“Why does every day have to be exciting? Try not to be so intense about it,” I said. “Constant
expectations diminish good results.”
Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?” She looked at Claudia, who, despite how she would seem to be intent on reading or writing a paper when we talked, was really listening to every syllable we uttered.
Claudia didn’t nod in agreement with me or say anything, but her face was full of reinforcement.
“All I’m saying is you’ve got to relax a little more, take your time, Marcy. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” I smiled. I knew how old and wise beyond my years I was sounding. “We just read that in Alexander Pope’s poem, remember?”
“Alexander Pope? That’s what you’re thinking about now?”
“What’s the point of reading great things and great words if we don’t learn from them?”
Marcy leaned back on her hands and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, Lord,” she said. “What have I done to make you bring back my grandmother?”
We both spun around when Claudia laughed. She finally laughed at something outrageous Marcy had said, and the first week or so not a day passed when she didn’t.
“Sorry,” she said, looking shocked at herself.
Neither of us spoke.
“When you mentioned your grandmother, I thought of my own,” Claudia said. “She was a walking book of lessons concerning how I should live. Her claim to fame was having sex only to give birth to my mother and my uncle Matthew, who became a priest and moved to Canada before he was twenty-three. He joined the church to escape from her.”
I glanced at Marcy. Neither of us wanted to interrupt her, especially Marcy. Sometimes Claudia was so quiet Marcy forgot she was in the room with us.
“She was always giving my mother advice about how to bring me up,” Claudia continued. She had apparently loosened the knot that was choking her personal memories. “Her favorite expression was ‘There will be time for that sort of thing later,’ which was why I didn’t go to parties when other girls my age were going to them or wear lipstick when they were wearing it. ‘That sort of thing’ took in everything that was any sort of fun. Sometimes I thought she was made of wood and I’d get splinters when she hugged me like a robot.”
“And your grandfather put up with all that? I mean, didn’t he want sex?” Marcy asked.
“My grandfather owned a car dealership, and although no one came right out and said it, he was in an affair with his bookkeeper at the company for years and years. When he died, the bookkeeper left to live with her sister in Cancún.”
“Mexico?” I asked.
“Yes. She was Mexican and very pretty. I liked her a lot but could never admit it in front of my mother and father and especially not in front of my grandmother.”
She paused and thought for a moment. “Funny,” she said. “No one told me to be quiet about it, but even when I was only nine, I sensed I’d better be.” She shrugged and returned to her reading.
Marcy looked at me and smiled. Then the smile flew off her face as her thoughts returned. “Never mind her grandmother. What makes you so wise?” she asked me. “Sometimes you act twice, even three times your age.” She pointed her right forefinger at me. “I’ve been watching you. You’ve got secrets, Kaylee Blossom Fitzgerald.”
I could feel my face flush. Claudia stopped reading again and looked up. Marcy was saying something that Claudia felt about me, too, I thought.
“Do you know when you’re really naked?” I asked Marcy.
“I think I can figure it out without a mirror.”
“Maybe not. You’re really naked when you have no secrets.”
She slapped her right palm against her forehead. “It’s true!” she cried. “My grandmother has been resurrected. Okay. I’m exhausted. I might fall asleep without fantasizing about Rob Brian. Thanks to you.” She stood and turned to Claudia. “If you find out any of those secrets that keep her from being naked, don’t forget to share them. Good night, Grandma.” She smiled and left us.
Claudia looked at the closed door. Despite the face she made and the way she seemed to be disinterested in anything Marcy and I did together or discussed, I realized she liked Marcy, too. Perhaps, just as I was on the days immediately following my rescue, she was locked away in herself, secretly hoping someone would find the key and let her out.
“I really had little to do with my grandparents,” I said. “They lived too far away and visited too little, and we visited them too little, too.”
“I wish I could say the same when it came to my maternal grandmother. My father’s parents were okay, but they retired to Costa Rica, and my mother hates traveling.”
“I want to do a lot of traveling,” I said.
“Yes, so do I.”