by Ava Finch
Mr. D. and his grandson, who just happens to be RayAnne’s age and single, are coming for dinner. She’s been set up. A timer dings and Dot bends to peer in the oven window. She snaps her fingers and says in a conspiratorial whisper, “Hand me those mitts.”
RayAnne whispers back, “Gran, are we baking a man trap?”
“Don’t be silly. This is for us.”
Dot’s cottage is one of the less expensive ones, set back nearer the gates with only a narrow slice of ocean view, but if they push their lounge chairs together on the deck and fuse their temples, they can both watch the waves. Earlier, Dot had pointed out the larger cottages with wide vistas, envy in her voice when describing the kitchens: “Viking ranges and marble counters, wasted on these old farts, that’s for sure.”
“They don’t cook?” RayAnne is surprised. Dune Cottage is known for attracting retirees from the business—restaurateurs, many chefs among them.
“Ha. Old stove jockeys? Last thing they want to do is cook. That lane is mostly widowers; a few others have wives circling the drain over at the Falls. Tony Vecchio lives in that one. He can’t so much as look at spaghetti anymore. Howie Gelber went vegetarian the moment his steak house closed.”
“Who’s hotter?”
“Howie has a Sub-Zero. But Tony has a marble counter, which really is the best for rolling pastry.”
Does her grandmother intend to cook her way into an ocean-view kitchen with six gas jets and a pastry slab? “You don’t really believe the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”
“Goodness no. There’re other routes,” she laughs. “I s’pose I could make a Sacher torte with some of that, whatsit? Viagra?”
“Uh, Gran, do you know what priapism is?”
“What?”
“A condition where erections last several hours. That’s what those can drugs do.”
“Good heavens. Really?”
Trinket taps her polished nails across the linoleum to growl at her empty food dish.
Dot blinks. “Just a minute, Princess, I’ll make your liver toast.” Turning to RayAnne she asks, “Hours?”
The dinner is endless. Mr. D.’s grandson Allen is a chiropractor with a monobrow, and seems as happy about being set up as she is. RayAnne admits she’s never been to an MMA match. “Which is what, again?”
“Cage fighting.” Allen admits he’s never liked fishing. RayAnne asks if he’s read anything interesting lately. He looks at her suspiciously. “Like books?”
Once it’s determined they have the opposite of attraction, they proceed to ignore each other and leave the talking to Dot and Mr. D. At one point when both men are looking away, RayAnne mimes slashing her own wrists and Dot mouths, Stop it.
When the main courses are finally finished, RayAnne begins to get up to make coffee, but Dot kicks her ankle out from under her. “Now don’t you kids move a muscle.”
Mr. D. stands. “Allen, you should tell RayAnne about the home theater you’re building.”
Allen looks at her and then his father. “Right.”
RayAnne at least tries. “Oh, where you’ll watch, what . . . besides cage fighting?”
“NASCAR.” He brightens. “You like NASCAR?”
Mr. D. collects plates and they are left alone. Not a peep comes from the kitchen. They are obviously behind the swinging doors, straining to hear anything RayAnne and Allen might say to each other. Allen stretches his legs to reveal his ankles and RayAnne smiles, thinking at least he’s not a complete wash, somewhat redeemed for wearing Homer Simpson novelty socks.
Dot calls from the kitchen, “We’ve made a surprise dessert.”
RayAnne sits up. “Baked Alaska, I bet.”
Allen inhales. “Yup.”
To atone for her two servings of dessert, the next morning RayAnne hits the treadmill early. When Dot shuffles out to the deck, she’s rubbing her eyes. “I heard grunting.”
“Just . . . another . . . ten . . . minutes.” RayAnne blots sweat from her eyes.
Dot sits on the lounger and shakes her head. “Your generation is supposed to be the one to fix things, so smart, coming up with all that technology, yet . . .”
“Yet what?”
“Here you are killing yourself over a few calories, ready to fall into that ridiculous trap and go around looking like all the other women on television. Why can’t you just deal with the fact you have hips, dear? If you do, then maybe the next young woman in your shoes will see that it’s okay.”
