Chapter 22
Founder’s Fair was the premier event in Historic Woodfield. Small-town Mardi Gras. The action took place on the grounds of the flea market, beginning with a parade, which Callie, a Brownie, was marching in with the Girl Scouts. Also, Lisa’s restaurant had a booth selling slices of her Sky-High Dutch Apple Pie.
Callie had to be there at 9:00 a.m. in uniform for the kickoff procession. She suggested I bring a chair so I could sit and watch the parade. I packed a plaid webbed one I came across in Lisa’s garage, and we drove to the fairgrounds. I delivered Callie to where the scouts, from little Daisies to eighth-grade Cadettes, rallied.
A slew of elderly people—mostly women—along with young families lined the grass next to the gravel road. As it was the kind of cold Berkshire day I had dreamed of when I was in Boca Raton, fairgoers kept warm in layers of clothing, puffy vests, or jackets. I positioned my chair as close as I could to the action. First came the high school marching band, the cheerleaders, and the twirlers. Members of civic organizations and small businesses passed by on homemade floats. The owners of the town laundromat sat atop a washing machine. Day care center staff waved to the crowds from a platform with a giant baby bottle. And then, I saw a house—the size of a garden shed—pulled by a flatbed truck driven by Arlo. The house was white with a picket fence, potted plants. Di strutted in and out of the front door, gesturing to the crowd. People were waving at her like she was a film star.
A few moments later came the Girl Scouts. I hooted my head off, waving wildly to my granddaughter. She beamed when she caught a glimpse of me, pointing in my direction. I had attended the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade many times and also watched it from a friend’s apartment located high above Broadway. But the Macy’s parade didn’t hold a candle to the production in Woodfield, where Callie and her buddies danced in unison on a colossal box of Thin Mints.
A bubbly woman in need of facial wax sat next to me in rubber boots, a heavy vest, a red-and-black lumberjack shirt, corduroy pants. “Your grand must be on that float. I could tell by the way you were cheering.”
I had made a spectacle of myself.
“Nancy,” the woman said, introducing herself.
“I’m Jodi. First time I’ve seen my granddaughter in a parade.”
“No need to explain. Once, I was asked to leave a school play. My grand was in the chorus. I hollered his name, Frankie, over another kid’s lines.”
“It must be nice to live near your grandchildren,” I said.
“Except for the weather in winter. The ice is bad. I took a tumble on my steps last February. Broke a leg. Bruised my sides. Lucky to survive.”
“I’m from Florida, but my grandchild lives here.”
“That’s a shame.” She tsked as though I had said I had a traumatic disease. “I have five grands. Mine are busy with sports. I drive my Zoe to swimming before school. Zoe has Olympic potential. She’s only in sixth grade, but eventually she’ll attend college on a backstroke scholarship. Would you like to see a picture?”
Has anyone ever had the chutzpah , the nerve, to say no to that question? I had no intention of being the first.
Before I nodded, Nancy began searching a canvas drawstring bag for her phone.
“This is Zoe,” she said proudly, displaying a close-up of an odd-looking kid with knit brows and a frown—not interested in being photographed.
“She’s adorable,” I said.
“Hold your horses. Let me show you another.”
I waited. She scrolled through photos until she stopped at a shot of her grand with two friends who could pass as her sisters.
“She’s really something,” I said.
“No, no. That’s not the one I wanted to show you. I’ve got it now. Here she is with her medal. From the YMCA. Oh, and this is her diving in competition. She’s an excellent diver.” She clicked some more. “And here she is with her mom, my daughter, Regina.”
“Your daughter is lovely. She resembles you.”
“She’s adopted.”
I was mortified I had made the comparison. “I’m sorry.”
Then I realized my “I’m sorry” could be misinterpreted.
“Oh, no, I was very fortunate to bring Regina home as an infant,” Nancy said and rolled on. “And this is Zoe last summer in Rockport. And this is my eldest, Bridge. The boy is brilliant. He works for a start-up company, takes the graduate record exam for other people as a side gig.”
We’re all proud of different things, I thought.
She persisted with the photos of her family until I feared she might have a cat or two she was proud of as well. I was about to plead for mercy when Annie appeared with Callie. I guessed they’d run into each other. “Callie, you were fabulous.”
“Grandma Jo, you were supposed to pick me up after the parade.”
