“What happened?” She unwraps the cinnamon scone tray and hands me a bottle of water as I plop down next to her.
I don’t even know how to begin, so I defy the stupid nondisclosure document and tell her everything. Unlike my other friends, Rachel never judges. She’s the only one who doesn’t make fun of my chronic stomach problems, or irritable bowel syndrome, as Mom likes to call it. She knows all my issues, like how I’m revolted by slurping sounds and people who lick their fingers. She knows I’m freaked out by death, and the possibility of death, and the way hospitals smell. She gets that I don’t drink because I hate watching Mom slur her words and laugh like a fool.
Rachel is my secret keeper.
“And to top it all off, I ruined another thong because of my stupid irritable bowel syndrome,” I finish.
“I don’t get why you torture yourself with thongs” is all she says about that.
Rachel reacts to the news about Gram the way I hoped she would. She shares my grief. The E’s will be sad for me, sort of, but they don’t know Gram the way Rachel does. They will go directly from telling me they’re sorry my grandma is sick and they’re sure she’ll be fine, to their own place of sadness that I’ll be gone during that critical stretch of human development known as the summer between high school and college.
“What are you going to tell everybody?”
“I guess that I’m taking a spontaneous family cruise,” I say. “People are used to me jetting off to Bermuda.”
“Remember when we were ten and Gram invited me to Bermuda?” Rachel says. “We went down to those underground caves, and she surprised me for my birthday with a candlelit table and chocolate cake on the beach.”
“That was a good birthday.”
“I always wished I had a grandmother like her. My grandma was diabetic with face warts and an amputated foot. She scared the hell out of me, and I was glad when she died. I’m sorry, that’s terrible, but it’s true,” Rachel says.
“I know. She scared me, too.”
“What about when we went down to Gram’s apartment in the city and she invited that guy who actually knew some of the original Star Trek cast members? Titi made us dinner, and the guy sat there all night while I grilled him.”
“Yeah, you said you’d marry that guy someday,” I say.
“That’s right.” Rachel laughs. “I should look him up.”
I’m glad I trusted Rachel with my secret.
We tap our water bottles together and toast to Gram, the most amazing person we have ever known.
I barely sleep. Ethan drunk-texts apologies all night long. I eventually text back Stop bothering me. It’s over, but he doesn’t get the hint. I just want him to go away.
It’s not even seven when I go down to the kitchen and find Dad drafting an email to the principal at his school, telling her he can’t teach the summer robotics camp due to a family “situation.”
I catch a train to Grand Central. I’m in no shape to drive. It’s weird to be on the train early on a Saturday morning with the deli workers and nurses going about their normal routines. People are reading newspapers and sipping coffee, laughing and making small talk, and I kind of hate them for not feeling the same anxiety I’m feeling right now.
The elevator opens to Bob Johns sleeping on the sectional with my favorite blanket. I try to sneak past him and go straight to Gram’s room, but he opens his eyes.
“Hey there, Maddie.” He knows my name.
“Hi.” I have no idea what to say to this guy.
“You here to check on your gram?”
“Yeah.”
“Janie’s in there with her. She came late last night with all her luggage. She says she’s moving in until the cruise.”
Janie beat me here again.
I sit on the edge of the ottoman and take a yoga breath. I need to get my shit together before I go in there.
“Do you live here now?” I ask Bob Johns.
“No, no. I wanted to make sure Astrid was okay. She was nervous about telling you all the news.” I’m pretty sure the accent is Jamaican.
“I’m sorry my family acted like a bunch of idiots last night. Gram kept you a secret. We had no idea.”
“Yeah, my kids were pretty surprised when I told them I was going on a cruise with an old girlfriend,” Bob says. “And then when I told them she was a white Park Avenue debutante, they nearly fell to the floor laughing.”
“That’s better than my aunt Mary’s reaction. Trust me, she’s mean to everyone.”
“She wasn’t mean. She was just being protective of her mother.”
I don’t even know what to say to that, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind. “How long did you and Gram date?”
“About three years.”
