CHAPTER
fifty-eight

I stood just inches from the mirror in my bathroom, the lights on either side lit up. Turning my face from side to side, I noticed every fine line that my cold cream was supposed to keep from forming.

Between my brows and at the corners of my eyes and around my mouth. Tugging with my fingers at my hairline, I tried to smooth the lines on my brow. But that only made me aware of a few wild grays sprouting up from my scalp.

Pulling them, I wondered how long before plucking all of my old lady hairs would leave me completely bald. Not long enough, I suspected. Not nearly long enough.

“You’re getting old,” I said to my reflection.

My reflection got its revenge by showing me the billy goat hairs growing long and coarse out of the point of my chin.

Tweezing those, I sighed.

In the morning, I would be forty-one years old and I was not ready for it.

Turning forty hadn’t been so bad, at least I hadn’t thought so. Of course, I didn’t offer the number to anyone, but I did consider it a badge of honor. Living into my forties and feeling more self-assured than ever before.

But between the Octobers of my birthdays, something had shifted. On the eve of forty-one, I could no longer feel assured of anything about my life.

Well, there was one thing.

I was getting old. Not only that. I was starting to look old. In a world of Jackie Kennedys, I was on my way to becoming an Aunt Bee.

“Now, you just stop it, Betty Sweet,” I whispered to myself, clicking off the lights on either side of the mirror. “You are going to start being nicer to yourself.”

I straightened my neck, holding my chin higher, and looked my reflection in the eye.

My mother had never aged. Never had a wrinkle or a gray hair or the pull of gravity on her body. Not that I remembered, at least. She would, in my mind, always be in her early thirties.

Still meeting my own eyes, I smiled, and reminded myself to be grateful.

It was a privilege to have another year.

Albert knocked on the door at quarter past eight, and when I answered, he told me to hold the door for him, he had something for me.

He called from his car for me to shut my eyes.

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “For your birthday.”

“But that isn’t until tomorrow,” I protested, albeit weakly. It was no secret that I liked being surprised.

“Well, then this is early.” He put his hands on his hips. “Please close your eyes. For my sake if nothing else.”

“Oh, all right.” I pushed my lids shut. “But if this is another cat, I’m not taking it.”

“I promise, it’s not alive.”

I heard him shut the car door then felt him walk past me and into the house, his footsteps getting farther away from me, and then the light thud of something being lowered to a wood surface.

“Can I open them?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

I felt his hand on my elbow. He pulled me forward.

“So help me, if you make me stub my toe,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be careful with you.”

Careful. I thought that was a good word for Albert Sweet.

He led me to the other side of the room, to the corner that housed the record player and my writing desk.

“Okay,” he said.

I took that as his permission to open my eyes.

When I did, I had to hold on to the back of the straight-backed chair I had tucked up under the desk.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s a typewriter,” Albert supplied.

“Yes, I see that.”

“For your stories.” He grinned and shrugged.

“How thoughtful,” I said.

“Would you like to try it?” He pointed at it. “It works.”

“Oh, but I don’t have the right paper.”

“Ah.”

He rushed across the living room and out the front door, presumably to get some paper from his car.

I pulled out the chair and sat down, putting my fingers on the keys. They were white with black letters painted on them. I took my fingers off them and touched my palms to the sides of the machine.

It was pink. What Norman had always called “Betty Sweet pink.” Somewhere between salmon and bubble gum. Half standing, I looked down at it then shifted and looked at it sideways.

I’d never seen such a beautiful typewriter before.

Albert came back in and showed me how to roll the paper in, what to do when I got to the end of a line, and everything else I might need to know.

“This is such a nice gift, Albie,” I said. “How did you ever afford it?”

“Oh.” He blushed. “It’s not from me.”

“I don’t understand.” I turned to face him.

He sat on the arm of Norm’s easychair, legs stretched out in front of him and arms crossed.

“It’s been in my apartment for months,” he said. “It’s where Norm was hiding it from you.”

“I’m sorry?” My fingertips tingled and my heart felt like it weighed a hundred pounds in my chest. My stomach flip-flopped, and I thought I might faint for how light my head became.

“Back in May, Norm found this at some shop in Lansing,” Albie started. “He had me hold on to it because you would have found it at Marvel’s, and Pop isn’t good at keeping secrets.”

“Oh, Albert,” I said.

“I nearly forgot.” He pulled a folded-up paper from his back pocket. “This was rolled into it. I took it out because I was afraid you’d think I wrote it.”

He handed it to me.

“Happy birthday, Betty,” he said and then turned and left, shutting the door behind him.

I waited until he was gone to unfold the paper, smoothing it on the desk to the side of the typewriter.

There were only four words on the paper, but I knew it would soon become one of my most treasured possessions.

I LOVE BETTY SWEET!

“I love you too, Norm Sweet,” I whispered, knowing he could no longer hear me. Knowing that those days were gone.

But loving him just the same.