“So it would seem,” I said with a sigh.
She frowned at my lack of enthusiasm. “What’s wrong with you young women today?”
“I’m not sure I want another relationship so soon, Mrs. Q.”
She grimaced as I sat her on the edge of the bed, still swaying while I tried to remove her shoes. I wasn’t surprised to find she was wearing knee-high stockings with her slip-on sneakers. Where did one even buy knee-highs these days? And didn’t they defeat the purpose of having shoes you could step into?
“Bah. No one is ever ready for a relationship.” She tilted her head, considering. “No one’s ever ready for one to end, either.”
“My last boyfriend was definitely ready to end ours,” I said.
She blew a raspberry at me and fell on her side so hard I was afraid she might wake up with a bruise. At least she’d fallen on her bed? “Everyone needs relationships. You’re right to be choosy, but you’re going to have to put yourself out there eventually. In the meantime, surround yourself with good friends.”
I thought of Havisham and Salcedo. “That’s sound advice.”
“You’re damn right it is! If I haven’t figured some things out by now, then I’m never going to. I should’ve had more girlfriends ... friend girls ... oh, you know what I mean. Harold was so jealous of anyone who took my attention away from him. Then what friends I had started moving away, but we didn’t have money for me to take trips to see them. And people didn’t do that anyway, not like today’s young people, gallivanting all over creation at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t like that ...”
She kept talking, her eyes closed, and I let her chatter while I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water for her. She didn’t notice that I’d left, much less that I’d returned.
“By the time I started looking up my old friends on Facebook, half of them had had the audacity to die on me. You have no idea how weird it is to have people you know dropping like flies. In your mind, youstill see them as they were in their thirties, or maybe even as teenagers. It’s ... well, it’s disconcerting, Stella. When the philosophers say life is short, they aren’t lying.”
How I understood all this, I’ll never know, because the slurring became progressively worse. I scrutinized Mrs. Q for any signs of a stroke, but no, she moved one hand and then the other, both sides of her face animated as she spoke.
“Maybe not philosophers. Aren’t they the ones who said God was dead?”
“That was only Nietzsche.”
She scoffed. “I’d love to hear from him now, see what he thinks. I bet he’s had a nice long chat with the God he thought was dead. But anyway, what I’m trying to say is not to waste time like I did. Wasted it with Harold. Wasted it with my children. One minute they were bugging the snot out of me for sugary cereals or cheaply made toys, and the next thing I knew, they’d moved out and were too busy to call. All very ‘Cat’s in the Cradle,’ you know.”
She paused for a breath, and I bit my tongue to keep from giving a “Well, actually ...” response about how Nietzsche only meant that the role of religion in the Western world had declined. She didn’t care. She wouldn’t remember it. Sometimes it did a person good to have something to be indignant about.
“Oh, the room is spinning, but it’s not so bad. Kinda fun. Like the Tilt-A-Whirl. Feels like that time I let Harold talk me into three Old-Fashioneds. Whew, I was younger then.”
I had almost sneaked out of the room when she said, “Oh, Harold. That man could curl my toes.”
I backed up another step. Definitely didn’t want to know more about Harold’s toe-curling skills.
“I put a glass of water for you on the nightstand, Mrs. Q. Need anything else?”
“No, dear. I’m good. Now you go downstairs and make hay while the sun is still shining.”
“I think I’ll leave my field fallow, Mrs. Q.”
She blew another raspberry but then sat up suddenly. Or tried to.
I rushed over to make sure she stayed in her bed, and she grabbed my hand.
“Stella, darling, there’s a book on the shelf by the door. I want you to read it.”
So help me, if she tried to get me to readMen Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, I would leave this apartment and never come back. I had been nine or ten years old when Mom brought home that drivel. Even so, I braced myself for her eventual answer. “What book is that, Mrs. Q?”
“Daring Greatlyby Brené Brown.”
“Okay, I’ll pick it up,” I said.
She squeezed my hand, then held on when I moved to let go. “Promise you’ll read it.”
“I will,” I said, confident she would never remember her drunken epiphany.
