Here she comes, running across the street in very short white shorts and a blue tank jersey, each piece skimpier than a proper lady’s underthings. Her name’s Nina, the same name as my great niece, my step-daughter-in-law, and my granddaughter’s best friend. This Nina, my grandson’s wife, is carrying my three-year-old great-granddaughter like a football.
I manage to stand before she has opened the front door to their sparse, listing, all but unfurnished Cape Cod. “Hello dear.”
“Helen, I’m sorry you were waiting. Was the flight exhausting? God, it’s hot.” After she’s put the baby down, who runs off to another part of the house (No, “Hello, Grandmamma”), Nina kisses my cheek. She truly kisses it. Almost thirty-years-old and no subtlety.
“Did your taxi driver carry your suitcase to the back room? I told you not to worry. The cabbies are harmless.”
She leads me into the dreary kitchen and I sit in a hard wooden chair at the table. She pours me ice tea and jabbers about Evie (her baby, my great-grand-daughter.) She prattles about the play-date, the traffic, the heat. On and on, she tells me that Evie needs a nap. Despite the heat, Evie will sleep for two hours, Nina says. She’s got both her children on a schedule so she can write in the afternoon.
The girl talks too much. In fact, she’s still at it. She’s not altogether intolerable, though, once one gets used to her. My grandson William (if I don’t remind myself it’s his house, I might mistake him when he returns home for my own son, Peter.) William could have done worse.
“Sorry the chairs are so uncomfortable,” she says. “Not that anything could be comfortable in this heat.”
Would I like a sandwich? Some fruit? She knows I don’t like sweets but wonders if I would eat a few cookies.
Then she winks to let me know that she’s well aware that I don’t like sweets, but knows, too, that I enjoy saying so.
My father sold candy on railroad trains. Chocolate, peppermint, horehound? I find them unappetizing.
Don’t I find air-traveling wearying? ( I have no idea if she uses old-fashioned words just for me or always.) “Even if you hadn’t taken a cab to O’Hare, a jet to LaGuardia, and a cab here, who wouldn’t be tired in this heat? Who would want to be unconscious?”
“Really, Helen, rest for a few hours. The back bedroom has an overhead fan.”
“I’m fine, dear.” (If I lie down now, I’ll only have difficulty getting up again.)
“Do you mind waiting while I get Evie settled? It won’t take me more than fifteen minutes.”
I can hear her through the nursery’s closed door. She’s reading the girl a fairy tale. No need for me to keep those straight. My son, Peter, this Nina’s husband William’s father is sixty-five. When Peter (These details I must hold fast) was a child, our girl Bessie prepared him for bed. I tucked him in.
Now that the baby’s napping, Nina’s at the refrigerator, barefoot. She pours an entire glass of iced-tea down her throat and then pours a refill. Would I like more? Not waiting for an answer, she fills my glass.
“You look beautiful, Helen,” she says, “but aren’t you hot? “Let me get you a T-shirt, and a long, loose skirt, so you can relax.”
No way to squeeze in a word: Thank you for admiring my new silk suit; it required no tailoring. Everyone grows old, but at least I’m slender
She’s telling me it’s too hot to sit in long silk sleeves, buttoned-up, an Hermes scarf hiding my wrinkled neck. No, she doesn’t say “wrinkled neck,” but neither of us is oblivious it. This girl and I communicate more than we want, and not by talking. Her eyes flash and she shifts her weight. I feel my lips purse; a gesture that most of my life has prompted men to attend to my preferences. Until lately, I probably didn’t direct it at women. But it softens Nina, eliciting a kind smile. Kind, even if I can tell that she knows my pout is not spontaneous.
“Come on, Helen, let me get you a long slip so you can relax.” Nina’s voice grows enthusiastic and then dips into intimacy. Otherwise she might sound condescending. She’s sensitive to this, which I admit is distinctly more subtle than air-kissing. “Wouldn’t it feel great,” she breathes deeply, “ to take off your shoes and stockings?”
“I’m quite all right, Nina, thank you.”
“A T-shirt and long gauze skirt are perfectly modest, Helen. And I promise to give you plenty of time before Billy gets home.”
As I said, we read each other too well: Tell-tale adjustments in posture, the tilt of the head. Imagine if she could signal people’s relationships to me, and their names. This Nina’s always the first to notice if I’m confusing one generation for another. So why can’t she offer the pertinent details via that sly wink? Instead, she makes announcements.. Fortunately, the others are quiescent. She can prattle on and on, but nobody listens to her. In all likelihood, she knows that, too. No one listens to her except me.
This is one bead in a bracelet of stories. Click here to read the next.
