Now maybe by the time you’re reading this letter you’re so old that it doesn’t seem strange that someone would describe a middle schooler as “precious” but I’ve got to tell you that it’s just…not normal.
“After I knocked, I realized your grandmother wouldn’t be home yet from her voice lesson. I can hardly believe it’s her last one before the first big contest.”
The words “voice lesson” and “contest” when talking about Gram caused the wheels of my mind to screech to a halt like someone slamming on the brakes to avoid a crash.
“I’m Mildred, by the way, but you can call me Mimi,” the marionette said as she squeezed my arm again with her twig fingers.
Her gigantic grin kept getting more and more gigantic.
But even with her massive, gigantic, friendly grin, I was pretty sure I would not be calling this lady Mildred or Mimi because I wasn’t planning on the two of us getting all that close.
Mildred/Mimi called me “honey” again and asked if I’d let Gram know that she was leaving the Bibles so that we could load them in the car in the morning while we waited for her to finish with her prayer meeting.
That’s when I noticed a stack of boxes, almost as tall as Mimi, sitting on a dolly next to Gram’s door.
Then she said, “Thank heavens for Harold” helping her get the boxes of Bibles down to the third floor, and that she sure couldn’t have done it herself. She wished Harold had been able to stick around so I could meet him, because she was sure I would love him.
Since I didn’t know this Harold person Mildred was talking about, I didn’t necessarily have any reason to think I wouldn’t like him, but I wondered what made Mildred think I would undoubtedly adore him.
Then, for some reason, Mimi felt compelled to tell me that Harold had rushed off to his appointment at the foot doctor, because he had some toe fungus, and she was just thankful that he was finally getting it checked out even though he hated doctors.
“I told him that the yellow and green pus wasn’t going to go away on its own,” Mildred finished with a sigh.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Toe fungus?
Yellow and green pus?
Too much information!
And, ICK!
“Oh, just listen to me going on and on,” Mildred said and squeezed my arm for the third time. “I’m just so tickled we’re all going on this trip together. It’s going to be such a hoot!”
Well, that explained where Gram had learned her new vocabulary word, but it did not explain anything about something that was much more important.
Trip?
What trip?
I wish I knew the antonym for “hoot,” because that would be the only way to describe what it’s going to be like when Gram explains to Mom and me what in the world Mildred was talking about.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
So, of all the things I’ve written so far, what I’m about to tell you has got to be the wildest.
Gram’s big surprise for Mom and me?
Are you ready for this?
Drum roll, please…
A Widow’s
Bucket List
Karaoke
Road Trip
And Mom and I are going with her.
I know. Pretty bonkers, right?
And you probably already guessed that Mimi and her boxes of Bibles are going along too.
(Apparently, she’s planning to deliver the Bibles to some churches for their Vacation Bible School programs.)
“You’re standing there in front of me saying ‘widow’s bucket list karaoke road trip’ as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.”
That’s what Mom said when Gram came back from her voice lesson and told us all about the big surprise.
“Well, it is normal if you’re a widow and you’ve always wanted to sing karaoke.”
That’s what Gram said.
“Don’t you think it’s just a little outside the norm, Mother, for someone at your age to be driving all over the state of Florida singing karaoke?”
Though at this point, the family’s politeness-no-matter-what rule remained in place, with each thing Mom said, I wondered when it was going to start leaning like the Tower of Pisa. Under the circumstances, I did not see how things were not going to lean so far, they’d eventually come crashing down.
But here’s the thing. Before Mom and I had gotten to Florida and been greeted by Gram’s new-surprise-every-second behavior, I would’ve agreed with Mom’s opinion that a person as old as Gram singing karaoke was outside the norm. Actually, Gram doing any of the stuff we’d witnessed since we arrived was way outside the norm. But it was obvious that when Gram moved to Florida, she hadn’t just changed her address.
She wasn’t just wearing new clothes and new shoes and driving a new car.
She wasn’t just suddenly playing a game called pickleball.
Her widow’s bucket list karaoke road trip proved she might have actually become someone new. Someone I never knew she was. And from the way Mom was reacting, someone Mom had never known she was either.
I sort of thought all of it was pretty…cool. But Mom thought all of it was extremely ridiculous.
“And how in the world did this Bible lady get involved in this road trip?” Mom asked, using air quotes for “Bible lady” and letting her voice creep toward the immensely irked level.
Her use of air quotes and a sarcastic nickname for a little old lady proved her evolving exasperation.
“Oh, Mildred?” Gram asked, as if there might be more than one person at Sunny Sandy Shores who could fit the description of “Bible lady.”
“Mildred’s the other Sunshine Sister. My pickleball partner.”
At this point, I laughed. Out loud.
I shouldn’t have.
It was rude.
I didn’t like when people laughed at me.
But the only thing more impossible than picturing Gram singing karaoke or playing a game called pickleball was picturing the tiny, spindly, marionette lady named Mildred playing pickleball with Gram.
