the water Greer had poured her. She fiddled ineffectively with a loose piece of gauze on the bandage.

  Finally, she looked up at her daughter. “Awhile. I’ve actually been on pain meds for a few weeks. These bruises are from the shots.”

  “I was afraid you’d started drinking again,” Greer admitted.

  “I wish,” Lise said. “Right after the diagnosis, I went to the lobby bar at the Beverly Wilshire and ordered myself a gigantic martini. Took one sip and nearly spit it out. Seems I’ve lost the taste.”

  “Why couldn’t you tell me? Here I’ve been thinking the worst about you.”

  “What were you going to do about it? Anyway, I was coping. I haven’t even had to stop working, thanks to Lisette.”

  “Lisette?”

  “That’s my phone persona,” Lise said. “I started doing it after a girl at an audition told me how much money she made in a month doing phone ‘dates.’ I thought it was a hoot, so she hooked me up with her people. The money was great. I could work at home, make my own hours, and nobody has to know I’m actually not a nympho Swedish college coed.”

  “When did you get diagnosed?”

  “Six months ago. I’m like Bette Davis in Dark Victory only hers was a brain tumor. Did you know Ronald Reagan was in that movie? I think it was the last time I liked him.”

  “What can I do to help you, Mom?”

  “You got Dearie settled into the new place. That’s enough. There’s no need for you to parachute in here and take over my life. I might be d
ying, but I’m not an infant. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own affairs.”

  “Which is how you ended up in an emergency room with a second-degree burn and a crashed car,” Greer pointed out. “Two crashed cars, counting Luis’s Saab.”

  “One burn and a fender bender, that’s not so awful,” Lise said. “Anyway, Luis always parks too close. It’s as much his fault as mine.”

  “You can’t keep living here by yourself, you know,” Greer said.

  “Hey! Maybe I should just move in with Dearie at the snoozeatorium.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Greer said. “I just think you need to let me help out. First thing, I want to meet with your doctor, so he can tell me what we can expect with this disease. You know, as it progresses.”

  “Absolutely not,” Lise shot back. “You are not my caregiver. I have been managing myself just fine without you. I don’t want you rearranging my life. I especially don’t want you rearranging yours.”

  “I just want to understand what’s going on with you, and help out, you know, with the transition.”

  “I’ll make the transition just fine. I’ve got this, Greer. And I’m not discussing it any further. So you might just as well get on with your life and your job search. How was San Diego, by the way?”

  “Good. It was kinda fun working as a P.A. again.” Greer slumped back onto the chair, exhausted from the verbal battling.

  Lise picked up the bottle of pain meds and stood. “My hand is hurting again. I’m going to bed now. You can sleep on the sofa tonight, but tomorrow, you go back to your own place, and you butt out of my life.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Lise’s sofa had been chosen for style, not comfort. After sleeping only a few hours, Greer roamed the small apartment into the early morning hours, tormenting herself with the implications of her mother’s diagnosis and her refusal to accept any help from her.

  Finally, she picked up her laptop and resolved to do something that would take her mind off her problems. She read the online trade mags and made notes to herself about potential upcoming scouting jobs.

  And then she had an idea. She opened her Netflix account, scrolled down, and settled back onto the sofa to watch Dark Victory.

  The next thing she knew, her laptop was on the floor, surrounded by a mound of crumpled Kleenex, sunlight was pouring into the room, and Lise was standing over her, looking only slightly better rested.

  “What day is it?” Lise asked.

  Greer had to stop and think. “Thursday, I think.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Thursday is Dearie Day. Get yourself cleaned up, and then you’ll have to put some makeup on all these cuts and bruises on my face. I don’t want your grandmother to know what happened. And hurry. We’ve got to get out to the Valley before she starts calling and demanding to know where I am.”

  *

  “Why are you driving so slow?” Lise demanded, swiveling her head around to survey traffic. “Every damn car on the highway is passing us.”

  “I’m doing the speed limit because you managed to smash both your taillights when you rear-ended that Saab,” Greer said. “I don’t want to get a ticket.”

  When they pulled into the parking lot at the nursing home, Lise whipped a blue laminated HANDICAPPED PARKING placard from beneath the seat and hooked it over the rearview mirror. “Park up front,” she directed her daughter. “This is one of the few perks of dying.”

  She gestured toward a bulky shopping bag in the backseat. “Get that, would you?”

  “What’s in it?”

  “All the usual crap on Dearie’s shopping list. Oil of Olay, See’s salted chocolates, Cheez Whiz, Town House crackers, Dentu-Crème, Virginia Slims, Metamucil, slipper socks, Depends, and a twelve-pack of Mr. Pibb. Most depressing shopping list ever. Jesus, Greer, if they cure cancer tomorrow and I make it to eighty-seven, would you please just shoot me?”

  “With pleasure,” Greer said, wishing with all her heart that Lise could make it to eighty-seven. She took her mother’s arm, but Lise slapped it away.

  “Not a word to your grandmother about the accident, understand?” Lise said.

  “How are you going to explain your burned hand?”

  “Curling iron accident,” Lise said blithely. “She’ll totally buy it.”

  “Have you told Dearie about…”

  “The cancer? No.”

