Going Vintage (8 page)

I sneak a quick look at Oliver. He’s looking back at his table with a bored expression, like this visit is a complete waste of his time. “Not really. But it’s in the student handbook.”

“Great, I’ll look in the student handbook.” I speak to Paige’s folder, which is far more friendly than Jeremy’s cousin. I wonder what crap Jeremy told him about me. No, I don’t. Because I don’t care. Oliver doesn’t know me. Let him stand there all bored and judgy.

Oliver sticks his hand on top of Paige’s folder so I have to look up. His gaze is still indifferent, but it’s direct. “If you’re starting a club, you’ll need to petition the ASB, mainly the student body president.”

“Fine.” Great, now he’s decided to help me. Even if the bench can’t swallow me, maybe I could be invisible. The whole table is watching us. Are they connecting that Oliver is Jeremy’s cousin too? Do they think I’m making up a stupid club just because I broke up with my boyfriend?

Okay, that kind of
is
why I’m starting a club.

Oliver has his smartphone out. He’s already looked up the student handbook. “Found it online. Do you want me to send you the link?”

“No, I’ll … I’ll just find it on the website.” Or dig it out of ancient school scrolls.

“Are you playing ball tonight?” Peter butts in.

“Yeah, you coming?” Oliver asks.

“Regular or spandex?”

City basketball league. Oliver’s team dresses up like the eighties rock band Mötley Crüe, complete with wigs and vintage high-top sneakers. I don’t think they play to win, just for the spectacle, which I for one can appreciate. Jeremy won’t play with them. He thinks it’s embarrassing.

“I found some neon suspenders,” Oliver says. “Of course I’m wearing spandex.”

The table laughs and Oliver’s about to walk away, but pauses and leans over my chair, so close I can feel his breath. “Let me know if you need more help with your club.” He winks. “We’re practically family, right?”

Seriously, right after our breakup? Is he heartlessly trying to tease me in front of my friends? The anger that I thought was tamed spurts out of my mouth. “Shut up,” I whisper.

Oliver’s expression goes from confident to confused. “Not like that, I meant … really, I can help you. Since you’re Jeremy’s girlfriend—”

I cut him off with a look of steel. Even though our voices are low, I know the rest of the table is listening. I might not have had the inclination to punch Jeremy earlier, but Oliver is another story. “You’re a jerk, Oliver. Just like your cousin.”

I hope Friendspace blows up with that.

Chapter 6

Why Ginnie is so healthy:

1. She’s an All-American athlete
.

2. She watches too many documentaries, reads too many articles
.

3. She fell in love with Grandma’s garden and adopted her green thumb
.

4. Biggest reason? I think she goes hard-core with the food education because I don’t, because half of the time I care, but the other half I’m dunking Oreos. She goes all the way, I’m midline at best. And that aspect of our relationship can probably
be applied to every other detail in our lives
.

Ginnie makes our family meat loaf that night from Grandma’s old Betty Crocker cookbook. Let me rephrase that—Ginnie
tries
to make meat loaf from the Betty Crocker cookbook, but she uses brown rice instead of white and soy substitute instead of hamburger. It’s chewy and grainy, but at least there’s ketchup to cover up the flavor. And even if she went all granola on a classic comfort food, she tried. She’s trying.

Mom is at book club, and Dad called to say he had to show a house, so Ginnie and I eat alone. She drums her fingers on the table. “I know I sound like an angry housewife, but I cook and slave and they can’t even be home for dinner?”

“Mom says that all the time, that we never eat dinner as a family.”

“Exactly. That’s the problem.” She brightens. “Hey, we should go take some to Grandma. Like a housewarming present. And we’ll reminisce with that yearbook you found, and it will be like a Hallmark card.”

“Dad said she didn’t want anyone to come visit until she was settled.”

“And what’s more settling than meat loaf?” Ginnie asks.

She has a point. Too bad there is no actual
meat
in our dinner.

