Notorious Nineteen(8)

“Sounds like she’s boned,” Lula said.

“Boned?” my mother asked.

Grandma selected another piece of chicken. “That’s a polite way of using the f word.”

My mother cut her eyes to the kitchen, and I knew she was thinking about refilling her “ice tea.” Grandma and I are a trial to her. My mother tries hard to be a good Christian woman and a model of decorum, but Grandma and I not so much. It isn’t that we don’t want to be decorous Christian women. It’s just that it doesn’t always go that way.

“Vinnie bonded Geoffrey Cubbin out,” Lula said. “And now we gotta find him.”

“It’s a real interesting case,” Grandma said. “He just up and got dressed in the middle of the night and walked out. If you ask me it’s fishy. And I know his doctor is named Fish, but I don’t mean that way. Cubbin had stitches and everything. You don’t go jogging down the hall and hailing a cab two days after you get your appendix cut out. You creep around hunched over, doing a lot of moaning and complaining.”

“So what do you think happened to him?” Lula asked.

“I don’t know, but seems to me he had to have help,” Grandma said.

“That’s what I think too. And why didn’t anyone see him standing waiting for the elevator?” Lula asked.

“Budget cuts,” Grandma said. “They hardly got any nurses working. And used to be they had cameras in the elevators, but I hear they go on the fritz all the time. I tell you, hospitals aren’t what they used to be. Myra and I go to Central for lunch once a week, but the food’s gotten terrible lately and people are turning surly.”

“You must know a lot of sick people,” Lula said.

“We don’t go to visit sick people,” Grandma said. “We just go for lunch. They always have a big buffet in the cafeteria, and it’s cheap because that’s where the people who work at the hospital eat. Everybody’s wearing those scrub clothes. It’s just like being in Grey’s Anatomy. All the seniors eat there, and sometimes you can score a date. I met a real hottie there last month, but he had an aneurysm and died before I could haul him in. And then after lunch we go to the Costco and get desserts from the free-sample ladies.”

“I love those ladies,” Lula said.

“At the end of the month if Myra and me run out of Social Security we skip the hospital and just have lunch from the free-sample ladies,” Grandma said.

“Honestly,” my mother said. “You make it sound like I don’t feed you. There’s always good food here for lunch.”

“I like to eat out once in a while,” Grandma said. “Gives me a reason to put lipstick on. And there’s always a lot of drama at the hospital. I got the dirt on all the nurses. You just gotta sit by the right people and keep your ears open.”

“We should put you on the case,” Lula said to Grandma. “We went to the hospital, and we couldn’t find out nothing.”

“You tell me what you’re looking for, and I’ll find it,” Grandma said. “I’m real nosy, and I’ve been thinking about turning professional.”

“That would be an excellent plan,” Lula said. “We wouldn’t have to go back to Central if you were there. We could spend our time doing other important stuff that’s not in a hospital.”

“It’s not an excellent plan,” my mother said. “It’s an awful plan. Isn’t it enough she causes havoc in every funeral home in a twenty-mile radius?”

“Not always,” Grandma said. “I just don’t like when they have a closed casket. I think it’s a gyp. How do you know if there’s anyone in there?”

My mother shook her fork at me. “I’m holding you responsible. If your grandmother gets arrested for disturbing the peace in that hospital you can kiss chocolate cake goodbye for the rest of your life. Pineapple upside-down cake too.”

“Boy, that’s hardball,” Lula said.

“I wouldn’t want you to do without pineapple upside-down cake,” Grandma said. “I guess I shouldn’t snoop for you. I gotta go to the hairdresser anyway. There’s going to be a big viewing tomorrow night for Stanley Kuberski, and I want to look good. The paper said the Elks will be holding a ceremony for him, and there’s a couple hot Elks I got my eye on.”

“You should go with your grandmother,” my mother said. “Loretta Gross’s boy, Cameron, is an Elk. I bet he’ll be there, and he just got a divorce.”

“Is he hot?” Grandma asked. “I might be interested in him.”