Author Archives: parmanifesto

Me, Myself and iPhone

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E-mail

Hey, man. That’s quite a tool you got. Can I see your face?

Liking what I see. Are you around tonight?

I’ll meet you there in an hour.

Voice Memos

It’s the time when you realize your problems are not interesting anymore. They are just problems, and they have the same, sad, sorry faces, looking to you, wondering if you’ll talk to them, wondering if you’ll let them in the door, and you do, because there’s nobody else at home, and it’s very lonely, and if nothing else, they occupy you – temporarily. But you do, you do want to kick them out, I mean you kick them out, but then they come back, they come back to you every time, and you – it’s – maybe if there was a doghouse, or a shed, or a greenhouse, something where you could put them, stow them, store them; and never, never, never take them out, do you understand. Sort of like a storage unit that someone forgets about until they die – well, I mean they don’t remember because they’re dead, but somebody else discovers it, in the family, and they go to the storage unit and “isn’t this interesting? Isn’t this interesting?” They say. And it is interesting because it’s not theirs, and um, so then it’s better. It’s better that way.

The train is going by, and it’s like a jointed wooden snake, only going in a straight line, an experience which I have not encountered – going in a straight line, that is. Or staying on the tracks. Neither one. It’s gone now. And cars are waiting. But I’m not waiting because I’m on foot. You never have to wait when you’re on foot; when you’re on a bike. There’s no waiting at intersections. There’s no waiting. You just keep going. You just keep going.

The grass has been cut down, and you can smell it – everywhere. You can smell it. Cut grass. Cut down. In its prime.

I am a monster. Not like a Lady Gaga monster – glamour and appetite and effervescence – no, just a monster, that devours everything, devours everything. And seems to be trying to commit suicide by gluttony. It will never be satiated. Just attacking and consuming.

Voice Mail

I know I’m in a bachelor time zone and you’re in parent time zone, but maybe we can synchronize, if only retroactively. I had to call you and apologize, because – I used you as a lie. I involved you in a lie. I made you an accomplice to a lie. I was in a lonely place – isn’t that a Humphrey Bogart film? That’s too romantic. I will not be romantic. I lied to my whole family. I said I was meeting you, when I was meeting a stranger through Craigslist. I’m joining a recovery group. I have a problem, and the problem has a pattern, and I’m not going to buy drapes to match it, I’m going to change the pattern. I’m sorry. Goodnight, friend.

Oleanna

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On Thursday, a two-character play opens. I am one of those two. I am half of the play. The worse half. It is Oleanna, a comedy of language and a tragedy of power, written by Pulitzer prize-winning David Mamet. College student Carol visits professor John in his office to discuss her failing grade. By the conclusion of this first meeting, it would seem an understanding has been reached. But when next we see them, Carol has joined a “group” and every word, every nuance of their interaction has been twisted into something else. Or has it?

I’m playing the aforementioned college student, Carol. If that isn’t sufficiently intriguing, I will also be juggling chain saws. That’s not true. Why wouldn’t it be sufficiently intriguing that I’m playing Carol? And since we’re taking questions, what’s with the title of the play? Well, it’s ironically derived from a folk song which contains the lyrics,

In Oleanna land is free
The wheat and corn just plant themselves
Then grow a good four feet a day
While on your bed you rest yourself

In Oleanna the land is free, but in Oleanna, the land is not your land, or my land, it’s badland. The lay of the land is sharp, barren, rugged, divided by drop-offs, shrouded in fog, obscured by trees. Still, it’s like Sondheim says, sometimes you have to go into the woods. The woods are just trees and the trees are just wood. But it’s dim and it’s unnerving and it reminds you of the Blair Witch Project and there could be weeping and gnashing of teeth and running noses.

Yet you have to go, to get something that makes it worth the journeying. And hope it’s worth it for everyone else. A lesson learned. A prejudice confronted. An injustice witnessed. So,

Into the woods
Into the woods
Into the woods
Then out of the woods
And home before dark

 

Oleanna by David Mamet. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 PM from June 19th – July 12th at the Alchemist Theatre in Bay View. Directed by Erin Eggers. Starring David Sapiro and Ben Parman. Lighting and Sound Design by Aaron Kopec. Stage Management by Sydonia Lucchesi.

 

Hey, Cherie!

