I’m stuck with Callie. What am I supposed to do? Move the woman into my apartment if we can’t get in touch with her AWOL granddaughter? If I have to break a window to get her inside her house before day’s end, I will.
But right now, I have to deal with it. I’m sure Callie hasn’t eaten, so I’ll have to feed her. And what about her medication? Is it in her purse? Does she need any now?
Where can I take her? I don’t even know if someone her age would eat something from Arby’s or McDonald’s. This is going to be a long, drawn-out thing, and I won’t be able to keep my meter running. This day is just getting better and better.
I try to think where someone like Callie might eat. My mother used to go to Lulu’s a lot. It’s a cafeteria-style joint that old people love. There’s one not far from here. I drive there and pull into the parking lot, but when I try to get Callie out, she’s sleeping so deeply that I hate to wake her.
Her list is peeking out of the top of her purse, so I pull it out. She’s written, “Dry Cleaners, Bank,” and some things that don’t register with me.
Was she even in her right mind when she wrote the list? I groan and sit down on the back seat next to her. I peek into her purse again, careful not to stick my hands in it. You don’t stick your hands in a woman’s purse, I learned long ago. They have stuff in it they don’t want you to see. Primping tools and breath mints and wadded receipts, makeup and hairbrushes and big fat wallets, bricks and whatnot. There’s no telling what someone her age has in that thing. It could be forty years of accumulated detritus.
I see two medicine bottles crammed at the top. I glance up, making sure she’s sleeping soundly enough that she won’t spring awake the second I pull them out. Wincing, I reach in without looking—as if turning my head makes my invasion of her private things okay—and I grab the bottles. I pull them out and read the labels.
Great. Just as I feared, it’s time for one of them. I’ve never heard of this medication, but she clearly needs it. The bottle says to take it with food. I’ll have to wake her up.
I take my time getting her wheelchair, then lean in and shake her. “Miss Callie?”
She stirs but doesn’t wake. “Lady, I need you to wake up.”
Her eyes flutter open, and she looks up at me, blank.
“We’re at the restaurant,” I say. “You have medication to take, but you have to have food with it. So come on. I’ll take you in.”
“Oh yes. Thank you.” She’s polite even when she’s a pain in the neck. I help her out and get her into the wheelchair, reach back in for her purse and set it in her lap. I drop her medications in my pocket so I won’t have to go into her purse again.
She perks up as I wheel her in and search for the least sticky table in the place. There’s a sad Christmas tree near the door that has probably absorbed a layer of grease from the food in the cafeteria lines. The ornaments are dusty. They can’t do better than that?
Now what? Do I have to take her through the line and find out what she likes? This could take forever.
But Callie is pretty easy. She quickly identifies roast, black-eyed peas, and green beans as all she wants. I get her a roll for good measure, then serve my own plate. I take the plates to the table, then come back to wheel her.
“Thank you, Jesus,” she says in a soft voice before she takes her first bite.
“Ma’am, I’m not Jesus. I’m Finn Parrish.”
She laughs then as if I’ve done a great comedy bit. “No, no, sweet boy. I was praying.”
I grin. “Oh. Sorry. You didn’t have your eyes closed.”
“I didn’t need my eyes closed,” she says. “I can talk to him anytime.”
“I bet you can,” I mutter under my breath. “Um . . . you have some medications to take.” I show them to her. “This one has to be taken now. The other one . . . it says twice a day, so I’m assuming that you took one this morning. Did you?”
“Yes, I’m sure I did.”
I’m pretty sure she’s just guessing. “Okay.” I open the one she needs now and pour it into her hand. I watch her swallow it, then I drop the bottles back into her purse.
“You’re a nice young man,” she says. “Are you married?”
Is she coming on to me? “No, ma’am. I’m not.”
“Because I have a beautiful granddaughter.”
“Yeah, about her. Have you remembered how we can reach her? Sydney, isn’t it?”
“You know her? She hasn’t mentioned you.”
I doubt that, at this moment, Callie has any inkling who I am. I could be Sydney’s husband for all she knows. “No, I haven’t met her. But I’d really like to. Do you have her number in that lovely head of yours?”
She laughs again and shakes her finger, as if this time I’ve flirted with her. “You’re a flatterer, aren’t you?”
“Sydney’s phone number?” I ask. “Do you have it? Or even her last name?”
Her smile fades, and she looks confused. “Oh my, I don’t know where my head is. I know, but I can’t think of it right now.”
That’s progress. At least she knows she’s forgetting. “Keep trying,” I say. “I can’t take you home until you think of it because you’re locked out of your house.”
“Yes,” she says. “I’ll try.”
She’s stopped eating, so I point to the food again. “Food looks good. Don’t you want more?”
“Yes,” she says, suddenly remembering it. “It’s good, but not as good as my own cooking.”
“You cook?” I ask. “I used to cook.”
“Used to?”
“Yeah. Had a restaurant. It went under, so . . . now I’m driving a cab.”
“What did you cook?”
I look at her, perplexed. Has she suddenly grown lucid? Is her medication working that quickly, or is her dementia a come-and-go kind of thing? “French haute cuisine. I studied in Paris at Le Cordon Bleu.”
“Paris?” she asks, delighted. “That’s fascinating. I went to Paris once. My husband took me there for our anniversary. Oh, the food!” Her eyes mist over, and I can see that it’s a sweet memory. “Your mother must have been so very proud.”
“Uh . . . yeah. She was.” The thought flattens my appetite. The truth is that she never had much opportunity to tell me how proud she was, because I didn’t go home that much after Paris. I shove my plate away. “So . . . you seem to be feeling better. Let’s talk about Sydney again.”
“Sydney,” she says, and her smile brightens even more. “She’s such a lovely girl. And so smart.”
“I bet. She probably has a great personality too, huh?”
“Everyone likes Sydney. She’s a blonde, you know. Taller than me. She must get the height from her father, because she sure didn’t get it from our side of the family. She could be a model, but she decided to go to that other school. That . . . what do they call it?”
“No clue,” I say. “So . . . remembering her last name yet? Her number? Maybe an address or where she works?”
Again that distressed look comes over her.
“I’d love to meet her,” I say again.
She pokes through her purse but seems to forget what she’s looking for. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Sydney,” I prompt.
She finds her list and pulls it out. “Oh, I need to run these errands. I have so much to do.”
Oh boy. I rub my face. “Yeah. You said that before you fell asleep in my cab.” Before I had to feed and medicate you.
“All right,” I say, getting up. “If you’ve eaten all you want, we can go. Unless you want dessert.”
“No, I’m fine, thank you.”
I get her back to my car and start the meter running again. “So you want to go to a dry cleaners? Which one?”
“The one near my house.”
Great. Well, at least I’m driving again, which means the meter is on, so I’m at least getting paid. I drive toward her house and spot a dry cleaner’s just before I get to her street. “Is this it?”
She’s zoned out, looking on the wrong side of the car. I snap my fingers. “Miss Callie? The dry cleaners?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
I pull into the parking lot. “I could run in and get your clothes for you. You could wait here.”
“No, no, I need to go in. I have to talk to that nice young man in there.”
Perfect.
I get her chair out. This is getting old. It pains me to turn off the meter again, but how long can it take to pick up dry cleaning?