Change of Scene: A 100 Page Novella (12 page)

Greer had to stop and think. “Thursday, I think.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. Thursday is Dearie Day. Get yourself cleaned up, and then you’ll have to put some makeup on all these cuts and bruises on my face. I don’t want your grandmother to know what happened. And hurry. We’ve got to get out to the Valley before she starts calling and demanding to know where I am.”

*

“Why are you driving so slow?” Lise demanded, swiveling her head around to survey traffic. “Every damn car on the highway is passing us.”

“I’m doing the speed limit because you managed to smash both your taillights when you rear-ended that Saab,” Greer said. “I don’t want to get a ticket.”

When they pulled into the parking lot at the nursing home, Lise whipped a blue laminated
HANDICAPPED PARKING
placard from beneath the seat and hooked it over the rearview mirror. “Park up front,” she directed her daughter. “This is one of the few perks of dying.”

She gestured toward a bulky shopping bag in the backseat. “Get that, would you?”

“What’s in it?”

“All the usual crap on Dearie’s shopping list. Oil of Olay, See’s salted chocolates, Cheez Whiz, Town House crackers, Dentu-Crème, Virginia Slims, Metamucil, slipper socks, Depends, and a twelve-pack of Mr. Pibb. Most depressing shopping list ever. Jesus, Greer, if they cure cancer tomorrow and I make it to eighty-seven, would you please just shoot me?”

“With pleasure,” Greer said, wishing with all her heart that Lise
could
make it to eighty-seven. She took her mother’s arm, but Lise slapped it away.

“Not a word to your grandmother about the accident, understand?” Lise said.

“How are you going to explain your burned hand?”

“Curling iron accident,” Lise said blithely. “She’ll totally buy it.”

“Have you told Dearie about…”

“The cancer? No.”

“When are you going to tell her?”

“Maybe after she’s had time to get settled in here. She’s still the new girl in school. I don’t want to upset Dearie’s little apple cart. I’ll tell her when the time is right.”

“And when will that be?”

“I’m sure an opportunity will present itself,” Lise said. “Or … you could tell her for me.”

“Me?” Greer said, horrified.

“You have a way with her.”

Greer was speechless. Absolutely none of this could be happening.

*

They found Dearie waiting expectantly in a wheelchair in her room, dressed in a blue flowered cotton dress, with a blue cashmere sweater draped across her narrow shoulders.

Lise sat on the edge of her mother’s bed. “What’s with the wheelchair, Mama?”

Dearie scowled. “Just because I took a little spill when I was getting up to go to the bathroom, that fool doctor who works here says I have to use it now. I can walk fine if people will quit leaving trash cans in the middle of the room.”

She eyed the shopping bag Lise had placed on her nightstand. “Did you bring everything on the list?”

“Every last thing,” Lise said.

“Did you get the right kind of cigs this time?”

Dearie turned to Greer. “Last time she brought me the ultra-light kind. She
knows
I smoke menthol.”

Lise shook her head but reached into the bag with her left hand and brought out two packs of cigarettes. Dearie quickly tucked one in the pocket of her dress and the other in a drawer in her nightstand.

“How about breaking out the candy? I think my blood sugar’s getting kind of low.”

“Can’t.” Lise held up her bandaged hand.

“I’ll get it,” Greer volunteered. She used her thumbnail to pierce the cellophane wrapper, opened the box, and passed it to her grandmother, who popped a chocolate in her mouth and chewed happily. For a very long time.

“What happened to you?” Dearie asked finally, pointing at her daughter’s hand.

“I was getting ready for an audition in a hurry and I picked up the wrong end of the curling iron.”

Dearie took another chocolate. “Does it hurt?”

“Like a mother,” Lise said.

To forestall any further conversation she picked up the remote control for the wall-mounted television and began slowly flipping channels, until she found the Lifetime channel. “Oh, look.
Innocence on Ice
. I almost got cast as the skating coach for this flick, but they hired Valerie Bertinelli instead.”

“They always cast Valerie Bertinelli for those things,” Greer said sympathetically. “I think it’s a law.”

Lise settled back on the pillows, put her feet up on the bed, turned up the volume, and reached for the box of chocolates. “Can’t wait to see how she stinks it up.” She glanced over with a meaningful nod to Greer. “It’s a beautiful day outside. Why don’t you take your grandmother for a spin in the garden while I torture myself watching this garbage?”

