Book 4: Forever and a Day

Preface

If you have followed Fran, Dusty, Dean and Annie in the Bully Dog Series, you might understand that I am saddened by their departure from my imagination. Fran will always make me smile to think of her as a young girl, bullied at school, who found her voice, and stood up to the bullies; Dusty tugs at my heartstrings, for she will always be torn asunder and reformed by the creative energy of an artist; Dean, the intellectual, always defining and redefining himself and the world, will struggle but ultimately win the wrestling match with his demons; and Annie, the saint and the sinner, is the synthesis of the friendships. These Musketeers, these life-long friends, these characters who embody courage, wit and grit, and faithfulness, have stepped off the written page and into lives of their own.

I will leave them with some last measured thoughts: Fran, if Mother Teresa can have profound doubts about her faith, everyday, and yet act full of faith, essentially becoming the “saint of skeptics”, then so must we be faithful; Dusty, as Lord Byron put it succinctly about Childe Harold, i.e., himself, “…the heart will break, yet brokenly live on…”; Dean, take Ray Bradbury’s advice and “jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down”; to Annie, speak your truth, shout your truth, sing your truth, for as Buddha said, “Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”

I wish you all a successful journey and hope that each one of you will drop me a line or two—-I do not expect a novel!—-in the ensuing years, just so I know you are doing well as life goes on, through all the highs, lows and the mundane, for each one of us—-you, me and the reader.

Chapter 1

“Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending.”
— Kermit the Frog

I stay cocooned in my quilt reluctant to let go as the dream dissipates into pinpoints of sunshine. I awake to the smell of brewed coffee and the household stirring. I hear my father in the kitchen, dicing and humming. I hope he is making a quiche. I stretch and inhale, breathing out slowly. Ah, to wake up with the whole day to laze; that’s my idea of the first week of my summer vacation. My muscles ache, sore from a full forty-hour week of taking inventory at the Reed College bookstore. My brain cells were squeezed dry from finals and really, it felt good to stay an extra week to do mindless work and get paid for it. It is not like I had to read all those books, just box them up and have Scott stack them.

My room looks the same as when I came home for Christmas, courtesy of my mother, with the Home for the Holidays banner still taped on the newly dusted bookshelf, which is really funny if you think of the two different versions of the same song by J. Cole and Perry Como. Of course, my mother would freak if she even heard J. Cole’s lyrics. I thought about telling her, but reconsidered, keeping it as my private little joke.

She doesn’t find much humor in anything since Grandma came to live with us. ‘Early onset Alzheimer’s’ now defines my once vibrant Grandma who babbles and sighs a lot. I remember in tenth grade is when I stopped calling her Granny because I didn’t like the feel the word on my tongue, and it reminded me of the whole wolf imagery in Little Red Riding Hood, and she became, Grandma. Mom and I once went through a whole list: What kind of dog would Grandma be? and simultaneously cried out, “Poodle!”

I added, “Standard!”

Mom snapped her fingers, and with a sly wink, “Dyed blue!”

I leaned close. “But never rainbow!” I finished with a snort that made my mother chuckle.

My Grandma: feisty, smart, strong-willed and opinionated, the party girl—Democrat that is. Used to be some lively arguments in this Republican household, but not anymore. The only politics discussed is the family kind, the dynamics of family members.
I sigh, asking myself if I sound like my Grandma and wonder if she resents having her vitality ebb day by day. She used to practically prance but now she uses a cane. It doesn’t seem she really knows what is happening to her. I miss talking with her, especially when she would take my side and sway my mother over to my way of thinking. I can’t help but resent the changes she has made in my life because she cannot function alone. My mother couldn’t come with Dad to Parents’ night at college because she could not leave Grandma home alone. Really, couldn’t Mom have made arrangements for a caretaker for just a couple of days?

I don’t have to do anything today on this Saturday in May and I might just stay in bed. I pack pillows behind my back so that I can sit up and look at the new quilt my mother made me for Christmas. It really is an awesome design of Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Mom has done a remarkable job detailing the sky and mountains in dark shades of blue and purple, the moon and clouds in white and cream and grays as a background to Galadriel in a gauzy, turquoise dress with sparkly white inset, with a shimmering aura over her. Details like the filigree headband and an ethereal gaze somewhere-over-there-in-the-far distance. Truly my mother’s work of placating art. Art not for its own sake, but for mine. I should tell her how much I really love this quilt, but lately words clump inside my throat when I try to say anything nice to her. And, there are times I feel like I have to wave my hand in front of her face and speak slowly, “Hello! It’s me! Are you listening? Can you spare a few minutes?”