“Wow. That’s a long time.”
“Yes, but nobody was going to be okay with Astrid North and Bob Johns living happily ever after. We had a good run, though, with our wild jazz club friends.”
“My grandpa Martin preferred Irish music.”
“Would you believe I knew your grandfather?” Bob smiles. “He wanted to meet me, so we got together for a beer one night and joked about your gram.”
I try to picture this big dreadlocked guy with quiet, balding Grandpa Martin.
“He was a good guy. I’m thinking he and my wife are smiling down on us from heaven.”
“Do you think Gram’s as sick as she says?”
His eyes fill with pity, and I know the answer before he says it. “Yes, kiddo. I do.”
We sit for a minute in silence. All I can think about is what cancer looks like on the inside. Does it have a color?
“How about we have one of Titi’s gigantic chocolate chip muffins?” Bob says.
“Not hungry. I think I’ll go get into bed with them.”
The room is dark. Gram loves her remote-control blackout shades. I feel my way over to the bed and crawl between Janie and Gram, who is snoring softly, making p-p-p sounds.
I can’t believe this is happening.
We spend the day going through stuff in Gram’s apartment. She’s planning to have a farewell open house weekend for all her friends and neighbors before she leaves for the cruise. She’ll tell them about the cancer, but leave out the part about the death-with-dignity ship.
“Look, girlies,” Gram says. She holds up a photo of Janie, Brit, Jeb, and me on the sprawling porch of Aunt Rose’s Charleston house. We’re all under the age of five and completely naked. “I think I’ll post this one online.”
“Why are we naked?” I say.
“You were always naked,” Gram says. “Luckily the sun wasn’t as strong back then, although your neurotic father was obsessed with sunscreen.” She stares back down at the photo. “Oh, those were the days.”
Every picture and random relic holds memories. There’s the pink sand in crystal vases from Gram’s Bermuda house and the shadow box with our locks of baby hair and the collage of our traditional Christmas Day photos, always taken in Central Park.
“What happened to Bob Johns?” I ask, realizing he left the apartment at some point.
“You know, you can call him Bob,” Gram says.
“I like Bob Johns. It has a nice ring to it.”
“Are you girls okay with Bob coming along on the trip?”
“As long as he knows we’re your favorites,” Janie says.
I honestly don’t know what to think of my grandmother’s long-lost boyfriend. He seems nice, but he’s showing up at kind of a bad time.
“Look how hideous I was,” I say to Gram as I hold up a picture of me with blue-banded braces and choppy hair.
“You come here,” Gram says. I get up from the floor and sit facing Gram on the edge of her bed.
I look into her blue eyes. They’re the very same eyes as my own.
“You are gorgeous and smart and full of life. You always have been. Now you need to work on finally getting out of your high school comfort zone. I want you to savor every minute of our
adventure.”
“I’ve been out of my comfort zone. Lots of times.”
“Honey, skiing in Switzerland and swimming in Bermuda are about as comfortable as you can get. We’re going to see the world. And I want you to do it without your scrunch face.”
“What scrunch face?”
“The one you put on when I try to take you for dim sum in Chinatown.”
“That place is gross.”
“That’s my point. If you view the world as gross, you’ll never be able to enjoy it. Lose the scrunch face.”
“Tell that to Jeb.”
“No, he’s not scrunch face, he’s downer face.”
“I’m glad you have face nicknames for all of us. What about Janie?”
“Janie’s clueless face.”
“Oh my God, Gram. That’s so mean.” Janie looks up from her stack of pictures.
“You need to get a clue, Jane Margaret, or the world will eat you up,” Gram says.
“Okay, wrinkle face.” Janie leans over and squeezes Gram’s cheek.
“Hey, these wrinkles are the badge of a life well lived, missy. Watch it, or I’ll kick your little behind to the streets. Or even worse, back to your mother’s apartment.”
FOUR
WE’RE ON THE plane to Gram’s Bermuda house, and Janie and Jeb and I are scattered about coach, the plane version of the kids’ table at Thanksgiving. The rest of them get first class, compliments of Gram, who is already in Bermuda with Titi, Titi’s husband, and Bob Johns.
