Chapter 12
TWELVE
“We regret nothing. We make our choices, and we accept the consequences—good or bad.”
—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,
Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes
The first couple of days with Hallie went smoothly.
We worked out an easy routine. The Sit-n-Eat closed at two, so, that Wednesday and Thursday, I stayed an extra half hour to help with cleaning up before driving over to the Lutheran church where Hallie was enrolled in a day camp.
She got out at three and we’d head to the house to have a snack and hang out until Abe got home around six.
Hallie was fun. She chatted endlessly. I learned all about her life back in Denver, how much she really wanted a puppy, how superior the color purple was, how much she loved peaches but hated pears, her dad’s (sad lack of) girlfriends, and so on. She was a walking Wikipedia page.
“See? I kept her alive the whole time,” I said to Abe on the first day. I think he was impressed.
This arrangement had an added bonus. We’d have time each day to play “Get to know each other so we can look like we’re really dating and not just faking it for Aidan’s wedding.” Fun game. Highly recommend.
It went something like this:
“Favorite book?” I asked.
“The House Plant Expert.” From one of the bookshelves in the sunroom, he pulled out a hardback and held it up. “First edition and signed.”
“You are such a plant daddy.”
He scowled. “Your favorite book?”
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower, obviously.”
“Liar.”
“How do you always know?”
He smirked. “I just do.”
“Fine. It’s Pride and Prejudice, okay? I like pumpkin spice lattes, too. I’m a basic white girl. It’s my secret shame.”
After the first two days, I was feeling pretty good about this whole babysitting venture. If this was what I could expect, it would be a piece of cake.
On Thursday evening, I drove over to Shady Cove to hang out with Gloria for a bit. Kathy caught me in the hallway.
“I’m so glad I saw you.” She smiled but she looked out of sorts.
Her hair, which started the day as a ponytail, was sprouting in all directions around her face.
Not one or two, but three pairs of eyeglasses were tucked into the front collar of her shirt.
She was wearing a fourth pair. “I had a teensy little question.”
“What’s up?”
“You know since Marla left, I’ve been juggling her job and mine.” Marla had been the activity director who’d moved on to more exciting pastures. Kathy had been picking up the slack until someone was hired. But not a lot of people wanted to relocate to a small town for a part-time job.
“Yes?” I said, curious where she was going with this.
“Well, the next BINGO night happens to be my granddaughter’s birthday and I was really hoping that I could put you in charge? You’d set up, be the caller, that sort of thing.”
“The caller?”
“The person who pulls the numbers and calls them out. Starts at seven and it’s over by eight-thirty.”
“Sure.” Chances were I would be here anyway. I’d been to a BINGO night or two, but Gloria avoided them. Something about it being too boring for her tastes.
Kathy smiled widely. “Excellent. It’s really a breeze except for the fighting and—”
“Fighting?” My voice was an octave higher than normal.
She patted my arm. “It rarely happens. Maybe once or twice a month.”
“A month?”
“Oh, you’ll be fine. The residents all love you. You have a way with them, you know.” Kathy shuffled back a few steps. “Just don’t let Mr. Terrance and Mrs. Glass sit anywhere near each other.”
“Why?”
Kathy waved, ignoring my question. “Gotta run. Thanks again.”
“Right here?” I asked as I set the vase of flowers on the table in front of the window.
Gloria eyed the placement critically from her throne-like chair. Today, she had on a flowy peach pantsuit that looked straight out of an episode of The Golden Girls. “Hmm. Try it back over at the kitchen table.”
“Oh, you mean the place they started out thirty minutes ago?” I set the vase down with a thump. Gloria had fresh flowers delivered every week and every week, we went through this same routine only for the flowers to end up on this table.
Gloria waved a hand leisurely. “One must see all the possibilities before making the final choice. Oh, that’s a good one. Write that one down.”
“Of course, your majesty.” I took out my phone and typed it into my notes app. This collection of random thoughts was called “Quotes for Gloria’s Memoir.” It would be a bestseller, she said. When she got around to writing it. I plopped on the bed. “Now, why are you frowning?”
