Jaxson's Song (23 page)

“
I forgot my purse in the car. I’ll just run and go get
it.”

“
No, no...” Ginger’s eyes widened in horror. “You stay put
Gran, I’ll run and get it.”

“
But I could fall and break a hip,” the old lady
protested.

“
Standing here for sixty seconds?”

“
Yes. It happened to Melba just the other week,” Gran
insisted, glaring at her youngest granddaughter.

“
You’ll be fine. I’ll be right back.”

“
If I’m on the floor when you get back, don’t say I didn’t
warn you.”

“
I should be so lucky,” Ginger muttered under her
breath.

“
What was that?”

“
Nothing,” she tossed over her shoulder, refusing to meet
Gran’s gimlet glare. She could practically feel those shrewd old
eyes boring into her back as she dashed out the door and into the
sun-baked parking lot. It took her seconds to retrieve the purse;
she stopped only long enough to plunk change into the pay phone at
the side of the aging structure.

“
Malhaven residence.” Chris answered on the fourth
ring.

“
I hate you!” Ginger snapped before slamming the phone back
into its cradle and hurrying to rejoin Gran.

They made eight stops that
day, each more mind numbing than the last. After the Save-N-Stop
came the bank, the pet store—Gran liked to talk to the brightly
colored birds along the back wall—the post office, Hobby Lobby, Old
Country Buffet, the Dollar Store, and the pharmacy. Gran always
saved the pharmacy for last, despite protests from her family. They
never arrived earlier than four-thirty p.m. and were always asked
to leave at the posted five o’clock closing time.

The pharmacy was, hands
down, Ginger’s least favorite excursion of a day with Gran, and she
was not alone. The general consensus of the entire family was
unanimous: anything was preferable to taking Gran to the pharmacy.
Fifty-two card pick up, sand in your bikini bottom, strep throat,
mono, a yeast infection, bird flu, flesh eating disease, and
falling down the stairs were all activities that had made the
collective family list of ’Things I’d Rather Experience Than Take
The Old Bag to CVS’.

“
Take me to Walgreens,” Gran protested as Ginger cautiously
steered the car into the near-empty parking lot.

“
We’re already here. Besides, you’re not allowed in Walgreens
anymore, remember?”

She immediately regretted
her choice of words. Asking Gran if she remembered her pharmacy
nemesis was like asking if she had remembered to put a bra and
underwear on that morning: dangerous territory and something the
old woman was likely not only to remember, but pounce on and bitch
about for the next hour. But wait…

Although she couldn’t vouch for the
underpants, Ginger acknowledged with a sideways look, it looked as
though Gran had in fact forgotten her bra that morning. She
frowned. That wasn’t possible. Not unless senility was
contagious.

“
Nana, where is your brassiere?”

“
Is that your business?”

Lord have mercy. “Gran, I
know that you left the house this morning with your bra on. It is
now...” she glanced at her watch “...four-thirty, and you’re not
wearing it. Where did it go?”

“
In my purse.” Gran’s chewing gum shot out the passenger side
window.

“
Why?” Ginger dragged the question out, holding onto her
fragile sense of control and fervently denying the headache that
was beginning to form.

“
It was too hot in that store.”

“
What store?”

“
K-mart; where else? All that money, you’d think they could
afford some decent air conditioning. Terrible.”

“
We didn’t go to K-mart today.”

“
Oh. Well, then it must have been the Petco. Yes, that’s it, I
left it in the Petco.”

“
You left it BEHIND?!” The screech earned a glare from the old
woman.

“
So what if I did?”

“
But you just said it was in your purse. Now you’re telling me
you left it in the Petco store.” Dear Lord...

“
That’s right. Don’t you judge me, missy. I was wearing a bra
before you were born, unlike that no-account mama of yours. I’m
eighty years old. If I want to take the damn thing off, I should be
able to do so without having to endure lip from a little Miss Sassy
Pants.”

“
Mama’s not so bad...” Ginger uttered wearily. Dear God, she
left it in the Petco...

“
Not so bad, HA!”

“
Let’s not do this. The pharmacy is about to close. If you
want to finish your shopping, we have to do it now.” Again, she
cursed her too candid observation. If Gran was worked up and on a
rant, she would likely forget about the last of her shopping,
providing for a tiresome but less dramatic afternoon. Too late
now...

“
Your mother was the bane of my existence.”

Then again, maybe not.
“You talk about her as if she were dead.”

“
She is dead—to me. I have nothing to say to her. And I never
will.” The old woman stuck her chin out and did her best to look
mutinous.

“
Fine.”

“
Now take me to Walgreens. I don’t care what that weeny with
the tie said. I’ll shop there whenever I feel like it. They
probably forgot all about that incident by now anyway.”

“
The weeny in a tie is a civil court judge and they still have
your picture up. You go to the CVS or you go home. Your
pick.”

“
You’re a terrible girl, Ginger. Terrible.”

“
What’s it going to be?” She glared right back,
waiting.

“
Let’s go. I need a couple of things.”

“
Did you make a list?”

“
Don’t need to. I’ll remember.”

“
Right. Let’s get at it then.” Last stop, hallelujah. Ginger
breezed through the automatic doors ahead of Gran, feeling strong.
I can do this. Thirty minutes, tops. I’m in the final stretch and
soon I’ll be home, where at least the lunatics make some
sense.

