by Nancy Star
Glory shook her head and started turning puzzle pieces right side up. “Stargazing is over. Your father’s on his way.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The melted teakettle seemed like an indisputable sign that Glory’s brain was melting too. It was time for triage. The talk Ginger intended to have with Julia about her nose ring, the closed bedroom door, and Nick’s lengthening visits was tabled. Now, it was all about Glory.
It took a single overnight at the Popkins’ for Mimi to offer to fund a full-time companion so Glory could age in place at home. Ginger, tasked with hiring someone, found the perfect candidate, a woman recently retired after twenty-five years as a kindergarten classroom aide.
The staying-home part agreed with Glory, but the companion part did not. Her critical thinking might be flickering in and out like a bad cable connection, but her critical talking showed no sign of decline. She fired the former kindergarten aide the second day. Whether the next three companions were fired or quit was impossible to puzzle out, and really, it didn’t matter. The fact was they were gone.
It was Richard who lobbied for Glory to move in with them. That she was difficult was beside the point. For Richard, having a parent, even a difficult one, live long enough to get old was a lucky break. Ginger agreed to a test run. After aide number five was hired, part-time, for when Ginger was at work, Glory moved into their home.
On her first night there, Glory went to bed at nine, woke two hours later confused, wandered into the bathroom half-dressed and came upon Nick, on the toilet. Both of them screamed and ended up at the foot of Ginger’s bed, along with Julia, though by then all of them were laughing. Richard laughed too, but Ginger did not join in the merriment.
The next morning, Ginger woke up with a rash that spread, through the day, from neck to trunk and down her arms. Hives was the diagnosis. “Stress at home?” the doctor asked as he handed Ginger a prescription.
In an effort to keep the new part-time companion from getting fired, Ginger introduced Lorrine to Glory as their housekeeper. “Please try not to bother her while she’s cleaning.”
“Since when have I ever bothered anyone?”
At the end of her first day, Lorrine gave her report. “Your mother kept telling me to take a break from my smudgery. Also, she said I should get a hobby, like puzzles.” Ginger explained about the family word mangling—that by smudgery her mother probably meant drudgery—and that no matter what she said or meant, it was best to just smile and agree.
Ginger thought Lorrine was working out fine until the end of the first week, when Julia told her otherwise. “Grandma Glory refuses to eat anything the lady gives her for lunch. And after lunch, Grandma sits on one side of the couch doing nothing and the lady sits on the other side of the couch and sleeps. Why do we even need her?”
This was disappointing to hear. “We need her because Grandma can’t be home alone while I’m at work. I’ll just have to find someone else.” That’s when it occurred to her. “How do you know what’s going on at lunch? Are you cutting school?”
“God. We come home for lunch. I’m allowed to leave school for lunch.”
“We come home?”
Ginger’s rash spread to her back. The doctor called in an order for a stronger cream. Later, when Ginger struggled to apply the new ointment on the hard-to-reach spot between her shoulder blades, she realized that as recently as a week ago, she would have asked Richard to do it for her.
The next morning, before the alarm clock went off, they heard Glory in the hallway.
“Bathroom? No, closet. Where’s the bathroom? Hello? Anybody here? Is there a bathroom in this hotel?”
Ginger turned to Richard. “This is not working. She’s disoriented. I’m covered in a rash. Look.” She lifted up her palms to show him the most recent territory to become covered by bumps. “I don’t think I can take it if she stays.”
The doctor called in an order for cortisone pills, and Ginger made another try at convincing Mimi to take Glory in. Mimi had the ideal setup, a carriage house at the back of her yard, which could easily be repurposed as an apartment.
Mimi was adamant. The answer was still no. Neil was convinced letting Glory move in would open the door for all future Popkins who were between jobs, or had changing marital status, or just wanted to be closer to the fun. “Up to me? I’d do it in a minute. But Neil says no, final answer.” Popkins to the rescue once again.