Uh-oh. Lisa hadn’t mentioned that. How did I expect the kid to get back to me, walking around the fair on her own?
“No worries,” Annie said. “The scout leader had my number.”
I decided not to make excuses, to be thankful Annie had been around.
“I’ve got to run off. I’m manning a concession stand,” Annie said.
“Grandma, we need to go too. I want to see the whole fair before I help Di at her booth. She’s next to the lady who gives all the kids free hot cider.”
“What does Di give out at her booth?”
“A card with her picture on it. Di would never hand out treats. It’s not in her.”
I was struck by her language. “Who told you it’s not in her?”
“My dad.”
Callie grasped my hand, dragged me past the crowds to the merry-go-round on the far side of the fair.
“Let’s hop on!” I tried to remember the last time I had been on a carousel.
“I’m going to ride on a horse.”
“Me too,” I said.
She mounted a gilded stallion. I rode the pony beside it. The boompipe started. The carousel moved forward. Every time Callie’s steed moved an inch in front of mine, she warned me to gallop or she’d leave me in the dust.
When the ride stopped, Callie insisted on another spin. As I watched her go round, I considered what it would take to empty the condominium in Florida. This was work I was not interested in doing. Although we had pared down before leaving New York, we had a lifetime’s worth of stuff, odds and ends that belonged to the kids, relics from our parents. My condo was almost all white. Not one piece of furniture looked as though it belonged in New England. I’d ask my sons if they wanted anything, but Michael and DeLorenzo had recently redecorated. Alex had the Pilgrim. I couldn’t imagine her wanting anything I owned. If it came from me, she’d turn down a velvet bag full of diamonds.
After the rides, we found the booth for the Farmer’s Daughter manned by Sydney, one of Lisa’s employees. I swear the Sky-High Dutch Apple Pie defied gravity.
“What next?” I asked when Callie and I finished sharing a wedge.
“Can I get a fried Oreo?”
Talk about messing with success. Why would anyone fry perfection in oil? “We had pie. Maybe let’s have something healthy next.”
“There’s nothing healthy here. It’s a fair. That’s the whole point. Can’t we eat something healthy when we get home? Wait, Grandma. I know—what about a caramel apple? It’s fruit.”
“Those apples kill my teeth. But you can have one.”
Callie ate the apple. There was no trash bin in sight. She handed me the sticky remains, the seeds, and the white stick. I thought of how my father handed me his apple cores and how I had never said a word to him about it.
She seemed surprised when I took the core from her. “Mom wouldn’t do that. She’d tell me to hold it until I saw a garbage can.”
“So why didn’t you do that?” I asked.
“I knew you’d take it. You’d do anything for me.”
I would, I thought. I would.
Callie’s friend Robin ran over, wearing one white sneaker, one yellow rain boot. I said, “Stay here” and walked to a bin to dispose of the apple. When I turned back, I didn’t see Callie. I didn’t see Robin. I searched around and around where we’d been standing and talking. My heart thumped. Where was she? I began to sweat.
“Callie,” I yelled as my eyes raced around the area.
Nothing.
I scanned back and forth, up and down, side to side. Had the two walked off? Was Callie with Robin? I had to get a grip, stop myself from crying. Callie disappearing would be worse than when I lost Lisa as a toddler in Bloomingdale’s. Back then, little Lisa was fussing because she was tired, and, being Lisa, she decided to find an exit on her own. I begged for help. I had every mother and salesperson in the children’s department shouting her name. A security guard finally spotted her, and I felt like a horrible mother.
Now I had done something even more awful than losing my child. I had lost her daughter.
“Callie,” I yelped again and again. In minutes, a crowd came to my aid. “How old is she?” Eight. “What was she wearing?” A Girl Scout uniform with a turtleneck under it. “What color hair?” Brown. It’s brown. Like mine. “We’ll find your granddaughter. She didn’t go far.” Why did they say that to me? How could they know? I had never felt such panic. What if someone had taken Callie? I envisioned an Amber Alert. Callie’s face on a milk carton. Posters on trees for miles around. Lisa and Brian never speaking to me again. Me never getting over a minute of it.
Then suddenly, Callie appeared.
I pressed her to my chest.
The people who had helped hunt for her applauded, went on with their day.
“Callie, where were you?”
“I went with Robin to watch our friend Lucien throw darts at balloons. He won something.”