*

“Valerie Bertinelli,” Dearie muttered as Greer pushed her wheelchair down the linoleum-floored hallway. “Who does your mother think she’s kidding? She’s at least ten years older than that girl.”

With Dearie giving directions, Greer navigated the chair around a corner and past the nurses’ station toward a set of double doors. “Hi, Mrs. Kehoe,” a male orderly called out. “You got visitors today?”

“My granddaughter, Greer,” Dearie called back. “She’s a big deal in movies, you know. Can you open those doors, please, Carlos?”

The orderly punched a button and the glass doors swung outward.

“They keep you locked in here?” Greer asked, horrified. “What if there’s a fire or something?”

“According to Elsie, they started locking them after one of the old geezers in the memory unit wandered off in the middle of the night and died of exposure,” Dearie said cheerfully. “Now somebody’s at the nurses’ station around-the-clock. The doors have alarms if a patient leaves. And the family’s suing the home.” She pointed to a bend in the sidewalk.

“Turn here and then there’s a little courtyard in the back where we can sit. Elsie calls it the smoker’s lounge.”

Greer steered her grandmother’s chair into a sunny garden with beds of cheerful pink and white flowers, a sliver of lawn, and one large oak tree. Wooden benches and picnic tables were scattered around the space. Greer maneuvered the chair until they were in the shade, and sat herself on one of the benches.

“This is really nice,” she said admiringly. “Too bad you couldn’t get one of the rooms that looks out onto this.”

“Garden views cost extra,” Dearie commented. “My room is fine.” She handed Greer the cigarette pack. “Open that, would you? My arthritis is acting up today.”

Greer gave her a look of disapproval, but did as she was asked, shaking a cigarette out of the pack and accepting the lighter Dearie produced.

Dearie took a long drag on the cigarette, tilted her head back, and blew a ragged smoke ring through pursed lips tinted with her signature Coty Rose Satin lipstick.

“I can’t believe you’re still smoking that poison after all these years.”

“What? It’s gonna stunt my growth?” She gave Greer a wink. “It’s better than that stuff you smoked in high school and college. And this is legal.”

“How’d you know about that?”

“I helped raise you, remember? I’m eighty-seven. And I know a lot of stuff. The trouble is nobody asks your opinion when you’re as old as me, because they all assume you’re senile.”

Greer reached over and gave her grandmother another hug. She felt her birdlike bones through the thin layers of cotton and cashmere. Dearie wasn’t an overly demonstrative type. None of the women in her family were, but she rubbed her cheek against Greer’s for a moment before release.

Dearie turned those clear blue eyes on Greer. “Now that we’re alone, tell me what’s going on with your mother. And don’t give me any crap about a curling iron, or say how fine she is, because I’ve been around long enough to spot bruises on her wrists. I know she’s not fine. Is she boozing again?”

“No,” Greer said.

“What is it, then? A man? So help me, if some guy hit her … Come on. I’m a big girl. I can take whatever it is.”

Greer sighed. “She’s got cancer. Late stage. She doesn’t have much time left.”

“How can that be?” Dearie cried in alarm.

Greer told Dearie everything Lise had told her about her condition. “She’s been dealing with it pretty well, but she’s getting weaker and it’s causing problems. This week she burned her hand really badly on a frying pan and then tried to drive herself to get help and instead ended up rear-ending her neighbor’s car. The air bag deployed, and that’s how she got the black eyes.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Dearie said with a sniff. She fumbled with the cigarette pack. Greer shook out another Virginia Slim, lit it, and handed it back to her grandmother. Dearie’s long arthritic fingers shook as she took a drag. “When was she going to tell me?”

“Maybe never,” Greer said. “I think that’s why she wanted to bring me with her today. So I’d tell you and she wouldn’t have to.”

“Did she … did she tell you how long?” Dearie asked, blinking back tears.

“I didn’t ask. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m ready to find that out just yet.”

“And they’re sure it’s really terminal?” Dearie asked, stubbing out her cigarette on the gravel by the bench.

“She says so. I want to talk to her doctor, of course, but right now, she’s fighting me on that. Says I should mind my own business.”

“That’s my girl,” Dearie said with a sigh. “She was an independent little booger from the get-go. I guess that was a blessing and a curse.”

