Getting Old Is to Die for (25 page)

"My darling. I miss you so."

"Think of what he's trying to do for you. What a marvelous act of love. He's trying to free you."

"I don't want to be free."

"It's enough! It's time you moved on."

He begins to fade as the rain lessens.

"Wait. Where are you going?"

"To the past, where I belong."

"Gladdy. Gladdy!" Jack moves over to the chair next to me. He shakes me. "Where did you go?"

I am barraged by the noises. The dishes, the conversations, the traffic.

I quickly look to the window. The sun is shining. People walk briskly along to the thousands of places that city people go. My dead husband is no longer standing there talking to me. What an imagination.

"Isn't it a beautiful day?" I say.

"You seemed like you went far away."

"I'm here now."

I take a last look out the window. A young woman holding a puppy in her arms glances at the menu.

I wave at her.

She smiles and takes the puppy's paw and waves back.

I get up. "Let's go home, darling."

39

TWO FAMILIES

J
ack warns me I'm about to be surprised. But he won't tell me anything else. He waits until I can sort of put my face back together again in the tiny ladies' room of the coffee shop. I do the best I can, but my eyes are still red. We walk slowly, arm in arm, to my daughter and son-in-law's apartment. I'm aware that he doesn't ask directions; he knows the way. I ask him more questions, deeper questions about what he found out about Patty Dennison. I crave every little detail. The town she lives in. What people think about her. What they say about her. More about her cousin. There is such a huge vacuum I need to fill.

And finally, when I have heard enough on that subject, I try to tell Jack about Evvie and how torn apart she is over how her love affair ended. Apparently Morrie has been filling him in all along.

"Poor Morrie. I gave him such a hard time."

Jack laughs. He knows that, too. "Don't worry. He's a big boy. Maybe it will teach him a little humility."

We arrive at the apartment building. I hold tightly to his jacket.

"Here we go," he says, almost too brightly.

"What else should I know before we go upstairs that you haven't already told me? Don't you want to tell me how you know my daughter?"

"All will be revealed," he says in his best mysterious voice.

I use my key to open the door. At first I can't see anything. The lights are off. "Oh, no." Have they gone out again?

Suddenly all the lights are turned on. And a crowd stands in the living room, grinning at me. I look, trying to figure it out. Emily, Alan, Patrick, and Lindsay are on one side, and oh, my God, my granddaughters are home from college, my oldest ones, Elizabeth and Erin. All standing there with goofy smiles on their faces.

On the other side are...strangers. Don't tell me they've invited more neighbors...?

Jack points. "Allow me to introduce my family: Lisa, Dan, Jeremy, and Jeffrey, and in the cradle, Molly."

I turn to Jack, astonished. "They all know one another?"

Emily confirms it. "Jack introduced us."

"We met at Back to School night," Patrick contributes.

I punch Jack's arm as hard as I can. I am furious. "You did all this without my being here or even knowing about it?"

Lindsay yells, "I told you she'd be mad."

Jack puts his arms over his face and head, protecting himself as best he can. "Help!"

I punch him again and again. "You don't tell me where you're going and I worry myself sick about where you could be! And here you all are having family gatherings without me!"

"I warned you, Jack," Emily says.

I shoot my daughter a dirty look. "Cold cuts, huh?"

She grins and shrugs.

"Go get him," Lindsay cheers her grandma on.

"Yeah." Patrick jumps up and down. Jeffrey and Jeremy begin jumping with him.

Erin and Elizabeth run over to me, crushing me with big hugs. "What are you doing home?" I ask. "School's not out."

"We didn't want to miss the fun." This from Erin.

Her sister agrees. "Any excuse to take off a couple of days."

Jack moves slightly away. "Thanks for saving me, girls." He bows. "Delighted to meet you."

I glower. "I'm not finished with you, yet."

I keep shaking my head. I can't believe it. My heart is so full, I can hardly stand it. Lisa comes over and hugs me. She is so beautiful. Her husband, Dan, gives me a shy hug, too.

"Champagne," Alan announces as he begins pouring. Jack hands me a full glass.

Emily raises her glass. "To my incredible mom, Gladdy."

"To Grandma!" All the kids raise their cups of apple cider.

"To Gladdy," the adults chorus.

"To wonderful you." Jack kisses me. In front of everybody. There's no getting out of this. Ever. I'm sunk.

There's a happy flurry of good-byes. Lots of hugging and kissing from Jack's lovely family. The kids' raucous, though sleepy, "See ya"s. In the background Emily and Alan are already clearing the table of the dessert dishes.

Then there are just the two of us in the foyer. "What an incredible evening," I say, holding Jack close.

"The best," he says, nuzzling my hair.

