They May Not Mean To, But They Do(58)

“Of course she does, honey. So do you,” Freddie whispered back. “So do I. It’s been just a few months.”

“No, I mean Karl.”

Freddie started to say that was unlikely, but then wondered. “You think she’s like my father?”

Molly, obviously offended, said, “She’s lonely and vulnerable. That’s all.”

“It’s probably pretty boring for her here.”

Molly had tried to interest her mother in gardening. She offered to get raised beds if Joy wanted to grow vegetables. Molly did not like gardening, but she saw no reason that her mother shouldn’t, and if that meant fresh Tuscan kale and artichokes on Molly’s table, so much the better. “It’s very spiritual, Mom,” she’d said. “Working with the soil.” She wished her mother had shown even a little initiative, if not with vegetables, then with flowers. They had a rosebush out front that was not doing at all well.

“She’s always on the phone,” she whispered to Freddie. “And she’s secretive.”

She thought it was usually Daniel, sometimes Natalie or one of the other girls. But it could be Karl, for all she really knew.

“She probably misses her cronies, her routine. Old people like routine. That’s what they keep telling me at Dad’s place. That’s one of the things they can’t understand about him. He hates routine.”

Molly kissed Freddie. “That’s it! You are a genius. We’ll take her to visit your father. She’ll see her peers and feel less lonely. We’ll take her to Green Goddess!”

*

Joy sat glumly in the backseat. The thin end of the wedge. The way they talked this place up, as if it were a resort in the Caribbean—it had happened to her friends, but she had not really expected this from Molly, her own daughter.

“I plan to go back to work in the fall,” she said.

“One day at a time,” Molly answered.

The parking lot seemed to be home to a number of cats.

“Pets are allowed,” Freddie said, “but the cats are feral.”

The building was pink stucco. The rooms had small balconies. In the center of an inner courtyard a fountain bubbled, and there was a front desk like a hotel. The whole place felt like a hotel, actually, a small hotel just a bit down at the heels.

“Not bad, right?” Freddie said.

Joy gave a weak smile.

They had lunch in the dining room. Joy was alarmed by the bibs the residents wore, but the food was quite good. She had never met Freddie’s father before this, which struck all of them as odd.

“Where have they been hiding you?” Duncan asked.

“I live in New York City.” It felt good just to say that: I live in New York.

“What are you doing here with these two harridans?”

“We thought it would be nice for you two to meet, that’s all,” Freddie said.

Joy felt something on her knee. A hand.

“Well, it’s about time, says I,” the owner of the hand said. He gave Joy his handsome smile.

Joy shifted, freeing her knee. “Oh yes.”

A woman at a nearby table was glaring at her. Joy took a bite of her tuna-fish sandwich. The hand returned to her knee. She felt her throat closing and thought, What if I choke and die with my daughter’s father-in-law’s hand on my knee?

“So when did you move into Green Acres?” Duncan said.

“Excuse me?”

“She doesn’t live here, Dad. She’s staying with us.”

“Green Acres? That’s a good one,” Molly said.

“Remember Zsa Zsa Gabor?” Joy said. “Those were the days.”

“That was Eva Gabor.”

“Sweet girl, Zsa Zsa,” said Duncan. “We worked together. Years ago, years ago.”

As Duncan described an obscure movie in which he had an even more obscure part, Joy noticed Freddie raising an eyebrow at Molly. They exchanged just noticeable smirks. Joy kicked Molly under the table, which had the advantage of also dislodging Duncan’s hand.

“A little respect,” Joy said, first to Molly, then to Freddie’s father. “A little respect.”

“Nothing will come of nothing,” said Duncan in his rich and sonorous voice. He tried his smile again.

“Wasn’t that fun, Mom?” Molly asked as they drove home. “Jesus, Freddie, do you actually aim for the potholes?”

Freddie laughed.

Freddie really was good-natured, Joy thought. “Your father is a ball of fire,” she said. She would not mention the hand. What would be the point?

“Never underestimate a minor character actor,” Freddie said. “It’s already been done. Their whole life.”

“Who was that woman who tried to trip us with her walker?” said Molly.

Freddie shrugged. “One of his girlfriends?”

“I’m sure that was an accident,” said Joy. But Green Garden was even more frightening than she had imagined.

*

Joy leaned on the grocery cart, weary in body and soul. It was an expensive, trendy grocery store, the kind of grocery store in which half the children were probably not vaccinated against measles. Molly examined a small ugly root vegetable.

“I think you girls deserve some privacy,” Joy said. “You’ve been so hospitable.” She had tried this before but gotten nowhere, and this time, too, Molly smiled an abstracted smile and said, “Don’t worry about it, Mom.”