Road Trip
Martha Slaughter
I can’t help it. I’m feeling a little mad at my grandpa, even though he’s dead. I know it’s so selfish of me, but, man! If Grandpa hadn’t died I would not be sitting here in the backseat, behind my mother and my grandmother, driving a hundred million miles to Vermont, where we are going to visit Grammy’s oldest friend. I’d be home hanging with my own friends.
Mom knows I didn’t want to come. She said, “Evie, you can go to Border’s and buy as many Party Girls books as you want, and you can buy yourself a Discman, too, and listen to lots of CD’s.”
Mom hates Party Girls!
She’s been yelling at me the whole first part of the summer: “Why do you read that trash? Why can’t you read a real book, Evie? I mean, those are just like watching television, they are so bad!”
And now she’s handing me her credit card and telling me I can buy as many as I want.
She knows I do not want to be on this trip.
So I did go and buy the last Party Girls book, and there’s another whole series called Top Ten, so I bought three of those, too. And a Discman with cool headphones.
Mom told me, “Stay up late the night before we go, and you can sleep most of the way there.”
So I stayed up late, but when she woke me up the next morning I wanted to kill her. She was being so fussy and I wanted to scream. “Is this your suitcase? Did you remember a toothbrush? Did you bring something warm?”
And Grammy was clucking slightly – you know that little tongue click thing that grown-ups do. I could hear her.
She’s been living with us since Grandpa died. I know she must be lonely. She tries to talk to me about rap music and IM, but what am I gonna say?
“She just sits at that computer all day,” I heard her say to my mom.
“Well, that’s what they do, Ma,” says Mom.
Grammy thinks we should do things differently, I guess. Still, looking at her little gray head peeking up over the seat, well, I don’t know. I’m sure she misses Grandpa.
Mom made a bed for me in the backseat. She put in a red blanket and her own special squishy pillow.
“Don’t we need snacks?” says Grammy. “How can we go on a road trip with no snacks?”
“We’ll stop along the way,” says Mom.
“What, and pay three times as much?” says Grammy.
“It’s okay, Ma,” says Mom. “I’ll pay.”
I am already annoyed. I pull out Party Girls and put on my headphones as we head out of the driveway. This Party Girls is such a good one. I can’t wait to gossip about it with Emily. She’s read them all, and she’s the one who told me about Top Ten.
“You’re already that far, Evie?” Mom’s voice echoes vaguely through my headphones.
“She’s got her ears on,” says Grammy. “She can’t hear a thing.”
I can hear through my headphones, but why let them know? I hear Grammy call them my ears, and it makes me smile. Slightly.
“What page are you on, Evie?” asks Mom.
“Eighty-seven.”
“Already? Wow – and didn’t you just start this morning?”
Mom is trying to connect with me. I can tell because she’ll make a series of stupid comments. In a minute she’ll reach her hand back and, unless I’m being the meanest person in the world, I’ll give her what she wants – a little hand touch. I’m not much in the mood. Here’s her hand. Fingertip brush only, no squeeze, but she’ll take it.
Grammy is remembering her old friends. Do I care? Does Mom care? She is remembering friends named Verne and Gina. It’s Gina we’re going to see. I’m not listening, but sometimes I am. Verne had a sweet husband, who was Catholic and died very young. She had five kids. Gina’s husband had a husky voice and was an alcoholic. Mom says, “Oh, I remember that voice and didn’t Gina drink too much also?”
Grammy says she’ll never forget the road trip she took with Gina. “Don’t you remember?” she asks Mom. “It was you and me and Gina and her son, John. She would stop every half hour or so and go round to the trunk of the car to have a swig of gin. Do you remember at all?”
Mom says she sort of remembers the trip, but not the gin swigs. “It’s a wonder we weren’t all killed!” says Mom, and Grammy agrees.
Grammy is remembering that this same Gina also traveled with a bottle of Lysol disinfectant in her purse. “Anywhere she stayed, she sprayed down the whole bathroom with Lysol.”
I find myself wondering what in the world this woman looked like. A drunken germ freak. I can’t picture it. But I don’t want to ask because I don’t want them to know I’m listening. I don’t want to be a part of the conversation.
“Oh, there was a McDonald’s!” says Grammy, as we speed by the rest stop.
Mom says, “Oh, Ma, did you want to stop?”
“No, no,” says Grammy, “not unless you do.”
“I would have been happy to stop. I’m sorry, Ma. We’ll stop at the next one.”
“Whatever you say,” says Grammy.
