16

Don’t you ever tire
Of being a liar
And your pants being on fire?

— Screaming Ferret

I WALKED INTO THE GOLDEN SUNSET Retirement Community after school that day. Josephine was in the leisure room as usual, reading some terrible book. As usual. This week’s selection had a pirate with a hairy chest on the cover.

I sat down next to her on the couch. “You should be embarrassed to read those books in public,” I said.

She set it down on the table next to her. “Why should I be? They have them all here in the library. Obviously they intend for someone to read them.”

“Don’t they have any, like, quality reading material here?”

“This is quality,” Josephine insisted. “Listen to this writing.” She licked her finger then turned back a few pages.

“Oh, gosh, please don’t read that out loud.” I glanced around at all the old people. “Someone’s going to have a stroke if you read that out loud.”

Josephine ignored me and read: “‘Demetrius’s love for Antonia was as vast as the universe, as endless as the sea, as deep as the deepest pit on earth. It was an unstoppable force, a ship slicing through the choppiest of waters.’”

I snorted. “That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“‘Demetrius would wait until the end of time for Antonia—’”

“Oh my gosh, and you’re still reading.”

“‘He would wait until he was nothing more than a skeleton, his bones unearthed by an archeologist hundreds of years from now.’” She narrowed her eyes at me. “‘Pirate bones.’”

I couldn’t keep from laughing. “That is the worst writing I’ve ever heard.”

Josephine slammed the book shut and threw it down on the coffee table. “Aren’t we the snooty connoisseur of fine literature?” she said in a huff.

I smiled at her. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt your feelings. You know, I think I feel better after you read that to me. I needed a good laugh.”

She sulked on the couch next to me as Milford shuffled up to us. I looked down and saw he had thankfully exchanged his Bert and Ernie slippers for some blue sneakers.

“Hi, Josephine,” he said, his cheeks pink.

“Hello, Milford,” Josephine said without making eye contact with him. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, nothing,” Milford said. “I just wanted to tell you how nice your hair looks today.”

Josephine shot him an evil look. “Are you serious? I always look my worst on Mondays.”

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because I have my hair done on Tuesdays, of course!”

I had to admit—one side of her head was awfully flat. But Milford smiled at her. “Well, I think you look lovely,” he said. “Like a new blossom on a beautiful spring day.”

Josephine groaned, but I said, “Hey, that sounds like a line out of one of your books.”

Milford beamed with pride as Josephine glared at him. “Why don’t you go eat some chess pieces?” she said.

His smile fell, and he ambled over to the chessboard.

I turned to Josephine. “You are so mean to him.”

“I want him to leave me alone.”

“But he likes you.”

Josephine humphed. “No, he don’t.”

“Yes, he clearly does.”

“He does not,” Josephine insisted. “Men like that are only after one thing.”

I looked at Milford, sitting over the chessboard, shoulders slumped. “I know. You already said that, but I still don’t understand what that is.”

“Someone to clean up after them.”

“But you have housekeeping here.”

“Someone to cook them all their meals.”

“But you all eat in the cafeteria. No one cooks here.”

“Someone to keep track of all their medicine.”

“But you have nurses to do that for you.”

Josephine jerked her head at me. “Well, don’t you have an answer for everything?” She picked her book up and thumbed through the pages.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?” she grumbled, her face hidden behind her book.

“Do you know if Henry has any family?”

She peeked over the top of her book at me. “Henry? No, Henry’s never had any family. Why you asking?”

“It’s just that he’s so old. Like really, really old. Even older than you.”

Josephine grunted and lifted her book so I couldn’t see her face again.

“If something happened to him, who would we call?”

“You’d call me,” she said. “The almost really, really old person.”

“But you’re not his family.”

“Well, I’m the closest he’s got.”

“He told me he was an orphan, like, in an actual orphanage.”

“Yep.”

“Do you know anything else about it?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t you care about whether he has family or not?”

“Like I said, Henry ain’t got no family.”

I laid my head back against the couch. “Fine,” I said through clenched teeth. We sat there awhile in silence as I watched the other people in the room. One woman hobbled by us pushing a walker, and I found myself suddenly terrified of getting old. How would I push a walker? What would I do when I lost the flexibility in my legs?

“So tell me what’s going on with school,” Josephine said, tearing me away from my alarming thoughts. “Everything going all right?”

I let out another long, loud breath as I stared up at the paneled ceiling.

“That good, huh?”

“I’m considering homeschooling right now.”

“And what does your mother have to say about that?”

I sat up straight. “She’s completely against it,” I said with total indignation.

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s always online school.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And if I’m going to be a hermit, I don’t need a lot of education anyway. I just need to know how to operate composting toilets and wind turbines and solar panels and stuff like that. We don’t even have farming as an elective at my school.”

“A hermit, huh? That sounds awfully lonely.”

“It sounds awfully awesome.”

“I don’t think it sounds awesome at all.” Josephine flipped a page. “Nope. Not at all.”

I clenched my teeth. “Everyone is being so unsupportive of my life plans.”

“That’s because your life plans stink right now.”

I glared at Josephine. “Maybe I should track down my bio father so I can try to get someone on my side.”

“Good luck finding him.”

“How would I find him? You know something about him, don’t you?”

“I already told you I don’t know nothin’ about that man.”

“Yeah, like you don’t know nothin’ about Henry’s family. Boy, you just don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.”

She glared at me over her book. “I know lots about important stuff.”

“Yeah, like pirate bones. Aven never told you anything about him? Anything at all?”

Josephine stared at her book. “I told you all I know.

“But you two were so close.”

Josephine pursed her lips. “You think I’m lying to you?”

“Well, you’ve lied about other things.”

“Like what?”

“The fact that you’re my grandmother.”

“I most certainly did not lie about that.” She flipped a page. “I withheld information.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it’s not. When you asked me, I told you.”

“Are you withholding information now?”

“Why the sudden interest in your father anyway? The guy is probably a bum.” She motioned at Milford with her head. “Like Milford over there.”

“Milford is not a bum.”

Josephine rolled her eyes. “What about that boy who likes you?”

My stomach clenched, and I felt like I might barf all over Josephine’s cheesy pirate book. “What boy?”

“That boy you told me about at school. Anything happening with him?”

“No. He doesn’t like me. Forget about it.”

She put her book down. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened. He just doesn’t like me.”

“How do you know that?”

I so did not want to talk about this anymore. “I just know. He’s a jerk. A big, fat, huge, enormous jerk.”

“What did he do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Now who’s the one withholding information?”

I looked away from Josephine. “I don’t know. Who?”

Josephine humphed and lifted her book up in front of her face again. “How’s horse-riding lessons going?”

I grimaced. “Isn’t there anything we can talk about that doesn’t make me want to barf?”

“We could talk about my book.”

“Try again.”