The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(40)
That was the year I rounded the corner on eighty-eight, and was feeling it. It got so that I’d turn on television and watch the Today Show just to see Willard Scott put on pictures of folks who were one hundred years old. He always told how spry they were and it was a real encouragement. Let me tell you, when a person gets to be one hundred, they deserve to be on television. Destiny used to say when I turned one hundred we were going to NorfolkBeach and swim naked. She claimed she was going to take a picture of me swimming naked and that’s the one she was sending to Willard Scott. “He wants spry?” she’d say, “We’ll give him spry!” That was her way; she’d start up about some little thing, maybe even something you didn’t think was all that funny, but once she got to laughing and carrying on, you jumped on the bandwagon. That day she said we’d go over to the Atlantic Ocean and swim naked, I laughed so hard I wet my bloomers.
For Christmas that year, I wanted to get Destiny something really special, so I asked her what she might like to have. As good as she’d been to me, she could have asked for a brand-new Cadillac car and I’d have gotten it, but instead she tells me she’d really like this book published by the Audubon Society of America. “Excuse me?” I said, like I wasn’t hearing her right.
“The Waterbirds of Florida,” Destiny repeated.
“That’s it? A book on waterbirds?”
Destiny nodded. “I saw this TV show about them. The announcer said they’re the most beautiful creatures on earth.”
“Waterbirds?”
“Yes indeed. They’re so long-legged and graceful. Why, just watching them makes a person feel like flying.” Destiny jumped up and twirled around the room flapping her arms. “Imagine,” she sang out, “being a pink flamingo!”
I started chuckling at her antics.
“Try it,” she said. “Just close your eyes and pretend you’re all decked out in pink feathers. Picture yourself standing on one leg alongside a blue lagoon, your long neck stretched out and your head held high.”
I had problems standing with both feet planted on the ground, so of course I couldn’t imagine such a thing, but Destiny sure could.
That Christmas I gave Destiny a cashier’s check for twenty-five thousand dollars and a first-class trip for both of us to go see those waterbirds. She gave me a pink feather boa and a nightgown to match. That day we drank eggnog and laughed ‘till our sides hurt. Then when we run out of laughing, we watched A Christmas Carol on television.
Elliott can say Destiny was out for all she could get, but when I gave her that check she told me she couldn’t accept such a thing and she said it like a person who was adamant about their intent. I pretty much expected she’d react that way, which is why I bought a cashier’s check. “Destiny, it’s money already paid out,” I told her, “and, not a soul in the world but you can cash that check!” Of course, we went back and forth over it a bit, but when I got teary-eyed and started telling her how I was an old lady who had few pleasures in life other than giving a gift to someone I truly did love, Destiny threw up her hands and started laughing.
“Okay!” she said. “I’ll keep the money! Just don’t start torturing me with that old and pitiful routine of yours!” She came over and hugged me so hard I thought my ribs would split open.
We flew off to Florida two days later and when we landed in Palm Beach, Destiny rented a convertible car so we could feel the wind in our hair. We stayed in the Breakers Hotel, one of the finest you could possibly imagine, and on New Year’s Eve we called room service and ordered up a bottle of champagne to celebrate while we watched the carrying on in Times Square on television. If you can believe it, Destiny brought a bottle of hot hot pink nail polish and painted my toenails to match my nightgown. I got so tickled watching her brush that bright pink on my toes, I thought I’d explode. As we sat there watching the ball of lights drop down, I told her, “Destiny, I never dreamed I’d live to see a new millennium.”
She said, “Maybe this would be the time to take that swimming naked picture!”
Of course, I wasn’t about to do any such thing. So instead, she set the automatic timer on her camera and took a picture of the two of us with our hot pink toenails and a glass of champagne. After we got back home, she had that picture framed and I kept it sitting on my dresser.
Looking back, I wish I had gone swimming naked.
The following February was when I found out about the cancer. It’s not like you wake up one morning and boom, you’ve got a serious case of cancer. It sneaks up on you. Ever since last summer I’d been having backaches and feeling like my stomach was aggravated. A number of times Destiny suggested that I go see Doctor Birnbaum and have it checked out, but I always pooh-poohed the idea. “A person my age is bound to have certain ailments,” I told her. Then one Tuesday I woke up with my stomach feeling real bitter sour; the night before I hadn’t eaten a thing outside of some chicken soup and I knew my stomach couldn’t be soured over that! I called Destiny and told her that maybe she was right about going to the doctor.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes!” she said and hung up the telephone.
Before she made it over to my house, I started throwing up the most God-awful stuff anybody could imagine, black and course, like week-old coffee grinds. When Destiny got there she took one look at that pasty-white face of mine and shuffled me off to Doctor Birnbaum, without even an appointment.