Tonight is a Grandma–Cy sleepover night, the last one before school starts, and even though I tell her to wait for me so I can help, she has the couch pulled out into a bed before I get there. I don’t know how she takes off all the cushions and pulls the mattress out with her left hand, or how she drags her right foot around the whole bed, tucking in the sheet. But every sleepover it’s ready for me.
“Na na na!” she says when I walk in. She’s sitting in her chair, but she pulls her left hand back behind her head like she’s throwing a football.
“It’s just the B Team, Grandma.”
She looks right at me and says, “Na na na na.” And I know what she’s saying. She’s saying B isn’t so bad. I don’t explain to her that there is no C Team and that no one gets cut from the B Team. But something tells me that even if she knew all that, she’d still be proud of me.
“Thanks, Grandma,” I say.
I reach down to hug her and she says, “Na na na na,” again. Sometimes I have to make a hundred guesses, but today I know exactly what she’s saying. Tell me what’s wrong.
“Nothing,” I mumble and shake my head. But she’s waiting for a better answer. She pretends to throw a football again and raises her eyebrows like Tell me more.
“It’s going to be awesome.” I try a smile but it feels fake on my face.
She scrunches up her forehead. She doesn’t believe me.
“I’m not as good as Dad.”
She leans in and whispers, “Na na na na na na.”
And I think she’s saying exactly what Sam said. As long as you love it.
Then she points to her records and I go run my finger along the spines, and in my head I spell out P-A-R-K-E-R, then pull out the record I land on. Nina Simone, Wild Is the Wind. Grandma puts her left hand to her heart and closes her eyes. The last time I pulled a Nina Simone record from the shelf was before Grandma’s stroke. That was the day she told me about how her parents gave her classical piano lessons, but really her heart loved jazz and she wanted to be just like Nina Simone and play at Carnegie Hall. When I raised my eyebrows at her to ask if she ever did, she shook her head and said, “My heart also loved raising your dad.”
I drop the needle on the record, and Grandma’s left hand starts playing along in the air with Nina Simone.
Milly knocks and comes in with two steaming plates from the dining room. “Dinner for two!” she announces.
Sometimes we eat in the dining room with my grandma’s friends and they all pinch my cheeks even though I’m eleven years old and say how handsome I am and give me their extra scoops of ice cream. And sometimes we eat, just us, in my grandma’s apartment and watch the Vikings or the Twins on TV with the sound off and a record playing.
Grandma’s eating with her left hand, and I try to eat lefty too. It feels wrong and frustrating, like pinchy cleats or too-big shoulder pads, but I’m thinking that if I could erase my Grandma’s stroke, then I’d run every route, catch every pass, and eat lefty every day.
I flick through the channels and Grandma yells, “Na!” at the Twins game. We’re playing the Oakland A’s and we’re up three to one in the third inning, and my grandma whoops and cheers as if it’s already the playoffs and as if the Twins even have a chance.
The count is three and two, and when the umpire stoops down in his position, my grandma pushes up slowly from her chair and limps a step closer to the TV and watches like she’s going to make sure he’s making the right calls.
“Na na na!” she exclaims, and wags her finger at ball four.
“Grandma,” I say. “It’s only the third inning.”
That gets her laughing so hard that tears squeeze from the corners of her eyes, and we laugh so long that we miss the next out and all the commercials and somehow the Twins are up at bat again and Nina Simone is singing about breaking down and letting it all out.
After the game, I show Grandma my sixth-grade schedule. She runs her finger over Mr. Hewett, English. And Ms. Martin, Math. “Na na?” she says. “Na!” and points to the record player. Music.
“We don’t have music every quarter, Grandma,” I tell her. “I think we rotate with art, gym, and health.”
She rests her head back against her chair and says, “Na na.” And I know my grandma, and I know what she’s saying. She’s saying Damn it.
It’s getting dark, and I’m getting tired, but before I turn out the lights, Grandma opens and closes the palm of her left hand like a book. She’s asking me about Wonder, but I pretend I can’t figure out what she’s saying, and I feel awful about it because she gets upset when she can’t communicate.
“Na na!” She opens and closes her hand again and brings it close to her face, and I just can’t pretend anymore.
“Oh, my book? I’m going to start it soon, Grandma.”
She raises her eyebrows and looks deep down in me. But she just pats my shoulder and turns off the light, and I think I know what we both might be wishing—that she could read it out loud to me, chapter by chapter, into the night like she used to. Because with her reading to me like that, with her voice that rose and fell and changed for every character, I could follow the story, and my stomach didn’t get so uneasy when the teacher would ask me questions the next day.
Grandma squeezes my hand to say good night, and I tell her I can help her to the bedroom, but she says a sharp “Na!” that means Don’t you dare. So I drag up the covers on the pullout couch, and I’m thinking about school starting and whether Mr. Hewett will make us read something in class the first day and what Marcus and Shane will say when they see me because they haven’t called since I didn’t make the cut.
And before I know it, I’m making up a new plan, a new fake, to get out of B Team practice. To see Parker.