“Today, we call it ‘eclectic grandpa’ or ‘grandpa core,’ but you can see his outfit draws inspiration from the casual fashion of the late ’40s to early ’60s.”
I nod at the well-dressed woman shopping who has now made her way over to the jewelry counter.
“And just look at her: Chunky jewelry is having a major moment right now,” I say. “Large, bold metal necklaces, oversized statement and cocktail rings, bold bracelets are all back in style. That’s all mid-century fashion, my dear.” I smile. “Everything old is new again. Even me!”
The woman eyes a brutalist bark-textured bracelet, and then I see her eyes drift toward the Bakelite bracelet on the wall.
“How much?” she asks.
“Sorry, not for sale,” I say. “It’s a family heirloom.” I smile at the woman and nod at Ava. “Perhaps it will be a gift for someone special one day.”
“Well, you’re a very lucky girl if it’s you,” she says to Ava.
“Thank you!” Patty calls over. “I am!”
When the couple leaves, I walk behind the counter and lift the shadow box off the wall. I remove the envelope—still addressed to Trudy—that is hidden beneath the backing. I hand the letter to Ava.
“I think it’s time you read this,” I say. “Another family heirloom.”
Ava takes the envelope and plops down in a chair on the far side of the shop. She slides the letter free. Ava trains a curious look at me and then the letter. I shut my eyes, and I can still picture myself writing it seated next to my dead mother, I can still feel my fingers penning the opening words:
Dear Trudy,
What is the definition of a friend?
When Ava finishes reading, she just stares at the Polaroid of me and Trudy from the 1970s that I put with the letter, dressedup in our store-bought Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Halloween costumes and hard masks.
Ava stands, eyes shining with tears, walks over and wraps her arms around me.
And she refuses to let go.
Ron
Trudy sits in a shaft of golden light filtering between the intertwined bougainvillea of pink, purple and red. We are seated on the outdoor patio at one of my favorite lunch spots in Palm Springs.
If I had entered this restaurant looking for the Trudy who left the house this morning, I would not have recognized her. A stranger might, at first glance, mistake her for an overworked Orange County real estate agent who had come to the desert for a spa weekend and a few drinks.
As I do every three weeks, I got my hair cut and styled late Thursday morning. I brought Trudy with me to continue keeping her—pardon the pun—out of Teddy’s hair. My cotton candy coif, of course, has not changed since I was a boy, and Gaspar knows how to cut and curl, dry and spray without one follicle looking as if it has ever been touched. I pay him an arm and leg to keep me locked in a look that has become my signature of safety.
When Gaspar had asked Trudy if she’d made an appointment—eyeing her wash-and-set while keeping the straightest of faces though there has never been a straight bone in his body—her face flushed, and she hid her head behind a fiddle-leaf fig in the corner of the salon with a copy ofVogue, which I’m sure she’dnever set eyes on before. And when Gaspar’s assistant offered Trudy a glass of champagne, she waved her off, Trudy’s face reading,What heathen drinks at eleven in the morning?
Then she FaceTimed Ava—who was again lounging by the pool—to show her where she was, and Ava screamed, “Makeover, Grandma! Do it!”
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“You could.”
“Really?”
“Go for it, Grandma! New you!”
As the salon began to fill with an assortment of clients that made the cast ofTheBirdcageandAbsolutely Fabulousseem likeThe Waltons, Trudy suddenly nabbed a flute of bubbly, and then another, her unease slowly sloughing away, layer after layer, like the rattlesnakes that sun on the backroads to Whitewater Preserve.
Gaspar eventually took a seat beside Trudy, taking her hand in his, and he asked her not about her life but her hair, which—as we know—is the root of all our issues.
I sat in a chair opposite Trudy as she told this stranger about her dead husband and her spur-of-the-moment trip to Palm Springs.
“Palm Springs is old-school glamour,” Gaspar said. “Let my work serve as the souvenir of your visit here.”