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I’ve been reading your books for young adults, even though I stopped being a young adult more than a decade ago. However, considering the 40-year-old character Charlize Theron plays in Young Adult, more than a decade from now I could still be one. The movie wasn’t horrible, but the character was. Although, the movie was about the character, so maybe it was.

So it was my 30th birthday a few months ago. It’s all good. There is nothing good about it. Alright, there are lots of good things: family, friends, writers like you. But I don’t feel very good. Not like I’m going to throw up, like I’m not good enough. Sort of like Zink. I don’t have to explain that to you, you wrote the book, but I have to explain it to me.

“Once upon a time there was a zebra named Zink. Now Zink as very different, because Zink had polka dots instead of stripes. All of the other zebras, who were very proud of their stripes – which meant they were part of the zebra herd – thought polka-dotted Zink was very strange… because Zink was so different, many even claimed that Zink…was not really a zebra at all.”

I’m not really a zebra at all, Cherie. Even if I had stripes I couldn’t change them. I’m not straight lines. I’m polka-dots. At best, it’s funny and fabulous to others; at worst, it’s frightening. Maybe that’s why they’ve all got spouses and kids and a career and I’ve got a roommate. A roommate who will soon have a spouse and kids and a career.

And the polka-dots are like an aerial view of people. All these other people I used to be, and if I’m the sum of all these people, I should be a better person. I shouldn’t keep doing things that I’ve done. I know a lot of it is my fault, but a lot of it isn’t. Maybe that’s why your characters make me feel better. They’re not that good, but they’re trying their best. And they’re still young. Adults, but young.

Ben

Veronica Mars

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A long time ago, we used to be friends with Veronica Mars, a TV show featuring an eponymous millennial teen girl as possessed by a 1940s private eye. It was noir in Technicolor, a bar of soap opera soaking in a brine of banter, and a social comments box you wanted to read through. But according to studio executives, Veronica didn’t have enough friends. For all of the show’s I-think-I-can, it was canned. And TV officially became a systemic injustice. Now, 7 years and over $5 million in fan fundraising later, Veronica’s deserved movie debut arrives with the tagline, “She thought she was out.” Maybe she did. But we never did. Because we know Veronica.

One of the greatest father daughter comedy crime-fighting acts in TV history – or maybe the only – Keith (Enrico Colantoni) and Veronica (Kristen Bell) Mars were instigators and investigators, living in the shadow of the tree of knowledge, selling the forbidden fruit that had already fallen, in the fictional-but-true town of Neptune, California. If someone needed to know something, they came to the Marses, who made it their business to know everything. Knowledge is power. If you know, you can plan revenge instead of being caught in the pain. And a painstorm watch is always in effect at the Mars household.

The reasons for this are outlined in an artful French memo board sequence at the beginning of the film; in short, the Mars took a demotion, from insiders to outsiders. And baby, it’s cold outside in Neptune. The town is a checkerboard of races, economic backgrounds and social classes, with the pieces stacked high on the expected squares. Throughout the show, Veronica stayed with the short stacks: a Hispanic reformed gang leader wrongly accused; a closeted gay student afraid of being outed; a middle-class girl raped at an upper-class party who is denied an investigation by the police. The last one, as we learn in the first episode, is none other than Veronica herself; it is an always open case and the nightmare that interrupted her American dream. There is no equal opportunity. There is no rising tide. There are those who have and those who have not. “When the class war starts,” Veronica narrates, “Neptune will be ground zero.”

That war is 10 years ago and 3,000 miles away as the film begins in a blurred palette of grays. Veronica has graduated from law school, moved to New York, and, when an interviewer (a foxy Jamie Lee Curtis) asks about her involvement in various criminal cases, Veronica replies, “that’s not me anymore.” A more precise reply would be she’s not on active duty. For as soon as ex-boyfriend Logan (Jason Dohring), the ambassador of Neptune’s stormy atmosphere, calls facing a murder charge, her adrenaline gets a bum rush. “I need your help,” he says, and though we only see Kristen Bell in silhouette, she seems paralyzed in a pause so breathless I truly believed her heart was beating too fast to speak. I know mine was. “I don’t – really do that anymore,” she tries. Yet within 24 hours Veronica has been undertowed to Neptune – and so have we.

