Something Unexpected by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 18
Beck
“GIGI!” MADDIE RACEDto Gram’s hospital bed and climbed up. She had on her usual Saturday outfit of shorts and a T-shirt, with her green Girl Scout sash across her body displaying her seventeen badges.
“Easy, baby. Gigi is feeling better, but you need to be careful.”
Gram also looked a heck of a lot better. It helped that she was sitting up in bed, already dressed in street clothes, with a full face of makeup on.
Gram frowned. “Don’t listen to Captain No-fun. What’s shakin’, pip squeak?”
Maddie pointed to her great grandmother’s eyes. “I like your eyeshadow. It’s sparkly.”
“Everything is better when it sparkles. If I could eat glitter for breakfast and shine all day, I would.”
Maddie flashed her tiny teeth. “I want to sparkle, too.”
“You do? Well, grab me that makeup bag on the end table, and we’ll fix you right up.”
Watching my grandmother with my daughter reminded me so much of my mom and me—not that she’d made up my face with glitter, but she’d had a way of passing on experiences without making me feel like I was a little kid.
“Daddy said you’re coming to stay with us,” Maddie said.
That had been a bone of contention over the last few days since Gram and the doctors had started talking about discharge. She had been in the hospital for two weeks, so it wasn’t surprising that she wanted to go home to her own place. But the doctors had said she shouldn’t be alone right after discharge, since she might become weak and lightheaded. I waited for the argument to come again today. Shockingly, it didn’t.
“That’s right, my love.” She tapped her finger on Maddie’s nose. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Gram’s smile seemed to glitter as much as her eyeshadow. And the fact that she’d come around to the idea of staying with me without another fight made me think I should be scared. But maybe she was starting to feel the weakness the doctors had warned about. Either way, I thought it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. So I took a seat at the foot of the bed and watched as Gram colored my six-year-old’s eyelids with purple sparkly shit.
A nurse walked in as they were finishing up. “Hey, Ms. Aster.” She looked at Maddie and smiled. “Oh, hello. Who do we have here? I love your eyeshadow.”
My daughter beamed. “I’m Maddie. I’m six years old, and this is my Gigi.”
“My goodness, look at all those badges. Are they all yours?”
Maddie nodded. “I’m going to earn them all.”
The nurse smiled. “Well, if you’re as determined as your great grandmother, I have no doubt that you will.” The nurse spoke to Gram. “I’m just finishing up with your discharge paperwork. Give me about fifteen minutes, and I’ll come in and take out your port. Then we can go over your medication and discharge instructions so you can bust out of here.”
“Thanks, Lena.”
As she walked out, Nora walked in.
I hadn’t seen her since our infamous limousine ride home, though I’d replayed it a million times since then. I’d also broken down and called her twice, but each time my call went to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message, since her messages to me had been loud and clear since the start.
“Hey.” Nora smiled. “How you doing, Beck?”
She had on another sundress, and my mind immediately went to what I’d done to her under the table, how I’d had to kiss her to stifle the moan as she came all over my hand. That sound was better than porn.
Nora walked over to Maddie and Gram with a smile. “You must be Maddie.”
Maddie nodded and pointed to her eyes. “Gigi did my makeup.”
“I see that. It’s very pretty.”
“Do you work for my dad?”
Nora shook her head. “No, I don’t. I’m actually a friend of your great grandmother’s.”
“What made you ask that, Maddie?” I said.
She shrugged. “Because the only time I ever see you with girls is at work.”
It’s funny to get a kid’s perspective. Maddie was right that I didn’t bring women I went out with around her. I didn’t want to introduce her to anyone unless that person was sticking around for a while. And there hadn’t been any of those since my divorce.
Maddie looked at Nora. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Maddie,” I scolded. “It’s not nice to ask people that type of stuff.”
“How come?”
“You know how I told you some questions are private?”
“Like the lady I asked if she was having a baby?”
“Oh boy.” Nora chuckled.
I nodded. “Yeah, she was probably sixty and definitely wasn’t.” I spoke to my daughter. “Yes, questions like that—we went over this. You don’t ask questions about age, babies, girlfriends and boyfriends, money, or God to strangers.”
Nora smiled at Maddie. “You should listen to your dad. But also, no, I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“My friend Lizzie says pretty girls always have boyfriends.”
Nora and I looked at each other. “Can I take this one?” she asked.
I held my hands out. “Please do.”
“Pretty girls definitely don’t always have boyfriends. And if a boy likes a girl only because she’s pretty, he’s probably not someone who should be her boyfriend.”
Maddie nodded. “You’re pretty.”
“Thank you. So are you.”
“What is that?” My daughter pointed to the Mason jar in Nora’s hand.
She set it down on the rolling food tray. “This is a gratitude jar. This one belongs to your great grandmother, but I have one, too.”
“What’s in it?”