“Iris, I’ve told you this before. I do not frown. Frowns produce wrinkles. I do not have wrinkles.”
I smirked. Sure, she looked good for her age, but she was eighty-seven. “I like wrinkles. Means you’ve lived through some things.”
“There are other ways to tell what I’ve lived through that don’t involve it showing on my face.” She waved her hand in the air with the regalness of a queen. “Now, you may lie to me.”
“Okay, fine. You don’t have a single wrinkle. It’s amazing how young you look. You can’t be a day over thirty-five.”
“Thank you.” Her smile was smug, but I couldn’t help noticing she looked tired. Makeup couldn’t quite conceal the dark circles under her eyes.
“You feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” Shoulders slumping, her gaze drifted to the large bank of windows behind me. “It’s George. He’s not doing well. They moved him to the third floor today.”
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured.
I’d learned in my time volunteering at Shady Cove that the worst part of getting old wasn’t declining health or slow loss of independence; it was losing people you loved.
If you lived long enough, you had to watch everyone pass on—friends, family, even children.
That was a kind of loneliness that took up space in a person’s bones.
“It’s how life works, isn’t it? He just reminds me of someone from a long time ago.” Her eyes took on the dreamy haze of memories. “A boy I knew.”
Gloria loved to reminisce about her days in New York, working as a Rockette, meeting her husband, their high society life, but she rarely brought up anything about growing up in Two Harts. It was like she wanted me to believe she’d hatched as a fully formed diva. Sometimes I believed it.
“Who?” I asked.
“The boy next door. He was my best friend. We did everything together,” she said, her eyes soft, expression wistful. “Everyone thought one day we’d marry, but I knew differently. I was leaving Two Harts as soon as I could.”
“What happened to him?”
With a shrug, she pulled out of her memories. “I don’t know exactly. I went off to New York, but I thought about him all the time. I even came back a few years later. He was married with three children. It was the last time I saw him.”
“Do you regret it? Going to New York.”
“No regrets, darling,” she said firmly, slipping back into Diva Mode. “We regret nothing. We make our choices, and we accept the consequences—good or bad.”
“Why does everyone sound like a fortune cookie these days?” I muttered.
“I don’t know about fortune cookies, but that was another good one. Write that one down, too. I’m especially brilliant today.”
I rolled my eyes but dutifully typed out the sentence so it could join the dozens of others there.
“Now tell me about this new job of yours.”
“How do you know about that?” I asked. “I just started yesterday.”
“I have my ways,” she said. But it was probably one of the nursing aides. Maggie was her favorite and she always had good gossip. “Come on now. I’ve heard you’re a nanny for a man with a lot of tattoos who works on cars. I’ve heard he’s very attractive. Maggie said he was a total snack.”
I shivered. “Never say those words again. They sound all kinds of wrong coming from your mouth.”
“I know a snack when I see one and I want to know how tasty this one is.”
“Make it stop.”
“Stop stalling and tell me.”
“It’s Abe, the guy I told you about who volunteered to go to the wedding with me. I owed him a favor so I’m watching his daughter a couple of hours a day. It’s no big deal.” I fussed with the hem of my black t-shirt.
“And?”
“And what?”
“That’s not the whole story.”
“There’s nothing else to the story. He’s helping me out; I’m helping him out.”
She sniffed. “There’s more. I know there is.”
“There isn’t. We shared a supply closet together. That’s all.”
“Well, I hope there was a passionate kiss somewhere in there.”
I rolled my eyes. “There was no kissing. Or anything else. It was just him and me and a jar of pickles.”
“And now he’s going to that boy’s wedding with you?” She smiled slyly. “This is all so convenient. Almost like it was meant to be.”
“Don’t read anything into this.” Gloria would have us married by the end of the week if I let her.
Gloria hummed. “And you’re not tempted to… have a taste of this snack?”
“Seriously. Never say it again. He’s a nice guy, that’s all. He has his life already figured out. I can’t figure out where I’ll be in September.”
“Well, I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Oh, that’s not happening.”
Gloria didn’t reply. She did smile, though.