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“You did?” Lily was alarmed. Not for her grandmother—for herself. If José was no longer delivering groceries, then who was going to? “Why did you fire him?”
“Because in the paper last Saturday was a story of an old woman just like me who was robbed by the delivery boy—robbed and raped, I think.”
“Was it José?” Lily said, trying not to sound weary. Struggling not to rub the bridge of her nose.
“No, it wasn’t José. But one can never be too careful, can one, Liliput?”
“No, one certainly cannot.”
“Your door, is it locked? To your bedroom?” Grandmother shook her head. “Are you still living with those bums, those two who cannot keep their sink clean? Yes, your father told me about his visit to your abode. He told me what a sty it was. I want you to find a new place, Lil. Find a new place. I’ll pay the realtor fee.”
Lily was staring at her grandmother with such confusion that for a moment she actually wondered if perhaps she’d never spoken of her living arrangements with her grandmother, or whether there had been too many residential changes for her grandmother to keep track of.
“Grandma,” she said slowly. “I haven’t lived with those bums, as you like to call them, in years. I’ve been living with Amy, in a different apartment, remember? On 9th Street and Avenue C?” She looked at her grandmother with concern.
Her grandmother was lost in thought. “Ninth Street, Ninth Street,” she muttered. “Why does that ring a bell … ?”
“Um, because I live there?”
“No, no.” Claudia stared off into the distance. Suddenly her gaze cleared. “Oh yes! Last Saturday, same day as the old woman’s battery and rape, a small piece ran in the Daily News. Apparently three weeks ago there was a winning lottery ticket issued at a deli on the corner of 10th and Avenue B, and the winner hasn’t come to claim it yet.”
Lily was entirely mute except for the whooshing sound of her blinking lashes, sounding deafening even to herself. “Oh, yeah?” she said and could think of nothing else. The sink faucet tapped out a few water droplets. The sun was bright through the windows.
“Can you imagine? The News publishes the numbers every day in hopes that the person recognizes them and comes forward. Eighteen million dollars.” She tutted. “Imagine. By the way, they publish the numbers so often I know them by heart. Some of the numbers I could have chosen myself. Forty-nine, the year I came to America, thirty-nine, the year my Tomas went to war. Forty-five, my Death March.” She clucked with delight and disappointment. “Do you go to that deli?”
“Um—not anymore.”
“Maybe it’s lost,” said Claudia. “Maybe it’s lying unclaimed in the gutter somewhere because it fell out of the winner’s pocket. Watch the sidewalks, Liliput, around your building. An unsigned lottery ticket is a bearer bond.”
“A what what?”
“A bearer bond.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” said Claudia, “that it belongs to the bearer. You find it, it’s yours.”
Why did Lily immediately want to go home and sign her ticket? “What are the chances of finding a winning lottery ticket, Grandma?”
“Better than the chances of winning one,” replied Claudia in a no-nonsense voice. “So how is that Amy? She’s the one who spent last Thanksgiving with us instead of that no-good boyfriend of yours? How is he?”
Are there any men who are not no-good? Lily wondered but was too sheepish to ask, since it appeared that her grandmother was right at least about Joshua. It was time she told her. “She is fine, and … we’re no longer together. He moved out a month ago.”
For a moment her grandmother was silent, and then she threw up her arms to the ceiling. “So there is a God,” she said.
Lily’s face must not have registered the same level of boundless joy because Claudia said, “Oh, come on. You should be glad to be rid of him.”
“Well … not as glad as you.”
“He’s a bum. You would have supported him for the rest of your life, the way your sister supports her no-good boyfriend.”—and then without a break—“Is Amy graduating with you in a few weeks?”
“Not with me,” said Lily evasively. She didn’t want to lie, but she also didn’t want to tell her grandmother that Amy was actually graduating.
“When is it exactly?”
“May 28, I think.”
“You think?”
“Everything is all right, Grandma, don’t worry.”
“Come in the living room,” Claudia said. “I want to talk to you about something. Not about the war. I’ll save that for Saturday’s poker game.” She smiled. “Are you coming?”
“Can’t. Have to work.” They sat on the sofa covered in plastic. “Grandma, you live here, why don’t you take the Mylar off? That’s what people do when they live someplace. They take the plastic off.”
“I don’t want to dirty all my furniture. After all, you’ll be getting it when I die. Yes, yes, don’t protest. I’m leaving all my furniture to you. You don’t have any. Now stop shaking your head and look what I have for you.”
Lily looked. In her fingers, Grandmother held an airplane ticket.
“Where am I going?”
“Maui.”
Lily shook her head. “Oh, no. Absolutely not.”
“Yes, Lily. Don’t you want to see Hawaii?”
“No! I mean, yes, but I can’t.”
