Tips for Living(45)
Thirty minutes later, I was driving up the tree-lined drive of The Cedars, a collection of sprawling stone buildings set atop a wooded hill. The largest had a castle-like arched entrance (albeit with wheelchair ramp and automated doors), balustrades and multiple chimneys. Think Manderley in Hitchcock’s Rebecca. The developers purchased the thirty-two-acre compound in 1973 during the first US oil crisis, probably for a song. It was a Buddhist monastery in a previous incarnation, and before that a Jesuit one. But the heating bills daunted even austere monks who dialed their thermostats down and exalted their shivering.
Going from the visitors lot to the main building required an uphill hike along a cedar-chip path that cut through a large stand of cedar trees. The preppy young sales rep had pushed the cedar thing heavily when I’d attended the open house.
“The Cedars was named for the magnificent cedar tree—worshipped in ancient Sumeria,” she said. “We’ve planted one hundred fifty cedars around the main building. We want the trees to be an inspiration for our residents. It’s often called The Tree of Life and can live to be one thousand years old.”
“I don’t expect my aunt will be interested in living nearly that long,” I’d said.
She ignored me and went on with her sales pitch.
“We’ve added three other buildings in the same architectural style for a total of one hundred twenty beautiful apartments, all with the option of supervised home care. Residents and their loved ones can feel secure knowing there’s an on-site clinic, rehab center and hospice.”
At $75,000 a year. Plus extra for the clinic, rehab and hospice. At least Lada had quit smoking the Balkan Sobranies, which would improve her chances of staying healthy. The challenge was how to afford to keep helping her pay for her longevity.
I entered the lobby, a grand oak-paneled room with a sweeping wooden staircase and two giant, intricately carved fireplaces you could walk into if you got the urge to self-immolate.
Yvonne, the sunny, buxom Jamaican receptionist fond of hair accessories, waved from the front desk. Shiny orange and yellow beads bounced at the ends of her dreadlocks as she moved her head. A carved wooden turkey wearing a pilgrim’s hat stood on the counter next to her. NO FOWL LANGUAGE read the sign that hung around its intact neck. I wondered if Yvonne had caught me on the news and how she’d react.
“Ah, Nora, dare ya are.”
“Hi, Yvonne. How’ve you been?”
“The lord shinin’ his love on me. Giving me extra shifts. Yourself?”
Yvonne seemed unaware of my drama. She was probably much too busy to watch television with all the hours she worked.
“Good. I’m good. How is my aunt?”
“She’s been missing ya. Acting a bit spacey. Mostly she go to a happy place, but sometime she go paranoid. She call security yesterday evening. Say someone stole her can opener. Turns out she put it in her refrigerator.”
It was always a blame game with Lada lately. Always a mysterious “someone” responsible for petty crimes against her. But there’d been nothing really alarming yet.
“Here you go, child. Sign on the line,” Yvonne said, pushing the registration book toward me before she buzzed Lada’s apartment.
I be no child, I thought, tracking the brown spot on my hand as I wrote my name. Was that a freckle or a liver spot? Whenever I came to The Cedars, my fears of aging bubbled up.
“Nobody home. Try de Panic Room,” Yvonne said, hanging up the in-house phone.
That was what residents had dubbed their lounge area, the place they went when they couldn’t bear spending any more time alone in their apartments but didn’t have the energy to entertain.
“If I invite people over, I’ve got to serve coffee and a nosh, at least. Then I have to clean up after them,” Lada told me. “Old age takes it out of you, Nora. Syakomu ovoshchu svoyo vremya. Every vegetable has its time. Mine is over. I’m rotting in the bin.”
My heart broke when I heard her talk like that. I wished I had something to say to make her feel better—some sage advice, some really useful tips for living. But Mad as Hell was right. I was glib. If Ben had published the letter and I had the guts to be totally honest, I would have written this response:
Dear Mad as Hell,
Here’s why I write the column in the way that I do: I’m covering up for the fact that I have no idea how to deal with the reality of people’s pain and fragility. I don’t have a fucking clue how to help with my own, let alone theirs.
Nora Glasser, alias Total Fraud.
I thanked Yvonne and took the elevator to the second floor, where I walked down a corridor whose walls featured decorative paper cutouts of smiling Native Americans in headdresses, pilgrims and cornucopias. The Cedars wasn’t exactly politically correct. My spirits lifted as they always did as soon as I entered the Panic Room. It reminded me of New York’s Algonquin Hotel—the dark wooden paneling, clusters of high-backed Edwardian chairs, antique tea tables and velvet couches. Back when I lived in the city, I used to hang out in the lobby of the famous old hotel for inspiration. I’d imagine Dorothy Parker and her New Yorker friends trading witty stories at their Round Table luncheons there.
The Panic Room was full of character, but it was also redolent with the stink of mothballs—all those wool sweaters and shawls that residents had pulled out of storage with the arrival of the cold weather. Surprisingly, the cedar-obsessed owners hadn’t installed cedar closets when they renovated. My nose started running from the sickly sweet odor of naphthalene.