He hooks his thumb at a statue of Shakespeare. “He thinks exes are rubbish.”
“He killed most of his heroes and heroines,” I point out. “Hello, tragedy?”
“Like I said, rubbish.”
As we pass stone replicas of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns, the great debate rages on, until he walks me all the way home, where he gives me a hug outside my building and says goodbye.
Later that night, as I read in detail the magazine page Stella gave me, our debate gives me a brilliant idea.
A brilliant idea that might solve a big, hairy problem.
8SUMMER
I wave the magazine page at Maggie. “I should do this, right?”
“Darn straight you should do it.” My grandmother, also my roommate, affirms my decision as she slices off the top of another strawberry with precision, and slides the red fruit to the edge of the cutting board.
“I mean, this is tailor-made for me.”
Another slice, another cut. She drops a handful of berries into the blender. “It’s as if it was written for you.” She holds up the knife to make her point. “Just for you.”
I back away. “Mags, put the knife down.”
“I have excellent vision and dexterity, you know.”
“This isn’t about your vision or dexterity, you crazy old bat,” I say playfully. “It’s about you wielding a sharp knife.”
“Impudent whippersnapper,” she mutters under her breath, but I smile at her teasing. She sets down the knife, drops the rest of the strawberries into the blender, then hits the crush button.
As the machine pulverizes the fruit, she chatters above the noise. “In any case, you’ve always loved contests, and you’ve always excelled at them, so you should do it.”
She hits end with the panache of a former professional cheerleader.
Because that’s what she is. This seventy-five-year-old babe shook her pom-poms and backflipped her way from the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders to a forty-year career as a cheer coach and a trophy case full of well-deserved bling.
“But you could also let me fund your gym,” she adds like she’s trying to entice me into her car with candy.
“No way.” I shake my head and gesture to her rent-controlled two-bedroom Upper West Side palace. “You barely charge me rent. You’ve already made it possible for me to save a ton of money and live in one of the world’s most expensive cities on an activity manager’s salary. No way am I taking the cash from you.”
“But the offer stands.”
“And I appreciate it, but my answer is still no. I want to do this on my own.”
“Always digging your heels in.” She rubs my back gently. “I know you don’t like to accept help. And I know it’s because you think your mom should have kept working instead of quitting her job to help your dad.”
“Well,” I say, straightening my spine, “she gave up her own career managing a bookstore when his company took off. And she always reminds him.”
I love my parents madly. They have a great marriage, and they raised me with love. But every now and then when I was growing up, my mom made little comments about how proud she was of the success his consulting company was having, in part because she quit her job to support him.
I don’t ever want to be the person who quits.
The one who has to remind the other that she did.
Or the one who maybe wishes she hadn’t quit. Because I suspect that’s what’s behind her little asides.
Maggie tilts her head with a skeptical look. “Always reminds him?”
“It feels often to me,” I say, then I wave a hand breezily.
She pours her concoction into two glasses and slides one to me, then whispers, “I have an extra thousand under the mattress. C’mon. Take it.”
“Please tell me you don’t keep money under the mattress.”
“Mattress. Bank. Same thing.”
I shake my head. “Nope. You didn’t fund Logan’s business. You’re not funding mine. Besides, I’ll either win this contest or nab a loan.”
She takes a long swig of her smoothie, and I do the same. Then I nearly spit it out as my tongue rebels against the taste. “This is the worst one ever. What did you put in it?”
“Wheatgrass.”
“You do know grass is what dogs eat when they need to barf?”
She laughs. “Wheatgrass is very popular in healthy beverages.”
“No. Just no. Wheatgrass is wrong. It’s grass, Mags. Grass.”
She gives me a look like I deserve to be sent to my room for impudence. “It’s good for you. Keeps you healthy. And I need to replenish after my workout. By the way, I killed it at my bike-training session today. Mildred and Octavia had nothing on me. I left them in the dust in Central Park,” she says, then heads to the living room, where she grabs her phone and, judging from the beeping sounds, returns to her Words with Friends game.
