The Little Old Lady, Part 6

Chapter Six.

The next morning dawned bright and beautiful. Through the half-closed blinds of the guest room, sunlight fell in stripes over the sleeping form of the little old lady.

As a line of morning light inched acrosss her face, she opened her eyes. At first, the unfamiliar room gave her a start. She did not, at first, remember where she was.

But as her brain came whirring to life, increasingly recent memories downloaded themselves into her immediate consciousness. She was in her son's guest room. Her apartment building had been sold. There was a red super-stock Dodge sitting in the garage. And she had a plan.

She sat up in bed, the covers rolling back until they bunched around her waist. She yawned, stretched, then slid from the bed to stand on the carpeted floor. Her slippers were nowhere in sight—she stepped over to her leather travel case, and rummaged around inside until she found them, stuffed into the bottom. She put them on, and came flopping down the stairs to find the house almost empty.

Her son, the only one at home this morning, was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee and holding a tablet computer in front of him the way his father had once held the morning paper.

“Good morning, Tommy,” the little old lady said. Her son startled, almost spilling his coffee.

“You seem better this morning,” he said when he'd recovered himself.

“I feel better this morning. You were right, Tommy; it's time to move on. Let's get some breakfast made, and go get the rest of my stuff from the apartment. We'll start looking for a new place today. I'll be up and out of your hair by the end of the week.”

“Mom, you don't have to rush out,” Tommy said, setting the tablet down on the table and turning to face his mother. “You can stay here as long as you need to. I don't want you to feel like you're unwelcome here.”

The little old lady gave him an incredulous look. He withered under her gaze, and decided to change the subject.

“Can I whip you up some breakfast? You didn't eat much last night.”

“Well, I was feeling a little down,” the little old lady said to her son. “But I think I could just eat a horse this morning.”

“I hope you're not asking me to cook you horse for breakfast.” Tommy smiled at his own weak sally.

“Heavens, no! That sounds positively disgusting... How about some fluffy-golden pancakes?”

Tommy sighed. He did not want to make more pancakes. But, he reasoned, his mother had just been through a trying time, and this morning she seemed to be taking it like a champ. So he scooted his chair back from the table and headed for the refrigerator to mix up some pancake batter.

A half hour later, the little old lady sat shoveling pancakes into her mouth. She devoured seven and a half of them, and used up every last drop of maple syrup in the house.

“After last night, I don't think Tommy Jr. or Grace are gonna want pancakes anytime soon,” Tommy said as the little old lady wiped up the last of the syrup with a piece of pancake on the end of her fork. “And it's a good thing, too; you ate all the ingredients.”

The little old lady regarded her son, chewing. When she'd swallowed and pushed her plate away, she said, “Let's get going. I'm ready to be done with that old place.”

“Okay. I'll meet you back here in twenty minutes.”

The little old lady went pattering up the stairs to get ready. She showered, put on a little makeup—very tasteful, of course—and sprayed just a bit of hairspray over her gray frizz of hair.

She beat her son back to the kitchen by a minute and a half.

When he came into the room, shaven, combed, and smelling of name brands, she was sitting at the kitchen table.

“I was thinking, Tommy...”

“Yeah?”

“I noticed you've got that sporty little car out in the garage. Just like the one your father had when he was young. We couldn't... we couldn't ride over to my old apartment in it, could we? It's been years since I rode in one of those.”

“How did you notice the...?” Tommy trailed off, frowning at his mother. She smiled innocently up at him. Though he was suspicious, he couldn't think of a good reason not to take the car. “Well, sure, I guess,” he finally said. “Let me go get the keys.”

The little old lady ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the car when Tommy pulled back the dust cover and tossed it onto the garage floor beside the car. “Your father used to drive so fast, I thought we'd both die. It was positively invigorating,” she said, running a hand over the waxed perfection of the car's hood. “I can't believe you found one.”

“Dad's stories were always so great. I just had to get one, as soon as I could afford it. It's kinda like, something to remember him by, y'know?” Tommy ran a hand over the car himself. Then he stuck the key into the lock under the driver's doorhandle, and motioned his mother toward the passenger side. “Hop in,” he said. He was obviously warming to the idea of taking a drive in the car. He loved the thing (and Grace hated it).