This is a film funded by the fans and for the fans, but if you aren’t a fan, you will be soon, because it’s fantastic. Creator and Sustainer Rob Thomas’ central plot device, the class reunion, becomes a literal metaphor in the tradition of Rear Window, with fans experiencing the same reunion as Veronica. A rolodex of characters from all three seasons spins madly but smoothly, tossing out references and updates, shifting our mood between nostalgia and regret. Of course, only one reunion can simultaneously stimulate both of those, among other sensations – Veronica and Logan.

Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring’s hard work on TV has made it look easy on film. Despite the years of separation, every line swells with subtext and every pause ripples with possibility. And as he drives her home from the reunion, with Sufjan Stevens on the stereo singing about being in love with a place, Veronica is almost clear of her almost Lost Weekend and starts congratulating herself: “Do I get a chip for this? Pouring the drink, swishing it, smelling it, leaving the bar without taking a sip?” The thing is, once you’ve tasted good and evil, you can’t go back. Or rather, you have to. And Veronica Mars is back in town.

The Passion According to St. Kate

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Of course you could have written it better, but you never would have written it. The bi-oh-my-ography of Kay Thompson. You were too busy live-live-living it. It’s like Oscar Wilde said, “[a second-rate poet] lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.” And it’s like Samuel Taylor said, “I think a true talent for living has the quality of creation…I’d rather live a first-rate life than paint a second-rate picture.” Except that it’s not like either. You drove Wilde and Taylor-made them both, because you could do both – live and create – and what’s more, you could live a creation and create a living.

When you wrote Eloise, it was simply publicizing a character you’d grown into since birth, the most grown up child of all, who lived at the Plaza and was the death of the management. So they invited you to live there for free and you carried on where the book left off.

And after vamping an American Vogue editor in Paris with Funny Face and wearing the pants in America’s relationship with women’s wear, you master mixed the American segment of the Palace of Versailles restoration benefit fashion show,* whipping up, as one assistant described it, “a frenzy…these were not kids at a rock concert. These were the wealthiest kings, queens and royalty of Europe.”

Even while you were showing Judy Garland how to rise and shine, you became Liza Minnelli’s god and mother, steering her career with one hand and drinking a can of Coca-Cola with the other, just because it was the perfect shade of red. When you were tired of driving, Liza gave you an apartment and became your mother until you died. Then, in an electric eulogy, she did a tribute performance of your best songs and arrangements. It was “a lot of hard work, a lot of sense of humor, a lot of joy and a lot of tra-la-la!” Which was how you described the secret to life. But your life was no secret. It was created for everyone to see.

Many thanks to Sam Irvin for his comprehensive and incomprehensibly good book, Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise.

*Kay directed the models like a poet with Tourette Syndrome: “Elocution with your arms. Vocabulary with your fingers. There’s a bird trapped in your hair. Walk like you have ice water in your brassiere,” and selected a soundtrack that consisted of Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” and Cole Porter.

Work

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What you don’t know is before we met, I had work done. A plastic surgery of the soul. I was nipping and tucking and augmenting and – reducking. I was way different. I had turned from my ways. What I didn’t know was my ways had turned too. My ways had followed. I turned around and there they were, turning tricks. Am I repetitive? Am I addictive? At the least I’m fucking uncreative.

Sorry about that. No, not for swearing, it had assonance. And not for swearing again, it’s a poetic term. I’m sorry about that. That white knuckleheaded night in which I closed my fist around what I wanted and would not let go. You were what I wanted. Or what the wine wanted. Excuse me for the excuse.

See, you’re 25; it’s fine. But I’m 29, and it’s not fine. Statements like “boys will be boys” or  “the girl can’t help it” or “girls who are boys” are just barely acceptable anymore. Soon I will be 30, the age of accountability – though that age seems to age with me – and I’m supposed to have it together, in labeled bins, where it can be easily located. Actually, I do have it together. In a whitewashed tomb. Yes, and when I saw you, I flipped a lid and out jumped my bones. And then I jumped yours. All right, it wasn’t a long distance jump, so you would say there’s nothing to be guilty about. But it was still a competition, and I will not be winning the crown of righteousness.

Incidentally, Jesus was 30 when he started ministry. But then, he started by saying, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” There’s no confusing me for righteous. Not even the ‘80s slang definition of the word. But I’m working on it.