Greer hesitated. “Dearie, is there any history of breast cancer in your family?”

Her grandmother gave a helpless expression. “Not that I know of, but my mother died when I was only fifteen, you know. Heart attack. Back then, people didn’t talk about their medical problems. If you died, it was God’s will.”

*

They found Lise dozing on Dearie’s bed, with the open box of See’s salted chocolates balanced on her chest. On the television, Valerie Bertinelli’s character was saying good-bye to her married lover in the shadows of a darkened ice rink at full volume.

“How was the movie?” Dearie asked loudly.

Lise opened her eyes. Greer hooked her mother’s good hand through her arm and helped pull her up to a seated position. “Terrible,” Lise reported. “She had absolutely no chemistry with the male lead. But I will say she looked pretty good in those skating tights.” She handed the remote to Greer, who clicked the Off button.

“You two have a nice visit?” Lise asked, setting the candy box on the nightstand.

“Of course,” Dearie said calmly. “It’s always good to see my only granddaughter.”

Greer watched her mother’s wary expression. Dearie sat, damp-eyed, but silent. Maybe the two of them would get around to talking about Lise’s diagnosis, but Greer already knew today wouldn’t be that day. Dearie needed time to process things, and so did Greer, for that matter. She walked over to the bed and offered her mother her arm.

“Let’s go,” she said.

CHAPTER 14

Greer chewed her lower lip as she backed the Mercedes into the curb in front of Villa Encantada. She’d always hated parallel parking, and it felt weird driving Lise’s car, because her mother never let anybody else drive Nellie-Belle.

The field trip to see Dearie had taken its toll on Lise. Occasionally Greer shot a sideways glance at her mother, but Lise’s head was tilted back on the headrest, her eyes closed, a pinched expression around her lips. It was probably time for her pain meds.

When she’d finally gotten her mother into the apartment, Greer warmed up the leftover pizza in the microwave, and poured a pain pill into Lise’s hand.

“I guess I’d better get one of those little pill thingies with the slots, like your grandmother has for her medicine,” Lise mused. “Probably need to get some more of those hideous yoga pants too, until they take these bandages off.”

“I can go shopping for you,” Greer volunteered. “And I can take the Mercedes to the shop to get an estimate for your insurance.”

Lise nodded in a vague way. “You told Dearie about the cancer, right?”

“Yeah,” Greer said with a sigh.

“How’d she take the news?”

“Same as me. Like she’d been stabbed in the heart,” Greer said.

All afternoon she’d been pondering how to approach her mother about the one topic Lise wanted to avoid, and she’d finally struck upon the universal solution: guilt.

“Look, I know you don’t want me snooping around, but I honestly think you owe it to me to let me go with you to see your doctor. Breast cancer is hereditary, you know. I need to know if I’m at risk, too.”

Lise waved away her concerns. “There’s no history of breast cancer in my family, that we know of, and Clint told me there’s no history in his, either.”

“Clint?” Greer said, startled. “You mean my father?”

“Of course,” Lise said. “What other Clint would I be talking about?”

She stared at her mother for a long moment, too surprised to speak at first. “You’re in touch with him? Since when?”

“He friended me on Facebook. I guess it’s been a few months.”

“You’re on Facebook?”

Lise rolled her eyes. “Yes, Greer. I’m on Facebook, and I have electric lights and even use a GPS. You’re not talking to Dearie, you know.”

“You don’t have to get all offended,” Greer said. “I just had no idea you had any interest in what’s going on with him. I mean, when’s the last time you saw him?”

“I saw a selfie he posted a couple of weeks ago,” Lise said. “With his new car. Some things never change. Once a car nut, always a car nut.”

“I meant in person,” Greer said.

“Mmm, lemme think. Probably your high school graduation.”

“He wasn’t at my high school graduation.”

“Sure he was. Well, that is, he came to town. With his new so-called wife. But when I told him he couldn’t bring that whore to your graduation party, he left in a snit.”

“You never told me he tried to come to my graduation. As far as I knew, he just sent a check.” Greer shook her head.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Lise said. “It was your big day. You were graduating with honors, president of your senior class. And then Clint shows up out of nowhere with that … girl. My God! She was total white trash. You would have been humiliated if your friends had seen them. At the time, I thought I was doing you a favor.”