Mom’s hands get tight on the steering wheel. She says, “We’ll stop at the next rest stop.”
“Whatever you say,” says Grammy.
Poor Grammy. She is trying to fit in and go with the flow, but I know she doesn’t really even want to be swimming in this river.
After a while, we see the sign for the next rest stop.
“No, but there’s a Burger King, Ma.”
“Oh, I knew we should have stopped at that first one. I thought there would be a McDonald’s at every rest stop! I just assumed.”
She is disappointed, it seems to me, way deeper than McDonald’s or Burger King deserves. I wish we had stopped at that McDonald’s for her.
Although it’s crazy that Grammy wants to stop at a McDonald’s anyway. Grammy, of all people! She wouldn’t have let Grandpa eat at McDonald’s for anything. She spent every day of the last six months cooking healthy food that he hated. Every time we’d visit, that was all they talked about.
Too much fat in mayonnaise.
Too much salt in lunch meat.
Too much sugar in a baked potato!
“Well, I’m gonna stop,” says Mom. “I like Burger King better than McDonald’s anyway. Besides, I don’t know about you guys, but I need to use the bathroom. Anybody else?”
Grammy shudders at the thought and I say no. But we go in to get some food.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” says Mom. “You guys get me a Whopper with cheese. Take care of Grammy, Evie – don’t lose her.”
It’s one of those huge bustling rest stops. There are hundreds of people looming at us from different directions. Poor little Grammy suddenly looks like a rowboat lost in a storm on the ocean. For a minute I see things through her eyes, and I hold on to her little arm.
“All these people, Evie,” she says. “Where do they come from? And why are they all so big and fat?”
“I guess too many french fries,” I say, and Grammy laughs. I squeeze her arm and together we work our way to the line. People are jostling us. I get a tray. It’s a self-serve Burger King, so I grab a Whopper with cheese and fries for me, and the same for Mom.
“Don’t they have one of those chicken sandwiches here, like they do at McDonald’s?” says Grammy.
“Here’s a chicken sandwich, Grammy.”
“But that’s a fried one – McDonald’s has a grilled chicken sandwich….”
I’m feeling the pressure of the line backing up behind us and I want to tell her to just take the crispy chicken so we can move along. I kind of want to yell at her.
“Oh, never mind,” she says. “I’ll just get some french fries and a hamburger.” She sounds sad about this, but still I’m relieved.
“Wait! Oh, Grammy, here’s what you want!” There does seem to be such a thing as a grilled chicken sandwich at Burger King after all. Her papery-soft face lights up. I can stop feeling bad about pushing the crispy chicken.
“Thank you, Evie,” she says. “I’m sorry to be such a pain. I really haven’t been out into the world for, well, really for years. Everything is different. Everything seems so confusing.”
Poor Grammy! It drove me crazy, the way she fussed over Grandpa. But at least she knew what she was doing. At least she knew where everything was – her supermarket, her fruit store, the doctor’s office, the hospital. It was hard to watch, the way she bustled up and down the stairs with food and medicines, always so worried, always with a turned-down mouth. But now, trying to help her figure out which size lid will fit on her plastic cup of Coke, I’m realizing how hard it must be for her. At least at home, even if they never had french fries, she knew where the salt and pepper and ketchup were.
“Oh, yum!” says Mom, back from the bathroom. “Should we sit and eat here, or in the car?”
“The car,” says Grammy firmly.
And we’re back on the road.
Grammy is remembering more about Grandpa. I’m wearing my ears, but I can still hear.
“I was such a small town girl,” Grammy is saying. “I’d never been anywhere until I went off to college. Grandpa was so romantic. When I was home in Maine after graduation one time, he told me to meet him at the Bangor airport. He got off the plane carrying a big bouquet of those pale orange roses, and he handed them to me and got back on the plane and went away.”
Grandpa did that? Grandpa, who didn’t leave his armchair as long as I can remember? I’m thinking how planes don’t really turn around and fly back the way they came, but who knows! Maybe that’s the way it was then.
“I was wearing a red button-down sweater,” says Grammy. “I remember exactly the way this one tree looked – it had yellow leaves. You know how you have certain memories that last your whole life? I remember the sun shining and the wind blowing. It was the end of September, and in Maine it was already fall.”
Mom sighs and says, “No wonder you married him.”
Grammy snorts and says, “Oh, who knows? Maybe I’m remembering wrong. You know perfectly well Grandpa and I had our differences. Maybe I just wanted to get out of Maine.”
