I sigh, trying to sort out my emotions and ever-present feelings of failure. “This job involves a lot more than just getting you all to show up to events where you’ll actually listen and learn.” I lift a hand and tick items off fingers. “The grounds need maintaining, but we can’t find affordable landscaping; a handful of residents gave notice this past week, which means occupancy rates are headed in the wrong direction; and Jan thinks I should put on another safe sex seminar but—and I quote—to ‘make it more exciting.’”
Wanda, Grandma Helen, and Rita give uniform groans.
Good. Maybe this will get through to them. “She considers all the scandalous headlines a bad reflection on her, and with another article in the paper today, it’s going to be the bone she won’t let go of.”
“Then maybeshe’s the one who needs the presentation.” Not only does my grandmother double down, she nudges her friends for support, as if they weren’t already kicking my ass.
“If Jan’d stop raising fees and threatening to take away activities like we’re recalcitrant children,” Rita says, “we might consider pitching in and helping, rather than having to fight one another on every little thing.” Pointing out I could say the same of them wouldn’t be productive, so I stick with cold, hard facts. “Yeah, but for how long? Are you going to maintain the grounds? Do building repairs and fill in potholes? Clean the pool?”
One by one, they huff and turn up their noses, refusing to give a straight answer because they know I’m right but will never admit it.
“It’s like you don’t even realize cabana boys exist,” Rita sasses, and I hate that this keeps coming down to a power struggle, me vs. them.
And I am not winning. Wanda places a hand on my shoulder, widening her smile as though it’ll somehow spread to my face as well. “All the more reason for you to agree to our terms.”
“No, what it means is I’ll be so busy fixing up this place and keeping unruly residents in line that I won’t have time to act as proxy for regrets or even hang out.”
Grandma releases a weary sigh. “You think you get to come in and boss us around and tell us how to live while you overcommit and run yourself ragged? Did it ever occur to you we might be worried and sick of watching you teeter on that high ledge in the rain, a slippery step away from a brutal fall?”
These women don’t seem to grasp how much I love what I do when I’m at the top of my game. Yeah, I’ve let it consume my life more than I should, but there’s nothing like the satisfaction of a job well done. “I’ve already fallen, remember?”
Nobody cared why, not when my rough drafts stayed rough and my to-do list rolled into the next week, and especially not when I’d refused help a few times due to my pride.
Grandma Helen cups my face in cool hands wrinkled by time underwater and says, “Believe it or not, we’re not out here living our lives to the fullest in the name of making yours more difficult—”
“I never thought that. No matter how difficult,” I can’t help but add.
The truth is, I wish an entire weekend of sleep was enough to fix whatever was wrong with me. I feel like I’m always sprinting but forever behind, the fog in my head never fully clearing, the elephant who likes to pop a squat on my chest constantly at the ready.
What if I’m permanently broken?
Deep within hides a little girl so desperate for stability, and she’s furious at me for letting it slip through our fingers. This wasn’t the plan, and I’m no closer to solutions, not here at Lakeview and not at carving a return path to Miami and a job with another top publicity firm.
“Yet you’re asking us to change when there’s nothing wrong with how we are.” Conviction bleeds into Rita’s voice as she bobs closer, constantly bouncing off the balls of her feet and rippling the water around her. “We’ve fought long and hard to get here and we’re not going back to falling in line and behaving.”
“We won’t be small and quiet so the rest of the world can finish forgetting about us,” Wanda says with the combination of tenderness and ferocity she embodies so seamlessly.
I open my mouth, fighting offense, but she’s not wrong, and I’m having to settle that inside my mind for a second.
Hazel eyes so similar to my own meet mine. “Rather than lecture, I’ll ask why you’d like to impart what you’ve learned but refuse the notion we have wisdom we could pass on to you, too.”
I don’t have a good answer, so I don’t bother trying to come up with one.
Sensing an opening, Grandma Helen says, “Give us control of your evenings and weekends, and I can guarantee a full turnout at your next”—she curls her lip—“seminar. Even if it means risking my own social life.”
And the Oscar for most dramatic grandmother goes to Helen Goodwin.
Still, the promise of progress sings through my veins. I put on my pondering-intensely face and narrow my eyes. “A full turnout of residents who’ll heckle and argue the entire time?”
“Get management to hold off raising fees,” she says, “and audience members will be on their best behavior.”
A tingle of excitement zips over my skin, and I can’t help but reach for the dangled carrot. “Yourbest behavior,” I counter, meeting her gaze and arching a challenging brow.
“Would I be anything but?” She’s not fooling anyone with the batting of her lashes and smug lift of her lips, so it’s a good thing I’m choosing my battles.
Still, I’ve at least got to barter. “Having a full house of listening attendees is a step in the right direction, but that barely scratches the surface. Like I said earlier, finding a company to maintain the grounds is turning into a full-time job in and of itself. Everyone’s on a two-to-three-month waitlist, and this place is turning into a wilderness.”
Grandma Helen, Wanda, and Rita exchange a glance that raises the hair on my nape.
