Follow the Dotted Line (12 page)

Pouring herself a rum and Diet Coke, Andy sat down, kicked off her shoes and smiled, secure in the knowledge that no matter where Harley was at the moment, he was sporting a shiny new chastity ring on his finger and a carrying a faith-based condom in his heart. Whatever happened, her nephew was not going to become a baby daddy on her watch!

She was thinking about opening a box of Cheez-Its before heating up a burrito in the microwave, when the phone rang.

“Mom?”

“Lil?”

“What are you up to?” Her daughter’s voice was taut. Few things ever constrained Lil’s expansive personality, and Andy was immediately on the alert.

“Mom?” Lil repeated when Andy didn’t answer.

“Ah, nothing. I swear.”

“Good. Because we have to talk.”

This sounded serious. Had Lil learned her mother was hiring a private investigator? But how could that be possible?

“Um. All right. Why do we have to talk?”

“I need you.”

Andy put down the Cheez-Its. This couldn’t be about the P.I. It had to be worse. Lil-the-unstoppable never needed anybody.

“You need me, Lilly?”

“Yes. Here in Idaho. Now. We’ve got a problem.”

“You and Joey?”

“Of course, me and Joey. Who else lives in Idaho, Mom?”

“Okay, honey. Okay.” Andy had rarely heard her daughter so rattled.

“If you two had an argument . . . “ Andy tested, knowing the couple rarely argued about anything and hoping Lil would talk about it.

“There’s no argument about this, Mother.”

What on earth had come between them? “Joey’s not moving out, is he?”

“No, but I will, if this goes on much longer.”

“Lil?”

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

Andy could hear stifled sniffling.

“
What
is happening?”

“The boys—every last one of them—have the chickenpox. And I haven’t slept in two days.” Sniffles evolved into outright sobs. “Mom, can you come help me, please?”

Chickenpox. Of course. Andy nearly wept with relief. Why did her imagination always insist on making a beeline for the worst disaster? Chickenpox? Big deal. And a helluva lot easier to cope with than divorce.

“Sure. Absolutely,” mother assured daughter. “It’s no problem, Lilly.”

“And you promise not to tell me I should have gotten the vaccinations?”

“I promise.”

“They don’t even vaccinate for chickenpox in the U.K. You know that? Right, Mom?”

“I know.”

Lil was second-guessing herself, Andy realized. That’s what was prompting the tears. Like a lot of other mothers, the thirty-something had read enough to make her question the wisdom of packing so many toxic chemicals at one time into infant vaccinations, so she and Joey had found a pediatrician who would administer them in separate doses over a longer period of time. Lil had opted to skip the chickenpox vaccine altogether.

“It’s gonna be fine, Lil. You all had chickenpox when you were little. Both Sam’s kids have had them.”

“I know. I know.”

“And everybody thinks breaking up those multi-vaccines is a good idea.”

“I know.” Lil was breathing deeper now. Sighing. Feeling better. “I think I’m just exhausted.”

“Sure you are.”

“And I want my Mommy,” she whimpered, playfully.

“Good. I’ll book a flight tonight.”

“I already did.” There was that familiar voice, the one with the twinkle in it. “I emailed you the ticket.”

Andy decided it was safe enough to show a little mock indignation. “You could have let me check my schedule first, Lilly.”

“You don’t have a schedule, Mom,” Lil countered, fully recovered and sounding like her old self.

“And yet, it would be nice of you to pretend.”

“Maybe next time. For now, I’ll meet you at baggage claim. Love you.”

“Love you, too.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

The flight, it turned out, left at seven in the morning, so Andy spent the remainder of the evening packing and getting things organized for her departure. The one impediment she hadn’t counted on was Harley. Foolishly, she’d assumed he’d love the idea of flying solo for a while. But when he arrived home at ten that evening, he wasn’t all that enthused.

“How long will you be gone?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. A few days, maybe a week.”

“You won’t get the chickenpox?”

“I had them. Years ago. Don’t worry,” she said, in an attempt to soothe his evident anxiety. “So you know to put the garbage out on Friday morning?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“You’re not afraid to stay in the house by yourself, are you?”