Sometimes Dot makes ultimate sense in maddening ways. RayAnne stops the treadmill and hops off, panting. “So, I should get fat and become a role model?”
“No, just don’t get skinny. By the way, you were rude last night.”
“Maybe. But you ambushed me, Gran. Why’re you suddenly trying to marry me off?”
“I only want to see you happy.”
“Married or happy? You assume they go hand in hand.”
“I suppose I do,” Dot says wistfully. “Maybe because my marriage was happy. The second one, anyway. I miss Ted, you know . . . still.”
RayAnne sits and pulls Dot into a damp hug, “Oh, Gran. Granny-Gran? You’re crying.”
“I’m not. My eyes are watering. You smell like a man’s tennis shoe.”
In the afternoons, RayAnne sits under a palm tree for hours, struggling to concentrate on the book in her lap, rereading pages. She watches the surf retreat and repeat, the bright sun scouring her brain until it feels hollow as a shell. Even in the shade, her body feels limp, as if caramelizing. When she complains about the Florida sun, Ky reminds her it is the Sunshine State, after all, with a warning on every license plate like the surgeon general’s warning on cigarette packs. They pull their deck chairs deeper into the cover of broad palms and RayAnne wishes for one of Bernadette’s caftans so she might walk the beach without her back freckling up like a trout.
She rolls to her elbows. “When’s Dad due to show?”
“Day before the party. I’ve got his flight in my BlackBerry.” Kyle is silent a minute. “Remember that party he planned for you at that upscale restaurant? Was it Jax’s, with the trout pond?”
“Sweet sixteen. Gawd, that dress he got me at the Oval Room, with the pom-pom sleeves?”
“I just remember the front—the Hostess Cupcake Sno Ball boobs. What happened with him that time?”
RayAnne shrugs. “He had more important things to do, like fly to Vegas to elope with . . . which was it, number three?”
“Delia.”
“Right, the D in BADGER.” She rolls back over.
“What?”
“BADGER. Ask Dad when he gets here.”
Florida is perfect for old people who never seem warm enough. In the evenings, just as the temperature becomes bearable, Dot wraps up in a puffy quilted robe and shivers through the ten o’clock news. On the deck, RayAnne looks to the sky and says, “Nothing. For four days I’ve done nothing.”
Dot, suddenly behind her, corrects, “No, you’ve just not accomplished anything.”
“Thanks, Gran.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. You’re just doing what people do on vacation.”
Which has amounted to slogging the beach with Kyle, watching the boys, playing Scrabble with Dot on the patio, and eating like a pig while wishing with every bite that she had the metabolism of a hamster. Size six?
FIVE
Dot’s feet are in RayAnne’s lap. The nail polish is Posy Pink.
“Gran, you have to hold still.”
“But this is so exciting!”
“You act like you’ve never seen it.”
The television is pulled close, and the DVD of the Ida Lott episode is cued up—the very first segment RayAnne hosted.
“Oh, pish. You don’t look all that nervous.”
“I had to wash down a beta blocker
with a coffee mug of chardonnay to get through it.”
Dot wriggles again.
“Now look what you’ve made me do!” RayAnne gets the nail polish remover and a cotton ball to clean the smudge across Dot’s big toe.
Beginner’s luck had been on her side. Ida Lott turned out to be funny and approachable, a chatty grandmother in her early seventies. She could even fish. RayAnne did not have to scramble to fill time or even ask many questions. On land, Ida walked with two canes, having lost half of her toes to frostbite during her ordeal, but seated in the boat, you wouldn’t know.
Ida cast a line while explaining, “I was on my way to visit my daughter’s family when the storm hit. I did just the wrong thing, pulled off the highway to a lesser road because I saw a red blinking light, thinking it might be a plow or police car, but it was only a rail crossing signal. I didn’t get much farther before sliding into the ditch.”
“Were you frightened?”
