by Jeff Shelby
The tall white bus was split in half by a thick blue stripe and had a giant red apple painted on the side, with the words “APPLE LAKE LIVING” stenciled beneath it. It reminded me of the bus that buzzed around Moose River, picking up senior citizens and taking them to the grocery store and their appointments around town.
Gloria walked over to the now open double doors on the passenger side and swept her hand toward the bus. “Climb aboard!”
The two younger girls abandoned their suitcases and sprinted for it, elbowing each other to get on.
Emily looked as if she was being asked to ride on the handlebars of a bike.
Will snapped a picture of the big red apple and said, “Cool.” He looked at his sister. “I'll text this to Andy and let him know you survived the airplane. And that this is your ride for the week.”
“Do NOT!” she growled back at him, reluctantly taking the stairs into the bus.
Jake lugged our bags through the doors and up the steps. He hoisted them on to empty seats and was covered in a fine sheen of sweat by the time he was done. He waved away my offer to help.
“I got this,” he huffed.
He looked like the only thing he was getting was a sore back and short of breath, but I didn’t vocalize this. Instead, I waited for him to finish and then boarded the bus.
Gloria was already perched in the driver’s seat. Enormous white sunglasses covered her eyes and the key ring dangling from the ignition had five pounds worth of Florida-themed keychains attached to it. She smiled at me. “I am so excited you all are here,” she said, patting my shoulder. “I’ve waited for this moment for years! The extended family together again. Of course, we’re still waiting on your parents to get here. They fly in from their cruise in two days, correct?”
Jake glanced at me for help.
“Yes,” I said. “Don and Mary Kay will be here in two days.”
Jake’s parents spent most of their time traveling and were on a cruise through the Panama Canal. But they’d arranged their travel so they would be back in time for the big birthday bash.
“So exciting, all the traveling they get to do,” Gloria gushed. “All of those places they’ve been. Egypt, Ireland, China.” She sighed. “I’m just so glad that you guys decided to come here and spend your vacation time with us. I know you have a choice in where you travel, and it just means the world to me and your grandma that you opted to come here and celebrate with us.”
Her speech reminded me of the flight attendant’s departing words on our choices in travel. “We're thrilled to be here,” I told her.
I meant it. I was happy that we could do this, that we were able to take the time and spend the money to come to Florida to celebrate Jake’s grandmother’s birthday. Of course, the timing was nice, too. Getting out of Minnesota when there was still snow on the ground and freezing temperatures were still the norm to spend a week in warmth and sunshine was a no-brainer. The opportunity to couple this trip with a visit with Jake’s parents sweetened the deal even more. We rarely saw them – Minnesota was not high on their destinations list – so Sophie would get the chance to see her grandparents and the other three would be able to spend a little time with them and get to know them, too.
“Thank you again for having us,” I told her before making my way to my seat. “And for arranging the house for us. That was so kind of you.”
“Of course!” she said, beaming. “And, oh my goodness, do we need to hurry!”
“Hurry? Why?”
“Lunch is soon,” she said, glancing at the gold watch on her wrist and yanking on the parking brake. The bus lurched and I stumbled forward. Jake grabbed my elbow to steady me.
“Oh, we’re fine,” I said as I sank down next to him. “We had snacks on the plane.”
“No, silly,” Gloria said. She glanced back at me and flashed another one of her smiles. “You are all Mom has talked about for weeks.”
“I am?” I asked, puzzled.
Gloria nodded her head. “Oh, yes. Mom can't wait to meet you!”
THREE
“Mayor McCheeze is going to be there,” Gloria said from behind the steering wheel.
She'd navigated us out of the airport and we were now on a long stretch of highway, pointed due west away from the planes. She was telling us the plans for the birthday celebration.
“The guy from McDonald's?” Will asked. He and Jake had spent an afternoon on YouTube, watching old commercials from the 70s and 80s. He was well versed with all of the McDonald’s characters, as well as Mikey the Life cereal kid and the “Where’s the Beef” grandma.