A few nights after I met you, at Bible Club, I helped an Artist do a set of paintings with the kids. Upon each little square mural, he had sketched, in pencil, a line. “You can paint however you want, you just have to stay below this line,” he said, and the kids tried. They did. But inevitably, lines were crossed, apologies were offered, and a wet rag was applied, until there was a pile of filthy rags. And when the kids had all painted, the Artist laid out all the abstracted squares, refining, repositioning, until, remarkably, resplendently, it was Art. I never thought it would work. But then, it wasn’t because of our work. It was because of the Artist.

Cardio Arrest

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Let it be known that I am not a fat ass. I am on the treadmill for a half hour every night. I don’t mean just standing on it while I watch TV because the gym has cable. I mean walking on a moving treadmill while reading novels upward of 400 pages. I can feel my heart beating, not like a love song, like a psychological thriller, because if I don’t step lightly and balance the book, it will fall off the stand and I will trip over it, slamming my jaw on the hand bar, biting off my tongue and swallowing it as I gasp for breath, face planting on the treadmill and riding it like a backwards waterslide, until I splash into a pool of my own blood on the floor, surrounded by a gorgeous cloud of chiseled witnesses.

Disregarding my commitment to not dying prematurely – physically or socially – one of my friends, Beth, extended an invitation to a class at Diversity Fitness. I was afraid we would be the diversity. I was afraid that some black woman, like Isis in Bring it On, would say, “can’t even break a sweat without white people breakin’ it up.”

But upon entry, there were bodies of every shape and color – even shapeless and white. While I wasn’t inspired to give a scientific presentation defending white as a color, I wasn’t uncomfortable. Probably because we were joined by my subtly-but-definitely-Hispanic friend Brianna.

We found a spot near the back, by the vending machine stocked with vitamin water. I hadn’t brought any water with me. I wasn’t planning on sweating that much. The class was called Latin Cardio, and I thought it would be fun, exotic – not really exercise – exoticise. A little vacation from my normal workout.

Near the end of the first song, I began to understand there are benefits to a fat ass. When it’s kicked, it’s not as painful. And when it’s time to shake it, you got some salt in the shaker. And this was a class of Shakers – religiously bootylicious.

At one point we were ordered to engage in a dance-off, like West Side Story. That reference is perhaps not appropriate for Diversity Fitness. Or Latin Cardio. Nonetheless, we faced each other, Brianna and I, taking turns shaking our tukhuses. It was a bizarre sort of urban mating ritual, in which I was not the most flamboyant, and therefore not the man. This was a cause and effect to which I was totally unaccustomed.

The dictator – dominatrix – instructor – seemed to have no threshold. After a good threshing, I looked at the clock. “We’re not even halfway through,” I croaked. Seemingly in response to this, the instructor raised a finger to each cheek, coaching us to smile, like a stage mom. Scared, I smiled. Then there were more songs with a beat that my ass could not follow.

I’ve heard that many spouses share the bathroom during any of its myriad uses. A fitness class is a bit like that. You’re around these people during some rather compromising positions, and after awhile you really don’t care. Yeah, this is my ass. When’s the next movement?

Afterwards, as we all stood outside speculating whether we’d have to call in sick because our muscles would be hungover, the instructor walked by. “Thanks, guys,” she said. “Thank you,” I gushed, wondering if I was experiencing a kind of Stockholm syndrome. I had tried to move with her, tried to make myself work with her. She had almost killed me, but not quite, and – I remembered, as an October breeze cooled the sweat on my back – I was free.

Fallout

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For 29 years I’ve lived in a bomb shelter. Literally. Not literally, that was just for emphasis. Though I’m planning on hyperextending this metaphor to such an extent that you’ll wish it was literal.

The bomb threats were from unverified sources, but that didn’t matter, once I started listening for the ticking. I kept listening to that ticking until I had a tic; until I was a tick, sucking on the pumping blood of self-loathing. All because I was afraid of the abombination. Of being devoured by fire.

The sources of these threats – don’t misunderstand, I don’t blame them – I was one. It was safer underground. In the dark. When I was so alone – so alien – when it was so awful I could not abide anymore – I ran through the underground railroad until I ran into someone. We’d light a match, but it always burned out, and after awhile we’d wander back. But we were all free. We just didn’t know.

Then, a year ago, I began receiving love letters, handwritten on a paper so white it glowed. Every time my name was written, it was like my signature, but better; like a famous artist’s signature, which had intrinsic value regardless of where it was. I hoped they were from Him, but I doubted; I doubted. Still, they kept arriving.