But Gram didn’t even get mad at me or scold me for laughing.
She just chuckled and said, “I’m sure it’s a real hoot imagining the two of us out there on the courts, but we just have the best darn time.”
Gram must’ve realized Mom was not finding any hilarity in all of this, because she just kept talking and went on to explain that she couldn’t very well go on the road trip alone, and she didn’t know for sure that Mom and I were coming until a couple weeks ago, so she and Mildred got to talking one Sunday after church, and they came up with the plan.
Gram told us that she’d spent the last few months taking voice lessons to prepare for the Seniors Got Talent karaoke contest put on by the Association of Florida Community Centers taking place all over south Florida. She’d have three chances to qualify for the big final competition taking place at the Florida’s Fun in the Sun County Fair in Borlandsville.
She also told us that Mildred had spent the last few months collecting money to buy Bibles to donate to south Florida’s churches in need.
“So, the two of us thought, why not put our ideas together?”
Then she added, “Mimi actually thinks it’s a divinely inspired plan, and I have to agree.”
I’ll give you ten guesses who didn’t agree, even though you’ll only need one guess.
Mom was just about to say something when her phone rang again.
This time it was Dad. He had been overseas on a work trip when Mom and I left, so I knew Mom wouldn’t want to miss his call.
But, since she was trying to come up with something else to say about everything Gram had just told us, she told me to go in the bedroom and talk to Dad. I was supposed to tell him she’d be there
in a few minutes.
I was glad to have the chance to talk to Dad, especially since he hadn’t been home when Mom and I left, but I was sorry to miss the continuation of the conflict/rumblings of a possible argument erupting between Mom and Gram.
You’re probably dying to know what happens next. That’s what I like about you. You think exactly like me.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
Are chocolate chip cookies still your favorite? If you don’t like them anymore because you’re sick of them, it’s my fault. One of the things that got me through that long, arduous year of sixth grade was baking.
My specialty?
Chocolate chip cookies.
But, truthfully, you should really blame Mom more than me for the number of cookies I both baked and ate.
It started after tennis tryouts. When Mom picked me up, I didn’t even have to tell her about those seven balls I hit over the fence into the softball field or about how many times I double-faulted when it was my turn to serve. She didn’t even have to see my skinned elbow and scraped knee from when I skidded across the court going for an out-of-bounds ball. She could tell by the way I slammed the car door that tennis was definitely not going to be my “thing.”
But you know as well as I do that Mom always has to be eternally cheerful, so after she gave me her most current version of the you’ve-got-to-keep-trying speech, she told me to go home and bake something.
“It’ll be good therapy!” she said sounding as if she was proud of herself for having such a good idea.
Well, even though I don’t like to admit it, because that would mean Mom was right, baking really was good therapy. And that was fortunate for me, because, as you can tell from my earlier letters, as the school year dragged on, I needed a lot of therapy.
Anyway, baking in our kitchen was easy, because at one time Mom had worked in the creative cooking and baking division of Make It, Take It, so our cupboards were full of cookbooks, gadgets, and the best bakeware money could buy.
At first, I tried a few out-of-the-ordinary cupcake and cookie recipes, but soon chocolate chip cookies became my favorite thing to make. I made them so often that I not only memorized Mom’s recipe, but by the end of the school year, I had also figured out a way to vary the ingredients to come up with a chocolate chip cookie that was even better than Mom’s.
So, it didn’t surprise me when I gave Gram a cookie from the tin I’d brought from home, after her first bite she said, “Samantha, these are the best darn cookies I think I’ve ever tasted!”
We were in the kitchen waiting for Mom to get off the phone from her fifth Make It, Take It phone call.
I knew Gram would compliment me on my cookies no matter what. After all, she was my grandma. But I could tell by the way she closed her eyes while she chewed and made a lot of “Mmmmm” sounds that she really did think they were extraordinarily good.
Gram wanted to know what in the world I did to make them taste so good.
But I never got the chance to tell her, because the kitchen door swung open, and Mom appeared.
“What are these?!” she asked, holding up two pill bottles.
Gram’s jaw stopped midchew.
But Mom answered her own question.
“I know for a fact they’re blood pressure and cholesterol medication!”
Gram didn’t say anything.
I wasn’t sure if she didn’t answer Mom because she was scared or because Mom hadn’t really given her a chance.
“You told me there were no issues at your last physical! What reason would you have for keeping something like this from me?”
I don’t know what Gram was thinking, but I was thinking, “Well, Mom, the same reason Tori, Annalise, and I moved the bookshelf in the basement to cover the fruit punch we spilled on the new Berber carpeting.
“And the same reason we hid your good tablecloth after we used it by mistake for a drop cloth when we made tie-dyed T-shirts in the garage.
“Because you freak out too much, Mom!”
When I wrote in the last letter that the widow’s bucket list karaoke Bible-delivery road trip was the craziest thing ever, that was because I didn’t know how much crazier things were going to get.