“He spells it with a Z,” Gloria said, as if this were important. She glanced in the rearview mirror before changing lanes, then swung us over. The bus shimmied and the two younger girls slid into each other. “Chester McCheeze.”
“Oh my god,” Will muttered, chuckling. “I think that's the Cheetos guy.”
I thumped him on the knee. Will clearly had too much time on his hands if he was this familiar with mascot spokespeople.
“Chester has lived in Apple Lake his entire life,” Gloria said, swerving around a minivan this time. I almost ended up in Jake’s lap. “He knows nearly everyone. He insisted on being at the party for Mom. He's bringing the key to the city and there will be people from the newspaper there, too.”
“Sounds fun,” I said.
She grinned in the mirror. “And The GG's are playing.”
“The GG's?”
“The Groovy Geriatrics,” she said.
Jake made a noise, something that sounded like a cross between a chuckle and a snort, and I kneed his thigh.
“The what?” I asked.
“The band I'm in. I'm the lead singer.” She said this proudly, like it was the ultimate accomplishment of her life. “We play everything you can think of. Even a little heavy metal when we're in the mood. Nothing like some David Bowie to switch things up.”
I looked at Jake, eyebrows raised. David Bowie was heavy metal? In what universe? He shrugged, looking as lost I was. And amused. He definitely looked amused.
“I just joined a couple of months ago,” she explained. “We play a lot of the other retirement communities in the area. Once in a blue moon, we get invited to play at the local buffet restaurant. They pay us in food, which is fine by us. As long as we eat by five. The band gets a little grumpy if we eat too late.”
“Do you have instruments?” Grace asked. She and Sophie had started spending a lot of time on YouTube, watching and subscribing to the channels of budding musicians. “Like guitars and stuff?”
Gloria nodded. “Guitars and drums and keyboards. Sometimes a little harmonica. Oh, and maracas.”
“Cool!” Grace said. “Do you have a YouTube channel?”
“A You-what?” Gloria’s tone implied complete and utter confusion.
Sophie was listening, too. “Do you do any Taylor Swift songs?” she asked hopefully.
“Oh my goodness, yes,” Gloria said, honking at a slower sedan in front of her. I wondered if she’d started out her life as a New York City cab driver, because she was certainly acting like one. “We can play nearly anything you can think of. And we take requests. We’re playing Friday night at the clubhouse in Apple Lake. You’ll have to come and listen!”
The two girls whipped out their phones and I was sure they were scrolling through their Spotify lists, looking for songs they could request. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Aunt Gloria belt out “Firework” by Katy Perry or “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift, but I didn’t think any Eagles or Fleetwood Mac songs had made it on to the girls’ song lists. And definitely no David Bowie or other ‘heavy metal’ artists.
“Jake, you never did get the music bug, did you?” Gloria asked.
“Music bug? She makes it sound like the flu,” he whispered in my ear. “Or the Zika virus. Or ebola.”
“No, that’s just you and your aversion to anything remotely creative,” I whispered back.
He cleared his throat and spoke
loudly. “I like music,” he said. “But, no. I never did learn to play anything.”
“You were the sports boy,” she said, smiling. “Basketball and baseball, if I remember right. Garrett, now he was the musician.”
Garrett, her son, who'd lived with us for a while and who was now, in some weird twist of fate, dating Jake's ex-wife. They'd at first said they'd be coming for the celebration, too, but then Garrett got some singing gig that conflicted and since he was...the musician...he couldn't turn it down and they'd had to decline.
A shame.
“That boy didn't do much of anything but play the guitar,” she said, shaking her head. “As much as I tried, I couldn't get him to do anything else. Nearly flunked out of high school because he spent more time learning chords than doing homework.”
“Probably why he's a very good guitar player,” Jake said.
Gloria nodded. “That he is. He's wanted to come for a visit so he could jam with us. The GG's. It would be nice to have a backup, especially if we have some...discord.”