The last one was an invitation. “I am requesting the honour of your presence, as yourself, as you were created.” I set it in front of me and stared at it. Each time I picked it up, expecting it to be addressed to someone else; expecting it to disappear. But it didn’t.

So I’m coming out of the ground. This is my coming out party. I feel like Lazarus, raised from the dead. You can drop a bomb on me, baby. But I’ll know it’s not from Him. I have the letters to prove it.

Grosse Pointe Blank

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Billy Collins said that “Death is why poets get up in the morning.” And hitmen. And screenwriters. Or at least the screenwriters of Grosse Pointe Blank, who tell a hitstory that’s so morbid and giddy and cynical and sentimental, it’s like John Hughes, Charles Bukowski and David Mamet patched a script together by mailing it back and forth between them.[1]

It’s the weekend of the “I’ve-peaked-and-I’m-kidding-myself party” (officially, the Grosse Pointe High School Class of ’86 Reunion) and everyone’s in town for it, even Martin Blank (John Cusack). Actually, Martin’s in town to kill someone, but the reunion is close, so he might as well mix business and pleasure. Mixing it up is the adorable DJ of the local radio station, Debi (Minnie Driver), who would have been Martin’s Prom date in 1986, but he never showed. For 10 years.

A lot can happen in 10 years. Or a little. And every day is a little death in Grosse Pointe. It’s appropriate that Martin arrives in a black suit, black shirt and black tie. “My God, it’s you,” a former teacher exclaims. “You’ve been Detroit’s most famous disappearing act since white flight.” The former jock star snorts cocaine and tries to start a fight with him. The former cheerleader teeters like a parrot on its perch, repeating pleasantries. Debi is living in her old bedroom at her dad’s house. “Where are all the good men dead?” she asks her listeners on the air. “In the heart, or in the head?”[2]

Most of the film’s characters lay dying in between, on a lump in their throat, trying to determine what makes sense or feels right. Even the two NSA operatives assigned to “get tough on terror” by targeting Martin aren’t very clear. “Why don’t we just do his job so we can do our job and get the fuck out of here?” One complains. “What do you mean ‘do his job’?” The other retorts. “I’m not a cold-blooded killer…you want to kill the good guy, but not be bad guy? It doesn’t work like that. You gotta wait until the bad guy kills the good guy, then when you kill the bad guy you’re the good guy.”

Such right on, offbeat poetry is the first language of the characters in this film, from Martin’s secretary to a security guard to a cashier. But none are so fluent as Martin and Debi, “two young lovers with frightening natural chemistry.” That same description could be applied to the actors playing them. Like some perfect improvisation, Cusack and Driver seem to be writing the lines as they speak them. The lines are brilliant, but the unspoken ones in between are even better.

But no one can beat Cusack, who plays Martin like a wall with a thousand peepholes. Upon arriving in Grosse Pointe, the first place he haunts is the old homestead, which has been razed and replaced by a convenience store. In a dementia unit he finds his mother, whom he asks, “mom, what happened to the house, and all the money I sent?” She doesn’t have an answer. In the next scene, at a cemetery, Martin walks a bottle of scotch down an aisle, giving it away to his father’s tombstone, watering the grass with the amber liquid and dumping the empty bottle. Cusack wears sunglasses and tightens his lips – and we know everything and nothing.

Underneath all of this existential exoskeleton, Grosse Pointe Blank still has a beating heart – or maybe just a beating head – determined to find meaning. It’s almost a companion piece to It’s a Wonderful Life. You think you’re better off dead, until you come home and no one knows who you are. But then a good woman calls you by name.

[1] This correspondence screenwriting course would have been most convenient for Charles Bukowski.

[2] Apparently it’s a remodeled line from The Merchant of Venice.

The Facts

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Certainly, Delores believed in sharing the facts. Selfishness was not in her nature. If the facts happened to be fun, how was that her fault?

Fact 1. Her grandson had started teaching kids in Sunday School. When she asked why, he said, “it’s good practice.”

Fact 2. Her granddaughter-in-law said she was feeling bloated.

Fact 3. They were pregnant.

There were other facts, too, she just hadn’t figured them out yet. She would lay awake, going through every possible clue again, gently, carefully, like combing a little child’s hair after a bath. Yes! A little child.