Oh, well, let it go—my mantra lately. I feel so many changes in the people I love. Loved. Grandma with her addled brains. Dusty, my best friend, is married with a baby and husband and no time for anyone else in her life. Annie, my childhood friend, has been hospitalized with bulimia and anorexia. My long-time friend, Carol moved to the Midwest. And Dean—always a river of sadness washes over my heart when I think of him not in my life—oh, well, let him go.

I scan the bookshelves. Should I choose a paperback? Or perhaps select a book on my reader? I have culled my mother’s library for some surprising gems: Dorothy Parker, Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf, and Margaret Atwood. On my e-reader, I have Zadie Smith, Dorothy Allison, Kelly Link, Jennifer Egan, Colette and a few light weight sci-fi. But finally I decide from the stack of paperbacks next to my bed, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

It’s a complicated story, a lot about communism and political strife in Prague Spring, that period of Czechoslovak history in 1968. The plot line with the four major characters is intriguing and like a jigsaw puzzle coming together, keeps my interest. Inside my head, I have done a little revision with the characters: Franz, an idealistic professor and lover of books, of course is me; Tereza, who sees herself and her body as disgusting and shameful is Annie; and for Dusty and Dean, I cannot make up my mind. Dusty is quirky like the dog, Karenin, not liking much change and Dean has many attributes of Sabina, especially his ‘lightness of being’, but like Karenin, is a little confused about his identify. I go back and forth on who resembles which character the most, as they both have betrayed me.

There is a soft rap at the bedroom door and my father’s voice. “Fran? Are you awake?” He pushes the door open and pokes just his head inside. Reminds me of the joke about a camel asking his master to please let him just put his head inside the tent to get out of the sandstorm, and eventually worries his whole body inside the tent forcing his master out.

“Hey! Popsicle, wassup?” I slide a bookmark into the book and close it. I can tell that he is about to make a snide remark about my messy room, looking from my open suitcase still unpacked, clothing streaming out on all sides and stacks of books next to shoes and a shirt and jeans, to me; but he surprises me and doesn’t.

“Popsicle is it? Now I’m a Franism?”

“Oh, no, no!” I wag a finger him playfully. “There are no ‘isms’ for a Reedie—it’s in the founding father’s mission statement.”
“I still don’t know how I feel about that motto, young lady. ‘Communism, atheism, and free love’.” He points to my gray t-shirt, with the blue logo: a large circle, the Seal of Reed College, with a three point shield, a rose in each of the three corners, inside with the words in the border, “atheism”, on top, right side, “ communism” and the left side, “ free love”. And inside the shield in the middle, is the school symbol, the Griffin.

“You know, it was meant to be a slur upon the college because of the Red Scare after WWI. I think it was a brilliant coup—making it positive and all. It sure beats Foster’s ‘“Comrades of the Quest”’. Sounds like we’re supposed to be knights-errant on a medieval journey in some mythological story. Believe me, I have yet to meet a hero in armor on campus. The only ‘knights’ I’ve encountered have been the long hours after midnight studying.”

“Well, I guess the only ‘knights’ you’ll have here at home are long hours reading. You stayed up rather late last night—I assume reading.”

I give him my I’m your daughter smile, because he, too, will inevitably have to finish a chapter before he puts his book down for the night. I have tried to convince him to get an electronic reader, but he says that he likes the heft of a good book. Now my mother, she reads e-books and goes to the library and second-hand book store, constantly exchanging her worn, sometimes yellowed-page books. Her favorites she buys in hard back. I have jested several times that every one she owns will be a collector’s item that she can sell on e-bay because there is no future for the printed version. She usually negates me with a shake of her head, like the thought of it is too painful to consider.

Dad steps inside. He always looks nice, whether he is going to the office downtown or staying home. He has on khaki pants and a red plaid short-sleeved shirt. He jangles my car keys, then puts them on my dresser, on top of a stack of paperbacks. “I took your Camry in for an oil change this morning. Put some windshield fluid in and checked the antifreeze. Your tires look good.” He leans on his elbow on the dresser, pushing aside a stack of books. “You’ve put some miles on it since Christmas.”