“Discord?” I asked.
Jake apparently was wondering the same thing. “What kind of discord could they possibly have?” he asked in a low voice. “Amp turned up too loud? Practices scheduled too late in the evening? Doctors’ appointments conflicting with gigs?”
I kneed him again.
Gloria switched gears. Figuratively speaking. “Do you play anything, Daisy?”
Jake stared expectantly at me, waiting for me to reply.
“Afraid not.”
“So you've never been in a band?” she asked in a disbelieving voice.
I’d never even learned to read music. “Nope.”
I saw her frown on full display in the rearview mirror, as if my not being in a band was something outside the realm of belief. I wasn’t sure why she was so baffled by my lack of musical expertise when Jake had gotten a free pass, but I was learning rather quickly that a lot of things about Gloria didn’t make a lot of sense.
She moved the bus across a couple of lanes and over toward an upcoming exit. “Well, there are things that happen in a band that sometimes defy description. They don't always make sense. But there can be a lot of...drama. And when that hits?” She shook her head. “Look out, because it can be ugly like a hurricane.”
“So you aren't all friends?” I asked. “You and the…GG’s?”
“Ebbs and flows,” she said. “On the good days, it's all good. But on the bad days?” She shook her head again as the bus descended the exit ramp. “You don't even wanna know, honey.”
FOUR
“Did you bring me any coffee?” Billie Gardner asked from her wheelchair. “I asked you to bring me coffee.”
Gloria had pulled the Apple Lake bus right up to the front of the main clubhouse in the middle of the community. The drive into the property had been beautiful. Rolling green hills, sparkling lakes, and crepe myrtle trees surrounded a seemingly endless number of neatly manicured stucco homes. When I'd done my research about where we were headed, I was dubious about how the images showed something that resembled a 5-star vacation resort. But the pictures had been perfectly accurate.
Gloria told us we were going to stop at the clubhouse and say hello to Jake's grandmother before she ate her lunch and started her afternoon bridge game. We weren't two feet in the door before the old woman was asking about her coffee.
“No, you didn't, Mom,” Gloria said. She pasted on a bright smile. “But I brought you something even better!”
“A Diet Pepsi?” Billie asked. She glanced around the clubhouse. There were a few other residents sitting at the tables or on the couches, deep in conversation or staring off into space. “Never any soda around here. Never!”
“No, Mom. I didn’t bring you a soda, either.” Gloria bit back a sigh and plastered on a smile. “I brought Jake and his family. They're here for your party. Remember?”
The old woman scowled at us. The white hair on top of her head reminded me of the fuzz on a Q-tip, sparse and fluffy and teased out in all directions. The skin around her cheeks sagged, the pockets of wrinkles coated with pink blush and powder a shade too dark. She wore black nylon pants and a green T-shirt with a smiling leprechaun on it, and a thin gold watch was wrapped around her bony wrist. Pink house slippers covered the feet at the end of her thin legs.
“Hey, Grandma,” Jake said, stepping forward and leaning down to kiss her cheek. “It's good to see you. How are you?”
“Well, I'd be a lot better if your aunt had brought me the coffee I asked for,” she grumbled. “But other than that, I'm just old.”
“You look good,” Jake said.
She waved a thin, wrinkled hand in the air. “I look like a bag of skin. I'm a century old. No one looks good after a century.” She craned her neck around him. “Who'd you bring with you?”
Jake stepped aside. “Grandma, this is my wife, Daisy.”
I smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet—”
“You look different,” the woman said, narrowing her eyes. It was hard to tell, but I thought they might be blue.
I looked at Jake.
“I got remarried, Grandma,” Jake reminded her. “Pretty sure you knew that. This is Daisy.”
Grandma Billie looked me up and down, a frown creasing her lips, and I tried not to feel uncomfortable as she assessed me. “Hmm. Named after a flower, huh?” she finally said. Then, “Why didn't anyone tell me?”
“We sent you an invitation,” Jake said. “And photos.”
