The next morning, Bitsie came over at seven on the dot to get ready to pick up Woo Woo at the airport.
“Hey, buy a girl dinner first,” she said when Luca used an elastic bandage to strap a microphone pack to her thigh.
“Yeah,” Luca said, grinning. “As if a girl like you would ever go out with a guy like me!”
Bitsie tousled his hair. “You’re a good one, you know that?” She winked at me.
Nan snaked a mic wire up her pink polo shirt and I clipped it in place, just under the edge of her collar.
“Your turn!” Nan said.
I was wearing a sundress I’d made with Bunny’s fabric. Yellow flowered cotton that skimmed my curves. There was no good place to hide the battery pack.
“I don’t think I need a mic,” I said.
“If you’re in the footage and I can’t hear you, I can’t use it,” Luca said.
“But it’s about them!”
“The world needs to see your beautiful face,” Bitsie said.
“It’s about the reunion, and you’re part of it.” Luca grabbed another mic pack.
“Give it,” Nan said, taking it from him. She pushed me down the hall to my room and helped me strap it to my lower back, running the bandage around my waist.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I thought it might get awkward,” Nan said. “Although, maybe that would be a good thing.”
“Shit! It’s not on yet, is it?” I whispered, pointing to her mic.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said. “But he’s great, right?”
I nodded.
“He thinks you’re pretty great too.”
“I don’t know if—”
“You don’t have to know,” she said, clipping the mic to the neckline of my dress. “You just have to show up.”
* * *
I drove everyone to the airport in Nan’s car. Nan sat in the passenger seat chatting about her ideas for refreshments at the show. “I was thinking vegan rumaki, if I can figure out the bacon part. Stuffed mushrooms, of course. Do you think we should have mai tais or piña coladas?”
No one was answering, but it was rhetorical. If anyone chose mai tais when Nan wanted piña coladas, she’d be annoyed.
“Should we give people a choice?” Nan asked. “No! Wait! Blue Hawaiians! Who doesn’t like a Blue Hawaiian?”
I watched Bitsie in the rearview mirror. She stared out the window, snapping her blue bauble bracelet against her wrist, oblivious to Nan’s chatter. Luca sat across from her, filming as she fidgeted.
“Isn’t Ruth allergic to pineapple?” I said loudly, hoping to get Luca’s attention off Bitsie.
“She just says that,” Nan said. “No one’s allergic to pineapple.”
“I think some people are actually allergic to pineapple,” I said.
Luca wasn’t biting on the conflict.
“Well, maybe, but Ruth isn’t. She just says that.” Nan remembered the microphone and clapped her hand over her shirt collar after the fact. “We can do mai tais, I guess.” She sighed, like it was an enormous compromise.
“People are coming to see the show,” I said. “Not to eat.”
“But we have to feed them!” Nan said.
“Do we?”
Nan laughed at me.
* * *
“Are you alright?” I whispered to Bitsie when we got to the short-term parking lot.
“It’s stupid stuff,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Worrying Woo won’t like me anymore. What will we talk about? How many ways can I put my foot in my mouth? You know?”
“I do know.” I gave her hand a squeeze. She linked her arm into mine and we walked around the car to Nan and Luca. Nan hooked her arm into my other one, and we set off to meet Woo Woo at baggage claim.
Bitsie swung her foot out in front of me, so I swung mine in front of Nan’s. Nan picked up on what we were doing and did the same. Then we reversed it, walking through the sliding doors like a slower, more deliberate version of The Monkees. Bitsie hummed the theme song under her breath. We were a spectacle with our crazy colored hair. People stared, but I felt brave, sandwiched between Nan and Bitsie.
“Careful,” Nan said, “one of us is likely to break a hip!”
Bitsie tugged my elbow. “My vote is on this one.”
I laughed. “It’s probably true.”
We found the carousel for Woo Woo’s flight and waited. Nan and I sat on a bench. Bitsie paced. Luca leaned against a pillar next to us, filming. He kept his actions so low-key that I had to keep reminding myself we were being observed.
“What’s she on about?” Nan asked, nodding in Bitsie’s direction.
“Nerves,” I said.
“Oh.” Nan clapped her hand to her mouth. “She’s worried Woo Woo won’t be okay with . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Woo Woo doesn’t know?” I said.
“No. Last Woo was aware, Bitsie was married to a man.”
“I never thought about what a continual process coming out is,” I said.
“I forget it’s ever hard for her,” Nan said. “She’s Bitsie! She’s inherently lovable. How could anyone have a problem with anything about her?”
“Do you think this could be a problem?”
“I won’t let it.” Nan patted my leg. She got up and went over to Bitsie. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I knew Luca could. His camera was trained on them, and I watched his face. His eyes were wide, sad. He held his mouth tight.
Nan hugged Bitsie. Bitsie nodded and pulled away to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes. I hoped Nan was saying helpful things and not some variation of “You’re fine! It’s okay!”
The red light at the top of the carousel flashed and there was a loud buzz. We looked around. People trickled in from the flight, but none of them fit Woo Woo’s demographics.
Nan and Bitsie came over to stand with me. I think, in part, to keep me in the shot. We waited and waited. Nan smoothed my hair. It didn’t annoy me as much as it had when I was a kid.
