Vivian In Red

by Kristina Riggle

  Grampa smiles and puts a fingertip on his nose. Bingo.

  “She’s so pretty. Her hair’s so long, I thought everyone bobbed the hair back then.”

  Grampa Milo shrugs, and I can read in his face: what do I know from hair?

  Minutes pass like this, with me trying to retell the anecdotes he’s told me down through the years, though that meant stretching my memory back a decade or more, using the pictures as a prop. Grampa, I can tell from the corner of my eye, leans on his elbow in the chair and closes his eyes. I’m about to take my leave and let him rest when he snaps up, staring fixedly at the corner of the room near a wooden globe on a stand.

  “Grampa? Do you see something?”

  He reaches over to the coffee table book and sweeps it onto the floor with a quickness I couldn’t have imagined. I set the album down on the floor and put my hand on his knee, but he turns away as far as the chair will allow.

  Esme sweeps in then, as if she’d been waiting in the wings this whole time, scooping up the album and the book. A nurse I’d almost forgotten about appears as well, checking over my grandfather, who submits to this investigation with a droopy, sulky acquiescence. This nurse is a man, with dark skin and an Afro-Caribbean accent which trills musically along as he narrates what he’s doing for the sake of my grandfather, or maybe for me. I wish I knew his name and I’m embarrassed that I don’t, but can’t rouse myself to ask.

  Esme speaks up. “Mr. Short, I will make you a whiskey and soda, it’s just about cocktail hour anyway. Miss Eleanor, your uncle wanted to speak with you, could you come please?”

  I mumble a goodbye and follow Esme as she leads me from the room with a big, confident stride.

  In the kitchen across the entry, I sit down at a counter stool and Esme busies herself making two drinks. Her dark braid has fallen over one shoulder and I wonder that it doesn’t bother her like that. I give my own ponytail a self-conscious pat, and feel it frizzing out, bristling under my hand.

  “It’s difficult,” Esme says, filling the quiet with her own thoughts as I’d tried to do for my Grampa just minutes ago. “Sometimes he is in spirits, then he gets frustrated. He uses up all patience. I think he enjoys it for a time, like that game? What’s it’s called? Where you act out something and people guess?”

  “Charades.”

  “Yes, that one. But then he gets tired of the game and boom, something hits the floor, or maybe he just slumps. Oh, nothing valuable. He would never ruin anything Mrs. Bee had picked out.”

  Esme pushes the drink across the counter to me. “Now, there you are. Cheers.”

  “You should have one too, for a proper ‘cheers.’”

  “No, miss, this is not for me.”

  “Oh, Grampa wouldn’t mind, he’d probably make you one himself.”

  “No, I mean I drink nothing more than communion wine.”

  “Good for you, then. L’chaim.” I down half the drink and it slams into my chest. “Does Uncle Paul really want to see me, or was that an excuse to get me out of the room?”

  “No, he does. He’s in the library.”

  I sneak a glance into the parlor as I ascend the stairs. Grampa Milo is leaning on one hand again and if he noticed me walk past him in the foyer he didn’t acknowledge it.

  Grandma Bee decorated the library in red and gold to look like the inside of a theater. The grand piano in the corner bounces the stark August sun into the room, and Uncle Paul, rubbing his temples behind Grampa Milo’s desk, looks so much like his dad that I could be back in time with two braids holding back my frizz and the taste of grape Popsicle on my tongue.

  “Hi, Uncle Paul.”

  “Hey, El, have a seat. I was just doing some work while you two visited downstairs. I don’t like to leave him alone, but it’s so hard to communicate with him for very long. At work I feel bad I’m not here, but here I feel pointless and like I should be at work. Anyway, your aunt should be along soon, and I think Naomi said she’d drop by.”

  Taking turns. Like with my dad at the end. When it was my time, I’d be motionless in a hard chair, pulled apart by agony and guilt, as I watched the second hand tick along.

  “So, what did you need?”

  Uncle Paul looks up from his papers. “Right. So. This is a little strange, given everything. But I wanted to talk to you about it before, and anyway, it appears time is ticking. So we want to get it all teed up.”

  “Get what teed up?”