“I’m a busy girl, Dad. I try to walk most places, only if I have the time. Freshman Humanities is grueling and labor intensive. And, no, I don’t read while I am driving, nor do I listen to audio books. I took to heart all those lectures you gave me when I first learned to drive.” That made him smile; I knew it would.

“Got some coffee brewing and an egg soufflé hot out of the oven. If you are hungry, come have some, umm, brunch.”

“Will do! Be there in a few!” I kick the covers off and stretch my legs over the bedside as my Dad exits with a long look at the suitcase and a shake of his head.

I twist my arms and rotate my shoulders, glancing out window at Puget Sound. Sunlight dapples on the calm, blue water. Then I see Grandma kneeling beside the George Best rose in her nightgown that gaps at the armholes, exposing her wrinkled, pendulous breast. I jump to my feet and fling open my bedroom door and holler. “Mom! Grandma’s in the garden naked! Again!”

This is like the third time Grandma’s done this strange thing of taking a parcel of food and burying it outside. It’s not so bad if she’s in the front yard because the fence hides her from the neighbor’s prying eyes, but she is exposed in more ways than one on the water side.

At the slam of the sliding door, I retrace my steps to the window. My Mom is racing towards Grandma with a robe streaming behind her like a maroon flag. The mothership comes in for a landing to recapture the errant podship, wrapping Grandma in the robe and her arms, lifting her to her feet. I can see her leaning close and talking to Grandma, but can’t tell if she is scolding her or what. They walk slowly, entwined together, into the house.

I pluck a pair of jeans from the pile of clothes and shake out a crinkled blue t-shirt, and pad barefoot out to the kitchen. “Smells good, Daddo.” He hands me a plate and I snatch and munch on one the four pieces of bacon, crispy and salty, a complement to the richness of the soufflé. I get my own coffee and offer to refill his cup.

He puts down the spatula encrusted with cheese and eggs beside the skillet on the stove. He waves his hand. “No, enough for me today. Cutting back on the caffeine.” He sighs. “Getting older is not for sissies.”

I scoot out chair and sit at the island in the middle of the kitchen. “You once told me you were never going to get old.” I pointed my fork at him as I chewed a mouthful. “‘Forever Young’ you sang all the time.”

He places his hand over his heart. “Here, I am forever young!”

We smile at each other, both of us shaking our heads, which makes us burst out with snorty laughs.

Just then, my mother and Grandma come into the kitchen. Mom’s expression is determined, yet she says softly, kindly, as she coaxes Grandma to sit down and have some breakfast, “Please, mother.” She slides a plate with a small heaping of soufflé and one piece of bacon. “Eat something. You’ve not had breakfast yet.”

“Oh, my!” Grandma, enrobed in fluffy maroon chenille, leans back into the chair and claps her hands, “I think that all I do is eat!” She leans over to me and pats my arm. “I’ll lose my girlish figure if I keep stuffing myself like a turkey and have to wear those awful, paisley caftans old ladies always putz around in!”

“Oh, Grandma!” I arch an eyebrow at her. “You’ll never lose your style!”

“No.” she sighs, smoothing her napkin on her lap. “Just my mind.” She looks up at my mother with a little, sad smile.

It is at this moment my heart pinches at the thought that someday I may have to take care of my mother. My father, too, will grow old, but it is odd that I cannot imagine myself aging, or rather changing from being anything other than myself now at twenty. I haven’t changed so much in my ideology as say, Dusty; now married with a baby, she is no longer the Dusty that I knew in school. She has no time for the friends she had, no time but for the baby and Frank. And I am clueless about Annie, how she got to be bulimic. I miss her. I miss Dean. It just seemed that we would all be friends forever and that would be the one constant in all of our lives. Now those summer days when we all worked together tending our neighbors’ lawns was in some else’s story.

I want to erase this moment, brush it gone from us, much like Grandma’s motion of repeatedly wiping her hands down her napkin. Maybe she too, would like to iron out the wrinkles of her mind. I grab her hand and hold it still. A thousand banal words scroll across my tongue, but finally I manage to say, “Dad made our brunch. It’s quite delicious.”

