Another Day as Emily (7 page)

Grandma O’Dell was Grandma Fludd’s mother—

and therefore my mom’s grandmother.

My great-grandmother.

“She was wonderful,” Mom says.

“She took me to afternoon tea

at fancy hotels.

We both wore hats and gloves.

She taught me Broadway show tunes.

She took me to New York City twice

on the train.

But, oh my, she gave the oddest presents.”

“Must run in the family,” I say.

“I threw a lot of the stuff away,” Mom says.

“But some I dumped in this box.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Then last week Grandma Fludd found the box

in her storage bin and gave it to me.”

“How come you didn’t ditch it at the airport?”

Mom’s eyes get shiny.

“Because you don’t ditch your treasures.”

Mom tells me she would give anything

“to be having tea with Grandma O’Dell again,

opening odd little gifts:

a Daffy Duck change purse,

a pig made of tiny seashells …”

I interrupt:

“A pair of clip-on earrings

shaped like saguaros?”

I take my black dress shoes

(which I hardly ever wear)

out of their box.

I line the box with tissue paper.

I put the clip-ons in the box.

Also the comb shaped like an alligator

that Grandma Fludd sent me for Easter.

And the plastic jelly beans.

“This is my treasure box,”

I tell Ottilie.

“From my grandmother.”

Ottilie swims to the surface,

puckers her mouth.

That’s Ottilie-speak for

“Where’s my fish flakes?”

After church on Sunday,

Mrs. Harden invites me over

to work on her 1,000-piece puzzle.

She’s got a card table

set up in her living room.

Puzzle pieces lie in heaps

in each corner.

“You work that side, Suzy,”

she tells me.

The picture on the puzzle box

is of three crows

sitting on a clothesline.

I tell Mrs. Harden how

Mrs. Bagwell chased after

that crow with her flyswatter.

Mrs. Harden says: “Lucky for her

that crow didn’t swoop down

and land on her head.”

Now that’s a puzzle picture

I’d like to work on!

An hour is about all we can take

of puzzle-making.

We stop for lemonade.

Mrs. Harden asks about Grandma Fludd.

I tell her Grandma Fludd is doing fine.

I tell her about the saguaro earrings

and my new treasure box.

Mrs. Harden grabs my hand.

“I have a treasure box too.

Come see!”

Mrs. Harden’s treasure box is not a box at all.

It’s a small trunk in her spare room,

and it’s filled:

Her own baby quilt, hand-stitched by an aunt.

A Little Lulu doll.

Three packets of letters tied with string.

A stack of report cards.

(Mrs. Harden was a straight-? student.

I’m straight ?—except for my A in English.)

A navy blue sweater Mrs. Harden knitted

for her husband on their first anniversary.

The wooden bird I painted for her when I was six.

Her father’s old deflated football.

A white dress with a lace collar.

“Is that your wedding dress?” I ask.

“No,” says Mrs. Harden. “I was married

in a gray suit. This dress belonged to

my mother. She wore it to her

high school graduation.”

“It’s very pretty,” I say—even though

I’m not a fan of dresses.

I can’t remember the last time I wore one.

Mom works for Dr. Ellis,

former dean of Ridgley Community College.

She’s his part-time personal assistant.

This morning she’s about to go over to his house.

Parker whines to go along.

Sometimes Mom takes him.

Dr. Ellis lets Parker build forts and firehouses

with his many hundreds of books

as long as Parker promises

to be careful with each one.

Dr. Ellis says that’s how he came

to love books,

by building walls and castles

with his own father’s collection.

Mom tells Parker: “Not today.”

Parker flops onto the floor.

He rolls.

He kicks his feet in the air

like a bug.

He shrieks.

Until I say:

“What kind of superhero does that?”

Later, Parker’s friend Franky

invites Parker over to play.

Dad has a class to prepare.

Mrs. Harden is off to

her doctor’s appointment.

Alison is at her hip-hop lesson.

I decide to wash my bike.

Gilbert walks past.

I call out: “Hey, Gilbert.”

“Hey, Suzy.”

I want to tell Gilbert

I don’t believe for one second

that he took Mrs. Bagwell’s ring.

I want to tell him I miss the whistling.

I want to tell him I snipped some

of the mint he gave to Mrs. Harden

and am rooting it in a jar

on my windowsill.

But ever since Alison

made a joke about me liking Gilbert

as a boyfriend,

I’ve gotten a little shy around him.

And neither of us has mentioned

ice cream lately.

When Mom comes home from Dr. Ellis’s,

I tell her I’ll need a bag lunch

for Tween Time tomorrow.

She tells me there’s egg salad in the fridge.

Of course I can make my own lunch.

My dinner too.

But Mom was in Arizona for weeks,

and I’m kind of in the mood

for a little pampering.

Then Parker hops onto Mom’s lap.

“I want Smileys,” he says.

Smileys are oatmeal cookies

with happy raisin faces.

“I’ll make some tonight,”

Mom tells him.

“Anything for the little hero,”

I say under my breath.

The Tween Time plan for the day

is a “surprise” field trip.

Alison and I bring permission slips

and bag lunches.

Ms. Mott collects our lunches

in a big wicker basket.

She jabs at the air with

her closed parasol.

“Off we go,” she says,

still not telling us where we’re going.

Alison groans. “It’s a picnic.

I hate picnics. All those bugs.”

“It’ll be fun,” I say.

The boy asks Ms. Mott:

“Where are we going?”

“To Old Elm Cemetery,” Ms. Mott says.

Alison hisses in my ear. “Cemetery?
Fun?

Did you say fun?”

I say: “Okay … interesting.”

Old Elm Cemetery

is a fifteen-minute walk

from the library.

Dad has talked about it,

but I’ve never been there

till now.

It’s pretty, really.

Old trees.

Tall hedges.

Flowering bushes.

Mossy marble stones.

Ms. Mott spreads

a red-checkered tablecloth.

We sit in a circle

eating our lunches.

Alison swats a bee

from her cupcake.

Ms. Mott tells us

how people in the 1800s

used to picnic here,

because there weren’t

many open spaces

for the public back then.

A cemetery was like a park.

She says: “Some people came

just to be near loved ones

who had died.

They found it comforting.

Some people came

just for the quiet.”

Suddenly

Alison shrieks:

“Holy tamales!

I think

I just bit into a bug!”