I had seen Mom upset, angry, exasperated, infuriated, and on and on and on. I mean you should’ve heard her yell the day she moved that bookshelf while cleaning the basement and saw that fruit punch stain on the carpeting. And when Dad showed her the tablecloth after he found it hidden in the garage behind his tool bench… She pretty much went ballistic.
But even I was running out of vocab words to describe how all Gram’s unexpected surprises seemed to be chipping away, little by little, at Mom’s moxie. And now that Mom had found something that really was worthy of worry, I wondered if Gram would get into more trouble than Tori, Annalise, and I had because of the fruit punch spill and the tie-dye-splattered tablecloth.
But even as Mom flipped out, Gram stayed calm.
“There’s nothing wrong with me except old age,” she said. “I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. So what? Who doesn’t?”
“This is not a joke, Mother.” Mom said. “We’re talking about your health.”
Through the controlled calm Mom mustered up on the outside, I could hear the strained annoyance coming through in her voice when she asked, “Is this what’s behind this whole widow’s bucket list nonsense?”
Gram didn’t say anything to that, so Mom kept going and told Gram that this was exactly the kind of reason why she didn’t want Gram moving all the way down here where she couldn’t keep an eye on her.
Once Mom stopped talking, Gram stood up and stared her right in the face.
“You listen to me, sister! I might be old, and you might not think I can handle things now that your dad is gone, but I’m still your mother. And I don’t need your permission to do anything.”
Can you believe Gram said that?!
But it gets even better—listen to this.
Gram took a deep breath, and then moved even closer to Mom and pointed her finger at her, “You just wait until you’re seventy-seven. You’ll know then that you don’t have to be dying to realize you haven’t had the chance to do everything you always wanted to do.”
Then Gram pushed open the kitchen door and walked out, taking her chocolate chip cookie with her. But through the swinging door we heard her say, “And, by the way, my health is fine.”
I don’t know who was more surprised by Gram’s stern scolding and finger wagging—Mom or me.
But it didn’t matter.
It proved that this brand-new Gram, one we’d never seen before, was downright determined. It was obvious that Gram was not going to let anyone or anything stand in the way of who she now was and what she now planned to do.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
You would think that because it took Gram a couple hours to come out of her bedroom, Mom would’ve realized that she should be more agreeable. But sometimes Mom just can’t give in.
When Gram came into the living room and asked us if we wanted to go out for burgers at Chattaway, Mom actually asked, “Do you really think burgers are a good idea with your high cholesterol?”
Was Mom clueless enough to actually think continuing the cholesterol conversation was the right choice?
But Gram wasn’t going to be intimidated.
“Lynette, you’ve made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want me to move to Florida. But I thought when you and Sam made plans to come down here, that you’d finally decided to respect my decision. But if that’s not the case…”
She didn’t finish what she was going to say, and I wondered if she was going to tell Mom that she better shape up or she would send both of us home.
For a few seconds no one talked. Gram and Mom
just looked at each other like they were having a staring contest, and I waited to see who would look away first.
Thankfully, Mom backed down and had the good sense to quit questioning Gram about the wisdom of eating cholesterol-laden hamburgers. She called a truce by telling Gram she was “allowed to worry.”
“You can worry all you want, but you’re not allowed to tell me what to do, especially when it comes to things more important than you can imagine.”
Ouch?!
Chalk one up for Gram, big-time.
“Now let’s go get some juicy red meat, shall we?” Gram said. “I’m famished!”
So, about thirty minutes later, the three of us sat in Gram’s convertible at the Chattaway drive-in restaurant, licking ketchup and mayonnaise and mustard off our fingers as we took huge bites of Chattaway’s famous classic cheeseburgers, while washing it all down with Chattaway chocolate shakes.
The restaurant was shaped like a hamburger, and oldies music played from skinny speakers shaped like french fries. I felt like we were in the middle of an old movie set, and even though Gram wore her three-cornered babushka scarf and her welder sunglasses and she had high blood pressure and high cholesterol and Mom’s internal control freak was undoubtedly still freaking out somewhere below the surface and my first visit to the condo pool had turned out worse than I ever could’ve imagined, it didn’t matter because each juicy bite of my burger and each satisfying slurp of my cool, creamy chocolate shake was quite possibly the best thing I’d ever tasted.
Halfway through her burger, with her mouth full of meat, Gram said, “Isn’t this place just the cat’s meow?”
Mom and I laughed, not only because of what Gram said, but also because Gram had mustard on her cheek and a massive mayonnaise stain on her bright orange T-shirt.
“We’re a mess!” Mom said swiping her chin with a napkin just before burger juice dripped into her lap.
“I told you they were the best, didn’t I?” Gram said laughing.
Mom agreed that it did hit the spot.
I raised up my shake cup, leaned in between the two front seats, and the three of us toasted.
When I Hit the Road Page 3