Change of Scene: A 100 Page Novella (9 page)

After the tour, Greer sat anxiously outside the director’s office while Mrs. Horan and a staff physician’s assistant interviewed Dearie.

*

“I think your grandmother will be very happy here,” Mrs. Horan told Greer as she handed over a stack of paperwork to be filled out.

“I think so, too,” Greer said. “I was just wondering about the fees.…”

She blanched when the administrator quoted the monthly figure Dearie would be assessed. The number was almost a thousand dollars more than they’d paid at Pleasant Point. Dearie’s savings and her small insurance policy would just barely cover the cost at Vista Haven, with precious little left over to cover extras.

“One thing I wanted to mention,” Mrs. Horan said. “The unit we have available for Dearie—well, it isn’t technically available just yet. It’s what we call a sub-studio. It’s very cozy. She’ll have a bed and a sitting area, and her private bath, of course.”

“Just how cozy is it?”

Mrs. Horan hesitated. “Not quite eight hundred square feet. But we’re installing new carpet.”

“Does it have a window?”

“Um, no.”

Greer smiled pleasantly. “You’ve never used this unit for a resident before, have you, Mrs. Horan?”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s a windowless cell. All the other rooms you showed me have windows, and they’re much larger than the one you’re offering Dearie. Isn’t that correct?”

“The other units are slightly larger, that’s true. But this sub-studio is still perfectly adequate.”

Greer leaned forward. “Mrs. Horan, you’re proposing to charge my grandmother almost a thousand dollars a month more than she was paying at her last address, for a unit that’s substantially smaller, and with no view. You seem like a fair-minded person, so I’m going to ask you—does that seem fair to you? Dearie is eighty-seven-years-old. She was a single mother, worked hard all her life, raised my mother, helped raise me, too. If you were me, would you expect
your
grandmother to live in that room—using up every single penny of her savings, with nothing left over at the end of the month for extras like an occasional magazine or a candy bar?”

Mrs. Horan colored slightly. “Most of our residents have family members who supplement their relative’s finances.”

“My mother and I have
always
helped Dearie out,” Greer said, bristling. “And we’ll continue to do so. But that’s not the issue. The issue is value. Can you honestly tell me you think we should pay the amount you quoted for the unit you’re offering?”

The administrator sighed. She opened her top desk drawer, pulled out a slim pocket calculator, and punched in some numbers. She frowned, then did some more calculations.

“All right,” she said finally. “Since the room is smaller than a standard unit, I can give you a discount of, say, one hundred and fifty less per month. But she’ll have to wait to move in until we get the new carpet installed next week.”

“Let’s say two hundred, and we agree to keep the old carpet,” Greer said. “And she moves in today.”

*

Dearie sat in a vinyl armchair while Greer unpacked her suitcases. It took only thirty minutes to hang the older woman’s dresses in the tiny closet and stack her clothes in the four-drawer dresser. She placed a colorful double-wedding ring quilt that Dearie’s mother had stitched on the bed, and stretched a linen runner with delicate hand-crocheted lace across the dresser top.

On the bottom of the suitcase, she found a cardboard box full of framed photographs. She took the box from the suitcase, placed it on the bed, and removed the cardboard top.

“Don’t worry about those,” Dearie said quickly. “I’ll sort out that mess later tonight. Just put the box on the shelf in the closet.”

“Okay,” Greer said, doing as she’d been asked. “You’re pretty quiet today. What’s wrong? You don’t like the new digs? I know it’s smaller than your last place, but I’ll get you some paintings and stuff to put on the walls, to brighten it up. Okay?”

“It’s all right,” Dearie said. “Did that Mrs. Horan say what time dinner is served?”

Before Greer could point out that it was barely three o’clock, there was a light knock on the open door. An elderly woman with improbably fluffy red hair and large rhinestone hoop earrings stood in the doorway. She wore a snap-front flowered cotton housecoat and sensible brown loafers with white-and-red-striped men’s tube socks.

“Hello,” the woman said brightly. “Are you the new neighbor?”

“I guess so.” Dearie slowly pulled herself up from the chair.

“Goodie!” the neighbor said. “It’s been pretty quiet on this end of the hall for the past couple of weeks, with Geraldine in rehab. She lives in that room right across from yours, but she fell and broke her hip. I’m Elsie Gruhmiller, by the way.”