An attendant pushed a wheelchair toward us. “Whoo, whoo!” the woman in the wheelchair yelled, waving. She was long and lanky, as her measurements suggested. Her hair, poofy like spun sugar, was brilliant white, gathered in a wispy knot at the top of her head. It looked perfect with Nan and Bitsie’s bright colors.
“Woo Woo!” Nan and Bitsie yelled back, rushing to greet her. Nan looked concerned. She wasn’t expecting the wheelchair. I realized Woo Woo had been sitting in all the photos we’d seen.
Woo grabbed on to Nan’s arm as soon as she got close. “Help me out of this thing, will you?”
She plunked her cane on the floor with the other hand and Nan pulled her up.
“This is my daughter’s doing,” she whispered, then plastered a smile on her face. “Thank you, young man,” she said to the attendant, pulling a ten from the pocket of her sweater and shoving it in his hand. “You were a delight and a careful driver.”
When the attendant walked away, Nan grabbed Woo in a great big hug. “It’s you.”
“It’s you,” Woo said.
Woo turned to Bitsie. “What a marvel! I can’t believe I’m actually here. Seeing you. This hair!” She placed her hand on Bitsie’s cheek. “Perfection!”
Bitsie gave Woo’s arm a squeeze, but I could see the worry on her face.
While Luca and Nan got Woo Woo’s mic set up, Bitsie excused herself to use the restroom. I followed. When we were safely inside, I clamped one hand over her mic and the other over mine.
“If it’s a problem, or you’re uncomfortable at all, let me know, and I’ll make up an excuse to give Woo Woo my room so I can stay with you instead.”
“Nan told me it would all be fine . . .” Bitsie’s voice trailed off.
“But she doesn’t know.”
“Exactly,” Bitsie said. “She loves me, but that doesn’t mean everyone will.”
“If there’s a problem, we’ll fix it the best we can. You’re not alone,” I said, telling her the things I always wished Nan had said to me. “I love you no matter what.”
“Thanks, kiddo.” She gave me a huge hug, her strong arms squeezing tight. “I love you no matter what right back.”
I left her to have a moment to herself and rejoined Nan, Woo, and Luca, who were red-faced from laughter. Luca was clipping a microphone to Woo Woo’s shirt.
“What did I miss?” I asked.
“Woo told Luca he had to buy a girl dinner first,” Nan said, cackling.
“Like Bitsie did,” Luca said. He looked at me and mouthed, I love them!
“Cut from the same cloth!” Nan said.
Woo Woo looked at me. “You are the spitting image of Nannette back in the day,” she said. “You have the same face. It’s hard not to stare.”
I blushed. “Thank you.” I loved hearing that I looked like Nan. It made me so proud as a kid. Like a sign I belonged.
Bitsie rejoined us.
“Well, kids,” she said, looking bright and brave. “We ready?”
* * *
Of course, we had a cocktail party. At Bitsie’s house. Half the neighborhood showed up, because everyone was always invited to everything all the time. I worried about Bitsie having so many people in her space while she was already stressed out, but she seemed fine.
Nan and I made sure the food kept moving and the drinks kept flowing while Bitsie and Woo sat on the bench in the corner talking and laughing. At one point Woo wrapped her arms around Bitsie, planting a kiss on her cheek.
Later, in the kitchen, Bitsie grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. She clamped her hand over my microphone and then her own. “Her nephew is gay,” she said excitedly. “And he’s her favorite one. She told me she thinks I was brave to follow my heart.”
* * *
Nan had already gone home, but Luca stayed after the party to film Bitsie and Woo as they did the dishes. I ran around the living room collecting plates and glasses, to keep them at the sink in conversation. They were comparing notes on different stages of life like a movie they’d both seen.
“I didn’t expect to feel that way,” Woo said, “but it was important to me to work.”
“I know,” Bitsie said. “That first real paycheck with my name on it . . .”
“I cried,” Woo said. “I actually cried.”
“Me too,” Bitsie said.
* * *
When we got back to Nan’s, Luca commandeered the living room to watch footage from the day. I knew if I went in there to work, I’d spend more time watching than sewing. So I holed up in my room with Bark and five boxes of large gold sequin paillettes to finish Woo Woo’s tail. The way I’d worked out the design, the tail didn’t need to be covered in sequins entirely, but the patterning was swirling and intricate. I couldn’t zone out and sew rows on top of rows. I sat on the bed, with my headphones on, and got to work, listening to the B-52s as I stitched. It was my favorite kind of work, focused and fine. I lost myself in the meditation of the task.
I didn’t hear Luca in the hallway. I didn’t hear him shut the door to his room. But I did hear a text from him chime through my headphones.
Sleep tight, he wrote. There was a video attached.
It was Nan.
Off camera, Luca asks, “What made you decide to become a vegan?”
I felt ridiculous that I’d been too focused on how her new diet ruined cookies to think of asking why.
“Well, I like animals,” Nan says, smiling. She’s being evasive. Looking off to the rest of the party.
“It’s an interesting life change—” Luca says.
“At my age?” Nan says with a teasing bit of sarcasm. “Well, you know, heart disease runs in my family and I—” Her voice breaks. “I want as much time as I can have with that gorgeous granddaughter of mine. I’m being greedy about it.” She looks at the ceiling for a moment. A deep breath, then Cocktail Party Nan returns. “And that man over there?” Luca turns the camera to Isaac for a moment, then back to Nan. “I wouldn’t mind more time with him either.” She gives Luca a dazzling smile.