Chapter 74 Charlotte
Charlotte
Charlotte stood in Regan’s kitchen, watching smoke rise from a pan of scorched chicken bits.
Greek appliances were the worst! There was the oven, which displayed temperature in Celsius and wasn’t accurate or consistent anyway; the water heater that demanded you plan your shower thirty minutes in advance so it had time to warm up to tepid; the freestanding AC unit that was utterly incomprehensible with its tubes and buttons; and worst of all—the bane of Charlotte’s existence—the stove.
Turn the burner knob to Medium, and you might get a low simmer (Hello, salmonella’s on the menu!) or flames leaping high into the air, incinerating your dinner and threatening to incinerate you.
Charlotte dumped the pan into Regan’s sink. She’d found the recipe for “Mom’s Famous Lemon Chicken” in Regan’s recipe book, handwritten. It was Charlotte’s handwriting, yet she had no memory of ever making lemon chicken, much less getting famous for it.
“Grammy, what happened?” Flora ran in with a dish towel, batting at the smoke.
“I just stepped away for a moment,” Charlotte lied. She’d been in the living room, halfway through a glass of chardonnay, staring at her phone and willing it to ring with a call from Paros. (Or a call from anyone.)
She wanted a reason to leave this dilapidated apartment!
If Paros called, she could leave this dilapidated apartment!
Charlotte went into Regan’s bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror, which Flora had recently Windexed.
Her skin was no longer elastic, and her eyes seemed dull.
Charlotte wanted more days, more love, more kisses…
another adventure! To press her saggy cheek to a man’s face, breathe him in.
She wanted to grab a man’s bottom in her palms. How could she be elderly when she was still filled with yearning?
“Grammy?” Flora knocked softly.
“Just a moment!” Charlotte called, voice artificially bright. She reapplied lipstick with a shaking hand. In the mirror, she practiced her smile.
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine!” called Charlotte. And then, as if God himself had heard her prayers, her cellphone rang.