The past three weeks are a blur. I muddled through school, distracted by the Gram news and the Ethan drama. I refused to answer his texts, which made him text me more. Thanks to the E’s, Ellie-the-sophomore will forever be known as Pineapple, even if she never knows why. The E’s had a hard time with me leaving at first, but they used my departure as an excuse to celebrate. Lizzie threw a crazy graduation party the weekend after finals. The night ended with my friends piled on top of me chanting don’t go over and over again until I couldn’t wait to go. The pressure of bodies must have been too much for Abby, who puked all over me. That was the grand finale.
Gram’s open house was epic. According to Titi, Gram invited people to take something from her apartment to remember her by. There was a steady stream of Gram’s beloved groupies, from Saks lunch counter workers and limo drivers to socialites and famous jazz singers. People lingered and told funny stories, and Gram gave everyone souvenirs from her vast collections. It was as if having an object that belonged to Astrid North O’Neill would infuse a little bit of fabulous into their lives.
Janie sticks her boobs out and flirts with the guy next to me until he agrees to swap seats with her. I’m not sure why she bothered, since she might as well be sitting by herself. She obsessively picks at her split ends and is barely talking to me. I’m thinking it’s because her horrible mother and sister abandoned her and haven’t even opened the DVD Wes made of Gram saying her good-byes after they refused to answer Gram’s calls.
“What is it?” I say, hoping she’ll stop the annoying picking.
“Why can’t Gram just have a regular funeral at the Episcopal church with a pretty casket and those round flower arrangements like everyone else?” She looks at me.
“Because she’s Gram.”
Janie sighs.
“Maddie?” she says a few minutes later.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think I’m clueless?”
“No, not at all.” She’s so pitiful looking. I can’t stand to see her like this. I grab her calf and yank on her shoe. “You’re only clueless when it comes to wearing good plane shoes. Why are you wearing heels? You’ll burst the raft if we crash.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Janie says before she brushes a pile of split ends onto my tray table and I smack her.
The cliff-side Bermuda mansion feels like home. It belongs to the North family estate, passed down by generations of people with loads of money—“old money.” Nobody seems to know where it came from in the first place, whether it was shady money or hard-earned. It’s just there now, in trusts and offshore accounts, feeding off itself and swelling ever greater.
I’m so tired; I leave the dinner table during Wes and Uncle Billy’s argument over whether they should cancel their cable service while we’re gone. I make a beeline for the guesthouse, lie on the daybed under the ceiling fan, and fall asleep immediately. I wake to Gram standing over me, an angel in her white nightgown, holding a bowl of applesauce with raisins and a tiny silver spoon. It’s just the two of us in the guesthouse as twilight drapes Bermuda in dusky pink.
“Hi, Maddie girl.” Gram sits on the edge of the daybed and hands me the applesauce. “I wanted to come talk a little before we go. I dropped a big bomb on you, and it’s been quite a whirlwind.”
“I thought you were going to outlive us all.” I sit up and eat a spoonful of applesauce.
“Well, you know I’ll always be with you, nagging you in your ear to stand up straighter and smile more and worry less.” She covers me with a blue blanket. “Who knows, maybe I’ll come back to life as something adorable, like a little chipmunk, and I’ll pop up when you least expect it to make you smile.”
“Now you know every time I see a chipmunk, I’ll think it’s you.”
“Good. I’ll be sure to scurry over next time you’re with that hunky boyfriend of yours.”
I set the applesauce bowl on the floor and turn toward Gram. “Okay, first of all, nobody uses the word hunky. And second of all, we broke up. It was so unimportant; I didn’t even bother to tell you. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I’m still a virgin.”
“Still a virgin, huh? I thought you people were doing it at thirteen these days.”
“No. That’s just Janie.”
“I’ve always said, if girls don’t get attention from their fathers, they’ll find it in all kinds of sordid ways. I sure did.” Gram gives me her naughty schoolgirl grin. “So why would anyone break up with my darling girl?”