Only one option was left. With Glory parked in the temporary care of a Popkin cousin for the afternoon, Ginger and Mimi shopped for a facility. They settled on the Meadows, a half-hour drive away. The final obstacle was selling Glory on the idea, but the intake nurse advised them on the best strategy. They were to tell Glory she was just coming for a visit.
And so it was that when they pulled into the entrance of the Meadows, a diminished Glory with a bright-red muffler wrapped around her neck, her belongings crammed into a single large Samsonite suitcase as white as her hair, Ginger pointed at the sign to her left which said, “Rehabilitation,” and Mimi swiveled her mother away from the sign to her right, which foretold her future—“and Long-Term Care.”
“You mean like a vacation?” Glory asked as they walked to the assisted-living wing.
“Kind of,” Ginger said, and she opened the door to her mother’s new apartment.
The studios in the assisted-living wing were all L-shaped, so a cot could be moved in if an aide was needed, temporarily. Everything, it seemed, was now couched in the language of the temporary. If an aide was needed full-time, Glory would have to be moved to the long-term wing, temporarily. There was only one final stop at the Meadows, and no one discussed it.
“You’re not staying?” Glory asked when Ginger and Mimi put on their coats.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Ginger promised, and she and Mimi left, too tired and sad to speak.
At home, Ginger saw Julia and Nick had been playing house in the kitchen. An explosion of pots, strainers, wooden spoons, and bowls rose up out of the sink like a warning. A roast chicken sat on a cutting board, blood seeping out from the center cavity. She got the meat thermometer and stuck it in the thigh. “Jules?” She could hear they were upstairs. “Jules?” she called again.
Nick clomped down, loud as a horse. “Julia said to tell you we’re in the middle of working on something. Hey, you found our chicken. Want some?”
“It’s not cooked through,” she told him and then noticed that the oven was still on. “When you’re done cooking, you need to turn the oven off.” She opened the oven door and put the chicken back in. She could feel Nick’s confusion. She wasn’t making any sense. “It’s fine. Finish what you’re doing. I’ll watch the bird.”
By the end of dinner, everyone was mad at everyone, Julia maddest of all. It was their chicken, she complained, bought with their money, and they wanted to cook it their way.
“But you didn’t cook it. It wasn’t cooked,” was Ginger’s first reaction, followed a moment later by, “What do you mean your money?” One of the consequences for Julia’s missed curfews had been the loss of her allowance. Like Glory’s new life in the Meadows, the loss was temporary, but the allowance had not yet been reinstated. “How do you have money?”
“I just do,” Julia said, and when Nick gave her a look, she snapped at him. “I’m not getting into it with her now. Anyway, why is it so unbelievable that I know how to get money?”
“Get money? What, did you rob a bank?” Ginger turned to Richard. “Are you giving her money?” He shook his head.
“Let’s go,” Julia told Nick.
“Okay, cool.” Nick got up and followed Julia to the basement stairs.
Ginger called after them. “Plates in the sink. You can’t leave the kitchen like this.”
Julia yelled from the bottom step. “We’ll take care of it. Don’t go insane.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing down there,” Ginger said to Richard as they cleared the table. “But they’re up to something.” She stopp
ed. “You don’t think they’re working on a plan to convince us Nick should move in, do you? Because, no way. I draw the line. Absolutely not.”
“No,” Richard said, looking sad. He shook his head. “I don’t think they’re planning that.”
This is how Ginger found out what they were planning: The morning after their chicken dinner fight, she padded downstairs, poured herself a bowl of cereal, sat at the table, and glanced out the window at the morning moon. Richard came down a moment later and they fell into their new routine, working out the arrangement of the newspaper sections so the pages didn’t collide.
When the shower went on in the bathroom, Ginger looked at the ceiling and thought, Julia’s up early. That’s odd. Twenty minutes later, when Julia came into the kitchen, wet hair in a ponytail, face glowing and flushed, eyes wide-open and bright, Ginger thought, She looks so beautiful this morning and a moment later, She looks like she’s in love. That Julia was clutching a shopping bag in one hand and a black North Face duffel in the other did not register, until Julia put the bags down.