  “When are you going to tell her?”

  “Maybe after she’s had time to get settled in here. She’s still the new girl in school. I don’t want to upset Dearie’s little apple cart. I’ll tell her when the time is right.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “I’m sure an opportunity will present itself,” Lise said. “Or … you could tell her for me.”

  “Me?” Greer said, horrified.

  “You have a way with her.”

  Greer was speechless. Absolutely none of this could be happening.

  *

  They found Dearie waiting expectantly in a wheelchair in her room, dressed in a blue flowered cotton dress, with a blue cashmere sweater draped across her narrow shoulders.

  Lise sat on the edge of her mother’s bed. “What’s with the wheelchair, Mama?”

  Dearie scowled. “Just because I took a little spill when I was getting up to go to the bathroom, that fool doctor who works here says I have to use it now. I can walk fine if people will quit leaving trash cans in the middle of the room.”

  She eyed the shopping bag Lise had placed on her nightstand. “Did you bring everything on the list?”

  “Every last thing,” Lise said.

  “Did you get the right kind of cigs this time?”

  Dearie turned to Greer. “Last time she brought me the ultra-light kind. She knows I smoke menthol.”

  Lise shook her head but reached into the bag with her left hand and brought out two packs of cigarettes. Dearie quickly tucked one in the pocket of her dress and the other in a drawer in her nightstand.

  “How about breaking out the candy? I think my blood sugar’s getting kind of low.”

  “Can’t.” Lise held up her bandaged hand.

  “I’ll get it,” Greer volunteered. She used her thumbnail to pierce the cellophane wrapper, opened the box, and passed it to her grandmother, who popped a chocolate in her mouth and chewed happily. For a very long time.

  “What happened to you?” Dearie asked finally, pointing at her daughter’s hand.

  “I was getting ready for an audition in a hurry and I picked up the wrong end of the curling iron.”

  Dearie took another chocolate. “Does it hurt?”

  “Like a mother,” Lise said.

  To forestall any further conversation she picked up the remote control for the wall-mounted television and began slowly flipping channels, until she found the Lifetime channel. “Oh, look. Innocence on Ice. I almost got cast as the skating coach for this flick, but they hired Valerie Bertinelli instead.”

  “They always cast Valerie Bertinelli for those things,” Greer said sympathetically. “I think it’s a law.”

  Lise settled back on the pillows, put her feet up on the bed, turned up the volume, and reached for the box of chocolates. “Can’t wait to see how she stinks it up.” She glanced over with a meaningful nod to Greer. “It’s a beautiful day outside. Why don’t you take your grandmother for a spin in the garden while I torture myself watching this garbage?”

  *

  “Valerie Bertinelli,” Dearie muttered as Greer pushed her wheelchair down the linoleum-floored hallway. “Who does your mother think she’s kidding? She’s at least ten years older than that girl.”

  With Dearie giving directions, Greer navigated the chair around a corner and past the nurses’ station toward a set of double doors. “Hi, Mrs. Kehoe,” a male orderly called out. “You got visitors today?”

  “My granddaughter, Greer,” Dearie called back. “She’s a big deal in movies, you know. Can you open those doors, please, Carlos?”

&nb
sp; The orderly punched a button and the glass doors swung outward.

  “They keep you locked in here?” Greer asked, horrified. “What if there’s a fire or something?”

  “According to Elsie, they started locking them after one of the old geezers in the memory unit wandered off in the middle of the night and died of exposure,” Dearie said cheerfully. “Now somebody’s at the nurses’ station around-the-clock. The doors have alarms if a patient leaves. And the family’s suing the home.” She pointed to a bend in the sidewalk.

  “Turn here and then there’s a little courtyard in the back where we can sit. Elsie calls it the smoker’s lounge.”

  Greer steered her grandmother’s chair into a sunny garden with beds of cheerful pink and white flowers, a sliver of lawn, and one large oak tree. Wooden benches and picnic tables were scattered around the space. Greer maneuvered the chair until they were in the shade, and sat herself on one of the benches.

  “This is really nice,” she said admiringly. “Too bad you couldn’t get one of the rooms that looks out onto this.”

  “Garden views cost extra,” Dearie commented. “My room is fine.” She handed Greer the cigarette pack. “Open that, would you? My arthritis is acting up today.”

  Greer gave her a look of disapproval, but did as she was asked, shaking a cigarette out of the pack and accepting the lighter Dearie produced.

  Dearie took a long drag on the cigarette, tilted her head back, and blew a ragged smoke ring through pursed lips tinted with her signature Coty Rose Satin lipstick.

  “I can’t believe you’re still smoking that poison after all these years.”

  “What? It’s gonna stunt my growth?” She gave Greer a wink. “It’s better than that stuff you smoked in high school and college. And this is legal.”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “I helped raise you, remember? I’m eighty-seven. And I know a lot of stuff. The trouble is nobody asks your opinion when you’re as old as me, because they all assume you’re senile.”

  Greer reached over and gave her grandmother another hug. She felt her birdlike bones through the thin layers of cotton and cashmere. Dearie wasn’t an overly demonstrative type. None of the women in her family were, but she rubbed her cheek against Greer’s for a moment before release.