CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jennings
“Where would you like to have lunch?” Nan and I are taking a leisurely walk back to the hotel. I offered to hail a taxi, but Nan would have none of it, insisting it’s a lovely day for walking.
It is nice out and she seems to have regained her usual pep, so walking it is. It’s less than a mile to the hotel and Nan said she’d like to take another walk through the parks we passed on our walking tour.
“I don’t mind, Jennings. Wherever you’d like.”
That’s not exactly true. She’s quite particular, but I nod and keep an eye out for a Nan-suitable restaurant.
“Wait, there is something I’d like to do.” She stops walking and looks around as if to ascertain what direction we’re walking.
“Sure,” I agree, already pulling out my mobile to locate her request using GPS. “What is it?”
“I’d like cheesesteak.”
“A cheesesteak?” Surely I’ve misunderstood. Nan is not a cheesesteak type of grandmother.
“Yes. I’d like to go to the Reading Terminal and have a proper cheesesteak.”
I grin in reflex, my first thought being how much Daisy would enjoy the phrase ‘proper cheesesteak’ before remembering that when it comes to Daisy I should be doing a runner, not thinking about things that would make her smile.
“All right then, a proper cheesesteak it is,” I agree while consulting my mobile. “Reading Terminal is a market of some sort?” I question as I open the maps app. “You’ve been before, have you?”
“I have. Before you were born, I think it was.”
“That’s quite a long time ago then, isn’t it? High time you had another.”
We take a right onto Arch Street while Nan tells me about her trip to the States with my grandfather some several decades ago. They used to travel quite a bit and she misses it, misses him, I’m sure. When he passed my cousins and I began our tradition of taking her on a trip each year. This is my second rotation, as it were.
“Tell me how you and Grandfather met. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the story.”
“No?” We’re stopped at the crosswalk at 8th and Arch waiting for the light to change. She turns to me and gives me an appraising look. “Well I suppose you’re old enough now,” she finally says.
I can’t help but laugh. “Why, Nan, was your courtship quite the scandal?”
“Courtship? There wasn’t one. I knew my parents would object so we eloped before they had the chance.”
“How have I never heard this story before?”
“I don’t think your own father’s heard this story.”
“Well, let’s have it then. I’ll be gutted if you hold out now.”
We walk and Nan talks. Tells me all about having met my grandfather when she was a sheltered eighteen and he was a handsome rogue in his mid-twenties. She was madly in love with him but knew her parents would not approve of the match, so she convinced him to elope.
“You convinced him?” I question.
“I was quite convincing in my youth, yes.”
I grin and let her continue, sure that I want to press for added details on that.
She tells me that upon their return her mother was distraught that she’d missed her only child’s wedding, so her father insisted they pretend to be engaged, not married. Promised he’d give his new son-in-law a position at the travel company he’d just founded. Set them up with a good start for their married lives if they’d play along.
“And did you? Play along?”
“We did,” she says with a sigh. “It seemed the sensible thing.”
“Well done then. A happy ending for all.”
“Eventually yes. But they made me live at home for four months while we sorted the faux wedding. Your grandfather was obviously not welcome to stay, not in those days. I had a handsome new husband and we had to sneak around for the first four months of our marriage.”
I cough a laugh into my fist as I hold the door for her at the Reading Terminal. It’s a chaotic market of some kind. Indoors with booths one after another. Food, flowers, coffee, sweets—and that’s just what I can see from the entrance.
“This is where you wanted to lunch?” I double-check. Perhaps the place has changed in the forty years since she’s last been.
But Nan is beaming and looks like she’s no intention of turning around now. So we find an empty wooden table—no small feat. Nan holds the table while I grab two Philly cheesesteaks and as many napkins as I can carry. Then we eat messy cheesesteaks with our hands and it makes Nan so happy that I don’t even mind not having proper utensils. Or a plate.
When we’re done eating we walk around the market. Nan stops to buy a trinket or two while I run the information from Rhys’ email over and over in my mind, comparing it to everything I know—thought I knew—about Daisy.
It doesn’t make any sense.
It’s like two different people.
Maybe she’s mentally disturbed? Off her meds or something? I rub my thumb across my bottom lip as I think. She doesn’t come across as a nutter though. No more so than most.
I check the time on my mobile as we exit the market onto 12th Street, wondering if I’ll have time to talk to Daisy before this blasted group dinner this evening. I have so many questions for her. Why I think I’ll get honest answers I’ve no idea.
“How far to the hotel do you think, Jennings?” Nan is glancing up and down 12th, trying to place our present location in relation to the hotel.
“Let me take a look,” I respond as I open the map app on my mobile. “Are you ready to admit you’re tired? Shall I sort a ride back?”
I’ve got my head down, tapping the hotel information into my mobile as I speak, so I hear the tires screeching before I see the car. I look up in time to catch the impact but it’s already too late.