The Story of You and Me (30 page)

Mary Martha Mapleson held two large cups of Starbucks, waiting for me. We spotted each other and we both froze. Tears streamed down her face. And I knew the worst had happened.

* * *

We didn’t have a funeral for Nana. We had a party.
 

We held it in the activities room at her most recent home at The Seasons Assisted Living Center. We served cupcakes, an assortment of deli meats, as well as a cheese and cracker plate. We had two punch bowls: one was gently spiked with a touch of vodka, the other was just punch.
 

We decorated a table with an assortment of framed photos of Nana throughout her life: as a chubby blonde toddler with meticulous ringlets and a huge smile. As a young woman wearing red lipstick dressed in a fashionable suit, her arm draped comfortably across the arm of a well-suited man, who was my grandfather. A photo of Nana, joyous, holding my mom when she was a newborn. A candid shot of her and five-year-old me at my ballet recital. The last picture was a group shot of Nana with her new girlfriends from the Assisted Living community. They all wore makeup, were decked out, held their cocktails toward the camera and smiled.

Our party—or should I more accurately say—Nana’s going away gig—had a big turnout. Mom had to leave in the middle to make a run to the liquor store for more vodka. The spiked punch was popular. The Seasons’ choral group delivered an
X Factor
worthy rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.

Everyone wanted to share a memory with Mom and me. They’d pull us aside and confide a moment they treasured about Nana. We even had a Sophie Marie Timmel Book of Memories left out on one of the dining tables and encouraged folks to write something. Most of them did.

The event went by in a flash. At the end, Mom and I were exhausted. As we cleaned up the room with the help of Triple M, I paid attention to Mom to see if she was okay, or losing it. I think she was somewhere in-between, which seemed pretty normal.

Triple M took out the large Hefty bags filled with trash. The dishes were washed, dried and returned to their cabinets. Mom and I carefully took down Nana’s pictures, wrapped them in towels and placed them in a box. “She was so beautiful,” I said and started crying.
 

My mom hugged me. “Yeah she was, sweetie. A force to be reckoned with. Which is why I named you after her. You’ve got her spirit. Her drive. Or as she recently liked to say, her ‘chutzpah.’”

* * *

Two weeks passed since that awful night I left L.A. I heard from Blue, but didn’t have the heart to call her back and tell her my sob story. Cole called. Apparently someone had already moved into my former apartment and replaced the see-through curtains. He was having a difficult time spying on them and was peeved I’d moved out for good.
 

I heard nothing from Alejandro. I gathered my courage and called him a couple of times. I even left a few messages. He never called back.

But I did hear from a representative for the USCLA stem cell study. They weren’t all that pleased that I’d missed several appointments. I contacted them and told them what happened. They were polite, but insisted I get my butt back there for a clinical check in. I agreed and booked my plane reservation.

Mom and I visited Nana’s plot to check the installation of her headstone. She was buried in a cemetery on the top of a relatively steep hill overlooking Lac LaBelle. She always loved the lake. It seemed fitting she would get to gaze upon it for eternity.
 

Mom and I held hands and watched the workers cement her simple headstone into the ground.
 

“I’ll miss her,” I said.

“Understatement,” Mom said.
 

“I wish I didn’t have to go back to L.A. It was good in so many ways, but it was also really tough.”

“Nana wanted you to take that trip. She financed it, against my better wishes, might I add. One night after you left, she told me, ‘You need to let Sophie go. She’s not a kid anymore. She needs to stretch her boundaries and find her strength.’”
 

The workers looked down at Nana’s grave. One crossed himself. The other nodded at us respectfully.

“Thank you,” Mom told them, and they left.
 

“I tried everything to save her, Mom. Stem cells. Acupuncture. Vision Quest. Healing prayers. Chiropractic. A medical intuitive. Aura healing. Yoga intensives—”

“I know you tried everything. She knew it too. You took this incredible journey for her—and yet at the same time, she wanted it to be about you.”

