Page 45

“Of course I do,” she said. “I’ve lived on this block for years. How could I miss him?” She snorted again but walked away, permitting me to continue my rush out to the street. Gramps was already walking toward the building and he did look miffed, but that was his usual expression.

“Do you care what I call you?” I asked when we were in the hearse.

“Just not late for dinner.” He raised and lowered his eyebrows.

“What? It’s early for dinner, not late.”

“Never mind! Don’t forget to signal before you pull out. Use your mirrors! Have you forgotten everything I taught you?” He sighed. “I knew that I should have dragged you out of there sooner.”

“You’re not dragging me anywhere.” And I was going to keep calling him Gramps, so there. Vera didn’t really know him so she didn’t know what would offend him. “Where are we going, though?”

Rather than using his phone to give me directions, he barked them out. “Turn left at the light,” he ordered. I still didn’t love lefts but I was a licensed driver now. I could do it.

I could do anything, I had decided. I could make my apartment the cozy haven that I had always wanted, the den of comfort that I needed in order to be happy and secure. Which I was! I was totally secure, bathed in happiness. Except I still wasn’t taking baths.

Things would obviously improve there after I had succeeded in assembling the furniture that I had recently ordered and received. Once I’d forced all the separate pieces together and I had recycled the boxes, then I would be able to walk to my desk again rather than climbing and my home would look pretty and welcoming, in just the same way that my former roommate in my freshman year of college had envisioned for our dorm. I thought about her and how she had—

“Hello? Hello!” Gramps said loudly. It was exactly what I’d said to my mom on the phone a little while before. “Are you the driver of this car? If so, snap to it!”

“I’m snapped,” I answered, although I hadn’t been. And yes, it was important for me to pay attention and not start getting upset about my failure to put together my new furniture. Those damn holes would not line up! What were you supposed to do when that happened, just build everything crooked? And the back pieces of the bookcases had turned out to be thin, cheap cardboard, not wood like I had thought—I had assumed, because they looked so good in the pictures. They did not look good right now, spread across my living room floor, and one of the shelves had a long, deep gouge. I had been going back and forth with the website about getting that replaced.

It wasn’t actually so terrible, because furniture assembly wasn’t really that much of a hardship. I was lucky to have the pieces of the bookshelves that would, someday and hopefully, become exactly what I’d imagined. When I was a kid, driving around with my mom in a car that would eventually break down, I had dreamed about a place of my own, exactly like apartment 1C in the Milaflores Building. It was going to be for me alone, sola, solitary. It was supposed to have been heaven.

And I was supposed to have been able to put it all together—not just the shelves (and, unfortunately, the bed frame that I was also having problems with). I was supposed to have been like the goose in the old storybook, or ostrich or whatever it had been. I had planned to make it on my own, just like that bird, with no help from anyone. I didn’t need anyone.

“All right, pull over.”

I signaled carefully and stopped at the curb where Gramps had indicated. “We’re here?” I asked.

“No, we’re not going to this abandoned building!” he shot back. “I’m not going to drive with you anymore while you keep sighing every five to ten seconds and while I know that you’re not paying attention. I’ll tell you a little story of what happened to an unknown motorist while trying to cross the Ambassador Bridge.” He did relate the sad tale of the man or woman who had driven right off the side, ending with a big splash and many regrets about trying to fold a map or light a cigarette while behind the wheel. “That person did not make it to Canada and it was all due to a lack of focus on the road.”

“Nobody uses maps,” I told him. “I don’t believe that part of the story. And that bridge has very high sides, too. I’ve seen pictures and one day, I might drive over it myself. I might go to Canada, which I can do since I have a passport!”

“Well, hot damn! I’m going googly-eyed just dreaming about it!” he retorted. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” I sighed. “You’re right, I wasn’t focusing well but I will now. I promise.”

He seemed doubtful and said, “You better.” But he didn’t object when I pulled back out and he did start giving out directions again. After a while, I recognized where we were going. I had been on this street one time before.

“This is Oliver’s new house,” I stated.

“It is. I have a surprise for him and I thought that you would want to be there when he gets it.” He pointed again at where I could park but after I had successfully paralleled my way in, I didn’t turn off the engine.

“Why would I want to be there for your surprise?” I asked.

“He’s your friend, isn’t he?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since Thanksgiving.” That was when he and his sister had come over to their grandfather’s house to visit so that he wouldn’t be lonely. He wasn’t, because he’d had me.

I’d mostly stayed in the kitchen, cooking and pretending that I was too busy to come out, because I had been intimidated by Frances (she looked like a model and was entirely confident herself). I was also unsure of what to say to Oliver. We hadn’t spoken much since the day that I’d told him to go run on his own and he had taken off, disappearing around the corner. Through my window, I had watched him move out and thought that I should have gone down to say goodbye…

“Holy Moses. You’re off in la-la land again!”

“I’m not,” I told him. “Why do you want me here?”

He blustered about getting me out of the Milaflores Building, which was something I had also discussed with my online therapist. She was concerned about my lack of contact with other humans but I kept telling her that I was fine. I was used to being on my own and I liked it. I just needed to put the furniture together, that was all, and then I would be truly happy.

Finally, after more discussion and some of the pointed questions that I had honed from interrogating my mother so often, I got to the bottom of Gramps’s story.