Hope and Other Punch Lines(40)

“You know Cat and I aren’t as close these days. You should try Ramona or Kylie. They’ll know if something is going on with her,” I say, because it occurs to me that I might be doing the opposite of protecting Cat by not saying she was drunk. Maybe her mom knowing more would be a good thing.

Mel doesn’t answer, though, because my grandmother wanders into the kitchen. The left side of her long paisley nightgown is tucked into her underpants. She’s barefoot and agitated. A woman in a uniform follows closely behind—her new aide, who seems unfazed by the fact that my grandmother is flashing thigh.

My grandma looks first at my mother, then at Mel, and then finally at me. There’s an emphatic gathering of her shoulders, an enraged arch to her eyebrows, as if she is about to let loose with an inexplicable tirade, but then a sudden blankness descends on her face. She turns around and walks away as quickly as her body will allow. The aide follows.

“Not our best day,” my mom says.

If I weren’t so horrified, if I hadn’t just experienced my grandmother looking right through me and seeing whom, I don’t know, I’d laugh. Because not our best day is, if not a white lie, a complete perversion of the right words, She’s having a bad day, and so perfectly encapsulates everything you need to know about my mother.

And probably now me too.



* * *



—

Mel leaves and I go upstairs to my room. As I walk by my grandmother’s closed door, I tell myself that she’s likely sleeping, that it’s not a good time for a visit. I tell myself that I don’t like to see people on my bad days either.

My phone beeps with a text from Noah, and I flush with an embarrassing amount of joy.


Noah: Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?

Me: Why?

Noah: Because their p is silent!

Me: Groan

Noah: I’m sorry about this afternoon

Me: What’s there to be sorry about?

Noah: Just everything…including that pterodactyl joke

Me: What are you doing right now? Besides texting me

Noah: Watching stand-up clips. You?

Me: Lying on my bed reading the poems taped to my ceiling

Noah: That’s cool. I know nothing about poetry

Me: I know nothing about comedy

Noah: Want to get a burger after camp on Thursday? My treat. It will be an I’m sorry I’m an ass burger

Me: I don’t really like ass burgers

Noah: Well done

Noah: Pun intended

Me: See you Thursday for burgers, ass on the side

Me: Ugh, I totally take that back. For the record, I wasn’t trying for innuendo

Me: I meant since I didn’t want “ass burgers,” I just wanted burgers

Me: Never mind

Me: I’m going to stop texting now

Noah: Ha! You text exactly the way you talk

Me: I am a champion babbler, apparently, in all forms

Noah: I wouldn’t put it that way. I think you have a lot to say. I want to hear it

Me: You sure are stealthy with that charm, Noah Stern

Noah: See you tomorrow, Abbi Goldstein





To: Vic Dempsey ([email protected])


    From: Noah Stern ([email protected])


   Subject: Baby Hope photograph 2001



Dear Mr. Dempsey, Thank you so much for your prompt response to my request for an interview. Unfortunately, it turns out “Baby Hope” is unable to attend as originally promised. I very much hope you will not cancel on that account. I guarantee that our conversation will be as quick and painless as possible. Thanks in advance for your time.

Sincerely, Noah Stern EIC of the Oakdale High Free Press





To: Noah Stern ([email protected])


    From: Vic Dempsey ([email protected])


   Subject: Re: Baby Hope photograph 2001



No problem on the Baby Hope front. To be honest, I’m relieved. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve inadvertently ruined her life.

Vic





My grandma is sleeping. My mom and I eat dinner at the kitchen island, chicken lo mein and beef and broccoli straight out of the cartons, and as usual, we trade halfway through. One of the perks of my being the only child of divorced parents: we get to keep things less formal because we are only a party of two.

“What was that about?” I ask.

My mom is nursing a glass of red wine, and her faraway eyes are back.

“What?” she asks. After work, my mom always changes into her exercise clothes. Today, she’s in runner’s tights and a tank top and her hair is pulled into her usual perky ponytail.

No doubt she ran before dinner, as she does most evenings. A five-mile loop through the outskirts of Oakdale. She prefers the residential side streets to the more popular runner’s trail along the water, the one where you can see all of downtown Manhattan. We’ve come far enough from 9/11 that these views have again become a selling point for our town.

“What did Mel say to you?” I ask.

“Apparently Cat has been acting out. I told her it was typical adolescence. Probably also some delayed grief working its way to the surface.” My mother takes a bite, and a noodle clings to her lip. I can hear the low whistle of my grandmother snoring from behind the closed door of her room. A soothing sound, her good or bad day rendered irrelevant by sleep.