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“Grampa?” Shelly asked, her surprise palpable. The two children who trailed her through the door stopped at her legs and looked up at Calvin.
He got up from the couch and took three steps toward her. Then he bent to give her an awkward, unreciprocated hug. “Hi, Shell,” he said.
She dropped a bag on the floor, making an audible splat as wet towels hit the tiles. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Calvin forced a laugh. “Nothing!”
“Your grandpa here needs you to teach his girlfriend how to use her phone,” Melissa said with ample snark.
“No, no,” Calvin argued, and Gertrude was sure he was going to correct her nomenclature straightaway. Gertrude was mistaken. “Well, yes, I would like to have your help with the new phone, but that was really only a pretense for my visit.”
Shelly’s eyebrows went up. So did Melissa’s. And Gertrude’s.
“Oh?” Shelly asked, prodding him to continue.
“Well, I’ve just learned about the terrible death of a young woman across town, and well, it just got me thinking about you. She was about your age, I think, maybe a little older, but I just got ... well ... worried.”
He didn’t sound very convincing to Gertrude’s ears, even using his grampa voice, but Shelly seemed to buy it. “Well, I didn’t even know her,” she said. “I don’t even think she was local.”
“OK then, probably not. I know I didn’t recognize the name. But, so, you’re OK? Not hanging with any dangerous crowds?”
“What on earth are you up to, Dad?” Melissa asked, but Calvin didn’t look away from Shelly’s face.
“So, about this jitterbug?” Gertrude said, waving her phone in the air in an effort to break up some of the tension.
“Oh yeah,” Shelly said, reaching out for the phone. “I’m sort of an expert. Used to work at C-mobile, but they didn’t pay squat.”
Calvin rolled his eyes, but Shelly didn’t see that. She was looking at the phone.
“This is a nice one. OK, so, do you know how to turn it on and off?”
Gertrude shook her head.
Shelly showed her the power button.
“Maybe you should sit down,” Gertrude said, and patted the couch beside her.
Shelly sat down. “So, if you have a tmail address, I can plug that in, and all your contacts should automatically transfer over.”
Calvin snorted.
“What’s tmail?” Gertrude asked.
Shelly looked at her mom.
Melissa shrugged.
“OK, well, tmail is the most popular email.” She paused and looked at Gertrude doubtfully. “Email is electronic mail,” she said, speaking painfully slowly. “Like, people can send you messages and letters and stuff.”
“Oh! Nifty!” Gertrude exclaimed, sincerely delighted.
Shelly looked at her mom for guidance. Her mom didn’t offer any. “So, what should your email address be?” Shelly asked.
“Gertrude?” Gertrude offered.
“That’s probably already in use. Do you want to use your last name too, or maybe a middle name?” Shelly tried.
“Oh! I know!” Gertrude exclaimed. “Gertrude Gumshoe!”
Shelly paused, apparently speechless.
“Just do it,” Calvin growled.
“OK, then. Your email address is,” she spoke while typing, “Gertrude gumshoe at tmail dot com. Shocker. Not taken. OK, so, you’ll need a password. Make sure it’s something you can remember.”
“Cats,” Gertrude said.
Shelly looked at her, confused.
“Cats is my password,” Gertrude repeated.
“You should probably pick something more complex,” Shelly tried.
“Just do it. No one is going to try to hack into this nut’s email,” Calvin said.
Gertrude gave him a dirty look.
“OK, then, you’re good to go. Now you have an email address and a phone number. Do you know your phone number?” Shelly asked.
“A-huh. The girl with blue hair wrote it down for me.”
“OK,” Shelly said uneasily. “So if you want to send someone a text, you just tap this icon, and then type in their phone number. Then, write your message, and then hit this arrow, which means send.”
“Wow!” Gertrude said. “Fancy.”
“Now these things here,” she showed Gertrude a screen full of icons, “are apps. There’s an app for just about anything. Do you want me to set up any apps for you? Maybe Facebook or Twitter?”
Calvin snorted again.
“Twitter?” Gertrude repeated incredulously. “Is that an app that makes my phone tremble? How about a recorder? Is there an app that records conversations?”
“You mean phone conversations, or face-to-face ones?” Shelly asked.
“Both.”
“Sure, let me look.” Shelly found both apps, downloaded them, and showed Gertrude how to use them.
“Fancy,” Gertrude said again.
“Anything else?” Shelly asked, sounding tired.
“Are there any cat apps?”
“Well, sure, there’s one that sends you a cat picture every day.”
“No, I mean an app for my cats.”
“Of course not,” Calvin said.
“Actually, there is. It’s just a red dot that bounces around the screen, and there’s some meowing going on in the background. It’s actually quite annoying.”
“Yeah, I want that one,” Gertrude said.
“Of course you do,” Calvin muttered. “If you turn that on in the car, I will kill you.”
“Don’t say that, Calvin,” Gertrude said matter-of-factly. “If something happens to me, you’ll be the first one they suspect.”
“Oh, something’s going to happen to you, all right,” Calvin growled.
Shelly looked at her mom, her eyes begging for help.
“OK,” Melissa said. “I think you got what you came for.”
“Indeed,” Gertrude said.
“So you didn’t know the woman?” Calvin said.
“What woman?” Shelly asked.
“The dead one,” Calvin answered.
“Nope. Don’t think so,” Shelly said.
“I hear she worked at that bar, Private Eyes,” Calvin said. “You ever go in there?”
Melissa raised an eyebrow, but Shelly’s face stayed straight, much to her credit, Gertrude thought. “I’ve been in there, yes, but I didn’t see her.”
“I hear she used to hang around with a girl goes by the name of Trixie,” Calvin said.
Now Shelly looked suspicious. “Don’t know her either.”
“OK, then,” Calvin said. “I’ll get out of your hair. You just, um, be careful, OK?”
“OK,” Shelly said uncertainly.
Calvin gave her another stiff hug, gave his daughter a curt nod, and then took a few steps to tousle the boys’ hair.
And then they were outside and on their way to the car. Gertrude found it frustratingly difficult to stare at her phone and maneuver her walker simultaneously, so she slid the phone into her walker pouch.