“Callie, you can’t walk away from me.”
“But it’s right there,” she pointed to a stall a few yards away.
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“Mom would be fine with it.”
“I’m not Mom,” I said, realizing the words were a mistake.
She turned from me, began to whimper. “I know,” she said. “I wish Mom was here. You worry about everything.”
“With good reason.”
“Mom says you overreact.”
Is there a way to overreact to the possibility of your granddaughter disappearing while under your watch?
I held her hand tightly. “Don’t walk away from me ever again,” I said.
“I have to help Di,” she said. “I think I’m supposed to be there already.”
One incident and she was trading me in? How quickly they turn.
We found Di next to the real estate agent dispensing cider. She stood behind a long table stacking pamphlets, her face on the cover. If I had my face in as many places as she did, I’d tire of seeing myself.
“Where have you been?” Di wasn’t worried. She was annoyed.
Of course, I said nothing about losing Callie. “I didn’t know there was a specific time we had to be here.”
“Did you see my float?” Callie asked Di.
“Did you see my float?” Di responded. “Wasn’t it terrific? Lots of people said it was the best in the whole parade. Now, Callie, when you give a prospective customer my promotional piece, be sure to say I’d like you to meet my grand—my aunt.”
I’d say that was pushing the envelope.
Callie began distribution. Di gestured to me, pounded her fist on the exhibition table. “Callie and I work this fair every year. You show up, nothing but a pinch hitter, and she gets here late. Probably stuffed full of cotton candy or some other child poison. I’m trying to teach her something—the meaning of hard work. A woman must be independent. How dare you try to take over? The fair is our tradition. I thought you people like traditions,” she said.
Was she going to sing from Fiddler on the Roof ? “Di, please don’t refer to my people as you people.”
“I swear, you take offense at everything.”
It was Annie, not Di, who drove Callie home from the fair.
“Look who I found,” Annie said.
Callie jumped out from behind Annie.
“Is that Callie?” I said jokingly.
“Macallan is here.”
“Let’s give a cheer.”
“Back from the fair.”
“Where I drank beer!”
The beer line belonged to Annie. “I rescued Mac from working for Di.”
Oh, so Annie considered it a rescue.
“Don’t tell Di I said that. In fact, don’t tell Di anything about me.”
“I think you have a case of the stickies,” I said to Callie, who was sweaty and tired, with evidence of candy apple on her face. Annie offered to dunk Callie in the bathtub. Callie asked to watch TV first, and I said no way. She whined. I still said no. Callie and Annie climbed the stairs. I decided it wasn’t all bad to have another grandma around.
Di came home late. Annie was in front of the TV. Callie was in bed. I was drinking the last of the Walmart wine.
“I think I’ll have a swig of that,” Di said, pointing to the bottle. She picked it up. Oops. Empty. “You ruined my day with Macallan,” she said.
“Di, you were supposed to be out of town this week.”
“Yes, but I planned to return in time for Founder’s Day. I’ve gone to the fair every year since I moved here. But you wouldn’t be aware of that because you don’t live here.” She scanned around. “Where’s Callie? Or don’t you know?”
It was clear she had heard I had lost sight of Callie. “Sleeping,” I said curtly.
“Oh, so you do have an idea where she is.”
The woman was unbelievable. Anyone else would’ve said, You must have gone insane when Callie disappeared. Thank heaven you found her quickly. Not Di. She preferred to weaponize the incident. Something was in her craw, and I had a feeling it was about to surface.
She stood in front of me, her back to the fireplace. “Let’s be honest here.”
Please don’t be honest.
“Your daughter has ruined my son’s life.”
Was she off her rocker? Did she know something I didn’t know? “What are you talking about?”
“Brian graduated at the top of his class. He wanted to be a journalist.”
I had no idea Brian wanted to write.
Di continued, “But Lisa, your Lisa, didn’t want to travel from place to place. That’s right. He was offered a position as a stringer with National Geographic —as in, a dream come true. Lisa wanted to run a restaurant. So, Brian played second fiddle, turned down the break of a lifetime, accepted a job as an instructor at the university.”
“He has a PhD in geography. If he wanted to be a writer, why didn’t he write? That’s how it’s usually done.”
“Because my son listened to your daughter, squashed his dream so she could have hers. What’s more, he never wanted this house. He happens to like simple things. He would have been fine in a hut—if he had been working for National Geographic .”
