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“Not cocktails, but residents can have wine with dinner.”
Grandma peeked inside the dining room. “Just like being at a fancy restaurant with tablecloths and everything. Can I have oatmeal and eggs and bacon at breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“And coffee cake?”
“Yes.”
“Sign me up,” Grandma said.
“We have more to see,” I told her.
“Yeah, don’t get carried away with the oatmeal,” Lula said.
“We have two identical wings,” Carol said. “They each have their own social center.”
The social center we visited looked like a big living room. Large-screen television, three game tables, couches and chairs arranged in conversational groups. Four women were playing bridge at one of the game tables. Two men were watching a Wheel of Fortune rerun on the television.
“Excuse me,” Grandma said to the women. “I might move here, and I was wondering what you thought of the place.”
“They use powdered eggs at breakfast,” one of the women said. “They tell us they’re real eggs, but I know a powdered egg when I see one.”
“And they buy cheap toilet paper,” another woman said. “Single ply. And it’s all because of that Geoffrey Cubbin.”
“And he was a womanizer,” the first woman said. “He was having affairs with some of the ladies here.”
“You mean some of the ladies who live here?” Grandma asked.
The woman nodded. “There have been rumors.”
“I wouldn’t mind having an affair,” Grandma said.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” the woman said. “He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.”
The women all nodded in agreement.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Grandma said. “He could pop up.”
“He better not pop up here,” the woman said. “It wouldn’t be healthy for him, if you know what I mean. We would have put a hit out on him but he stole all our money.”
“Let’s move on to the exercise area,” Carol said, steering Grandma away.
“Do you have any idea what happened to Geoffrey Cubbin?” I asked Carol. “I understand he had his appendix removed and then disappeared from the hospital.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Carol said. “I have my hands full here, trying to keep the crew from mutiny.”
We toured the rest of the building, talked to about forty people, got a brochure and an application from Carol, and returned to the Firebird.
“I could have my own bathroom if I lived here,” Grandma said. “That’s on the plus side. On the other side I wouldn’t have anything to do at night. How would I get to the funeral home for viewings?”
“Yeah, and those Cranberry people were all cranky,” Lula said. “They should be giving them more than one glass of wine at dinner. They should be putting Kahlúa in their coffee in the morning. And if they find Cubbin toes up in a Dumpster they should start the investigation at Cranberry Manor because he’s not a popular guy there.”
Lula drove us back to Trenton and dropped Grandma off at the hospital.
“Don’t shoot anyone,” I told Grandma.
“Only if I have to,” she said, straightening her wig. “I’ll call when I need a ride home.”