Grandma’s hands are shaky as she brings a forkful of eggs to her mouth. Tiny bits of egg dribble onto the lapel of her robe. My mother has turned her back to us as she pours coffee into two mugs, twisting sideways to refill my father’s cup that he accepts without complaint, and then to face us as she quietly places a mug beside Grandma’s plate. For several minutes we are silent, and it feels strangely comforting to be here with my mother, father and grandmother. The rustle of movement as Dad walks down the hall to his office breaks the spell; my mother sips her coffee loudly, then steps away from the island to begin loading dishes into the dishwasher. Grandma sighs, making a face at her plate. I swallow the last of my breakfast and get up to rinse my dishes, butt bumping my mother and she reaches behind her to swat me playfully.

It’s like we are an old favorite jacket with its zipper come undone a bit; I’ll just reach down and pull it up. It’s all right, at least for now. All of us. At least for now.

My feet make a soft slap-slap on the hardwood floors as I walk into the den. I sit down on a padded folding chair at the card table where I am working on a puzzle, a Christmas present from Dean, of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. I had been putting ornaments on the six-foot Christmas tree and heard a car pull into the driveway, so I peeked out the living room window to see Dean stretch across the front seat of his red Nissan Versa to snag a box wrapped in sparkling reds and greens with a huge glittery bow. My mother had looked quizzically at me as I left the room with a terse, “I’m not here.”

I could hear them talking from the kitchen where I stood beside the refrigerator. Dean’s last words to her, “Please give Fran this from me. Tell her I’ll call later,” as the door swooshed open and his “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Reed!” echoed throughout the house. I had not explained to her, or anyone else, what had torn us apart. How do you tell someone your heart has been shredded?

She had stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Fran, I won’t ask for the details but, obviously, something has happened between the two of you. I suspect I know what it may have been.” She sighed heavily, quietly asking, “If I’m right, he told you he is gay?”
“Did everyone know but me?” I snapped, then embarrassed by my outburst, I softened, “Yes, he did.” I took a step away from her side, but still with her hand attached to my arm, not letting me quite go. “I just don’t want to have to deal with him.”

She arched an eyebrow, speaking with her velvet hammer voice. “You’re a writer, Fran. How do you want your story with Dean to be? Are the characters over-idealized like in a fairy tale? Or just human, a little less than noble? Compassion, love, friendship all have a flip side. And we’re all capable of being being lovable and detestable, sometimes in the same instant.” She squeezed my arm before letting go with a parting remark, “You might consider his character development as a plot device that leads you to an alternative conclusion of what a relationship really is.” She handed me the gift and left me alone with my thoughts.
What an ironic gift, the symbol of a kiss. I recall vividly the first time Dean kissed me, my first kiss. How his eye lashes tickled my cheek and the soft imprint of his lips on mine, how clean he smelled, while my heart fluttered with elation. How right and true the moment was and I just knew we were meant to be together. You can know these things, even when you’re only thirteen. Of course, you may not know these things at nineteen or eighty.

I slip the last of the puzzle pieces into place and just stare at the picture of a man cradling his lover’s upturned face in their entwined hands as he kisses her cheek. Her face is oddly static with her eyes closed and her unsmiling lips, almost as if she were asleep, except for her left hand clasping his, and her shoulder pressed into his; her right hand is cinched claw-like over his shoulder and resting on his back. Her hands are more the focal point of the picture. Maybe on the one hand she wants his passion, on the other she doesn’t.

I mosey over to the newly purchased roll-top oak desk that my mother found in an antique store and refinished. It gleams from the recently applied varnish, with a sprinkling of dust on the edge. I swipe it clean with my index finger, wipe the dust on the leg of my jeans and extract a black marker from a pigeon hole. I hover over the puzzle, then uncap the marker. The smell of ink is sharp as I make tiny tears seeping out the woman’s eyes, dripping down the man’s hand. The picture now is a symbol of my first and last kiss by my once-upon-a-time-boyfriend.

It feels good to crumple the pieces apart and herd them into the large cardboard box, smacking the lid as it shut all those thousands of pieces away in their dark container. Maybe the box is bigger to hold the pieces and all the symbolism. I wish I could put my life back to together again as easily as I did the puzzle. I have been so intent on this inner dialogue that I have not heard the tip-tapping of my Grandmother’s cane as she came into the room.