  Uncle Paul folds his hands and leans over them. “Your grandfather’s biography. His definitive life story, complete with full-color, never-before-seen photos and behind the scenes anecdotes.”

  “I thought Grampa hated that idea.”

  Paul waved his hand through the air and shrugged. “We were talking about it. He was coming around. See, I think it would be a great idea to mount The High Hat again, in grand style. You know, try to get Bernadette, wouldn’t she be terrific? Just imagine. We give the book the same title, have the show premiere in New York the same week the book comes out. I was even going to try and get him to write a new song or two for the revival. It would be a smash, I can feel it. I’ve already got investors sniffing around.”

  “Wow. Good luck.”

  “I’m not just making small talk here. I want you to write the book.”

  “Me?” I grab the arms of my chair like I might be flung out of it otherwise.

  “Of course! Strangers have written about him before and it’s always been boring as shit and half of it wrong. Maybe you can be the one to find out why he quit songwriting after The High Hat, and switched to producing. Never made any sense, to have one huge hit and give it up. A writer in the family and we should ask someone else? Please.”

  “No, I can’t write it. It’s a conflict of interest—”

  “Only if we hide it, which we won’t. We’ll be perfectly up front about it. ‘By Eleanor Short’ on the New York Times bestseller list, tell me that doesn’t sound good to you.”

  “But I’ve got work…” My voice fails me in the lie.

  “I know, you’ve got your own things going but it’s a bit of a lull, isn’t it?” Does he know for sure or is he just guessing? Either way, I can’t refute it.

  “But I’m just a nobody. I’ve never written a book. Get someone from the New York Times or something. They’ll jump at the chance. Why would anyone want me?”

  “Look, people already want this. I’ve got editors calling me all over the place, especially this one fellow, practically waving a contract at me.”

  “Contract?”

  “Book contract, darling Eleanor. The fact that you’re young and Milo Short’s granddaughter is a bonus, not a problem. Trust me.”

  I’ve been staring at my lap for all this conversation, twisting my father’s watch on my wrist. I keep looking down as I ask, “How can I do this without… When Grampa can’t talk?”

  “I think he’ll come around, what with that therapy, right? Joel says there’s nothing medically wrong that should stop him. I think he’s just shocked or something, like writer’s block. Maybe we’ll mash up some Prozac in his oatmeal.”

  “Uncle Paul!”

  “I kid! Look at you, you’re white as a ghost. I would never drug your grandfather, please. And if he doesn’t…. Ellie, he’s eighty-eight. He might not wake up tomorrow.”

  I wince at the bald correctness of that statement.

  “What I’m saying is that we should do this while he’s still around to see it all. Yeah, I know he hasn’t been so wild about a book before, but that’s another reason it’s perfect that you do it. You’re his favorite, and you’d never write up something tacky. You’re probably the only person on the planet he’d trust to write about him.” Paul pauses and stares hard at me, his large hand frozen in the act of tapping a pencil restlessly on the desk. I sense he has more to say, and so I wait. He tosses the pencil down and continues. “And actually, there is one other thing.”

  “What other thing?”

  “Look, Naomi’s b
een busy lately, since this book idea came up. She loves it, you know. The revival tie-in, the whole deal. But she’s got this reporter fella she wants to do it, and she wants him to do it right now, without waiting for Dad to get better. She wants him to start interviewing all his old friends and such, and then come in here with flashcards and whatever, whether he can talk or not. And in fact it sounds like they’d milk the hell out of the ‘sad old stroke victim’ angle.” Paul cringes, shakes his head. “There’s nothing wrong with the writer, somebody-Bernstein is his name I think. But can you imagine what Dad would think of that? A stranger coming in here to quiz him? In his condition?”

  “Just tell her no. You’re her uncle. Or tell her Grampa won’t go along with it.”