“Dearie Kehoe.”

“Welcome to Vista Haven, Dearie. You don’t happen to play bridge, do you?”

Dearie gave it some thought. “I used to. Years and years ago. But I’m pretty rusty.”

“Honey, we’re nuthin’ but rusty around here. With Geraldine out of action, we’re desperate for a fourth. Let me ask you another question. You’re not a teetotaler, are you?”

“Hell, no,” Dearie said.

“That’s good,” Elsie said. “We usually gather for cocktails in my room at five thirty, if you’re interested. BYOB.”

Dearie gave Greer a meaningful look. “This is my granddaughter, Greer.”

“Hello, Elsie,” Greer said. “Dearie, if you want, I could run out to the liquor store and pick you up a bottle of gin and some olives.”

“And maybe some dry-roasted peanuts. Lightly salted.”

Elsie reached into the pocket of her housecoat and brought out a five-dollar bill. “Say, if you’re going out anyway, could I trouble you to pick me up a pack of cigarettes?”

“You smoke
and
drink?” Dearie smiled for the first time all day.

“Shhh!” Elsie looked over her shoulder toward the hallway. “My kids think I quit. We can’t smoke in the building at all. If they catch you, they’ll throw you out on your keester. But there’s a bench in the garden, we call it the lounge, where it’s allowed.”

“It’s been a long day,” Dearie said, pulling a lighter and a pack of Virginia Slims from her sweater. “I could sure use a smoke right now. Care to join me?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Elsie said, winking.

Greer watched while the two women strolled, arm in arm, toward the front of the building. “Looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” she mused.

When the two women had exited the building, Greer went to the closet and took down the cardboard box. She sifted through the framed pictures. Most of them were ones Dearie had always had sitting on her bedroom dresser. There was a yellowing wedding portrait of a couple Greer knew was Dearie’s parents, a hand-tinted baby photo of a pink-cheeked Lise, and another, a color headshot of Lise during her glory days on
Neighborhood Menace
. Greer’s own baby picture was here, too—she was a chubby, smiling tot with golden ringlets. There was a cheesy Kmart studios portrait of Lise and Greer, wearing matching mother-daughter dresses that Dearie had made for them, and a photo of Greer at her high school graduation, complete with itchy polyester cap and gown and an armload of gaudy red roses.

At the bottom of the box was a time-worn manila file folder. Most of the photos inside were nothing special; old snapshots of Lise as a baby, teenager, and young adult. There were publicity stills of Lise, even a very old one of Dearie herself from her short-lived career as an actress, dressed in a smartly cut sequined cocktail dress and feathered hat.

Greer smiled down at the photo she’d never seen before, and after a moment’s hesitation, set it aside. She sorted the others, her own class pictures, which, with their bad outfits and bad hairdos, made her wince, snapshots of Dearie with various coworkers in various studio workrooms, and finally, at the bottom of the stack, she found a tarnished silver double frame.

In one oval, she recognized Lise, gazing adoringly into the eyes of a young man with mutton-chop sideburns, and a ridiculous mustache. His arms were clasped around her waist. The colors of the photo were faded, but the couple’s obvious passion wasn’t. Greer felt her scalp prickle. This was either an engagement or a wedding photo of her parents. It was hard to know which, because she hadn’t seen a photo of her long-absent father in decades. Lise had been ruthless in removing all traces of her father’s existence from their lives.

The facing photograph was much older. It was a black-and-white snapshot, taken, from the looks of it, at a party, or maybe a nightclub or bar. She recognized a much younger Dearie, with her distinctive cupid’s bow lips, her light brown wavy hair swept back from her face, with a white flower pinned over one ear. She wore a pretty polka-dot dress and held a lit cigarette in one hand. The man with a proprietary arm thrown around her shoulder was dressed in an open-collared short-sleeved sport shirt. He had dark, glossy hair, a thin mustache above thin lips, dark, brooding eyes, and a serious expression. The table in front of them was littered with an ashtray, beer bottles, and highball glasses.

Greer stared down at the photo. This must be her grandfather. She knew little to nothing about him, only that he and Dearie had parted when Lise was very young, and that he’d been killed not long afterward, in a traffic accident.

