“Fhwends, Todd?” Her eyes are not on me but on Zefi, which gets Todd spinning around and consequently letting go of my neck. I stumble blindly out of Todd’s reach and practically knock the old lady off her feet. She grabs on to my shoulder for balance, and the smell overwhelms me—lemon, flowers, and baby powder. It’s Eau de Old Lady, the same as Madame Forever’s. I whip around to keep her upright because the only thing that could make this already-apocalyptic scenario worse would be a broken hip. Our eyes meet as I clutch on to her in the name of her hip and my life. She raises her eyebrows high enough to expose the inner creases of her eye wrinkles that are caked with blue makeup. She’s got on bright red lipstick too, and up close I can see that the color has bled into the vertical wrinkle lines above the edges of her thin lips.
“Inveete you fhwends in phopairhlee!”
Surprisingly, I have no problem understanding Frenglish. I shake my head and smile politely, mumbling inaudibly that I can’t, couldn’t possibly stay. But I know that my leaving is no decision of mine.
“No, Mammy,” Todd says relatively calmly, explaining to her that Zefi and I are not his “fhwends.”
But in the end, it looks like Mammy, Frenglish for grandma, is the one in charge. She shakes her head and taps the side of Todd’s head before taking my arm and leading me into the kitchen. She jiggles open her freezer and grabs some ice because Todd got in a decent punch at Zefi when his Mammy wasn’t looking and Zefi’s nose is bloody. She orders Todd to “slip on some new moozeek,” her arm still wrapped around mine. She motions to me to grab the paper towel on the counter and drops three ice cubes onto the middle of the sheet as a saxophone tune fills the air. She passes the ice to Zefi and stuffs my forearm into the crux of her elbow to keep me close as she quarters a stack of white bread already piled high next to the sink.
“She won’t be lucid for long, Freshman.” Todd’s hot breath in my ear startles me stiff. “And when she starts losing it, which will be soon, you’re dead.”
I wonder what he means exactly by “dead.” But before I can hypothesize, Mammy shoves a silver tray with sausage, pats of butter, radishes, and mini bread squares into Zefi’s arms.
“Heeheu,” she says.
“Here,” I whisper to him as self-appointed Frenglish translator.
“Piss off,” he whispers back.
Mammy curls her bony fingers around my wrist, her sharp nails practically puncturing my skin, and leads me to the couch, where I am pulled down next to her. Zefi places the silver tray on the coffee table in front of us, and Todd keeps his distance in the corner of the den. As long as Mammy is lucid, it seems, I’m safe.
“Oh là là, zee knifes!” With this realization, she pinches her little bony fingers with their little pointy nails more deeply into my arm. Todd spins back to the kitchen, pulling Zefi in with him. I listen as they rummage through the drawers, which starts to get me worried. I don’t like that Zefi’s in there with his nose the size and color of a beet, searching for knives with a loose cannon like Todd. But when I pull to get up, Mammy’s translucent arm exudes shocking, herculean force. Whether I get up to help my friend or not is no choice of mine.
“Ah, oui!” An upbeat, scratchy ballad replaces the previous slow song, and Mammy’s whole body begins thumping to its rhythm. Her shoulders shimmy back and forth, like some old-school dirty dancing. And because she’s looped her pointy self around me, I’m shimmying too. She cups her hand around my ear and begins rattling off something in French that gets her giggling like the girls at Lincoln when they’re flirting. And it is this two-pronged idea of Mammy and flirting that gets my head spinning with one thought running through my mind: I’ve got to get out of here.
She grabs my hand and interlaces our fingers, which justifies my worry. With her impressive strength—maybe this is where Todd gets it—she pulls me up to dance. Her feet skitter to the music while mine stay glued where they are. She lifts my lifeless arms overhead to twirl, whispering to me as we dance. Although I don’t understand a word, I can tell she’s in another world and I’m someone else. Against my will, I’ve got to get out of here is replaced with Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir, which in this particular situation goes far beyond standard inappropriate.