“I don’t think so.”

For someone who aspired to become a professional shepherd, he was being annoyingly sheepish about her leaving.

“You want to ask a friend to stay with you?”

This idea appeared to alarm him more than being home alone.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said.

Aware she was losing both patience and valuable sleep, Andy vowed to give it one last try. “Maybe you could have a group of friends over for a party or something,” she ventured, eyeing the silver ring thing on his left hand. After all, how dangerous could the Abstinent really be?

“I don’t think so,” he said automatically. But after a moment’s consideration, he added, “Maybe I’ll have a prayer meeting, though.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” she lied. “Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Superior Color Commentary

For people who delight in the adoration of small children, and Andy was one of them, being a grandparent provided unparalleled opportunities for experiencing her version of the Divine. Until about age six, she knew, kids literally worshipped the ground their grandparents walked on; you had to be either stupid or downright cruel to drive them away. After first grade, however, it was more of a crapshoot. The Catholic Church used to call it the Age of Reason. But Andy called it the Age of Choice. Because this was when children began to make their own friends—and their own judgments. Once a kid reached age seven, a grandparent had to begin to earn it.

Lil’s four boys were not yet old enough to be either reasonable or judgmental. They were still in the honeymoon phase. Almost anything Andy did pleased them. Which was why Lil had called Andy off the bench and was putting her in the game. The truth was, her grandsons desperately needed someone to play with. While the worst of the illness was over, they remained in quarantine. Not because they were sick but because the pox on their house was still clearly visible, and the tiny brothers looked like a team of baby zombies.

“You don’t have to nurse them, Mom. I’ve already done that,” Lil said, laying out the plan as they drove home from the airport. “Your job is strictly entertainment.”

“How fitting,” Andy observed. “Will I be getting residuals?”

For the first day or two, Grandma Andy’s programming involved kickboxing matches between her grandsons and imaginary opponents with evil intentions. Her role was to provide a play-by-play of the action, describing the prowess of each boy’s moves and his final victory over the enemy. This was particularly challenging for the twins, who were now 18 months and had a tough time kicking anything, imaginary or not. After each fictional match, it was her job to award medals, hanging them around the boys’ necks as they stood in their pajamas on cardboard boxes of varying heights, while she hummed the theme from NBC’s Olympic coverage. The boys loved the game because it made them feel invincible. She loved it because she believed her color commentary was far superior to that of most network sportscasters.

Following the kickboxing matches, they switched to a game called Hotel McCall, in which the gang of four crawled into a king-sized bed with her and pretended they were all staying at an Idaho resort. This enabled them to lie back on big pillows, get their next dose of medication, and rest. More importantly, it enabled them to call Lil on a pretend telephone and order room service. There really were few things more sublime than eating in bed with your grandchildren.

It was on the third day of Andy’s visit, during one of these fanciful trips to the Hotel McCall, that Lil arrived from the kitchen with a plate of warm nachos and planted herself next to her mother on the bed.

“Are you dead yet?” she asked Andy, as the boys grabbed for the chips.

“I think I am in the throes.”

“You put the grand back in grandmother. Thank you, Mom.”

“I do it all for the jalapeños,” Andy quipped, trying to keep the cheese off the bedspread.

“Joey and I are thinking of rewarding you with a cocktail party.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. We’re itching to have some adult company, so we thought we’d invite a few of the neighbors over Friday night after the boys are in bed.”

“I thought all your neighbors were Mormon.”

“Not all of them,” Lil said. “And half of those say they’re in recovery.”

“Which means they drink?”

“As a form of therapy, they tell me.”

Everything Andy knew about the Book of Mormon she had learned from the Broadway musical. “Can I ask them about their religion?”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Lil said. “You have no respect for religion, as cousin Harley knows by now.”

“Pretty please.”

“Perhaps you weren’t listening, Mother. I said, absolutely not.”

Meridian, Idaho, the Boise suburb of Joey and Lil’s choosing, was filled with a surprising mixture of mechanics, doctors, firefighters, and lawyers. The cost of housing made five-bedroom homes affordable, even to couples bereft of college educations or retirement funds. It was a potpourri of people that one would almost never find among the five-bedroom dwellers in the greater Los Angeles area. Andy found it disturbingly refreshing.