I change out of Grandma’s dress on the off chance she wants it back.

Thirty minutes later, we are at the front desk of Sunshine Villa Senior Lifestyle Community, the five-star jewel of geezer joints that looks out over Newport Bay. The brochure boasts tennis courts, swimming, horse stables, a theater for community plays, a garden, and fully furnished condominiums. Grandma and Grandpa had always done well, but this place? This place was cashing it up. I wonder if Uncle Rodney financially helped this dream come true.

Ginnie sets the disposable Tupperware tower on top of the granite desk, right next to the fresh floral arrangement. I once went to an assisted-living home with Jeremy and his church youth group, and it smelled of decay and loneliness. This air here is scented by a peaches-and-cream candle, with soft music playing in the background, some older but not ancient men watching football on the flat-screen. Seriously, I want to move here. That’s vintage, right?

“Hi, what room is Vivian Bradshaw in?” Ginnie asks.

“We don’t give out that information without consent from the resident.”

“We’re her granddaughters.” I slide Grandma’s yearbook onto the counter, the aged leather out of place in this glossy palace.

The woman types something on her computer. “She doesn’t have a list of approved guests on file.”

“Oh, she just moved here,” Ginnie says. “So she probably hasn’t done one yet.”

“She has to fill out the information to move here. She’s done it.” The woman smiles apologetically. “I’ll try calling her room. Please hold.”

Ginnie drums her fingers on the counter while the woman calls. “No answer. She could still be somewhere in the community, though.”

“Well, can you just tell us where she lives so we can drop this food off?”

“You can try calling her, but I can’t release her address.”

Ginnie whips out her phone. “It’s dead. Do you know Grandma’s number?”

“It’s in my phone.” I pat my pocket, and at the same moment Ginnie and I remember that my phone is at home, along with all the other technology I can’t use. She doesn’t say anything, just grabs the tower of leftovers and storms to the door.

I hurry after Ginnie, past the fake lamplight road. “Hey! It’s not my fault!” I yell.

“Forget it,” she says. “You not having a phone isn’t as annoying as our grandma banning us from her home.”

“She’s not.” I hug Grandma’s yearbook close to my chest as I scuttle down the pathway. “Banning us. Like Dad said … she just needed … some time to … adjust.”

Ginnie waits for me to catch up to her. She’s already taller than me, and one of the best soccer players in the state, so occasionally she forgets that some people,
normal
people, get winded when they eat a bunch of fake meat loaf, then have to race across a vast retirement community. The light from the nearby tennis courts casts a shadow across her face. “I just think it’d be good for our family if we were together more. Mom and Dad especially.”

She’s being dramatic. One missed soy-loaf dinner doesn’t a
family break. “That’s why we are returning to simpler times.” I take long, slow breaths. “Back when families
mattered
.”

“You sound like an ad for a hard-core conservative group.”

“Thank you.”

“Forty love!” one of the players on the court calls out. Ginnie and I turn to watch through the green mesh. The server lobs a ball over the net. The other player holds up her racket, almost in self-defense. The ball bounces right past. “Sorry, Linda! I’ll get in next time.”

“Grandma?” Ginnie whispers.

“If you could hit
one
ball back, I’d be happy! Try this.” Linda swings her racket all the way through.

“Grandma!” Ginnie waves her arms. “Hey, Grandma! We brought meat loaf!”

“We brought meat loaf?” I ask. “That’s how you get her attention?”

“Shut up.”

Grandma jogs over and peers through the fence. She’s in classic tennis white, with a skirt that shows off her thick, athletic legs. A ridiculous sweatband makes her short blond curls stick up higher than usual. “Girls? What are you doing? Here, let me finish this match and I’ll come talk.”

“Don’t bother.” Linda swats Grandma lightly with her racket. “Being as you have yet to score, I think it’s a safe bet that I was going to win.”

Grandma shoots Linda a look. “Rematch. Just as soon as I take a lesson.”

