I quietly entered the back of the shop from the stairs, hoping Grandma wasn’t with a customer and wouldn’t see me at all.
Thankfully, she didn’t often make me come down and help in her hobby shop. It was rare that she asked me to run the register, only in the busiest or most desperate of cases. On those rare occasions, every time that bell above the door rang, it was like a fist squeezed my intestines. I tried my best to help whoever came to shop. They wouldn’t believe that I was extremely knowledgeable about all things hobbies—ajackie-of-all-trades, as it were—because when I opened my mouth to talk to people, the stuttering, flushed mess that I became did absolutely nothing to convey that knowledge. And as if my fears created my reality, I turned into the exact person I worried they assumed I was to begin with. I was a living, breathing catch-22 of social ineptitude.
I tiptoed to behind the large desk where the register sat as my grandma spoke softly with visitors at the front of the store. I began my search of the disastrous paperwork that was her space. I’d tried to implement a color-coordinated filing system for her. It was currently being used to hold her protein bars andsupplements. A castle of sand had only so much fortitude when met with the waves of the ocean.
“What was all that ruckus?” Grandma asked loudly.
My head snapped up to where she was helping two teenage girls, who looked at my creeping form with that blank stare of the thoroughly not impressed.
“Nothing,” I said in a whisper-yell. “Don’t mind me. I’m just looking for something. Sorry if I was loud.”
“It sounded like elephants were stampeding up there,” she accused as she gestured to the ceiling where my room sat just above.
That must have been when I pushed my desk out from the wall to search behind it.
“No elephants, just me.”
The two girls looked at each other and snickered.
Normally, I would have been humiliated and scurried back up the stairs like a cockroach in the kitchen light, but I was still very much in the thick of my last humiliation. One personal crisis at a time, thank you very much.
Distantly, I was aware of Grandma finishing up with the customers, then the ding of the bell, announcing the end of their interaction, as I continued my search.
Grandma caught me with my arm half-missing down the back of one of themanyjunk drawers behind the counter.
“Soph, what in God’s name are you looking for?”
“A notepad. One of the store’s ones,” I said, face half-smashed against the counter, smooshing my words.
She looked at me with a neutral expression, never breaking eye contact as her arm reached out to grab one of several Hooks and Grannies notepads that littered the area. She handed it to me like she was handing a feral dog a treat.
I stood up, rubbing my arm where it got pinched in the drawer.
“Not those ones,” I said, sharper than I intended. Sure enough, her hand snapped back like I bit her. I chilled out a little and said, “Sorry. It’s not the paper. I wrote something important down, and I can’t find it.”
Grandma leaned her hip against the counter, her non-supporting leg coming up to rest on the knee of the other. Her toned legs were on full display in the quasi-yoga pose. “Well. Okay, now I’m catching up. What can I do to help?”
My grandma only ever sported chic athleisure wear. Fit as a fiddle, she didn’t mess around with stuffy casual clothes. She needed moisture-wicking fabrics and chafe-proof thighs for all the activities she took part in.
“Nothing. I’m sorry for being short with you. I don’t know where it could have gone. I wrote it on one of our notepads in my room, and it’s like it got up and walked away.”
“Well, then, it’s gotta be around here somewhere. Right?”
“I’ve looked everywhere,” I said. My voice sounded way calmer than I felt.
“Look. I can see you are all worked up.” Or maybe not. “But I promise you, it’s going to be okay. Life has a funny way of working out. I promise.” She squeezed my chin. The floral scent of her wafting up familiarly. Her soft but dry hands cradled my cheek. A little bit of tension relaxed from my clenched jaw.
I loved my grandma with my whole heart, but she was of thetoughen upgeneration. Where mental health issues didn’t exist and “everybody nowadays just needs a label.” She loved me, I knew she did, but she would never understand me. Not like I needed her to. Not when she built her entire life around her social networks. If I had a dollar for every time she told me that youth was wasted on the young, we’d have enough for us both to retire.
“Thanks,” I said. “And there’s no way you would have seen it or gone into my room?” I asked.
“You know I never go in your private space ...” As she spoke, her voice trailed off, and her gaze went distant.
My jaw snapped back tight.
She held up a finger before I could speak. “Hang on now, I’m thinking, I’m thinking. I did get a call from Ruth last night.” Grandma closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingertips as if to draw out the memory. “She was telling me about her nephew who lives up in Maine, and then we were talking about the firefighters and their annual fundraiser. And then we talked about the pretty new doctor, and then she said she had a dream about lotto numbers?—”
But sure, I didn’t get my attention issues from her ...
