chapter 15

“So you were right. Big deal.” Al stomped her way around the rug. “So we’ll try again.” She meant try to find the woman, give her the money.

“Count me out,” I said. “Last night I had a horrible dream. It was night and I was walking down a scrungy little side street, with garbage cans lining either side. It smelled. There was no moon, no stars, nothing. Only me. I thought I heard someone following me, so I walked faster. Just as I got to the end of the street, I was surrounded. They were all women and they all looked alike, just like the woman we saw yesterday. They were making dog noises low in their throats, mumbling terrible things. Then they closed in on me. I hollered and screamed, and nobody came.” As I told Al my dream, my heart started to pound, it was so real.

“So then they caught me and tied me to a post. And boy, did they smell!” I grabbed my nose and pinched it to illustrate how bad they smelled. “They started throwing rocks at me. Then they lit a fire.” I felt the back of my nose getting scratchy and knew I was going to cry.

“Excuse me,” I said, and fled to the bathroom. Al pulls that one on me all the time. Now it was my turn.

When I came back, Al hadn’t moved.

“Know something?”

“No,” I said.

“Your grandfather asked my mother out.”

I started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Al’s face got red.

“Nothing. It’s just that it was such a drastic subject change.” I couldn’t stop laughing. Al’s face got redder.

When I got hold of myself, I said, “You’re kidding!”

Al drew herself up haughtily.

“Why would I kid you about something as serious as that?” she demanded. “And why do you find it so impossible that your grandfather would ask my mother to go to the ballet? My mother has men ask her to go all sorts of places. She never lacks for dates, as you well know.”

“Come off it, Al,” I said. “I think my grandfather showed very good taste asking your mother out. It’s just that I’m surprised. Is she going?”

“She thinks your grandfather’s a charming man. She told me she’s seldom met a more charming man. Of course she’s going. She loves the ballet.”

“How about Stan?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“Oh, well,” Al waved her hands in the air, “Stan’s still in Europe. Anyway, they’re just good friends.”

I almost reminded Al that she said her mother might marry Stan and they’d move to a mansion in the suburbs. But I didn’t. No sense in rocking the boat.

“I think that’s cool,” I told her. “Your mother and my grandfather going on a date. Maybe we could go along as chaperones.”

“Two people of their age hardly need chaperones,” Al said, in an icy tone.

“Hey, I was only kidding,” I said.

“How old is your grandfather, anyway?”

“Sixty-six. How old’s your mother?”

“I’m not sure. Either forty-four or forty-five. Sometimes she forgets what year she was born.” Al looked at the ceiling, doing a little arithmetic in her head. “He’s old enough to be her father,” she said.

“Sure. He’s my mother’s father, and she’s forty-one.”

Al thought that one over and found nothing there to quibble about. She got up, pulled herself together, and made for the door.

“Gotta split now,” she announced. “I have to write a letter.”

“To Brian?”

“No, to your mother. To thank her for the super party. See you.”

I could hardly wait for my mother to come home to tell her about Al’s mother and Grandfather. I was brat-sitting, carrying shooters of Coke to Teddy as he lay swilling them down on his bed of pain.

“I’m thirsty!” he bellowed for about the twentieth time. And although it was the middle of the day, I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the shower, hard, so I couldn’t hear Teddy or anyone else, and took a long, hot shower to cool myself off.