Chapter 2 #2
Nate turned to Julia, put his hand gently on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” he said softly. Her foot was really throbbing, but she smiled at him. He brushed her cheek lightly with his thumb. “I’m gonna go change out of my wet suit, but then I’ll be back to check on you.”
“You like Nate, don’t you?” Grandma Vera said to Julia later that evening after dinner, as Julia helped her dry the dishes.
“Shhh!” Julia’s face reddened.
“Oh honey, they’re not listening.” Nora’s foot had swelled so much after the sting that Grandma Vera had taken her to the ER, where they’d dosed her with so much Benadryl that it had knocked her out.
She was fast asleep. Julia and Emily had milder stings, and were feeling mostly better by that evening, after long hot-water soaks.
But Emily was sitting out back by the firepit, drinking a cup of hot chocolate Vera had just made for her and listening to her Walkman.
“And besides”—Grandma Vera was still talking—“there’s nothing to be ashamed of. ”
Julia nodded, unsure why she felt embarrassed at the thought of her sisters knowing she liked Nate.
She was seventeen for goodness’ sake, and all she and Nate had done was kiss.
Her friend Tina, back at home, had already had sex with her date after the junior prom.
But maybe it was that Nate had always been such a part of their time in Coronado, that something about him almost felt sacred.
What had he called them earlier? The Trouble Trio—they were a unit, and Nate was their sidekick.
She had this weird sense her sisters might be annoyed with her if they knew she’d suddenly claimed Nate as her own.
“But you do like him,” Vera said. “And I don’t know what your father tells you, and your mother is gone, so that puts the birds and the bees squarely in my court.”
Julia’s cheeks flamed even further. “Gram, we have health class at school!” They had in fact practiced putting a condom on a banana, three years ago, in Emily’s grade.
So even Emily already knew this stuff. “And Nate and I are not doing anything like that.” Though even as she said it, she realized that maybe she wanted to. “Yet.”
Grandma Vera nodded. “I bet I can get you in with my gynecologist this week, while you’re here.”
In Chicago, where their single father had tried very hard to be everything three girls with a dead mother could ever need—the man had learned how to French braid hair when Nora had started taking dance for heaven’s sake—no one had ever once mentioned the word gynecologist.
“We should get you on the pill. Just in case,” Grandma Vera added.
Julia laughed. “Just in case what? I can’t get pregnant over email.” After this week she probably wouldn’t see Nate in person again for a whole year.
Grandma Vera shrugged. “Well, maybe there will be another boy in Chicago. And this is my one week a year when I get you. Let’s make sure you’re protected, and you have everything you need to be a woman out in the world.”
It hit Julia, in that moment, the way it often did these weeks in May, how unlucky they had been to have their mother die after giving birth to Nora.
But also, just how lucky they were to have her mother, Grandma Vera, in their lives.
This was the first time it had ever occurred to her to say this very thought out loud to Grandma Vera.
“Oh honey,” she said in response, putting the plate she’d been washing back in the sink, then drying her hands on a towel.
She wrapped Julia in a big hug, and even though Grandma Vera was shorter than all of them except for Nora now, somehow, she felt like a giant when she was hugging them.
“I’m the lucky one to have you three wonderful girls in my life. And your mother…”
Grandma Vera’s tidbits about their mother were few and far between, and so Julia was suddenly listening with rapt attention. But Grandma Vera didn’t finish her thought.
“My mother what?” Julia asked.
“Your mother sure missed a lot,” Grandma Vera finally said, and Julia felt a wave of disappointment ripple through her.
“Now, do me a favor and go to the armoire in the dining room. My doctor’s card is in there.
Can you get it for me? I’ll give her a call first thing in the morning.
” She paused for a second, and then she said, “Top drawer on the left.”
She released Julia from the hug, and Julia walked slowly, favoring her non-stung foot, into the dining room and did what Grandma Vera asked.
The armoire was a beautiful, stately chestnut structure that lined almost an entire wall with drawers of all shapes and sizes.
Grandma Vera’s second husband, Grey, had built it for her, the summer before he’d died.
And now it was lined with framed family photos on the top, the drawers filled with what Grandma Vera always called the miscellany of life.
Julia opened the top drawer on the left, her eyes glancing over the contents for a business card, but what she saw instead was something else. A letter-sized envelope. Her eyes grazed over the handwritten return address, and she blinked, sure she was seeing it wrong. She shut the drawer quickly.
In the kitchen now, Grandma Vera was singing “The Sound of Music.”
“I don’t see a card,” Julia called out, her voice wavering. “Top… left?”
The singing suddenly stopped. “Sorry! Did I say top left?” Grandma Vera called out, in what Nora always described as her stage voice. Loud, overly effusive, and dramatic. “I meant to say top right.”
Julia’s hands were still shaking as she opened the top-right drawer and saw the business card sitting there, right on top.