On the way to the bedroom, she passed what her friend Norma called “the shrine.” This was not offensive to Delores; it was the intended effect. There were candles, dried flowers, angel sculptures – the hired mourners for her only child’s perpetual funeral, whose perfect picture hung on the wall. Perfect – just the word she’d chosen and spoken, quietly, at the photographer’s, so many years ago. “I want her to look perfect,” she said to him, getting quieter and quieter, “no acne, no shininess, no stray hairs. Perfect.” He understood and produced a product of the pre-airbrush age, not plastic, but warm, almost chiffony, like the camera had been drinking a bit and found everything beautiful and interesting.

Anyone who talked to Delores for more than 15 minutes knew about the tragedy of her only child Sally’s death. Skin cancer. Age 36. Probably from excessive use of the heat lamp that damn dermatologist suggested. For a few years their lives had become divided by doctor appointments, mind-numbing medical monologues, prescription drugs meant to simulate a virtual reality. Death can only be delayed.

But Sally was so alive! So creative. In the way she dressed, spoke. She painted a picture of a teddy bear once, and it still hung on Delores’ wall. Everyone said it was quite good. For a teddy bear. And Sally wrote lyrics. But never the music. She was always asking Delores to do it. “I hear you making up tunes when you think nobody’s around, ma,” she would say, sitting on the counter like a daughter and smiling like a friend. While they washed dishes, they would sing the hits on the radio. Sally’s favorite was Cyndi Lauper. “When she finishes a song, there’s nothing left. She’s given you everything.”

Even now, 26 years later, Delores’ heart was held together by rice paper; any pull of emotion could rip it open. So upon realizing her grandson and daughter-in-law were pregnant, she wept. A little child! It was about time the ledger of loss allow a column for gain. Of course it could never be balanced, God could never be forgiven, but it was right for Him to repent.

Tomorrow was important. Therefore sleep was important. But Delores couldn’t stop thinking. She could take one of those pills, it had been awhile – how long had it been? They would help her relax, but not help her think. A child. Just think. What would they name it? If it was a girl…

By 8:03 AM Delores had long since stopped pretending to sleep, showered, and clipped her toenails. It was a good thing too, because Norma called to share that the toaster had burnt the bread, the washer kept getting lopsided and stopping mid-cycle and UPS’ signature machine wouldn’t work and therefore they couldn’t give the package to her. All of this was the worst kind of technological warfare, prejudice against the greatest generation, and much too much for a Monday morning…

After bravely and vacantly abiding this pitter prattle, Delores was rewarded by being asked how she was.

“Oh, I’m just wonderful,” Delores said, and waited.

“Why?”

“It’s just a wonderful day.”

“It’s hotter than blazes out there,” Norma protested. “My clothes dried on the line in under a half hour. The neighbor girl’s got all the windows open and she’s cleaning naked. And she’s got air conditioning! Ever since he left, she’s so desperate. She might as well post a sign on the lawn and put an ad in the paper.”

Delores waited.

“Delores?” Norma’s voice and interest peaqued at the same time. “Why are you wonderful?”

Delores pressed her lips with pleasure until they popped open with, “You can’t tell anyone.”

“Not a soul,” Norma said, smelling something cooking.

Delores lowered her voice, though there was no one in her house, and no one in Norma’s house, and no one who would have cared even if they were. “My grandson and daughter-in-law are going to have a baby,” she said.

The center of attention is a spotlight with a loose stand that swivels on a whim. Now it was warming Delores’ face and she felt – wonderful. Quite wonderful. For quite awhile. Too long. The pause was too long.

“Is Robert there?” Norma asked, at long last.

“What?”

“I knew it. He just has to meet the old group at McDonald’s every afternoon for 4 hours,” Norma started the eyeroller coaster. “They don’t even eat. They just get coffee. What do they talk about? Everybody else. Thank God I never married,” she sighed. “Tell you what. I just made some muffins. I’ll bring you some.”

“Muffins?” Delores squinted, presumably to prevent her eyes from popping out. “Did you hear anything I said, Norma?”

“Lorraine.”

“What?”

“It’s Lorraine.”

“Have it your way.”

“Well, uh –” Lorraine stuttered, shuffling in the background. “Del, I’ll be over in a bit, alright? We’ll talk more then.”

“Don’t bother, Norma,” Delores muttered, “I don’t want to come between you and the muffins.” She hung up and dialed again. After 3 rings, Sam answered.

“Good morning, Delores.”

She hated when he called her anything but Grandma. “Good morning, dear.”

“Are you staying cool?”