“But maybe I didn’t do enough. Maybe if I had—”
 

“Stop! If Nana were sitting in her wheelchair right here, right now, she’d say,
‘Sophie. My favorite granddaughter—’
”

And I smiled for the first time since I got the dreadful text at Jackson’s party. Since the night I said heartless words to Alejandro. “I’d say, ‘I’m your
only
granddaughter, Nana.’”

My mom cracked a smile and reached her hand out to me. We held hands and walked down the hill around tombstones and markers. Fall was hitting Oconomowoc early, a sudden gust of wind swirled around us raining down jewel-colored leaves.

“I bet Nana would say,
‘Sophie, I feel ferdrayt. Out of all these exotic experiences, out of all your adventures—what made the biggest difference in your life? What was the most healing?’
”
 

The opening music to “Gimme Shelter”
by the Rolling Stones started playing in my brain as I thought about all the therapies. Some I liked. Some were silly, others scary, a few even dangerous. But with each memory, I thought of Alejandro. He gave me shelter.
And my heart clenched as I realized I would never feel sheltered like that again.

* * *

I took an uneventful flight back to L.A. I stood on the curb holding the handle of my wheeled luggage as my cab peeled off.
 
I recognized the sweet scent of oranges down the block as I gazed at my old sublet. The new tenant had replaced the ugly lace curtains with fresh new ones.

I closed my eyes and a wave of memories washed over me: the stinging from the slivers of glass in my face. My shock when Alejandro caught me as I fell that first night at the Grill. The laughter that bubbled up within me when he was covered in acupuncture needles. The heat that consumed my body when he kissed me for the first time, right on that doorstep. The bathroom after the fire where he helped me clean up, told me my eyebrow would grow back and carried me to bed where we’d made love for my first time.
 

It all seemed so far away—like it was a different lifetime ago.

I walked down the narrow concrete path and knocked on Cole’s door. He opened it wearing Ralph Lauren pajamas. Gidget burst from the open doorway like the monster-out-of-the-body in
Alien
, leaping up and down and scratching my shins. She alternated between barking and howling.
 

“Ow! Hey! You’re super cute and I missed you too.” I tried to rub her ears and her sloppy little face, but winced as she nipped my ankles. “Stop biting me you little ragamuffin.”

“I might be casually attired, but I am not a ragamuffin,” Cole leaned in and smooched me on my cheek. “Missed you. I’m really, really sorry about your grandmother.” He grabbed my carry-on-bag and pulled it inside his living room.

“Me too.” I took a breath and willed myself to not go to the emotional place. I was practicing saving my tears for private moments.

“My house is your house.” He gestured to his living room and I entered. “Gidget! Get your derriere in here. Now.” She waddled inside and Cole shut the door. “How’s Napoleon?
 

“Being doted on by my friend, Mary. She’s feeding him cheese and tuna in front of her TV during Packer games. She thinks if she trains or tricks him into doing something YouTube worthy, she can film him and make millions.”

“Cat videos sell you know. Give Mary my number,” Cole said. “Glad you’re back. Second bedroom’s made up. You talk to the Cookie Monster?”

I must have looked sad because Cole pinched my arm. “Hey!” I said.

“Hey back! You’re young and cute. Don’t worry about him. Besides, I’ve got just the ticket to distract you. I tracked down Clark Gable’s old house. It’s for sale in the hills above Sunset. There’s an open house this weekend…”

Besides putting a fork in my eye or running into Pintdick again, I couldn’t think of anything else that I’d prefer less.

“I know. You’re totally tempted,” Cole said. “Thank me later.”

“I’ll thank you now. Unfortunately, I have no time for dead celebrities on this trip. I’m just in town to tie up my loose ends.”

* * *

Early the next morning I handed in my final Genetics 300 term paper to Professor Schillinger. He’d given me an extension when I contacted him about Nana. Next up was a trip to USCLA for the stem cell study. I sat in a small hospital room, fully clothed with my sleeve rolled up above my elbow. Nurse Michaels drew three vials of my blood on his third attempt. “Have you ever considered another profession?” I asked.

He sighed. “I’m still paying off my student loans.” He walked out the door passing Dr. Goddard, who entered and took a seat on the swiveling stool.