“Oh! Grandma! You startled me!” I snipped and instantly regretted it. “Well, don’t you look nice in that pantsuit!” She is wearing her going-out pantsuit, straight-legged pants, the jacket, with large black buttons and intricate scrolls along the cuffs. And a multi-colored, patterned scarf, artfully knotted. She begins the process of settling down onto the cushion, gripping her cane with both hands as she swivels in a semi-circle before she lowers herself. She puts her cane on the arm of couch, where it promptly clatters to the floor. I bend down, pick it up and prop it against the wall before I sit beside her on the couch. “Teal is definitely your color. It brings out the green in your blue eyes.”

She squints at me, “If you say so. Your mother is washing my robe.”

Yes, I want to add, Mother does a lot of laundry these days. Without fail, Grandma spills some part of her meal, inevitably onto herself.

In her sassy way Grandma sings, “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”

I point to a photo album on her lap. “Show and tell?”

“Yes, that puzzle of yours made me think of a time long ago.” She opened the book to a page with black and white photos and tapped a picture of a beautiful young woman, with long, flowing hair in a gingham dress, sitting on a blanket with a good looking guy on her left and a woven picnic basket beside her on the right. “I was a pretty thing in my day, you better believe it!” She laughed and edged out a picture from behind the one of her. “I remember George.” She held out the picture for me to inspect. “Oh, he could kiss!”

George was not my grandfather’s name. “What happened to George, Grandma?” I lean over to get a close-up of the handsome gent. “He certainly is good looking.” Now this was getting interesting.

“Oh, he went off to war.” She slid the picture back into its place behind the one of her.

“Did you ever see him again?” I was a little alarmed to see a wet streak down her cheek.

“Yes, I did. Your mother was just a babe in my arms when I ran into him coming out of Woolworth’s. He had moved to the east coast, upper New York, I think. He said he had married and had children of his own. But funny thing, I thought at the time, he didn’t wear a wedding band.” She snapped the cover close.

Grandma didn’t say anything for a brief moment, then she snagged me with a direct look into my eyes. “What happened to your young man, Dean?”
I leaned back into the couch with a shrug. “You know, the same old story. He found someone else, I guess.”

“Really? He calls here, drops by, and I believe,” she leveled me with a fierce stare, “he has written to you. Probably does that thing with the phone, too.” She wiggled her fingers in a comic imitation of typing.

“Texts.” I squirm a bit under her scrutiny. “Yes, he does that, too.”

“Then who jilted whom?”

“Grandma, I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. It’s like my heart is torn, like a piece of fabric.” I work my fingers up and down my legs, relishing the roughness of my jeans. “I’ll get over it, I guess.”

Grandma slipped my hand into hers. “Sweetheart, tears can be dried,” she reached over with her free hand and touched my cheek, “tears can be mended. He is not your intended.” She clapped our hands together hands and guffawed. “I’m a poet and didn’t know it!”

I laugh out loud, and take her hand, wiggling it as I used to do as a kid when I wanted her attention. “Grandma, get your needle and thread and sew the pieces of my heart back together again.”

She patted my hand and said brusquely, “A broken heart heals with forgiveness.” She brought our hands to her lips and planted a kiss on mine. “There are other true loves. You have to be open for the one that knows your name.”

I don’t reply and as I watch her, I can see she is drifting again with that dreamy look that signals my Grandma has stepped away from this reality. She begins a low, soft mumbling of names that I do not recognize, and I think she mistakes me for my mother when she tells me to wear the navy dress with lace inset when I get ready for my date.

I lean over and kiss her cheek. “Yes,” I whisper, “it will make my eyes seem darker and more mysterious.”

But she has not heard me or chooses not to answer as her eye lids flag and she slips into sleep. I disentangle my hand from hers and grab the blanket behind me. Carefully, I tuck it around her and push another pillow beneath her arm to that she doesn’t fall over.

I recalled the picture of her lost love, George. The good-looking one that went away. I wondered if perhaps he had lied to her, too. Maybe, just maybe, he had been gay. “They don’t always tell you the truth, Grandma,” I whispered. “The ones that leave you.”