My dangling, uninterested arms don’t discourage Mammy. She weaves her fingers behind my neck and hops to the trumpet’s melody, every so often blowing away the white, wiry curls that have fallen to the ridge of her nose to uncover light-blue eyes that shimmer through the weighty wrinkles surrounding them. I rest my hands on her flabby waist and play along for a couple of beats in the name of that light, of who she used to be, of what she remembers. She lifts up an imaginary glass of champagne to her lips and sips.
“Vous êtes gentil,” she smiles, and I smile back. Whatever she’s just said is a compliment.
“She says you’re nice.” Todd’s flat voice surprises me from behind. He’s holding four knives, three of which he drops onto the silver tray. The fourth he keeps clutched in his hand. But as long as Mammy’s fingers poke at my neck and pull on my hair, I’m not worried about the knife. In fact, as Todd watches his grandmother dance, something is shifting in him. I can see it. His shoulders, usually puffed up to his neck, have dropped. His arms are loose at his sides. Even the way he’s frowning is different because it’s not personal. It’s situational, and this situation is certifiably disturbing. There is a glimmer of terror in those eyes as he watches, like our dance is a train wreck in the making. I want to tell him that his grandma is fine, that she’s reconnected with a happier time, but I’m in no mood to test conversational limits.
“Who does she think I am?” I cringe and wait and squeeze Mammy a little closer.
“My grandfather, Papi, had wavy blond hair like yours.”
“Todd and I have come up with a plan.” Zefi pops in from the kitchen with a stack of crackers and an open jar of Nutella.
“You don’t say a word about this to anyone, Freshman. That simple.”
“About stealing school property or this?” My gaze drops from Todd to Mammy.
“Any of it,” he says. “Not a word, and I won’t press charges.”
“Press charges?”
“Breaking and entering, asshole.”
The protective noose of Mammy’s fingers around my neck suddenly loosens. Todd drops the fourth knife onto the silver tray as her fingers slip away. His hands aren’t limp along his sides anymore but tightening into fists. I look to the door and get ready to make a move once Mammy is settled back on her couch.
“Que fait-tu?” She asks me a question I don’t understand, and I deliver the only answer I can, which happens to be the truth.
“Je ne sais pas.”
“Mais que fait-tu?”
She grabs at my T-shirt and then my face and neck.
Mammy wrestles me onto the couch with her herculean strength and succeeds in straddling me. I’d like to say it’s because I refuse to fight a woman, especially an elderly woman, but it isn’t that. She’s like the Hulk with a white wig and pointy nails.
“Mammy was mugged as a young girl,” Todd says coolly.
And before I can fully comprehend what this might mean for me physically, she punches me in the nose so hard that I can feel the blood vessels in my left nostril pop wide open. Blood is dripping to my lips, and I can taste its warm, metallic sweetness. I drop my head in between my knees, which in turn protects me from another hit to my cheek. I start to uncoil right as she shoots one to my stomach. The stomach punch is the most brutal. Those dainty fingers, the ones that were playfully pulling at the hair on my neck minutes earlier, have curled themselves into a formidable weapon and knocked the wind out of me. Her eyes are wide, the heavy curtains of wrinkled skin having miraculously lifted for war. I try in vain to catch my breath without anyone knowing I ever lost it; and finally, with my manhood MIA and my breath shaky, I look to the couch armrest to pull myse
lf up and away.
And then suddenly, as I am reaching for the armrest, Mammy opens her fist and reaches for a radish. The gentle old lady and her wrinkles have returned. She’s like a Transformer. And then she picks up one of the knives.
“Take away the knife, Todd,” I say firmly. “Your Mammy’s certifiably nuts.” I can speak frankly because there is nothing else for Todd to do to me that his Mammy hasn’t already accomplished single-handedly. There’s no fuel to add to this fire, Dad used to say. Which would be right. Except for the knife. The knife worries me. The knife is that little bit of fuel at the bottom of a seemingly empty gas can that sets off a major blazer. Mammy tears off a bit of sausage and chews, ravenous after all the time travel.
“The knife, Todd.”
“Not a word of this to anyone,” he says. “No CDs, no milk and cookies, no crazy grandma.”
“Okay,” I say. “And no word of my being beaten up by an old lady.”
“Fine,” he says, taking the knife away.
