“They move at the same pace as the elderly folks,” he explains to a mildly shocked McCarthy.
“Symbiosis!” Willow throws her arms in the air.
I realize belatedly as the sun hits the sheer fabric just right that my mom is not wearing a bra.
“I thought I asked you all,” I say as nonjudgmentally as possible, “to please put on clothes…”
“We have dogs that need a loving home,” Zephyr tells McCarthy kindly. “If you have room in your life…”
I interject quickly. “No pets! We aren’t doing pets. Can we please stay on track?”
“You need animals and plants in your life. Have a quartz crystal.”
McCarthy grunts when my mom shoves the rock in his pocket.
“Don’t you want to move here with us, McCarthy? It would be so nice to have a man around.” She strokes his arm.
“It’d be nice to have someone young and sane around,” Granny Mavis mumbles as we follow her inside.
The cabin where I grew up was expanded haphazardly after I moved out. It still smells the same—pungent from the herbs my mother has hanging to dry from the rafters. My old bedroom off the kitchen has been converted into an art studio with a day bed. But the same worn, low-slung couchwith the handmade quilt occupies the place in front of the soot-blackened fireplace.
“Homemade goat cheese, McCarthy?” Mom offers him a tray with a flourish. “Honeycomb from our own hives, gooseberry chutney.”
“No! No food. I don’t want anything in his teeth.” I drag McCarthy away.
Out in the back yard are several cabins arranged as if plopped down in the way that a child would play with toys then forget them. Amongst the overgrowth wander several dozen very elderly, very wrinkly, very naked women and twice as many equally slow, equally elderly dogs.
“Why can’t anyone wear clothes around here?” I shriek.
“They’re just bodies, Jenna. Everyone has one,” my mom sings.
“And this man has a fine one.” Granny Mavis, sucking on a Virginia Slim with lips sporting freshly applied lipstick, looks McCarthy up and down appreciatively then smiles.
“She’s got her teeth in, at least.” Zephyr rocks on his heels.
As the elderly nude women slowly shamble over, McCarthy stands next to me, silent, his hand over his mouth, judging me, cataloging my failures.
I toss a towel over his head.
“Avert your eyes.”
“This smells funny.” He pulls it off his head.
“Just zip it. Rainbow, you’re not going to be in the photo. Please go put some clothes on.”
“I can’t find my dentures.”
“You get the hell away from him! He was special ordered for me.” Granny Mavis whacks at Rainbow with her canethen trips over her service dog, an elderly terrier who is deaf and blind and senile.
“Move!” Granny Mavis hollers at the dog. “Magnum acts like he’s old, but he’s just a puppy.”
“That dog looks like it smokes six packs a day,” McCarthy whispers to me.
Mom drapes Granny Mavis in a deep-eggplant satin wrap. Granny Mavis lights a fresh cigarette from the one in her mouth as another elderly woman, Crocus, reaches out gnarled hands to pat McCarthy.
“Excuse her. She’s blind as a goddamn bat,” Granny Mavis drawls.
“So this is Nathan, eh, girlfriend?”