However, it did not take long to conclude that the little cocktail crowd in Lil’s kitchen had been carefully culled from among the neighbors. The majority of guests were clearly the white-faced descendants of Celts and Saxons. There were, indeed, Mormons among them: both practicing and self-exiled, who drank and wore nothing more complicated than boxers under their jeans. The twenty-five or so partygoers also included two Latino couples, a Chinese American cardiologist and her Indian husband, and a UPS driver who’d been born in Nigeria. What made them eligible for Lil’s guest list, it turned out, was their attitude towards firearms.

If Lil had a line in the sand, it was guns. As a native of California, she’d seen few guns and rarely thought about the dangers. But Idaho was full of them. People used them for hunting. They used them for target shooting. They used them for home décor. There were families on her block, kind people with good intentions, who actually bragged about their stockpile of semi-automatic weapons. In the end, Lil had simply divided the neighborhood by her own prejudice: households that were armed and those that were not. Her friends might occasionally drink too much, but at least they wouldn’t shoot one another.

Which was probably why the main topic of conversation around the sangria pitcher was a new bill before the Idaho legislature that would allow students at Boise State University, a campus of more than 20,000 aspiring scholars, to carry concealed weapons.

“That’s what we need,” Joey was saying, “more frat boys with pistols.”

“What about Bronco Stadium?” the cardiologist asked. “How long before kids start bringing guns to football games?”

“You know what bothers me,” the UPS driver said, “that the students did not want this law. No one affiliated with the campus thinks this is a good idea. Who are these gun nuts?”

“Our neighbors,” Lil called from across the room, where she was refilling a fondue pot with cheese dip. “Do you know the first question I ask when one of the boys is invited over for a play date? ‘Do you have guns in the house?’ And do you know what my fear is? That many women say ‘no,’ when the answer is ‘yes.’ They don’t even remember their husbands have them. Or where they are, if they do. Or if they are locked up. So I have to keep pressing them. It’s embarrassing, and it’s stupid. Sometimes it’s just easier to keep the boys at home.”

Andy listened to the discussion, marveling at the human capacity for self-inflicted tragedy. She’d inflicted a great deal of it on herself during her adulthood. And had there been guns in her house, she was exactly the kind of emotional idiot who might have picked one up and used it. She shuddered at the thought and then jumped when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Andy?” She looked up to see a good-looking thirty-something standing over her. He put out his hand. “Mike Anderson. We live across the street. Four houses down.” He sat down on the sofa next to her. “Lil talks about you all the time.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Hey, the cocktails tonight are in your honor. That can’t be too bad, can it?”

Andy smiled.

“I hear you and Lil write together.”

“Well, we do. When she has time. Which means not much lately.”

“Yeah, she says you’re a worse pest than the boys.”

“Gosh, that’s pretty high praise!” Andy said.

“Anyway, she told me about the World War II spy story. She thinks it would make a great screenplay.”

Andy felt a rush of satisfaction and responded, “Really? I’m glad to hear it.” It meant that Lil was actually ruminating on the idea, which meant she might actually commit to working on it.

“Anyway, Lil knows I have kind of a personal interest in World War II. And we started talking one day about history and about you and about me. One thing lead to another, and I began to think that you and I might have a mutual interest.”

Andy sipped her drink and wondered where this was leading.

“You see, I’m Mormon,” he said.

Oh, god, this is forbidden territory, Andy reminded herself. But she hadn’t asked. He was the one bringing up the subject.

“At least I was raised Mormon,” he told her.

“But you left?”

“I did. Almost ten years ago. Over the Baptism of the Dead tenet. Do you know what that is?”

Andy wasn’t following, but she wanted to. Lil was right about her mother’s antipathy toward religion, and yet Andy had always been fascinated by it. Andy had studied world religions in college and was a minor expert on Deism, the theology favored by some writers of the Constitution. She also knew more about the European Reformation than most American fundamentalists. She looked over her shoulder to see her daughter still fully engaged in the gun battle near the kitchen counter. The coast was clear, so she plunged in.