“But still,” says Mom.
“Yes, still,” says Grammy.
And she starts to cry.
*
I start reading Party Girls again. Serena is buying a gray cashmere scarf at Barney’s to give to Tim in her effort to lure him away from Blair, but I keep thinking of Grammy standing in her red sweater at the Bangor airport, with the sun shining and the wind blowing and Grandpa walking down the steps of the airplane with a big bouquet of pale orange roses. I know exactly the ones she likes. We get them for her every year, for her birthday, and she puts them on her front hall table.
“You were brave to marry Grandpa,” says Mom. “I mean, you hadn’t known each other that long. And you just married him, and moved to New York.”
“Grandpa seemed so glamorous,” says Grammy. “He was the kind of man who could get a table in a restaurant, no matter how crowded it was.”
Mom asks Grammy, “Did you like living in New York?”
Grammy hates New York now. She never goes there. Never.
“Oh, yes, it was fan and exciting when I was first married. We lived in a little apartment on East 12th Street, with just a bed and an orange crate for a table. Once I tried to roast a chicken for dinner and, when he cut it, he said, “Do they always eat their chicken raw in Maine?”
I laugh out loud and Grammy turns around.
“What is it, Evie?” she says. “Is that book actually funny?”
I tell her no, that I like the story about the raw chicken. I can tell it makes her happy that I laughed at her story.
“How can that be true, Grammy?” I say. “You’re the best cook ever.”
It makes Mom happy, too, that I am joining in their conversation. The air in the car is all of a sudden lighter and easier to breathe.
“Well, I wasn’t always,” says Grammy. “Grandpa taught me how to cook.”
“Oh, he didn’t!” says Mom. “How can that be? He never cooked anything except bacon and eggs. He never did anything but cut the meat!”
“No, no, no,” says Grammy. “In the beginning, he taught me how to cook.”
It’s a sunny day and Mom rolls down her window. The air pours in as we speed down the highway. For a while we can’t talk because of the roaring sunny air. Grammy’s sott silvery hair is shimmering across her cheek like the fine spray of a fountain. The scenery is a glistening green and there are darker mountains up ahead. I turn my music up loud. Grammy looks out the window at the streaking green countryside. She appears so forlorn that I feel a hot tear in the corner of my eye. I tap her shoulder. She reaches back without looking at me and we touch hands. Just like with Mom.
“Thank you, Evie,” I can see her say.
And we all sink back into our silences – me with my music and my book, them with the roar of the open window, filling the empty spaces.
I finish my book. Grammy has fallen asleep, with her head back against the seat.
“Mom, are we anywhere near where we’re going?” I say. I know I sound like a brat, but now that my book is done I remember that I am on a trip with my mother and my grandmother. We’ve been driving for hours and it looks like we’re on the same endless highway we’ve been on the whole time.
“We are,” says Mom. “We’re almost in Burlington. Didn’t you hear me say we were in Vermont?”
“No,” I say. “I was reading my book. Is there gonna be TV in this hotel, Mom?”
“Evie,” says Mom. “There is always TV in hotels.”
Grammy is awake again. Mom tells her that she should take out the directions that Gina’s daughter sent us to get to the hotel. Grammy rummages in her black canvas bag.
“I know I brought them,” she says.
“You’ll find them,” says Mom.
“I put them in here,” says Grammy. She starts pulling things out: her book on English gardens, her white toothbrush container, her leather wallet, a blue note book with yellow Post-its poking out of every page. “I’m such a mess,” she says. “I can’t ever find anything. I’m so disorganized….” Her voice is starting to shake.
I can tell Mom is irritated, but she’s staying calm.
I don’t want to be here. Why am I here? I want to be home. I want to be at Emily’s. I want to be watching a movie on TV and prank phone-calling someone.
“I’m sure they’re in there,” says Mom.
I’ve seen my mom behave in the exact way that Grammy is now – a tornado of worry – but here Mom is, soothing her mother, saying she’s sure she has the directions somewhere. And, of course, she does. She finds them, finally, at the bottom of the bag.
“Have we got to exit 7a yet?” asks Grammy.
“7a? On which road?”
“On route 4, going north.”
“We’re not on route 4, going north yet. We’re still on the highway.”
The conversation goes like this for several minutes.
Grammy starts turning her paper around, as if she can’t read it. “The real problem is, I can’t see a thing without my glasses….”
“Where are your glasses?”
Grammy starts rummaging through her bag again.