“And no more rides to school.”
“Goes without saying,” he agrees.
Our first negotiation. I slide off the couch and back into the hallway, feeling a little like a ninja and a lot like a guy who’s just been beaten up by an old lady.
Zefi, who’s been silently and safely eating his crackers and Nutella at the back of the room, pipes in right as I’m about to slip out the front door.
“What about the Rose Avenue burglaries?”
“What about them?” Todd answers, but his voice from the stoop I’m straddling is already lost in the breeze outside.
Warm light streams onto the stoop and in through the open door, and I lift my head toward its source and breathe in deeply before heading for Zefi’s dad’s bike. I heave my leg over the titanium rod and wait for Zefi, which is exactly how this project began. And right as I’m thinking that this is a perfect way to close out the afternoon, and right as my mind wanders to my algebra homework and life beyond Todd, Zefi sprints out the door. In the end, that additional fuel wasn’t the knife at all. It’s Zefi.
“He’s as crazy as she is,” he pants behind me. “When he made fists, I got the hell out!”
We don’t stop pedaling until we reach the top of the steep hill, at which point I dare to look behind me. Todd is standing on Mammy’s stoop, his eyes on us. From here, I could swear his hands are still in fists.
“If it weren’t for his crazy Mammy, Todd would be zooming up here in his car.”
“You sure as hell can’t leave a woman like that alone.” I coast down the other side of the hill and make it halfway up the next monster before I have to resort to the pedals.
Despite what’s just happened—or maybe because of it—the panoramic view is more breathtaking than it was before. The sun has turned neon pink and the tips of the light-green trees along the streets glow in the sunset.
“Let’s go home,” Zefi says.
“Nachos?”
Zefi nods, and I take in the view one last time. Ina pops to mind as I’d hoped she would, and I take her with me through the windy streets of Crest Falls until she fades away as she always does, like a warm whisper.
10. CHARLOTTE
Wednesday
“You look pretty in that dress.”
The word “pretty” sounds stiff, like she’s talking about a flower arrangement or a window display. I can feel Mom’s approving gaze from the passenger seat and try to shrug it off.
“I have to be at the store by seven tonight,” I say flatly. “Dad’s going to that annual merchant meeting at Town Hall, so I’m locking up.”
The black pashmina from Dad is wrapped loosely around her shoulders. When she jams her foot against the gas pedal, I notice the black high heels and stylish clutch purse previously reserved for their weekly “date nights.” The only accessory I don’t recognize is the energy that practically fizzes off her skin. She’s alive, and by alive I don’t mean hunched and surviving, but vibrant and popping. Such a positive vibe is tough to diffuse from the passenger seat, despite my well-calculated lack of enthusiasm. The cornerstone sign that my negativity isn’t diffusing her optimism is that smile. The corners of her lips are pinched up, and that cavernous dimple in her right cheek has appeared, the one Dad used to run his finger over in amazement. “You know you can measure someone’s happiness by the depth of the dimple on their cheek,” he used to say. I actually believed him way longer than I should have.
I drop my gaze from Mom’s dimple to my white legs poking out from the bottom of my black dress, as if this change of focus is any better. I wish I’d slipped on a pair of leggings or tights, anything to cover this bluish-white skin that hasn’t seen natural sunlight in months. I unsuction my poor feet out of my pointy black heels and assess the predinner damage. There is already a blister on my left pinky toe, and while my right pinky toe is in good shape now, it’s only a matter of time.
Mom pulls her purse from the floor at the stoplight and smudges her lips with a red so perfectly primary that I’m immediately reminded of Elmo.
“What do you think?” She puckers, and I stare at her with dead eyes until her dimple fades and she turns back to the road.
“Dave’s heard a lot of good things about you,” she says in high-pitched song, but I can tell her positivity has taken a hit. “Please make an effort, Charlotte,” she says. “For him.”
The slight crack in her voice tells me these last words didn’t just slip out on their own, that they were forced out. For him. Because Mom knows that doing much of anything for her is beyond my daughterly pay grade. And with this stark truth, I’m blindsided with a sadness so raw that it stings my cheeks.