Bags at her feet, Julia picked at her cuticles, her cheeks turning bright and then brighter red as she began her halting announcement. Nick was on his way over to pick her up. They were leaving today. Moving to Portland, Maine. Nick had friends in Portland who would let them stay for a while. She handed Ginger a piece of paper. “We’re not definite about where we’re going next, but all the cities on the list are cool about buskers.”
“Buskers?” Ginger asked.
“Street performers,” Richard said quietly.
They scanned the list together: Cambridge, Asheville, New Orleans, San Francisco.
Ginger looked up and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Moving. Moving out. Today. Now.”
Ginger repeated the word now, though words had suddenly become nothing more than placeholders, with no meaning attached at all.
Her daughter’s eyes, blue as Glory’s, darted from the table to the walls to the ceiling to the floor, looking anywhere but at her stunned mother. “There’s conditions.”
“Conditions?” Another thing that made no sense.
“We’re planning to stay in Portland until we get the performance all worked out. We’ve been doing it in the city, on the street, and in the subway, but it’s not right yet.”
Ginger’s eyes moved to the shopping bag. The sheet and the helmet with the wings were peeking out from the top, and stuffed in on the side—it was just a glimpse of fabric—were the Salvation Army uniforms. “You’ve been performing in the subway in the city?”
Julia refused to meet her mother’s eyes. “After Portland we’ll probably go to Cambridge. They’re totally cool about street performers there. Cambridge is where Amanda Palmer started.”
“Who?”
“Street performer turned artist,” Richard said.
Ginger wondered how on earth he knew that.
Julia interrupted her thoughts. “Doesn’t matter.” She was working hard to stay on script. “When we’re ready to leave Portland, I’ll send you a postcard about our next stop. I promise to let you know where we are—so long as you leave us alone.”
“Pardon me?”
“You can’t try to contact me. No more Facebook stalking. I shut down my page, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
No contact? Ginger tried to keep up. “What if there’s an emergency?”
“There’s not going to be an emergency,” Julia told her.
“Probably not, but what if there is?” Ginger lowered her voice. “What if someone gets sick? What if someone dies? What if you get sick?”
“God. Why are you like this? No one’s going to get sick.” Julia sighed. “Okay, if someone gets sick, they should go to the doctor, and if someone dies, Dad, you can call Nick’s mom. She’ll know how to reach us. If someone dies.”
“And then you’ll come home?” Ginger pressed.
“Stop. I didn’t say that.” She turned to her father. “See what I mean? See how she is?”
“Okay.” Richard’s courtroom voice. “If something happens, which it won’t, I’ll call Nick’s mom. She’ll let you know. But we won’t expect you home until—”
“Until I’m ready.”
Ginger looked at Richard to see how this could make sense to him, but he was busy staring at his shoes. She felt lobotomized. Anne-Marie would know where Julia was, but Ginger wouldn’t? If there was an emergency, Richard—only Richard?—could contact Nick’s mom? And even then, Julia would not come home until—she’s ready?
Standing her ground, Julia continued. “We want to be artists. We want to do performance art. But we can’t if you won’t leave us alone. I know it’s hard for you, but you have to try. Because otherwise, if you come looking for us—either of you—if you send Aunt Mimi, or you call the police, or you call Nick’s mom for no good reason, we’ll move and we won’t tell you where. It will be poof. Gone. Thin air.” Her eyes looked fierce, but Ginger could see the rims were red, a wet film rising. Julia pressed her lips together, a tick she’d had forever. Seeing it made Ginger’s eyes go wet too.
Julia regained her composure. “I sold my phone, so forget about calling. You’ll have to be patient and wait for my postcards. Which I promise I’ll send, so you’ll know I’m okay.”
“You sold your phone?” Ginger wondered exactly how a seventeen-year-old went about selling a phone that her parents had bought. She glanced at Richard and saw he looked surprised at this too. With a start, she realized this was the only thing that seemed to surprise him. Her body went heavy as stone. “You knew?”