  “When was the last time you tried telling Naomi ‘No’ about anything? I may be her uncle, but she’s also a grown-up, and if I don’t have a writer picked out for this book idea, she’ll stick in her own guy. But you’ll do it right, I know you would. You’d be sensitive to him, you’d treat him gently. You’d make it a classy project. Naomi, she thinks big, see? She thinks, ‘What do the people want, so we can give it to them?’ and she’d get her writer to dig up whatever kind of gossip she can find, hand over some family pictures so it looks authoritative and real. Or worse, if we refuse to help at all, maybe she’ll nudge him to do an ‘unauthorized’ book. That’s got its own appeal, you know, but it would be a hack job.”

  “Would she do that?”

  “She’s not a bad person, El. She’s looking out for the company, and the company needs help. Publicity, revenue, excitement.”

  “Does Naomi know you’re asking me?”

  “Sure. I told her.”

  I can well imagine the ticker tape parade she wanted to throw, complete with bandleader and baton twirlers.

  “Can I think about it? Does the offer expire?” The daytime whiskey is making me feel both tired and jumpy.

  “I wouldn’t wait forever, what with Naomi and her writer pacing at the starting line. But sure, think it over. It’s a big deal, writing a bestseller.”

  “Well, we don’t know that…”

  “Of course it’ll be a bestseller. It’s Milo Short, everyone loves him and they’ll love this book. He has so many stories that have never been told.”

  Naomi’s voice brays at us from the doorway. “Ah-ha! The book, at last.” The thick carpet must have masked her steps as she approached. Either that or she tiptoed on purpose. Growing up, all the cousins knew not to bother keeping a journal or writing a secret note in her presence.

  “Hello there,” Paul said, his swallow visible even to me, across the space of that vast wooden desk. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

  Naomi nods and strides over to lean against the front of the desk and look down at me. Her heels are shiny patent and she’d be looming over me even if I were standing up, though I’m still in the chair. “So, the family writer is going to take on the family legacy. I hope you’re up to it.”

  “It’s not definite…”

  “I don’t blame you for hesitating. It’s a tall order, after all.” Naomi crosses her arms and regards me with the mechanical smile of the salesman. “You lucky thing. All my contacts would be so jealous. This one fellow from the Post has been bugging me for years for some kind of angle to do a new book on Grampa. That’s what the publishers want, of course, is something new. Who did that book, Uncle Paul? The one that covered Grampa’s history and The High Hat? Fifteen years ago or something.”

  “That was a fella named Miller, but…”

  “Obviously this will be a Short family project, of course. Assuming it’s accepted in the end. When’s the deadline anyway?”

  She directs this last to Paul. I hate that she knows I didn’t ask.

  Paul answers, “People have been saying about a year.”

  She lets out a low whistle. “Whew. Including research. I’d better let you get to it. I do have some business to discuss with Uncle Paul, anyway.”

  “I was just going.” Somehow I tangle in the chair legs and stumble as I try to get out the door. I’m accident-prone around my cousins, always have been. At no other time—not at school, not at magazine interviews, not with college friends—am I likely to drop things, trip, or walk too fast into a revolving door. But under the steely gaze of Naomi, or the amused and tolerant smirk of Eva, and I shapeshift to fulfill their expectations: poor hapless Eleanor, poor mongrel child of that horrible shiksa who abandoned her husband and child and moved to some godforsaken place like California, Colorado, somewhere several time zones away. You should expect something else, with a mother like that?

  I leave behind my cousin and Uncle Paul—their mutterings growing louder and more agitated in my wake—as I hurry down the staircase, trying not to hurry so much I tumble down the length of it.

  I find Grampa Milo in the chair where I left him, frowning at some kind of board in his lap. As I come around, I can see it’s made of cardboard, with bold letters of the alphabet at wide intervals. There are punctuation marks, and along the bottom, some simple words and phrases: I’m hungry. I need the restroom. I’m tired.

  In his good hand is a pointer of sorts, a bit like a conductor’s baton, only shorter. As I have now grown close, I can see that he’s grimacing at the board, his face turned half away from it. It’s like he doesn’t want to get caught looking.

  “Hi, Grampa.”

  He glances up, then sticks out his tongue at the board.

  “I know, it must be so frustrating. But it’s better than nothing? Isn’t it?”

  This must be the “communication board” the speech pathologist was talking about, when I overheard her talking to Aunt Linda.