The blinker clicks and the car hums back to life when the light changes. The movement ushers in the butterflies—not the good kind.
“Here we are.” She bebops her way out of the car in her unmotherly tight gray skirt and matching peplum top and skitters up the stone walkway to the door. I follow behind like the unenthusiastic, achy-footed chaperone. Mom rings the doorbell framed in gold before I reach the top step, and I watch as a yippy white fluff ball appears scratching at the sidelights. Up until now, Jarrid’s and my almost-kiss has kept any resentment I might normally feel toward him at an all-time low; but as I hear heels approach the door, the kiss loses its gracious hold over me. The heat of his lips almost against mine and his “You’re worth more than that” fade into a burning desire to give him a shoulder nudge forceful enough to send him and his suggestions into the next state. I mean, he is the reason why I’m here; and here, I can already tell, is a big mistake.
“That’s Sparky,” Mom whispers with a smile that almost convinces me that her lifelong fear of dogs is something of the past. Only the slight stiffness in her pinched-up mouth betrays her.
The click of the mystery heels inside the house are too heavy for a woman’s shoe, and so I anticipate the appearance of a man’s dress shoe—the pointy-toed Wall Street kind, the kind that always looks brand-new, the kind Dad’s never worn. I wait for them to flash in the window to confirm my educated guess, but before the shoes, I see stubby fingers and a fat gold ring pull Sparky, still yipping, up from the floor. The door opens.
“Hey there,” Dave says to Mom, all soft and familiar.
I locate the tips of his leather shoes that are indeed as pointy as I’d suspected. Out of the corner of my downward gaze, I see them close in for a kiss, which intensifies my focus on the shoes as well as my desire to hurt Jarrid the next time I see him. And that’s when I notice the inch-high man heels. I hear the conclusive smack of their kiss and begin a slow, visual journey from the floor up. Dave is wearing jeans, the relaxed-fit kind like Dad wears; but while Dad doesn’t wear a belt, Dave’s got on a medium-width brown one with a gold buckle in the shape of two interlocked Cs. Chanel. He’s got a crisp collared shirt on too, the kind that takes cufflinks. He’s chosen gold-knot cufflink
s for this evening. He’s wearing a Patagonia fleece vest. His shoulders are broad, his neck as thick as Jarrid’s, and he’s got this peppy, jerky energy like a mouse’s. He’s practically jogging in place, the way runners do at intersections, and I hear his heels clicking as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. My eyes continue their journey upward to his head, where there is an ample tuft of slicked-back gray hair, which tells me he’s a little older than Mom. What I notice most, however, is that my visual evaluation from toe to head has ended prematurely due to his height, or lack thereof. Naturally, I try to approximate Dave’s shortness by drawing a mental line from the tip of his head to the closest human—Mom—for body-part height equivalency (BPHE). This invisible approximation takes me to the middle of Mom’s cheek. To be fair, Mom’s wearing heels. Then again, so is he. I watch Dave hold Sparky up to Mom’s face, and the dog begins to lick off her Elmo-red lipstick, which isn’t such a bad thing.
“Nice to meet you, Charlotte.” Poised on the balls of his feet with Sparky balanced in one arm and held up to Mom’s face, Dave leans in for two kisses, one on each cheek. He’s like a European circus dwarf.
“Just came back from business in Paris,” he says. “It’s a nice tradition, those kisses, don’t you think.”
I smile, unsure as to whether he’s just asked me a question, and shift my focus to Sparky, who is now nibbling at Mom’s left earring. That puts his teeth inches away from her carotid artery, a fact I know she is very aware despite her counterfeit dimple. Dave drops Sparky into Mom’s arms.
“Your mom and Sparky have quite the connection,” he announces in a deep voice that bellows through the entrance hall. Finally he plucks Sparky out of Mom’s arms, and I watch her heave a sigh of relief when Dave isn’t looking.
Sparky scurries into the adjoining room, and Dave leads us into the kitchen, where there is a chopping block about the size of my twin bed topped with two silver platters.
“Juicy melon and fresh prosciutto on the left,” he says like a game-show host introducing potential prizes. “European figs and goat cheese, chèvre, on the right.”
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