“Grammy, what are those around your neck?” She’s got one pair on her nose and another around her neck.
“Oh! I’m such a fool. Thank you, Evie, yes.” She pulls the ones off her nose and jams on the others and starts reading the paper again. “I just can’t quite tell….”
“Ma,” says Mom. “Give the paper to Evie – maybe she can tell where we are.”
“No, no. I can see it now,” says Grammy. “We should be looking for route 4. Route 4 and then exit 7a. That goes to route 22 and right into Burlington.”
I lie down, on my back, with one leg crossed over the other. I turn my music up loud. I watch the tops of the trees whir by, and I think we will never get where we are going. For a minute I think I fall asleep and, when I wake up, I can see that evening is coming.
*
Grammy is talking about Gina again
“After all, it was her ex-husband, Tom, who introduced me to Grandpa in the first place,” she says.
“I was always scared of Tom,” says Mom.
“So was I!” says Grammy. “I don’t know if I would have gotten married if I hadn’t been so scared of him. I couldn’t decide; Grandpa was ten years older. My family didn’t want me to marry him at all. But Gina’s husband told me, ’I’ve canceled my appointments today. Either get married, or call it off.’”
I’m still lying down with my headphones on. But I’ve turned the music off.
“I didn’t know your family didn’t want you to marry him,” says Mom.
“Well, he was so wild,” says Grammy. “He took me places that my family would never go. Nightclubs and restaurants – he even took me to a prizefight.”
“Well, you stood up to them, didn’t you?” says Mom.
“Did I?” says Grammy. “Or was it just that Tom Hambly canceled his appointments that day?”
“But the roses!”
“Yes, I know,” says Grammy. “Grandpa turned out to be a wonderful person, he really did. My mother always said how she ended up liking him a lot better than she liked me.” And her face crumples, again.
“Oh, Mom, there’s a sign for route 4!”
“Oh, good work, Evie,” says Mom.
“Well, thank heaven someone can see in this group!” says Grammy, sniffing and laughing.
It seems like forever until we get to exit 7a, which is route 22 to Burlington. Dusk has settled in, and the mountains are black against a lavender sky.
“What’s the name of the street the hotel is on?” Mom asks Grammy, who’s still clutching the directions.
“Hopkins Street,” says Grammy. “It says….”
Hopkins Street is a long bright street, on the edge of Lake Champlain. I know Mom found a hotel with a view of the lake because she thought it would be nice for Grammy. I know she chose the most expensive hotel because she thought it would have the cleanest bathrooms.
“It seems like the kind of thing Grandpa would do,” she told me, while she was on hold for the reservation.
“Look for the Westwood Hotel,” she says to us now.
“Goodness,” says Grammy. “So many people.”
“I see it, Mom!” I shout. “Right up ahead, on the corner there.”
The Westwood Hotel has a thousand windows gleaming with the reflection of the wide silvery water of Lake Champlain. I sense it is not what Grammy was hoping for. She is sinking in her seat and the atmosphere of our car shifts, from excitement to a slight dread.
I know Mom has to feel it – the dread coming from her own mother – but she’s ignoring it. She’s looking for the parking.
“Over there, Mom,” I say. “See? It’s one of those underground garages.”
The dread thickens.
“Underground garage?” says Grammy.
“It’s not a big deal, Ma,” says Mom. “Haven’t you ever been in one of those underground garages, at the airport or someplace?”
Mom knows perfectly well that Grammy has never been in an underground garage. Grammy lives in her green garden and her sun-filled house, in an overlit supermarket or a fluorescent hospital room, in her flowery upstairs bedroom and her old book-lined library. She has never, ever, been underground – except to check for leaks in her own basement.
Mom turns into the garage and drives slowly down the ramp. Grammy is breathing in a shallow way and holding her bag in her lap.
“Like entering the gates of hell, right, Ma?” says my mom, lightly. “Except it’s just a parking garage.”
Grammy smiles and forces a small laugh. I’ve been in a million underground parking garages and never thought twice about it. But somehow, driving down with Grammy, it does seem kind of creepy, going down and down in a tight circle.
“Here, Mom. ‘PARKING AVAILABLE’,” I say. “LEVEL 3.”
We turn slowly onto level 3. The concrete ceiling feels too low and the pillars are rough and thick. We all sit for a minute in the car, not quite ready to brave this dark close place we find ourselves in.
“Okay, come on,” says Mom, cheerfully. “We just have to find the elevator.”
“Elevator?” says Grammy.