“Lesson, Vivian?
Lessons
. Many, many lessons.” Linda laughs and strolls over to the watercooler.

“Lesson this.” Grandma smacks her butt at Linda’s back. Ginnie giggles. “Come on, girls. Since you’re here, I’ll show you the digs.”

Grandma walks at a much easier pace, past the clubhouse and up to her seventh-floor condo. The living room feels like one of the model homes Dad shows—new furniture, bland art, neutral colors. Her office before was mustard yellow and purple with a rainbow of accents. Grandma
is
color, and all this beige just screams defeat. The only familiar item is the sewing machine set up on the kitchen table. She changes out of her tennis clothes and into a velvet jumpsuit with jewels on the front, clearly a gift from my mom. She makes herself a small plate of Ginnie’s dinner and flops onto her microfiber sofa.

“So, you brought me meat loaf.”

“Soy loaf.”

“Soy. Even better.” Grandma pats the couch. “To what do I owe this great honor?”

“Why weren’t we on the list?” Ginnie demands. “Are you mad we came to visit?”

Grandma presses her lips together. “Not at all. I told your dad, I just wanted a chance to get moved in, but now I have and you’re here and all is well.”

Ginnie takes this and curls up next to Grandma. I’m not upset like my sister was about Grandma’s recent changes. Her life, her business. Although I
was
there when Grandma talked
to Dad about the packing and she couldn’t have cared less what happened to her stuff.

I don’t know. Maybe the family just feels like more stuff.

“Mallory found one of your high school yearbooks,” Ginnie says. “We want to hear stories about the good old days.”

I hold out the yearbook, which I’d been toting around like it is the bible of all things 1962. Grandma’s eyes widen. “I haven’t looked through this thing in ages.”

She thumbs through the pages. I’m so glad I’ve waited until I’m with her to open this book, like we’re entering the past together. The embossed cover says TULARE UNION HIGH, 1962 with a gold “redskin” raising a tomahawk that has long passed its PC threshold. Grandma flips right to the back and starts reading signatures. “‘Nice Legs.’ Bill Culver. That boy was bad news.”

“Show us his picture,” Ginnie says. “And how did he know about your legs?”

“I’m sure he wrote that in every girl’s yearbook,” Grandma says primly.

“I want to see what pages you’re on first,” I say.

Grandma turns to her junior picture. The girls all wear black dresses with pearls. Grandma’s freckles pop out in the black-and-white picture. She’s adorable, but her hideously high hair finally makes me understand the term
rat’s nest
. It’s a less flattering style than I’ve seen on sixties-era TV shows, and looks especially bad on Grandma’s corkscrewed locks.

“What’s with the hair?” Ginnie asks. “Mallory, I won’t let you do that to yourself
or
the ozone.”

“It’s a bouffant,” Grandma says. “That was the style. My mother would do it for me every other day. I grew it out after high school, wore it really long and wild.” She flips to another page, this one with her wearing a red-and-gold sweater with the letter
P
. “Pep club. I ran for secretary, barely made it. That’s our homecoming float.”

On the adjoining page was a little trailer draped with crepe paper and balloons. The pep club girls, all wearing long skirts and sweaters, hold up a sign: SLAY THOSE KNIGHTS!

I run my finger over the glossed page. After I get a pep club, I’ll need to do a float. And I’ll need to sew a homecoming dress. Both tasks feel so impossibly far away, it makes me wish Grandma’s list instead said “Buy a pet goldfish” or “Eat a large banana split.”

Not that I’m thinking about quitting. This yearbook cements my resolve. That and Ginnie’s nonstop smirking. “That float looks like it was
really hard
to make, Grandma,” she says. “Pep club must be a club that takes
lots of time
.”

“Oh, it was fun. We lost the float contest to 4-H club,” Grandma says. “But I still think we had more spirit. Here’s the dance …” One more turn and there’s Grandma in a cloud-white dress. On her arm is a boy with black rimmed glasses, a slim suit, and a huge smile.