Twenty minutes later, her
resolve was fading fast. Might have had something to do with dear
old Gran asking an unsuspecting sales clerk where they kept the
tampons.

“
What are you doing?” Ginger all but hissed. “What on Earth do
you want with Tampax? You don’t need those.”

“
I most certainly DO need them.” She drew herself up to her
full five feet, four inches.

Tampons... As sure as she
was that she didn’t want to have this conversation, she grudgingly
admitted that unfortunately it was necessary to discover just what
in the hell Gran wanted with the extra-large box of Kotex clutched
in her gnarled hand.

“
Please put that down.” Ginger felt her face burn with a heat
she hoped wasn’t painfully obvious. Did the old woman have to be so
embarrassing? Ginger suppressed a groan as a list of possible uses
for the sanitary product came to mind.

“
What could you possibly want with a box of tampons?” Ginger
cried, ignoring the whispering and snickers from
passers-by.

“
My period is coming, if you must know.”

“
Your period… Oh for the love of God. Fine, take your tampons
and let’s go.”

Face still aflame, she
turned toward the checkout counter, giving serious thought to
making a run for it. Gran could no longer outrun her, could she...?
Best not to chance it though, Ginger decided before she could
attempt to make good on the panicky impulse. As much as the whole
family would have sympathized—because surely they had all longed to
do the same thing at one time or another—Ginger was sure she would
never hear the end of it if she actually abandoned the old
woman.

She could see it now. ’Lost Grandma found
roaming the streets of greater Atlanta with a box of Kotex and a
vacant smile. If you have any information regarding this woman…’
Jesus. It would probably be on the evening news.

The middle-aged woman in
the too-tight jeans and rhinestone cowboy boots came seemingly out
of nowhere, bumping into Gran with stunning force, effectively
knocking her off balance. She collided with Ginger, who in turn
crashed into the display shelf to her left. Tampax and Maxi-Pads
flew six feet in every direction. Ginger couldn’t decide which hurt
worse—the tattered remains of her pride or the maxi-pad box
embedded into her left arm.

“
Gran...?”

“
I’m okay,” she replied, with just a hint of a tremor in her
voice.

“
God...!”

“
God didn’t have anything to do with it, child. It was the
cheap floozy over there.”

“
Over where?” Ginger asked, pulling her protesting body from
the bed of sanitary napkins and turning to stare where Gran was
pointing one sharp-tipped hot pink fingernail. She couldn’t believe
her eyes. The floozy in question had stepped over the whole mess
and was now at the checkout, one heavily ringed claw tapping
impatiently at her slim hip.

“
I would hate to see that one’s mother. The apple doesn’t fall
far from the tree you know. I never did see anything so rude...
Ginger? Ginger where do you think you’re going?”

But Ginger was already
half way to register number three with a spring in her step and a
spark in her eye that clearly said she meant business.

“
Hey.”

“
What?” The overblown brunette spared the flame haired sprite
a single bored-looking backward glance before returning her
attention to the cashier.

“
What? That’s what you have to say for yourself? You almost
knock an old lady to the ground—you do knock me to the ground—in a
pile of tampons—and all you have to say is ‘what’?”

“
You were in my way.”

“
Oh yeah?” Ginger lips curled into something that barely
resembled a smile.

“
Ginger, don’t,” Gran ordered as she caught up to the
pair.

“
Well right now you’re in my way,” Ginger announced a split
second before giving the brunette a well-placed two-handed
shove.

Loose change tinkered as it spewed across
faded linoleum. A man’s voice boomed a protest in the
background.

“
What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“
Adam?” Ginger turned to face her newest ex-boyfriend, barely
taking note of the livid anger in his tone and stance.

“
What was that for? Leave her alone. Now,” he commanded in a
tone that brooked no argument.

“
Adam...” Her eyes skimmed over his denim and black clad form
with contempt, “...the very person I didn’t want to see. Why don’t
you mind your own business? That woman—“

“
You will apologize to that woman. God, have you gone
completely around the bend?”

“
Around the...” she sputtered, seeing red. Suddenly, it all
made sense. “So this, this...tramp is the reason you broke it off,
then. I figured there was something going on. You stop calling, I
catch you lying about where you’ve been, and now you’re out with
little Miss Alligator Skin over there not three days after dropping
me like yesterday’s news. Well you can go to hell,
Adam.”

“
Ginger let’s go,” Gran ordered.

“
Not yet. I’ve got something else to say to the
cheater.”

“
You need to shut your mouth before you create a scene and get
yourself in trouble. Let’s go.”

“
Adam, I’ve got one question for you.”

When he raised one eyebrow, she continued on
in a voice that was deadly calm. “Don’t you think she’s a little
old for you?”

“
I’ll show you OLD!”

Ginger heard the woman’s
angry words an instant before she felt the surprisingly heavy
weight of the floozy slam into her from behind.

The woman was fast, but
Ginger was indignant and very, very determined. Of course, that
didn’t work in her favor when she was pulled off the broad by two
armed guards less than three minutes later. Both women were
separated until the police came to deal with the
situation.

Gran was surprisingly calm
throughout the rest of the ordeal. Adam, if anything, became even
angrier than before.

Ginger felt the blood
drain from her face when she heard him tell the officer behind her
that his ‘crazy ex-girlfriend’ had flown into a jealous rage,
attacking his Aunt Claudia for no apparent reason.