He sat across from me and flipped open my chart. “Well Sophie, there’s good news and bad news,” he said and frowned. “Which do you want to start with?”

I couldn’t save my Nana. She lay deep in the ground on top of a pretty hill. A carved marble angel rested on top of her plot, guarding her journey to Heaven. I was half-tempted to get her a Star of David to attract some dear departed souls who might speak Yiddish with her. I’d screwed up Lulu’s relationship with Alejandro.
 

And I messed with the same beautiful man who would always have trust issues. The guy I missed with every breath I took and every beat of the few pieces that remained of my battered and broken heart. What could be worse? Perhaps I could invade a small third world country and become a dictator.
 

When it dawned on me. Why did they make me endure the extra MRI? There must have been suspicious results on the previous one. The stem cells were probably going bad. Quite possibly forming tumors in my brain or pushing against my spinal cord. I took a deep breath. “I’d like to start with the bad, please.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

My legs were weak as I trudged down the USCLA hospital corridors for the last time. I didn’t know whether it was from my MS, or nerves.
 

Turns out the stem cells weren’t hurting me. The jury was still out. We wouldn’t know for a while. There would be new medical breakthroughs and discoveries happening every year for people like me: people that had weird diseases and conditions and frightening situations. Not that these treatments would be approved overnight.
 

The bad news was I was released, aka, kicked-out-of the stem cell study for non-sanctioned drug use. My post-fire blood draw had found its way back to the powers-that-be who ran the research. My blood showed traces of hallucinogenic plant medicine. And I had signed paperwork out the yin-yang, promising not to do anything that would interfere with the study’s rules and regulations.
 

Therefore when it came to me, USCLA’s tests were null and void. Which cost them time and money and screwed them over. I apologized to Dr. Goddard and tried to explain my reasons, my motivation about my grandmother, but he was a busy man. He informed me that I could obtain follow-up MRIs performed at the facility of my future doctor’s choice. But my participation here was officially over. He graciously wished me the best of luck, shook my hand and left the room.
 

I felt like an ass. I came to L.A. with hope and determination. I was leaving for the second time, hopeless—and I had no one to blame but myself. I wiped a few tears away, trudged past command central and the two receptionists manning its desk.

“See you in a couple of days,” Phil said.

“Nope, Viking scum, I’m out of here.”

“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask the obvious.
 

I stopped in my tracks. “Send me an email now and again, would you?” I asked. “Let me know how you are.”

“I don’t have your email.”

“Pilfer it from my chart.”

“That’s in violation of—”

“HIPPA.” I sighed, went to the desk, scrawled my email on a piece of scratch paper and handed it to him. “If I don’t hear from you in two weeks? I’ll track down your email and sign you up for every Green Bay Packer fan club website in North America.”

“I knew you were trouble the minute you walked in the door.” He smiled and pocketed it. “Good luck, Sophie.”

I’d almost made it to the elevator when a magazine skimmed my scalp and landed with a smack on the floor in front of me. “Hey!” Blue yelled. “Not only do you not call me. But then you move, come back into town and don’t call me some more?” She wheeled up to me and ran over my foot. Twice. Then parked on it.

“Ow,” I winced.

“Ow, back.” She reached down, picked up the copy of Cosmo on the floor and smacked my thigh. “How many times have I called, emailed and texted?” She smacked my thigh again. “Am I not worthy of at least one return message?”

“Stop! Yes! I think you’re breaking my toe and for God’s sakes I bruise easily.”
 

“Good. Something to remember me.”
 

“Look. I didn’t call because…” My heart dove into my stomach and I felt sick. “My grandmother died.”

“Oh no!” Blue exclaimed and started to cry as she backed off my foot. “I’m so sorry. Do you want to talk about it? I’m meeting Lulu, but she’d be cool if I postponed…”
 

Lulu turned the corner and wheeled toward us in her chair.

Aw shit. But I needed to have this conversation. Do the right thing, even if it was the tough thing. Lulu regarded Blue and me quizzically. “What’s going on?”

“Sophie needs to talk. Can we postpone—”

“I’d like to talk to Lulu privately, if that’s okay?” I asked.