“I broke up with him. I caught him kissing a sophomore at a party. He was lame anyway.”
“Bastard. I hope he was a bad kisser.” Gram pulls herself closer and rests her head on my shoulder.
“Let’s put it this way: He kissed like a jackhammer dipped in cheap beer.”
“The next one will be better,” Gram says. “I have a good feeling.”
I look out over the sea and the famous pink sands of Bermuda. On the horizon, all shades of violet and orange stretch up and fade together. The sky rounds over the ocean, and I feel like I’m in a snow globe, like our house on the cliff is alone in a tiny, fragile, glass-domed world.
“Snow globe moment?” I say to Gram. Our family of stargazers says that a lot.
“It’s funny, Jebby just said that a little while ago. But I always feel like I’m in a snow globe here. It’s my happy place, always has been.”
“So why are we leaving? Why wouldn’t you stay here in your bed and get nurses?” I flop back on a pile of pillows and Gram slides next to me.
“Because I have things on my Loose Ends list, silly, and time is ticking. And I suppose I’m a little afraid to die. It brings me comfort knowing I can go on my terms.”
“This is so hard, Gram.”
“I know, Maddie girl. But I’ve lost a lot of people in my life. I’ve seen how people can go on and on, long past their expiration dates. Your mom and Aunt Mary and Uncle Billy had to watch my mother suffer for years.” She shakes her head slowly. “The woman was too damn stubborn to go to a nursing home, so she festered in her apartment, and I was forced to take care of her. I’m not going to put you or myself through that hell.”
We’re quiet for a minute. Gram rolls onto her side and faces me.
“We had the opposite with your poor grandfather. He went so quick he didn’t have time to say good-bye. See? I’m the lucky one.” She shifts a little, and her protruding hipbone stabs my thigh.
“Wow, your breasts are perky.” She squeezes my boob. “Poor
Janie inherited my big bosom.”
“Ow, that hurts, you old pervert.”
“Hey, Mads, one more thing. I want to make sure you understand that this trip is not about poor, dying Gram.” She looks at me, her face serious. “That is not what I want from all this. I want to have some laughs, and get you people out of your boring little lives. This is not about dying. It’s about living. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I get it. But I’m offended. Drinking chai at Starbucks and watching my friends argue over who gets the front seat is not boring.”
But the truth is, I don’t know if I get it. I don’t know if I get any of this.
The darkness gathers around Gram and me. We snuggle on the daybed and stretch out our snow globe moment as long as we can before we both fall asleep.
FIVE
WE’RE THE ONLY ones standing on the departure platform, and Dad won’t stop talking about how big the ship is. Gram had told us that they repurposed a former big-name cruise ship for these death-with-dignity trips and there’s a huge wait list, but they only choose a few people for each sailing.
“I can’t even imagine the square footage of this baby,” Dad says. “Although I could probably figure it out. Let me think.”
“Nobody cares,” Jeb says. Jeb’s always been weird, but I don’t remember him being this irritable all the time.
A nervous little man with a thick mustache and black plastic glasses scurries out to greet us. “Welcome to the Wishwell, everybody. Where is our guest of honor?”
Gram is still in the limo saying good-bye to Titi and her husband. How do you say good-bye to someone you’ve known for decades and are never going to see again? Titi was more than a housekeeper. She was Gram’s best friend. I don’t know how they’re finding the strength to do this.
“She’ll be here in a minute,” Uncle Billy says. He and Wes prop up Aunt Rose, who seems to be having a hard time with the trip so far. She’s more frail and confused than ever.
“Rose never should have come. This is too much for her,” Dad whispers to Mom and me.
“She wanted to be here, Aaron,” Mom says. “They’re joined at the hip. She’s not going to leave my mother now.” Uncle Billy gives Aunt Rose a sip of his coffee and wipes the dribbles from her chin with his sleeve. “It’s just the stress of traveling is hard on a ninety-three-year-old woman. She’ll be okay once she’s settled in her cabin.”
The Loose Ends List Page 3