  Grampa Milo begins rapping the board with the pointer so fast with his good hand it’s hard to believe he’s impaired at all anywhere else. It takes me a few moments to catch up with him and understand: N-O-T-A-C-H-I-L-D.

  “I know you’re not. No one thinks that.”

  He then aims the pointer at me, squints to indicate his interest in something, then looks back down to the board. I follow the pointer—this reminds me oddly of a Ouija Board—and he taps out “D-A-N-I-E-L” with an emphatic thump on the question mark.

  “Ah. He’s not here.”

  He taps the question mark again, then twice more, rapidly. I understand he’s not simply asking Daniel’s location.

  I smirk at him, just a little. “And here I thought with you I’d at least escape the interrogation.”

  He replies by tipping his head back a little, like someone might for a chuckle, though he doesn’t. Why can’t he even laugh? Then he taps the question mark again, and taps my arm with the pointer.

  “Okay, okay, fine. I guess I can trust you not to gossip, huh, Grampa?” We share a bleak smile. “We split up. Now, if Naomi were grilling, er, asking me, I’d make her work to get her information, but that wouldn’t be kind of me, under the circumstances. So, why did we split up?” I slouch in the chair a little, gaze at the ceiling. It needs some repair; I can see a crack threading its way across the ceiling. How best to explain? I push myself back up and face Grampa Milo again. “He thinks I don’t love him enough. That’s the whole boring answer. He can’t get over how I don’t like to look him directly in the eye. What kind of farkakte reason is that to dump somebody?”

  Grampa Milo exaggerates a cringe at my Yiddish.

  “I didn’t say it right? It’s just such a great word: farkakte. Still no? Oh well. What can I say, I only got half the good genes.”

  At this Grampa Milo frowns and shakes his head. I know what he’d say because we’ve had this exchange before, anytime I would joke about my half-and-half heritage. Kid, don’t say that about yourself, it’s not right.

  “I’m just kidding, Grampa.”

  Now he starts tapping the D, as shorthand for going back to his original question. Least, that’s what I assume.

  “I’m not sure what else to say. See, I thought he liked me because I’m a little reserved, a little qui
et. He used to say he loved my ‘thoughtful silences.’” I turn in my chair to more fully face my grandfather, feeling more animated by my subject. Truth is, until Grampa Milo asked just now, I hadn’t given the split much more thought than registering Daniel’s absence with the usual feelings of loss and nostalgia, and a sense of inevitability. Of course this gregarious, charming actor wouldn’t stay with me. Having been asked directly, having decided not to dodge the question, I realize that this explanation is exactly on point. “But after a few years I guess he thought I’d change. That for him, with him, I should be different. I think this whole time he’s been waiting for the real me to show up, some vibrant, secret Eleanor I’d been hiding. But all along it was just me. Only me.”

  Down the side of Grampa’s board is an assortment of cartoon faces showing an array of emotions. He taps the angry face, then the sad face. Then he drops the pointer in his lap, reaches over with his good hand, and wraps his knotty fingers around mine. He squeezes with surprising strength.

  “Thanks, Grampa. I love you, too.”

  He begins to tap out another question, but he doesn’t get very far before something draws his gaze. The piano. He appears to be staring at the piano. He’s so still for several seconds I’m afraid briefly he’s having another stroke. I look again, following his gaze, and see that it’s actually more like the piano bench. The space where a person would sit.

  I touch his elbow, as gently as I can manage so I don’t startle him. I keep my voice low, asking, “Grampa? Do you see someone?”

  He flinches away from the piano, his gaze in so doing landing on the contraption in his lap. He upends it, a gesture that might have been dramatic had the board been heavy, but it just flutters inoffensively to the floor. Grampa Milo takes the pointer and flings it with more energy, back over his shoulder, toward the foyer.

  The nurse and I make eye contact, and we, too, speak without using words. I send him a reassuring nod and stroke Grampa Milo’s arm.

  “I know,” I tell him, so quietly I’m not sure he even hears me. “I know.”

  Naomi and Paul thump down the stairs, as Grampa Milo continues to look askance at the piano bench. He seems a little pale, and this time I wave over the nurse, who approaches to check him over, take his pulse, and so on.