“Thank goodness for the air conditioner. Believe me, it’s better than sliced bread, and I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t have either.”

“You’re not that old.”

“I’m not that young, either.”

Sammy was Delores’ favorite grandchild. And her only. But even if she had more, he’d still be her favorite. Sam was a writer. He’d been published just once, but it was in Poetry, and everybody knew that being published once in Poetry was better than being published 7 times in Reader’s Digest or Better Homes and Gardens or whatever garbage that was only good enough for the Dentist’s office.

“How is the writing today?” Delores gushed, twirling the phone cord girlishly. It was for moments like this that she had refused to buy a cell phone. It did not support mannerisms.

“Well, you know, I’m not really doing that,” Sam mumbled.

“Then what are you doing?” Dolores tried to make her concern sound like curiosity.

“Oh, some landscaping,” he sighed. “You know, planting shrubs, uprooting them, planting them in the same spot again.”

“Why can’t those people decide what they want the first time?” Delores had no stomach for fickleness and this reeked of fickleness.

“Don’t be too hard on them, Delores,” Sam could be heard smirking, “a lot of times they just forget.”

“Don’t argue with your grandmother,” Delores settled the matter.

He chuckled. A bit oddly, it seemed. “Well. How are you doing?”

Delores saw an opening. “Oh, I’m fine, dear,” she pivoted and threw. “I’m just worried about Sylvie.”

“Oh?” Sam fumbled.

“Sylvie, your wife,” she teased. As casually as possible, she reminded Sam of yesterday’s after church potluck: Sylvie’s announcement that the salad was tired from traveling across the country and muttering that it didn’t matter because she was bloated anyway.

“Bloated,” he laughed. “She says that when she drinks a glass of water. The way she manages her diet, you’d think she was a model.” It was Sam’s turn to pivot. “Which of course she could be if she wanted.”

“Of course she could,” Delores smiled, “now put her on the phone.”

In the background, a garbled mass appeared; the only words that found form were “hey”, “Delores” and “patient”.

“Hi, Delores,” Sylvie said.

Again with the Delores. Where was her grand title? Yes, Sylvie was only related by marriage, but she was still related, and now she had introduced Sam to this first name business; it was like meeting someone at a convention, or a cashier at a grocery store. Delores wouldn’t do it.

“Hello dear,” she responded, “Now, tell me, truthfully: how are you?” Delores blossomed into a malaise so baroque it would inspire dissatisfaction in a daisy.

Unfortunately, Sylvie understood this as an opportunity to complain about work – or rather, the people at work. As a web designer for a premier women’s retailer, she was always reporting to some trendy twit with too many ideas. The latest edition was a regrettable being named Space. His first, and as far as Delores could see, only, mistake was suggesting that Sylvie be more spontaneous. “I can be spontaneous,” she foamed, “just watch me combust.”

Delores realized this would require a more finessed finagling. “If only he knew how sick you feel,” she cooed, “men are so useless about these things.”

“I didn’t say he was a man; he may not even be human,” Sylvie sighed, needing a hit of oxygen for the next wave, but Delores intercepted.

“Of course not, dear, how can you be human until you’ve had another life inside you?” Delores blurted. It was like she had dropped a tray of dishes in a restaurant. Everything stopped.

The only suitable response was “What?” so Sylvie said it.

Delores laughed, “Well, what’s the point in pussyfooting?” not realizing until now just how weird that word was.

The silence had a temperature, and it was below freezing. There was some scuffling and Sam was on the line again.

“Delores, look, um. I told you this, a while ago; don’t you…?…well. We – ” he breathed in like it was something he hadn’t done in a long time. “We can’t – we can’t.”

Delores could hear his words, but she could not hold them; whenever she tried to squeeze tighter they slipped out.

“I’m sorry,” she said, from memory. Someone said something, someone said something else, someone hung up. Delores stared at the table for an amount of time. It seemed that she might need a new prescription for her glasses. Everything looked so blurry. Making the short pilgrimage to the shrine was more difficult than usual.

But it was worth it, always, for there she was again, in mementos, in paintings, in photographs; if you’re lost and you look then you will find me, time after time. Her dear daughter Cyndi. Her only daughter.

The doorbell rang. Delores’ heart punched her in the ribs. Cyndi? She peeked through the blinds. No, it was just an old woman holding on to a plate of muffins. Probably some nosy neighbor. Still, she seemed nice.