“I got you an open-ended ticket. Go whenever you want for as long as you want. Probably best to go soon though, before you get a real job. It’ll be good for you.”
“No, it won’t.”
“It will. You’re looking worn around the gills lately. Like you haven’t slept. Go get a tan.”
“Don’t want sleep, don’t want a tan, don’t want to go.”
“It’ll be good for your mother.”
“No, it won’t. And what about my job?”
“What, the Noho Star is the only diner in Manhattan?”
“I don’t want to get another waitressing job.”
Claudia squeezed Lily’s hands. “You need to be thinking beyond waitressing, Liliput. You’re graduating college. After six years, finally! But right now your mother could use you in Hawaii.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Let’s just say,” Grandma said evasively, “I think she’s feeling lonely. Amanda is busy with her family, Anne is busy, I don’t even know with what. Oh, I know she pretends she works, but then why is she always broke? Your brother, he’s busy, too, but since he’s actually running our country, I’ll give him a break for not calling his own mother more often. Your mother is feeling very isolated.”
“But Papi is with her. He retired to be with her!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know how that whole retirement thing is working out. Besides you know your father. Even when he’s there, he’s not there.”
“We told them not to move to Hawaii. We told them about rock fever, we told them about isolation. We told them.”
“So? They’re sixty. You’re twenty-four and you don’t listen. Why should they listen?”
“Because we were right.”
“Oh, Liliput, if everyone listened to the people who were right there would be no grief in the world, and yet—do you want me to go through last week with you again?”
“No, no.”
“Was there grief?”
“Some, yes.”
“Go to your mother. Or mark my words—there will be grief there, too.”
Lily struggled up off the 1940s saran-wrap-covered yellow and yellowing couch that someday would be hers. “There’s grief there aplenty, Grandma.”
She was vacillating on Hawaii as she vacillated on everything—painstakingly. Amy was insistent that Lily should definitely go. Paul thought she should go. Rachel thought she probably should go. Rick at Noho Star said he would give her a month off if she went now before all the kids came back from college and it got busy for the summer.
She called her brother over the weekend to see what he thought, and his wife picked up the phone and said, “Oh, it’s you.” And then Lily heard into the phone, “ANDREW! It’s your sister!” and when her brother said something, Miera answered, “The one who always needs money.” And Andrew came on the phone laughing, and said, “Miera, you have to be more specific than that.”
Lily laughed herself. “Andrew, I need no money. I need advice.”
“I’m rich on that. I’ll even throw you a couple of bucks if you want.”
His voice always made her smile. Her whole life it made her smile. “Can you see me for lunch this week?”
“Can’t, Congress is in session. What’s up? I was going to call you myself. You won’t believe who’s staying with me.”
“Where?”
“In D.C.”
“Who?”
“Our father, Lil.”
“What?”
“Yup.”
“He’s in D.C.? Why?”
“Aren’t you the journalist’s daughter with the questions. Why, I don’t know. He left Maui with two big suitcases. I think he is thinking of un-retiring. His exact words? ‘No big deal, son. I’m just here to smooth out the transition for Greenberger who’s taking over for me.’”
“Meaning …”
“Meaning, I can’t take another day with your mother.”
“Oh, Andrew, oh, dear.” Lily dug her nails into the palms of her hands. “No wonder Grandma bought me a ticket to go to Maui. She’s so cagey, that Grandma. She never comes out and tells me exactly what she wants. She is always busy manipulating.”
“Yes, she wants you to do what she wants you to do but out of your own accord.”
“Fat chance of that. When is Papi going back? I don’t want to go unless he’s there.”
“You’ll be waiting your whole life. I don’t think he’s going back.”
“Stop it.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m home, why?”
“Are you … alone?”
“Yes.” Lily lowered her voice. “What do you want to tell me?”
“Are you sitting … listening?”
“Yes.”
“Go to Maui now, Liliput. I can’t believe I’m saying this. But you should go. Really. Get out of the city for a while.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this. I don’t see you going.”
“I’d go if I weren’t swamped. Quartered first, but I’d go.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Did I mention … gladly quartered?”
After having a good chuckle, Andrew and Lily made a deal—he would work on their father in D.C. in between chairing the appropriations committee and filibustering bill 2740 on farm subsidies, and she would go and soothe their mother in between sunbathing and tearing her hair out.
“Andrew, is it true what I heard from Amanda, are you running for the U.S. Senate seat in the fall?”
“I’m thinking about it. I’m exploring my options, putting together a commission. Don’t want to do it if I can’t win.”
“Oh, Andrew. What can I do? I’ll campaign for you again. Me and Amy.”
“Oh, you girls will be too busy with your new lives to help me in the fall, leaving school, getting real jobs. But thanks anyway. I gotta go. I’ll call you in Maui. You want me to wire you some money?”
“Yes, please. A thousand? I’ll pay you back.”
