She's Up to No Good(69)

He looked at me strangely, then laughed. “Whale watching. We’re not hunting an endangered species, you weirdo.”

“Potato, potahto,” I said, but even a faux pas with him felt comfortable, like he was laughing with me instead of at me. “You’ll let me know what time?”

“I’ll text you. Just don’t show up with a harpoon.”

I grinned. “I make no promises.”

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to look back as I walked away.





I was showered and dressed nicely, with blow-dried hair and makeup applied per my grandmother’s insistence by four sharp.

At which time I went to check on her, only to find she was still in a robe and putting on makeup at a small vanity table.

“I thought you said four?”

“I didn’t. I said four thirty.”

I took a deep breath. There was no point in arguing with her. I sat on the bed and watched as she applied eyeliner, sighed heavily, then wiped it off with cold cream and tried again. “Can I help?”

I expected to be rebuffed, but she held the pencil out to me without a word. She closed her eyes, and I bent, pulling gently at the corner of her wrinkled lid to get a straight line, then did the other eye. She turned to the mirror and moved her face from side to side, examining my work. There would be no punches pulled if it didn’t meet her standards.

“How do you make your eyebrows look like that?” she asked eventually, examining me in the mirror. “I have almost none left.”

I looked at her face. She wasn’t wrong. “Let me get my brow kit.”

She held up her pencil. “I have this.”

I looked at it and shook my head. “We’ll use my kit.” I went and grabbed it from the upstairs bathroom, then drew on brows for her as naturally as I could. They were too dark for her hair, which had been my color when she was young, then had been gradually dyed a sandy blonde rather than allowed to go gray. But she preened in front of the mirror, admiring them.

“I look so glamourous. Like a movie star.” I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was that the movie star was Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest.

“Where are we going tonight, anyway?” The last time I saw her this done up was for my cousin Amy’s wedding.

“You’ll see,” she said, applying the bright fuchsia lipstick that all women seem to be issued at eighty.

“Why do you never tell me anything?”

“I tell you plenty. You’re impatient, that’s your problem.”

“I thought I was boring.”

“It’s all the same problem. The excitement comes from not knowing.” She stood and removed her robe, revealing only a pair of literal granny panties.

“I’ll let you get dressed,” I said, exiting quickly. Not that modesty had been a trait of hers when she was younger, but no shreds of any that once existed remained now.

It was nearly five before my grandmother emerged, and I had dozed off on the sofa. “Are you sleeping? We’ll be late.” She shook her head at me.

“Aren’t we already?” I checked the time on my phone.

“No. We need to be there at five.”

“Then why did you tell me four thirty?”

“I never said four thirty.”

I sighed, picking up my purse.





“How do I look?” she asked as we approached the restaurant that she directed me to.

“You look fabulous, Grandma.” I found myself wondering if Tony was inside. But would she drag me along for that?

We stepped into the cool blast of air conditioning, only to be assailed by dozens of voices as a crowd swelled forward, swallowing my grandmother.

I took an instinctive step backward, bumping into the door. There were people everywhere, and she was hugging them all. I stayed put until I nearly fell when an older couple opened the door behind me, then pushed past me to embrace my grandmother.

“Darlings,” she said, her voice silencing the group as she gestured to me. “This is my Jenna.”

Suddenly the crowd was on me, hugging, kissing my cheeks, holding me out at arm’s length to admire me and pronounce me the very image of “Aunt Evelyn.”

“You’re . . . cousins?” I asked.

The woman who was patting my cheek laughed. “Of course we are,” she said. “I’m your cousin Laney.”

Grandma appeared at my side, her grip firm on my arm as she led me from person to person, introducing me to the whole room. They all looked vaguely similar, the Bergman genetics dominant, but there were too many of them for me to retain names. I recognized Donna, but the rest overwhelmed me.

We were eventually seated around banquet tables in a private room. I tried to count how many people there were, but they kept getting up to talk to each other, and they looked so much alike I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t counting anyone twice.

“These are your brothers’ and sisters’ kids and grandkids?” I asked my grandmother. She nodded, content in her role as reigning queen of the room. “There are so many of them.”

She laughed. “Well, darling, there were seven of us. Granted, only six had children.” She paused for a moment, clearly remembering Vivie, who died at twenty-one. But she shook her head, and the mood passed. “This isn’t even everyone. Just the people in the general Boston area.”