“Not right away. I was too busy. While the engine was still running I had to keep getting out to clear the tailpipe. That’s when my shoes got soaked. I had snow for water, so that was no problem—I knew I could do without food. But the cold . . .”
“What did you think about?”
“Besides ways to keep from freezing, I thought about life. Mine. What it had meant. I wanted my little grandsons to grow up having something of me—they were too young to even have many memories at the time. So, on the second day, thinking about the worst case, I began to write out all the best stories I had.”
“Yes,” RayAnne leaned in. “I loved the one of how you met your husband while bowling?”
Ida had a twinkly laugh. “I threw such a gutter ball it hit Robert’s pins, two lanes over. It was a strike!”
Growing serious, RayAnne urged her on. “But there’s so much more than just personal history and anecdotes in this book.”
“Yes, the ‘Life 101’ chapters? I felt I might impart some wisdom to my grandkids, like how to navigate the rough bits, in case they ever got bullied or felt somehow less than. And in later chapters, I try to address the teen years, you know, teenaged angst?
“Yup,” RayAnne nodded. “I know it.”
“So much can go wrong. There were things I felt they should believe for themselves, in case I wasn’t around to remind them. I also wanted them to know what I would have wished for them in case I . . .”
“In case you’d died in that car?”
“Yes. I wanted them to be themselves, love themselves no matter what, handsome or pimply, gay or straight, skinny or fat. Or just odd.”
RayAnne leaned in. “To me those were the most touching passages in the book, when you’re directly addressing the boys.”
“Well, I wanted to prepare them to be, to be . . .”
“Human beings?” RayAnne offered.
“Exactly! And maybe they’ll be parents themselves one day too, but I guess there’s no way of preparing anyone for that. I needed to leave them something.”
RayAnne turned to the second camera and held up a fat stack of jagged-edged brown pages bound together with rubber bands, covered edge to edge with cramped writing. “And this is what Ida originally submitted to her editor.”
The camera panned to Ida. “Of course I have a computer file now, but I wanted your audience to see the actual manuscript—I had a stack of grocery bags in the trunk. I tore them into two hundred pages. I wrote until my hands went numb or the pen froze up or I had to tuck my fingers into my armpits to thaw.”
RayAnne held up the ratty bundle next to the actual published book, Five Days on a Chiclet—its brown paper cover cleverly similar.
“So, you had two pens, some water, and one piece of gum?”
“Which I decided I would only chew after officially giving up. And I almost did after realizing how bad my feet were.”
“When you started to think about dying?”
“Yes, I wrote my will that morning. It was getting colder.”
“And did you finally chew the Chiclet?”
“No.” Ida pulled a thin gold chain out from the collar of her cardigan and the camera zoomed in to show a dainty crystal case with the red Chiclet inside.
“This piece of gum saved my life. Each time I felt I might give up, it reminded me to fight.”
“How did you?”
“Well, RayAnne, when it got really bad, it seemed to come down to a choice.” Ida shrugged as if it were no biggie. “I chose life.”
As the credits roll, RayAnne caps the bottle. If only all the guests were as well-spoken or interesting as Ida. She blows on Dot’s toes. “Ta-da!” She looks up and is shocked to see tears streaming down Dot’s cheeks. The second time in two days.
“Gran?”
Dot knuckles away a tear. “I’m just . . . so proud of you.”
Friday is cloudy and cooler. Bad weather, according to a shivering Dot, but a wish granted to RayAnne—the reprieve from the Florida sun doubly welcome, having rendered the beach mercifully clear of sunbathers. After her beach walk, she borrows Ky’s rental car and drives Dot to the mall. Neither likes clothes shopping much, but Dot has a good eye and wastes little time. Indeed, at the very first rack in the boutique, she zeroes in on a simple tunic and matching lounge pants in charcoal linen that looks boring on the hanger but quite elegant when Dot sashays out of the fitting room in it. Inside of ten minutes she has a lovely scarf and a pair of open-weave flats.
Pleased with themselves, they natter happily right up to the moment the clerk begins ringing up the purchase, when RayAnne slides her Visa card across the counter, intending the outfit to be her birthday gift to Dot.