“The photos are in your apartment,” Gloria added helpfully.
Grandma Billie waved her hand again, as if she couldn't be bothered with such details. “Photos? An invitation? I don't remember any of that.”
I cleared my throat and re-plastered the smile on to my face. My cheeks were already beginning to ache. “Well, it's a pleasure to meet you.”
“It is?” Grandma Billie said, moving her scowl from me to the kids. “And I guess you brought some extra kids with you, too?”
“Yes, these are my three kids,” I said.
“Our,” Jake corrected. “Our kids. Along with Sophie. You remember Sophie, right?” He reached for her and positioned her in front of Grandma Billie’s wheelchair. She looked like a deer in headlights.
I motioned for the other three to move closer. They all stared at me as if I were beckoning them toward the pit of hell. “This is—” I began, but she cut me off.
“So you were married, too?” Her eyes narrowed again, this time into tiny slits. “What happened to him?”
“Mom,” Gloria said, exasperated.
“What happened to him is we got divorced,” I said, working hard to maintain my patience. “And then I reconnected with Jake and we got married.”
“Reconnected? What the heck does that mean?” Her voice was louder now, and garnered a few curious glances from the other residents parked in the clubhouse. “Sounds like a party line. I was a telephone operator once.”
“We knew each other in high school, Grandma,” Jake said.
“Why didn't ya get married then?”
“We…we broke up.”
“He broke up with me,” I added, not wanting to take the blame for anything.
The old woman looked at me, then at her grandson. She started chuckling, a noise that sounded suspiciously like a cackle.
“What's so funny?” I asked. I was prepared for her to ask me what I’d done to bring about the break-up because, based on our rocky start, I was pretty sure she’d pin the blame on me.
“Nothing, sweetheart,” she said. She motioned for the kids to come closer. “Come over here, all of you young people. Lemme get a look at you.”
They all stared at her, frozen in place. Even Sophie made no move toward her great-grandmother.
“She's creepy,” Emily said under her breath. She was holding her phone as though she was considering using it as a weapon.
“I know,” I whispered. I gave her a nudge in the small of her back, glad it was her and not me
who was being asked to come closer.
The four kids eventually moved, and stood around her wheelchair in a semi-circle. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Emily took the lead and introduced herself, then the other three followed suit. Grandma Billie nodded at each of them, as if they were passing inspection. Then she held out a bony finger and curled it toward herself, motioning them even closer. Emily’s grip tightened on her phone and Grace reached out and grabbed Will’s hand. He didn’t pull away. They shuffled their feet until they were all next to her chair. She said something to them in a voice so low I couldn’t quite make out the words. Then all four of them started giggling.
“What are they laughing at?” I whispered to Jake. He was scrolling through something on his phone, no doubt checking work emails. He’d had to pull some major strings to take a week of vacation this time of year. Something about audits and compliance reports. It was all over my head.
“I have no idea.”
I glanced back at the surly woman hunched over in her wheelchair. I tried to find something, some physical characteristic or mannerism, that spoke to the woman she might have been in her youth, but I couldn’t find one. “You didn't tell me she was such a stick in the mud.”
“I haven't seen her in years. People change.”
“So she used to be nice?” I asked doubtfully.
He grinned. “No. I mean, I was hoping she'd changed for the better.”
“Mom, we need to get going,” Gloria said, interrupting the little pow-wow still going on between Billie and the kids. “I need to get them to their rental house and then I have band practice.”
Grandma made a face, looking like she’d just been force-fed a lemon. “Band practice? You're still in that ridiculous noise-making thing you call a band?”
“Yes.” If Gloria was insulted by her mother’s comments, she didn’t express it. “You know this. And we're playing at your party.”
“Then I will make sure I don't put the batteries in my hearing aids,” Grandma Billie said. She tapped the flesh-colored device nestled in her ear. “Alright. Wheel me to Wilma's room for bridge. I'm gonna beat the pants off all of them today.”