I feel a little sorry for Mom. She meant so well, taking Grammy to the nicest hotel she could find. And now here we are in an underground parking garage with a person who is revealing she’s not keen on elevators, either. It’s like we lost our way along the sunny path we were traveling, and somehow found ourselves in the thick of the forest.
“Come on, Grammy,” I say. “Elevators aren’t so bad. They’re quick.”
We get out of the car. The scenery is too grim for Mom to even try to cheer Grammy up. Without speaking, we herd my small, withering grandmother into the elevator and push the button for LOBBY.
“Finally!” says Mom, ten seconds later when the doors open. We have to wind our way past a glittering fountain and blazing chandeliers to get to the front desk. Grammy is shrinking in front of my eyes. My mother, on the other hand, is looking taller than usual.
“Evie, why don’t you and Grammy sit right there while I check in?” she says, in a hard voice.
Grammy and I sit on some fat chairs, with maroon-and-green striped upholstery.
“I’m sorry, Evie,” she says to me, softly. “It’s all so overwhelming, the garage and the lights. I haven’t been anywhere in so very long.”
I am torn between sympathy for her and sympathy for my mother. I wish that I was at home, sitting at the computer, or meeting my friends at Cosimo’s for pizza. I wish, at least, I had my headphones on, with my music as loud as it goes.
“It’s okay, Grammy,” I say, and I pat her soft hand. “It’ll be okay.”
Mom comes back, still looking tall and tight. But when she sees her mother, she softens. “Okay, Ma,” she says. “I got the keys. One more elevator and we’ll be safe in our room.” Grammy and I slide off the fat striped chairs and follow Mom.
None of us are talking. I’m mad about not being in a booth at Cosimo’s; Mom is disappointed because her plan for making Grammy happy is not working; and Grammy is just sad and frightened, wishing with all her heart to have her old life back, which is gone forever.
We get out of the elevator into a long hallway, with doors going in both directions. The floor is carpeted in red-and-gold swirls and the walls are papered in a silver flower pattern.
“This way,” says Mom. She has given up trying to be cheerful. “I got two rooms so Evie can watch her own TV, but there’s a connecting door so we can feel like we’re all together.”
She opens the door and we stand there, faced with big brown furniture. Mom puts her bag on one of the beds and opens the door to the next room.
“Here we go,” she says. She knows she has lost the war, but she seems willing to fight the battle through to the end. Grammy follows her in and puts her suitcase down. Mom pulls open the curtains. We stare at the view; the sky is purple and quilted, the lake a dark shimmer.
I feel relieved that we all know where we stand. It is clear that Grammy is not ready to face the world, even with lake views and expensive hotel rooms. Our mission has been reduced to getting through the next day until we can turn around and go home. It’s as if Grammy has revealed herself as disabled and now we simply need to protect her until she is back in a safe environment. There is no real point in trying to make her happy.
Grammy walks over and peers in the bathroom. “Oops, I forgot my Lysol,” she says, and we all laugh together.
“Let’s have dinner in the restaurant here,” says Mom. “I doubt the food will be good, but at least it’s right here.” Grammy and I say that’s fine.
It’s hard to explain why we have such a peaceful dinner, after a day with so much upheaval. I know Mom had higher hopes for this trip, and I am guessing that Grammy did, too, or she wouldn’t have been willing to come.
I didn’t want to be here at all, but I think I’m glad that I came. It’s like, with our three different paces, we tried to climb a mountain that was too hard to climb. We never made it to the top, but along the way we found a place where we could be together.
This restaurant at the Westwood Hotel, in Burlington, Vermont, feels like a small green meadow on the harsh side of a cold gray mountain.
That night, late, when I am watching TV and Mom is sleeping, I hear Grammy crying in the other room. I tiptoe over and slide in next to her. I hold on to her tightly while she cries and cries and cries.
After a while, she stops.
“I’m sorry, Evie,” she says. “I was trying to turn on the TV to watch the food channel, like I did with Grandpa, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Isn’t that silly? It was the remote control that made me cry so hard. That stupid thing made me realize that Grandpa is really gone.”
“Oh, Grammy,” I say. I’m pretty sure neither of us is tired. “Shall we see what’s on the food channel?” I turn it on and together we watch.
“On the way home, Grammy,” I say, holding her small velvet hand, “we’ll stop at McDonald’s. On the way home, we’ll get the right kind of chicken sandwich.”
Grammy laughs. “You know what, Evie?” she says. “I’m looking forward to that.”