“You will not.”
“Yes, I will, Gran.”
“Not.” Dot raises her voice.
“But I want to.”
Dot tries pulling the outfit from the counter. “Then at least let me pick something from the sale rack.”
RayAnne holds fast, laughing. “No! Let go.”
“Now don’t be such, such a . . . pissant.”
“What does that even mean?” RayAnne frowns. “Gran. I have a real job now. I get a paycheck twice a month.”
Dot sniffs. “Tcht. For something I’ll wear once.”
“No. You’ll be able to wear this over and over. Anytime.”
Dot relents, but won’t look at her while the clerk wraps everything in tissue, making a great show of nesting the garments in two very fancy shopping bags, taking her time until Dot snaps, “This isn’t a tea ceremony!”
RayAnne and the clerk exchange looks. She’s never known Dot to be rude, or even impatient, but most of the last week she has been—impatient and a little cranky. Maybe the moodiness is birthday-party jitters, because while Dot loves to fuss over others, she hates any fuss being made over her. And having visitors, RayAnne suspects, is much more strenuous than Dot will admit. Just looking at the twins seems to exhaust her.
At the hairdresser, Dot will neither sit nor accept an offer of iced tea until RayAnne promises to keep her credit cards in her purse and fetch her a glass of water.
“Fine. Cross my heart. What’s that you’re taking?”
“My calcium pill.”
After rummaging Dot’s scalp, the stylist declares, “You shouldn’t perm—you already have a natural wave.” They are able to talk her out of a do and into trimming off the treated hair. “A pixie is what you need.”
Dot sighs, “Do what you must.” By the time her hair is snipped, dried, and styled, she’s herself again, if a little droopy. Turning her head this way and that in the mirror, she concedes, “Well, it’s not too terrible, is it?”
All the stylists agree Dot is just darling and send her off with a jar of “product” and a tutorial on how to obtain “texture” and a tousled look with only a half hour of toil.
Big Rick hasn’t called, but Dot pretends
not to care. He is not mentioned until Thursday, Dot’s informal birthday dinner. They all wait for the doorbell—his absence all the more conspicuous for his empty chair and untouched place setting. The twins pivot to Ky, frowning in tandem. “You said Grandpa Rick would be here.”
Dot continues to cut her meal into tiny pieces without eating any of them. “RayAnne, would you mind clearing your father’s plate?”
She obliges, then slides his chair away and shifts the cake over to cover Big Rick’s empty spot. All the while slyly watching Dot, having suspected all week that she’s been feeding Trinket food from her own plate to make it seem she’s eating more than she is. Sometimes Dot drops food directly from her fork to the space between her feet; other times she pretends to chew and swallow, then sneaks the food into her napkin.
Dot’s been told she’s not allowed to cook for her own party, which is a potluck, but she still insists on making just a few little things: cannelloni, a panettone, and French jam tarts. From her apron she pulls out a list of twenty grocery items, alphabetized beginning with anise, ending with Worcestershire, and hands it to RayAnne. “You asked if I needed anything?”
“Right.” RayAnne scans the list. “I was going to walk.”
“Take my trike; the basket holds loads.”
“Sure this is all, Gran? Nothing else you want?”
Dot smiles sweetly and lays a floury hand over RayAnne’s. “Just to be a great-grandmother, sweetheart.”
“You already are!”
“Puh.” Dot waves her out the door.
Navigating the lanes of Dune Cottage Village can be tricky. Most residents are either hearing impaired, vision impaired, lead footed, or all three. Because every corner poses a potential calamity, golf carts and mobility scooters are fitted with computer sensors that warn of approaching vehicles, also triggering a light to blink at the corners, where a digital Model T ahOOOga sounds loud enough for the deafest of the deaf. After nearly being clipped by a Segway driven by someone who looked a lot like Rumpole of the Bailey but turned out only to be a matron wearing perm rods and a purple housecoat, RayAnne pedals cautiously toward the intersections, ready to cover her ears.