Page 37 of Friendshipped
“I thought I’d pop in on Memaw. I haven’t seen her since Sunday lunch at my parents’ house. With my date tomorrow night and a movie date Sunday, my weekend is slammed.”
Trevor makes an inscrutable face.
Then he says, “Want some company on your visit to see Memaw?”
“I’d love that,” I tell him. “Let me get cleaned up and I’ll shout through the wall when I’m ready.”
Memaw lives three blocks away, but we drive anyway. It’s muggy and the rain’s been coming on and off all week. AC and the promise of staying relatively dry win out over the push to save the polar ice caps by walking. I’ve got enough on my plate with my recent return to dating. This week I’ll have to leave saving the narwhals to someone far less stressed out.
Memaw’s unassuming two-bedroom house has light green siding with white trim and a small stoop instead of a full porch. Her yard looks like it hasn’t been mowed for a few weeks, but it’s not to the point of looking abandoned—yet. Her front walkway has cracks older than me. She’s frugal and eccentric, which makes for a combination I personally adore.
Trevor follows me and knocks on the old screen door. When Memaw opens, her smile widens at the sight of him. She’s wearing a pink fluffy bathrobe, curlers, and cream matted house slippers that used to be fuzzy, but now are a muted shade of grey from years of wear. She looks like something straight out of the 1950s.
“Well, now,” she says. “This must be my lucky day. I better buy some of those scratchers. Come in, Trevor.”
“Hi,” I say. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just the girl bringing your favorite person.”
Memaw laughs that raspy, full laugh of hers like I’m a professional stand-up comedian and she’s my biggest fan.
“You know you’re my second favorite person in the world,” she whisper-speaks conspiratorially from behind the pale veined hand she lifts in front of her mouth. “And if you tell Felicia, well, I guess it’s fine. She already knows.”
“Memaw!” I say, feigning shock.
“Your sister’s fabulous,” she says. “If you’re into perfection and improvement.”
I look at Trevor. He beams back at me and raises his eyebrows with a shrug of his shoulders.
“You love her,” I say.
“Of course, I do,” she says. “I’m crazy about her. I’m her grandma for goodness sake. Loving my grandkids comes with the DNA. But your sister’s like that chocolate dessert Bonnie Milgarden brings to the church potluck. A little goes a long way.”
My jaw would drop, but I’m so used to the unfiltered version of my Memaw, it barely fazes me. We’ve only stepped in the door and she’s already got us caged in with commentary. I step past her.
“How are you?” I ask, sincerely wanting to know, but also aware she’ll only tell me the good.
I kiss her cheek and she kisses mine in return. She smells like Oil of Olay and some sort of muscle rub.
If Memaw shares about any pain or ailment, she always couches it in a joke and then dismisses it saying something like,life’s too short to spend your last days complaining. That’s what old people do, and I refuse to be like them.
“I’m good,” she says. “And before you start doubting me, there’s one thing your sister did for me. It has really upped her rank among my grandchildren.”
Considering Dad was an only child, making me and Felicia her only grandkids. We constantly toggle between first and second place. In reality I’ve never felt anything but unconditional love from my memaw and I’m sure Felicia would say the same.
I think I know what’s coming.
Trevor smiles at me again and moves toward the couches. I walk over and take a seat next to him. Thick, form-fitted plastic sheeting covers her burnt orange sofa. Yellow crocheted doilies cap the top of each back cushion. Whenever I sit here, I have flashbacks of my thighs sticking to the protective covering during summers growing up. Life hack: don’t wear shorts to Memaw’s.
Memaw sits in one of the two avocado colored lazy-boy recliners she’s had for as long as I remember.
Trevor’s contentedly quiet. He’s enjoying the show that is my memaw. I have to admit she’s awfully entertaining.
“Where was I?” she asks. “Oh, yes! The app!”
She pulls her phone off the wooden side table from where it sits next to the remote and a stack of folded crossword puzzles she’s pulled out of the paper.
Memaw puts on her reading glasses and scans her phone.
“Felicia got me on that dating app and my dance card has been fuller than June Graynor’s.”