Then it comes to me. Now what? I'm here. He's here. What do we do now? We are now officially a couple in the eyes of these two traditional families. I'm sure the women are already planning engagement showers and invitations, the whole shebang. The men, making golf dates together. Heavens, even the kids from both families are melding. Especially young Jeremy, already mad about adorable Lindsay.

Well, I came here to be with
family
; now I've got them in spades!

But how do I feel? What do I want to do right now? What happens now?

As usual Jack reads my mind. He kisses me gently on my forehead. "This has been some emotional roller-coaster day for you."

"To put it mildly."

"You need to get a good night's rest." He smirks.

Yes, it's a smirk and I know what he's thinking. Then he actually says it to me.

"Right now I'd like to tear our clothes off and have us do amazing acrobatic things to one another. Depending on what our old bodies can do."

I look at him, astonished.

Then he laughs. "Meet me tomorrow for breakfast. Nine
A.M.
? Meet me in the lobby of the Dartford Hotel." He hands me a card with the address. "We have a lot to discuss. And to plan."

After one more kiss, this one quite passionate, Jack leaves.

I return to the living room where Emily is vacuuming. She grins at me. "Must have been four pounds of potato chips I just vacuumed up. Remind me to never buy them again when all these kids get together."

I flop down on the couch. "You amaze me, all of you. All this plotting and I never catch on. I'm suspicious as hell, but I never get it."

"How could you have imagined this?"

She turns off the machine and she sits next to me on the couch, too, kicking her shoes off as she does.

"I couldn't." I smile. "All of you running out early on a Sunday morning to get away from me? I should have known. You all hate getting up early on Sunday. You usually stay in all day reading the
Times
."

"Guilty." Emily moves closer to me and leans on my shoulder.

"Sunday night pizza and a movie with the neighbors? A tradition? Still, dummy me doesn't catch on."

"They
are
good friends, and they jumped at the idea of being in on a secret."

I lean over and kiss her. "You're the greatest. Loony, but wonderful."

"About Jack..."

"Yes," I say, leery now. "What about him?"

"Well, if you need my approval, you've got it. He's quite a guy."

"He is, isn't he?"

"So, what are you doing here?"

For a moment I don't get it, but then I do. I pull myself straight up on the couch. I feel myself blushing. "Emily!" I don't know what else to say.

Emily gets up, yawns, and stretches. "I'm exhausted and off to bed. You know what you look and sound like? Me, at fifteen. See you when I see you."

With that, she walks out on me, grinning and chuckling.

I sit there, stunned. My daughter assumes Jack and I have been to bed together.

How can I tell her that, because of my indecisiveness, we haven't? If I tell my daughter, who is now behaving like the parent instead of the child, how I mucked up Pago Pago, she'll laugh herself silly.

40

GLADDY AND JACK TEAM UP

N
eed I say what I went through in the morning? I looked through the few clothes I brought for family visiting: nothing dressy or, dare I say it, sexy? Not that I have too many articles of clothing under that category. I do the best I can with a pale blue cotton skirt and blouse and dark blue sweater. And a very plain pair of beige sandals. Jack is waiting for me and I am dressed to go out and meet him for breakfast.

I'm still reeling over what a turn of events occurred yesterday. Never in a million years could I have guessed it. What I wanted to do last night was call Evvie in Westport, but it was so late when we turned in, I couldn't make the call. Later, when I have a minute.

I grab a quick cup of coffee in the kitchen, and this is what I get: Emily flashes me an enigmatic smile. Obviously she and Alan exchanged some choice pillow talk last night. Alan looks at me slyly, then quickly buries his head in the morning
Times
.

"Grandma, what are you doing here!" This from my tousle-haired, nineteen-year-old Erin with the sleep-encrusted eyes.

I look stern. "Where am I supposed to be?" I pray she doesn't answer.

She giggles and goes back to pouring soy milk over her granola.

I'm glad Elizabeth's still sleeping or there would be another country heard from.

Thank goodness eleven-year-old Lindsay is clueless. Or else not quite awake yet. Her nose is in a textbook. "Shh," she says, "I've got a test today and I need quiet."

"Well, you always leave it to the last minute," Erin snipes.

"How can I study any sooner? All we do around here is party, party, party." Lindsay snaps her book shut and, with a haughty shake of her head, takes it with her down the hallway to her room.

I could swear she's muttering something like "Old people don't do sex anyway."

Not so clueless after all. I hear Alan chuckling behind his newspaper.

That does it. "Well, I'm off. See you later."

As I am about to shut the door behind me I hear Emily call, "Don't hurry. On our account."

I groan. Families!

We have breakfast in a small restaurant down the corner from Jack's hotel. Jack informs me his hotel's coffee shop is toxic and to be avoided at all costs.