She studied his face and felt nothing. This man was a cipher, a ghost whose name she couldn’t remember. Edward … something. His last name was Polish, and difficult to spell, so somewhere along the line, Dearie had reverted to using her maiden name, Kehoe.

Her mind drifted back to the rumors over the years, that Cary Grant was actually Lise’s real father, and therefore, her own grandfather. She sifted back through the photos and found Lise’s baby picture. She definitely had Dearie’s lips and nose, but other than that, she found no resemblance to this unsmiling mustachioed man in the nightclub. But then, she couldn’t see any resemblance to Cary Grant either, whose photos she’d studied closely, for years, hoping for clues.

Through the open door of the room, she heard voices. Greer tucked the silver frame in her purse, placed the lid on the cardboard box, and returned it to the closet shelf.

CHAPTER 10

Most Sundays, when she was in town, Greer met Lise for dim sum at Little Duck, a few blocks from Villa Encantada, and afterward, they’d see a movie at the Grove. It was the closest thing to a family ritual they had. It was still early for dinner, but she realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She called Lise on her way back from the Valley.

The phone rang four times before Lise picked up. She sounded groggy.

“Hey,” Greer said. “Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“No. Well, sorta. What’s up?”

“I just got Dearie moved into her new place so I thought we’d meet for some celebratory moo shu pork.”

“Really? You got her in? Where?”

“Vista Haven. That place in the Valley I was telling you about. It’s not cheap. We’ll both still have to kick in some for her fees. I had to do some hard-core dickering with the woman that runs the place, but I managed to knock her down a little bit.”

“That’s great,” Lise said. “What did Dearie think of it?”

“She wasn’t too thrilled to start with,” Greer admitted. “She seemed pretty nervous when we were driving over there. But while I was unpacking, her next-door neighbor popped in to introduce herself. You’ll be pleased to know Dearie has already fallen in with an old lady who smokes, drinks, and plays cards. When I left, they were plotting cocktail hour.”

“Friends in low places,” Lise said.

“So, what about dinner? It’s your turn to pay. Want to meet at Little Duck?”

“Hmm. I don’t think so. It’s pretty early for me.”

“I can wait until six. Are you trying to get out of buying me dinner?”

“No. I’ve just got some stuff to do around here. Give me a rain check?”

“Sure,” Greer said, puzzled. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Peachy. But busy. I’ll talk to you later.”

Weird, Greer thought. She couldn’t remember another time when Lise had begged off from their Sunday-night get-together. Even when she was working regularly and had a steady boyfriend, her mother always made it a point to reserve Sunday evenings for what she jokingly called family bonding time.

She had a sudden, unwelcome thought. What if there was a new man in Lise’s life? What if, God forbid, she was actually dating one of her weirdo phone sex clients? Or what if she’d fallen off the wagon and was drinking again? She shook her head hard, as if to dislodge the idea. Her mother was anything but naive. Maybe she had a phone date. Or maybe she just needed to do mundane stuff like laundry and vacuum and pay bills. Either way, it was Lise’s business, not hers.

In the end, she sat by herself at their usual patio table at Little Duck. As she was polishing off her order of steamed pork dumplings her eyes rested on a bit of tarnished metal peeping out from her purse.

She stared down at the silver frame for the second time that day. She’d wanted to ask Lise about these photos. Why would Dearie keep an old picture of Lise and her ex-son-in-law? And why the photo of her with her own ex-husband? Like Lise, Dearie wasn’t a particularly sentimental soul. She always claimed she lived in the here and the now. Then why hang on to these pictures? And why try to hide them from Greer?

That unwelcome prickling at the base of her skull was back. She summoned the waitress for another glass of wine, and for the second time that day attempted to shake off questions that seemed to have no answers.

CHAPTER 11

The stack of bills on her kitchen table could no longer be ignored. It was Monday morning, time to face the world. Time to face the music. Greer’s fingertips raced over her calculator. She’d pulled up her bank statement on her computer, and the news was dire. She had enough funds to pay her cell phone bill. This was key. The phone and her Internet were the pipeline to her next paying job. Her rent was due in a week, her car insurance the week after that.

Fortunately, her utilities—with the exception of cable and Internet—were included in the rent. Unfortunately, her car insurance wasn’t.