Julia leaped to his defense, her anger wiping away everything else. “You can’t be mad at him. He’s been trying to talk me out of this for weeks.”
Ginger mouthed, weeks.
“We were going to leave last night. I wrote you a note. But Dad said leaving a note was wrong. He said you deserved to hear it face-to-face.” She crossed her arms. “So here I am. Face-to-face. If you leave me alone, you’ll know where I am. If you try to find me, you won’t.” She pressed her lips together again and then added, “It’s not forever.”
For a moment, Ginger couldn’t place how old her daughter was. Was she still a child? Could she do this? Could she just go?
And then, with his usual terrible timing, Nick pulled up in his rusted Saab and beeped and Julia ran out to meet him. By the time Ginger and Richard got to the curb, Julia’s shopping bag and North Face duffel were in the back and she was in the front, pulling the door closed.
“Go,” Julia told Nick. To her parents she said, “Bye.”
In a voice too quiet for Julia to hear, Ginger asked, “Did you buckle up?”
It was Richard who replied. “She knows to buckle.”
A reminder alarm started beeping. Nick turned the car off and hopped out. “Back door’s stuck again.” He tried to close it but the latch wouldn’t hold.
Julia pulled her seat belt over her shoulder and it clicked in place.
Richard moved closer to Ginger. “I’m sorry. I thought I could talk her out of it. I wanted to tell you after I got her to change her mind.” He reached for her hand.
Ginger let him take it. She could see the tendons in her daughter’s neck flare out like wings. Julia was working that hard to keep her head from turning toward them. Nick continued to try and close the door with no success.
“I thought if you knew, it would make things worse,” Richard whispered. “I was wrong.”
How could she be mad at him when she’d done the same thing herself? “It’s okay.”
Nick gave one last shove and the door latch held. He got back in and revved the engine. Ginger and Richard stood like a pair of cardboard-cutout parents, and Nick’s old Saab—Ginger wished Julia had never told her the car had no air bags—took off with a screech to the corner. Then car, boy, daughter—was Julia really no longer a child?—disappeared.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
First down the gangplank, there he was—Solly, clutching a lar
ge valise with one hand, struggling to balance a heavy wood-framed beach umbrella on his shoulder with the other. Her father, Ginger saw, had not gotten any instructions about blending in.
“A suit?” Glory backed up at the sight of him. “He’s wearing a suit?”
This shouldn’t have been a surprise. Ginger’s father always wore a suit for traveling, no matter the destination. The Staten Island Ferry, Ratner’s for lunch, monkey house at the zoo, according to Solly, You go somewhere, you wear a suit.
Eyes blinking in the sun, he found his family in the crowd. Grinning, he accelerated, nearly decapitating a woman with his umbrella as he passed.
“Oh, for god sake.” Glory swiveled around so she wouldn’t see more.
“So?” Solly said when he finally made his way through the crowd. “No fireworks to celebrate I’m here?” He seized Charlie’s hand in a firm shake. “Look at you. Half a foot at least, you’ve grown. I don’t see you for a week, you turn into a man.”
“He’s eight,” Glory reminded him.
And Charlie said, “Next month I’ll be nine.”
Solly’s delight was not easily diminished. His grin widened as he presented his wife with the umbrella. “For you.”
Glory took another step back. “What’d you bring that for?”
“Didn’t you tell me the umbrella you took from home is too flimsy? Like a toothpick, you said, it falls over. This?” He offered the umbrella again. “Solid wood. Weighs a ton.”
“An elephant weighs a ton, Solly. You think I want to sit at the beach under an elephant?” She hurried toward the car and put a quick distance between them.
Solly heaved the umbrella, which seemed to have gotten heavier, back on his shoulder. “So?” he asked his children, who’d chosen to stay with him, where it seemed safer. “How much fun have I been missing?”
“Zero,” Mimi said. “We don’t do anything. Except for Charlie. He’s digging to China.”
Impressed, Solly whistled, but no sound came out, just air. “China. That’s far to dig.”