The engine roared to life—Tommy couldn't help but smile at the rising growl. The little old lady drew a single adoring finger down a seam in the leather of the seats. She inhaled deeply through her nose, sampling every intertwined smell coming from the carpet, the leather, the fuel oxidizing in the engine.

“Now, I'm an old lady these days, Tommy; don't go too fast, please.”

“C'mon, Mom; I'm a middle-aged man, not a teenager who just got his license.”

“I know you used to speed in that Mazda we bought you when you were eighteen,” the little old lady said, looking at him over her glasses.

“That was, like... twenty-five years ago. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've got a wife, a mortage... a kid in college, for Chrissakes.”

“And yet you still swear in front of your mother,” the little old lady whined. They both laughed as he backed the car down the driveway, and they disappeared up the street.

Palm trees coursed by outside the windows of the old but nonetheless pristine Dodge as Tommy piloted it down Colorado Boulevard towards the far side of Pasadena. The little old lady stared out the window, watching familiar shops and intersections roll by.

“You okay, Mom?” Tommy asked after she'd been silent a while.

“Oh, I'm fine,” the little old lady said, flicking her wrist as if to ward off a pestering fly. “It's just... riding in this car sure is a trip down memory lane.”

“Alright. As long as... as long as you're okay.” Tommy eyed his mother. But something in her body language bespoke sighing tranquility, rather than yesterday's sullen silence. He relaxed into the seat. One arm reached confidently up to control the steering wheel. She glanced over at it. For a moment, she marveled at how much her son, now grown, resembled her long-gone husband. Then the moment passed, and she turned back out the passenger-side window.

Finally, the little old lady came out of her reverie. They were very close to her old apartment.

Tommy had to cruise around the block a few times before he found parking. It wasn't close to the apartment, but he promised his mother as they climbed out, she landing lightly on the sidewalk while he checked for oncoming cars, that he'd pull the car around to carry whatever they needed back with them. He hefted her travel case from where it sat in the back.

“It won't be much,” she promised. “Most of the stuff, we can put it in storage.”

“Good idea,” Tommy said, joining her on the sidewalk. They headed down the street toward the stairs up to the apartment building.

But the little old lady's key wouldn't turn in the lock on the glass front doors. Tommy knocked on the glass. The little old lady grew a scowl for the first time since she'd seen the car the night before.

She cupped her hands on the glass and peered through. She saw Brad Knowles appear in the doorway of what had once been Mr. Barnes' office. He lifted an eyebrow, glancing suspiciously at the two of them waiting outside the doors, then moved to let them in.

“You changed the locks already?” the little old lady asked; Tommy noticed there was no edge in her voice.

“Company policy,” was all he said. The pair came inside, Brad holding the door open with an outstretched arm.

“You didn't change the locks on my apartment door, did you?” she said when she was safely inside.

“We've hardly had time for anything extensive like that. And we did say you had 72 hours to vacate. We can hardly change the locks on an apartment you technically still have a right to enter. And...” he coughed into his fist, “the, uhh, police department made rather short work of your door, I'm afraid.”

“All this lawyer stuff gives me a headache,” the little old lady said. “There's aspirin in the apartment. Let's go on up.” She kept an eye on Brad.

They went up. Mr. Knowles, thankfully, did not elect to join them. He disappeared back into Mr. Barnes' old offices instead.

Neither said much as the elevator rose in grudging lurches to the third floor. Tom wondered if his mother was having any nostalgic thoughts about final elevator rides or bitter goodbyes.

She wasn't.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. The little old lady was out first. They made their way down the hallway and, as promised, the little old lady's door swung limply, the lock smashed and the wood splintered around it.

She pushed into the apartment. Things were strewn everywhere. She looked around (and for Tommy's benefit, gave a deep sigh). He looked at her; it took all her willpower not to look back at him. Instead, she went around the apartment, searching for what she needed.