I was hot with rage. Maybe she should sell huts. She could erect another billboard— F IRST N AME IN S ECOND H UTS .
“Honestly, I’ve had a lot going on, so I haven’t considered Lisa’s effect on Brian in a while. But now, I’m watching her, and I’m watching you with Callie. I see you spoiling that child with every intention of turning her into Lisa the Second.”
“I should deny my grandchild? That’s your job.”
“There’s only one reason Callie is sweeter to you than to me, one reason she considers you grandma number one. You ply her with carbohydrates. She’s on a permanent sugar high.”
“Di, haven’t you heard? Every time you say the G-word, you age ten years.”
“And I could say it a thousand times and still look younger than you.”
I couldn’t believe I was arguing with Lisa’s mother-in-law, or with anyone at all for that matter. Di brought out the nasty in me. I couldn’t recall another person I had disagreed with in such an over-the-top, malevolent way. Worse, Di and I had let it all hang out, said too much for it to be fixed. I gulped the last of my wine. “Listen, you ice-cold hypocrite. The last time I checked, you were living in my daughter’s house.”
When I reached the top of the stairs, Callie called my name from her room. She had heard the foul conversation. I went into Callie’s room. She sat up in bed, hugging Chester the tarantula.
“Why are you angry with Di?”
For a moment I thought of saying I wasn’t angry with Di. But I didn’t want to lie.
“Well, Callie, she said something I didn’t like.”
“What did she say?”
I joined her on the bed. “That’s not what’s important.”
“What’s important?”
“Standing up for yourself.”
“That’s what Di told me too. I stood up for myself when a mean girl said the tie-dye dress Grannie Annie made for me was extra super ugly.”
“I love that dress, Callie.”
“I told her she was extra, extra super ugly.”
Not what I had in mind. “Did that make you feel better?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Standing up for yourself doesn’t mean saying something cruel in response to a remark.” As I spoke, it occurred to me that that was exactly what I had just done. I couldn’t answer Di back anymore. I had to tolerate her insolence. Be above her. Take the high road. The high road wasn’t crowded anyway. The low road was a pileup.
I held Callie’s hand. “Next time say, ‘I love this dress.’ Then walk away.”
“It happened at the lunch table. It made me feel bad. It made me miss my dad. I hope he comes home with mom. I wish he didn’t live in Boston. What a stupid idea. Mom says he’s right across the turnpike, but he might as well be across the country. And I don’t know how to drive, so what good is the turnpike anyway?”
“But think—you’re lucky you get to Zoom with him. When I was little, there was no Zoom. Imagine that!”
“No FaceTime?”
I shook my head sadly.
“What else didn’t you have?” she asked eagerly.
“Well, if you wanted to see someone, you had to go to their house. And you needed a map made of paper to find it.”
“Was Alexa not born yet?”
Before bed, I rang Jake. “I had the day from hell. I lost Callie at the fair, but she’s in bed now, thank heaven. And if that wasn’t enough, I had it out with Di. She claims Lisa destroyed Brian’s chance to become a journalist.”
“Brian, a journalist? First I’ve heard of it.”
“I thought maybe something else was behind her bad-mouthing Lisa, but I have no idea what it would be. It was like she was using the writer thing instead of saying what was truthfully on her mind. She claims Lisa is spoiled, and I’m spoiling Callie.”
“Grandmas exist to spoil grandchildren. It’s the entire point. What’s more, Lisa started her restaurant from scratch—and look what she’s accomplished.”
“Exactly. Di ignores Callie unless it suits her needs,” I said.
“Does she help Lisa?”
“I guess if Lisa or Brian asks—but then, they are letting her live here while she has clients in her place.”
“It’s only a few more days, Jodi. The situation will be different if we move there. After all, we’ll have our own place and a bedroom Callie can stay in whenever she wants. We’ll paint it a unicorn color she loves.”
“I loved going to the fair. You should have seen Callie on the float with the Girl Scouts. I wish you had been here.”
“Did you call an agent about the house in Great Barrington?”
“Not yet. I’ve been a little busy. Turns out it’s work watching a child.”
“Please, Jodi, go look at it.”
“Okay, okay, I will. Oh, and Rizzo texted me. Everything is fine at the office. Can you believe they can survive without me?”
“They can, but I can’t,” he said, and I suddenly felt better.