The first thing was obvious, right in front of her: the picture of her husband on the wall. The police had apparently decided to leave it be. She went to it, lifted it gently off its hook, and went to Tommy to unzip the travel case and slide the picture inside.

“You can set that down,” she said. “I'm going to need quite a few things.”

“No furniture, though, right?” Tommy said, one half of his lip rising in what he thought of as a wry smile.

The little old lady glanced at him, her expression something resembling contempt. She moved around the apartment, Tommy watching, picking up this and that. Tommy thought she seemed to be grabbing things with the erratic rationality of a woman on the edge of senility.

But the little old lady chose her objects with care. She went into the kitchen, Tommy following at a respectful distance. He stood on the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, his mouth curling a little as she rummaged in the cupboard and came out with an iron skillet—then another.

“Two?” he said, both eyebrows up.

“Yes; two,” she snapped back. This time, there was an edge to her voice. “I know what I need, Tommy. I didn't make it sixty-odd years on this...”

“Okay, okay; just get what you need.” He raised his hands in surrender. He'd never looked less like his father, the little old lady mused to herself. He looked most, in that moment, like Mr. Barnes. She got back to work.

She went back into the living room, Tommy still following her movements—if only with his gaze. She picked her way over the mayhem to the TV, scanning the books lined up on either side of it, and leaning down to shuffle through those that had been tossed to the floor. She began picking books off the shelves, and chose them from the rubble, making a separate little pile behind her.

Tommy opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, he heard in his head another lecture about how she'd made it some random number of years on this earth and didn't need her son telling her what she needed to bring back with her to feel at home. So he closed his mouth, and said nothing. Instead, he just stood there, at the threshold of kitchen and living room, and watched silently as the pile of books behind the little old lady grew steadily larger.

When she finally seemed to have satisfied herself, she turned and looked at Tommy.

“Be a dear and throw all these in my case. I need to go look in my bedroom,” she said, and disappeared through the bedroom door. Tommy walked over and bent down to gather up books in his arms to deposit into the travel case.

By the time he'd finished stacking the books—twenty of them, at least, almost all big hardcovers—his mother was emerging from her bedroom,

“Put these in, too,” she said. “I'll be back.” And she vanished into the bedroom again. Tommy breathed in and out, once. The travel case already weighed a good fifteen pounds more, at least, than it had when they'd arrived.

The little old lady came back with a metal cross from her bedroom. Tommy held the bag open for her to put it inside. He hefted the bag by its long leather shoulder strap.

“This thing is pretty heavy,” he said.

“Oh, you'll be fine,” his mother said. “I just need to get a few more things.” She wandered around the living room, looking around, stroking her chin as if she were an old man with a beard.

“Don't you think you have everything? I mean, what are you really going to do with two iron skillets?”

“Your pancakes were just fine, Tommy,” she said, “but they were hardly properly made. Your old mother is going to show you exactly how pancakes are supposed to taste. Oh! That reminds me...” She headed back into the kitchen, and came back with her supply of maple syrup—several full jars (and one half-empty) in glass bottles. She put them into the travel case, too.

Tommy hefted it again. He groaned internally, thinking about the walk back to the car, and the trudge up the stairs to her temporary living space inside his house.

“I think this is plenty,” he said. “At this point, you might as well have loaded your furniture in here.”

The little old lady turned to say something, but she saw Tommy trying to heft the bag again—and struggling—and finally, her mouth a considering comma halfway up her cheek, said, “Okay. Let's get going.”

She locked the door as they left, Tommy setting the bag down for an instant as she did. The thing was heavy, indeed.

“You might as well have loaded this thing with iron weights,” he said.

“Oh, hush,” the little old lady said, waving her hand at him in dismissal again. “It'll be good for you. A little exercise never hurt anybody.”

And with that, she started back down the hallway towards the elevator.

Tommy set the bag down at the foot of the stone steps outside the front door of the building, and went to pull the car around.

“What am I gonna do if somebody comes by and tries to steal my bag, Tommy?”

“Well, they won't be able to run very fast; that should be some consolation,” he said over his shoulder as he hurried down the street. No way he was letting his mother talk him into dragging that bag the block and a half back to the old super-stock Dodge parallel-parked up the street.

He didn't see the little old lady snap her fingers in frustration.

The scarlet car growled to a halt in front of the building. Tommy hopped out and snatched up the bag. He winced as the weight of it pressed a line into his shoulder. He limped toward the car, threw open the back door, and hoisted the heavy bag inside. He strode around the car and fell into the front seat, feeling his heart beat a little more heavily than perhaps was comfortable. He was surprised to find that beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

The little old lady slid into the passenger seat beside him, and slammed the door after her. Tommy eased the gas pedal down, and they were away. Done with that uncomfortable phase of the transition.

The little old lady looked out the window most of the way back to his house. They rolled down Colorado Boulevard, she humming a tune under her breath (another one we're too young to remember), he thinking about something completely unrelated to this story.

He eased into the driveway, and opened the center console to push on the garage-door opener. It opened, in a squeal of metal against metal, and he pulled into the garage.

The engine whirred to a halt. But for an instant, both of them sat in their seats, quietly breathing, looking straight ahead.

“Well, that's done,” Tommy finally said.

“Yes; I suppose that it is,” the little old lady said. Tommy definitely heard regret in her voice. But he thought that perhaps he should have heard more. He told himself that he was over-analyzing the situation, and opened the car door.

He lugged the leather travel case inside, the iron skillets clanging against each other and the heavy metal cross the little old lady had thrown inside. He heard the maple syrup bottles jingling against each other.

He set the bag down in the middle of the kitchen, then tossed most of the contents of his pockets—keys, cell phone, et cetera—onto the nearby counter.

“Whew,” he said, wiping at his brow. “I hope you don't fly anywhere soon. The plane won't get off the ground before the runway ends.”

The little old lady gave him an incredulous frown. She unzipped the case an inch or two, and squeezed in her hand to pull out the picture of her husband. She looked at it a moment, a sad smile crossing her face, then looked up at her son.

“Be a dear, Tom, and take that upstairs. I'd like to get my books settled in tonight, and there's no way I'm getting that thing up the stairs all by myself,” she said.

Tommy sighed, and reached down to hoist the bag onto his shoulder again. He trudged toward the stairs. He looked back over his shoulder as he went, one hand on the shoulder strap of the case to keep it steady. His mother was mouthing something to the old picture of his father.

The little old lady listened to the sound of his disappearing footsteps, but refused to allow herself to look up from the picture of her husband. When she heard him begin tromping up the stairs, she lowered the picture, looked up slyly, and put a hand on the counter, listening. When her soon seemed about halfway up, her eyes flicked over to where he'd left his personal effects on the counter. She glided across the kitchen, and stuck out a spindly arm to snatch up the keys to the old super-stock Dodge. She held them close in her hand, and made for the garage door as fast as she could.

Tommy hadn't bothered to close the garage door. He didn't see any reason. His wife would be home a bit later, and she always closed the garage door when she came in. The little old lady stood beside the scarlet automobile for a moment, smiling at its vintage glory. Then, she opened the driver's side door, and slid in. She closed the door as quietly as she could.

Tommy, just reaching the top of the stairs, suddenly heard a car engine outside. He frowned, but the oppressive weight of the travel case on his shoulder kept him from paying too much attention. But something about the sound...

He dropped the bag suddenly, with a clang of pots and a crash of glass maple syrup jars. He sprinted down the stairs. But as he flung open the door leading into the garage, banging it against the far wall, he saw only the vanishing tail of the super-stock Dodge he'd spent years restoring.

The sound of its engine echoed from the faces of the houses on either side of the street.

“Mom!” he screamed, and ran inside, heading into his bedroom where he knew the keys to the Range Rover lay on the nightstand beside his bed.

He almost wrenched the driver door to the Range Rover off its hinges as he threw it open. He jolted in, slamming the door behind him—again, almost loosing the door from its bolts.

He started the car; the tires screeched as he floored the gas and spun the wheel to get out of the driveway. He skidded when he pushed hard on the brake and flung the car into drive. He pealed out, a thin cloud of smoke rising from the pavement as he accelerated at full throttle down the suburban street after his mother.

He could see the super-stock ahead of him, could hear the roar of its engine as the little old lay piloted it—the first time she'd driven a car in decades—down the street. People appeared at windows, and came to lean on the railings of their porches, watching first the scarlet Dodge, and then the subdued Range Rover, come squealing by. They made up explanations for what might be happening.

The little old lady hurtled around a corner, trying her best to remember the way out of this unfamiliar neighborhood.

“If only he'd called or visited,” she said to the old picture of her long-dead husband, sitting in the passenger seat beside her. A seatbelt crossed the top left corner, and ran along the bottom of the picture, holding it firmly in the passenger seat. “Easiest time I ever had getting you to wear that thing, though,” the little old lady said, glancing over at the picture, and almost careening straight into a tree as the road straight ahead ended, branching out at perpendicularly right and left. She hit the brake and pulled the hand brake as she spun the steering wheel to the left, going around the corner on two wheels.

Her son, navigating his own neighborhood with ease, took the turn at a more subdued speed.

“Where is she going?” he said aloud. “If she's trying to leave the neighborhood, she's going in the wrong direction.”

Completely lost now, and taking turns at random, the little old lady herself was surprised to find that she did, eventually, reach the main road.

“Dammit!” her son said when she did. There was a stop sign that went completely unheeded by both. First the little old lady, and then her son, went speeding right past the thick white line painted onto the road. Her son tried to check for oncoming cars before making a left turn to follow his mother, yet again slowing him, and widening the distance between them.

But now they were on the open road. There were few cars out at this time of day—past morning rush hour, but still before lunchtime. Ahead of him, Tommy heard the Dodge's engine growling, then roaring, then snapping back to a rising growl again as the lady upshifted, then upshifted again.

The distance between them grew. He had the pedal all the way to the floor, but so did his mother. She was gaining distance.

“Damn it!” he yelled aloud. “What is she trying to do?”

As if she'd heard him, he saw her head appear out the window of the sports car. His mouth fell open as he saw her turn her face back towards him, completely ignoring the road ahead.

“I'm sorry, Tommy!” he heard her yelling, above the sound of both car engines screaming in protest. “I have to go find Mr. Barnes and get my apartment back! I'll bring the car back when I do!”

“Mom, stop!” he rolled down his window to say. He didn't stick his head out, though—he was no daredevil. “You're going to get a ticket—or probably arrested! You don't have a license!” But her head was already disappearing back into the car, and he doubted she heard him.

She did, barely. But instead of listening to him, she snickered, glancing over at the picture of her husband riding shotgun beside her. “C'mon, honey. Let's go get our house back.”

She gunned the motor harder, and Tommy watched helplessly through his windshield as the Dodge all but disappeared into the distance.

Ahead, he saw the intersection with Colorado Boulevard. His mother would have to make a hard left to go back toward her apartment. He figured that's the way she would go, considering. He pushed his foot down a little harder against the accelerator, but he couldn't be sure if the rise he heard in the sound of the motor was real or just imagined. He hoped it was the former.

He hit the brakes hard as he approached the intersection. Cars coursed both ways on Colorado. His breath left him as he saw the Dodge barely slowing ahead.

“She's not gonna get a ticket—she's gonna die, or kill someone.” He wasn't sure which would be worse, honestly. He didn't think his mother would like prison much.

But, wonder of wonders, the Dodge slipped through the intersection, inches from a silver minivan and an armored truck with Dunbar written on the side.

For him, however, there was too much traffic. He screeched to a halt where the two streets came together. He saw the Dodge disappearing left down Colorado Boulevard, still at breakneck speed.

He opened the driver door a few inches and poked his head out.

“You're gonna get a tick...!” he started to say as the Dodge and his mother disappeared from view.

That's when he heard a wail behind him. He slid back into the driver's seat to peer in the rearview mirror. Blue lights approached behind him, coming to a stop a few feet behind the rear bumper of the subdued old Range Rover.