“Well, those are good memories. When good things happen, we write them down and put them in the jar. That way, when we’re having a bad day, we can read them, and it reminds us how much good we have in our life.”
“Daddy, I want to make a gratitude jar!”
“I think yours would be overflowing,” I said. “Because someone I know is pretty spoiled and doesn’t have many bad days.”
The nurse came back to take Gram’s vitals and remove her port. I figured we should give her some privacy. “Maddie, there’s a vending machine down the hall. You want to check it out?”
Her eyes grew wide, and she jumped from the bed. “Chocolate!”
I looked to Nora. “You want something?”
She shook her head. “I’ll take the walk with you guys anyway.”
The visitors’ room was empty. Maddie ran over to the machine and licked her lips while perusing the selections.
“Her mother doesn’t allow her to have much sugar. Carrie’s been obsessive about her weight since Maddie was born and counts every carb, even Maddie’s.”
“Oh, that’s not good.”
“Don’t get me wrong, sugar isn’t great for you. But I don’t want my daughter to start obsessing about her weight and have an eating disorder. I’m more of the belief that moderation is the key to diet.”
“Me too. As you can tell from the five pounds of pasta I ate last week at dinner.”
I looked her up and down. “Whatever you’re doing. It’s working.”
“Thanks again for dinner, by the way.”
“You’re welcome.” I winked. “Thank you for the ride home.”
She blushed.
I debated saying more, but who knew when I might see her again with Gram being discharged. So I had to go for it. “I called you a couple of times last week…”
She smiled resignedly. “I know.”
“You know because you saw my name come up in your missed calls, or because you watched it flash on the screen until it went to voicemail?”
Her face answered my question. I nodded. “Got it.”
Nora shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just… You’re hard to say no to. So it’s easier to avoid the question.”
“Maybe that means you shouldn’t say no.”
Maddie ran over, jumping up and down. “Daddy, can I have Skittles?”
“I’ll get them, but you can only eat some now. You save the rest for after lunch.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
I turned to Nora. “You want something?”
Her eyes dropped to my lips for a millisecond. “No, I’m good.”
I shelled out two fifty for a seventy-five-cent bag of candy, and then my cell phone rang. I handed it to my daughter. “Mom’s calling.”
Maddie answered her daily call from my ex, while Nora and I stepped outside the waiting room. “My grandmother mentioned that you came every day this week and cheered her up. She puts on a brave face, but I could see she’s been down. So thank you for visiting often and lifting her mood.”
Nora shrugged. “I didn’t have to do any lifting. We just talked about our adventures and wound up laughing for an hour or two every day.”
“Well, thank you anyway.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Our eyes caught. I could lose myself in that beautiful shade of green. I used to want her when we argued, but now I wanted her when she was sweet and vulnerable too. If I was being honest, I wanted her pretty much all the time these days. Luckily, Maddie popped out of the waiting room and stopped me from saying something I’d probably regret. The three of us went back to Gram’s room. She finished signing all the discharge paperwork, and Nora and I went over her new medication list, even though Gram said we didn’t need to.
I picked up Maddie’s backpack. “Alright, you ready to get out of here and take Gram to our house?”
Nora’s brow furrowed. “Your house? I thought Louise was going home. She asked me to keep her company so she wouldn’t be alone.”
I looked to my grandmother, who was sporting a sly smile. “Oh. I must’ve forgotten to mention that I decided to stay at Beck’s house for a few days. Would you come keep me company there, dear?”
I smelled bullshit. “You forgot, huh?”
Gram didn’t even try to cover her indulgent smile. “Must be all the meds.” She waved her hand around her head. “Brain fog.”
Brain fog, my ass.
Nora smiled politely. “I’ll come visit you one day this week. Maybe when Beck is at work?”
“That would be lovely. But could you also come today? I could use some company.”
Now I was offended. “What am I, chopped liver?”
Gram shook her head. What was I getting mad about anyway? I couldn’t get Nora to answer my calls. Gram was getting her inside my apartment.
But Nora looked hesitant. “I don’t know…”
“You should come. I picked up stuff to grill for lunch, but I was hungry when I went to the store this morning, so I have enough to feed twelve, not three.”
The nurse helped Gram into a wheelchair. “I insist,” Gram said. “Plus, I want to talk about some new ideas I have for our trip. What do you think about the German Autobahn?”
Oh Jesus. We weren’t even out of the hospital yet, and she was already thinking of more daredevil shit she could do.
Nora’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve always wanted to go to Oktoberfest in Bavaria.”
My grandmother clapped her hands. “We’ll do both.”
“I hope the Autobahn comes before the beer-drinking marathon,” I grumbled.
“What do you say?” Gram said. “Spend the afternoon with me?”
Nora looked between me and Gram. She was definitely not gung-ho, yet she smiled. “Sure.”
***
“This is absolutely incredible.” Nora walked out onto the terrace and looked around. “Is it even legal to barbecue out here in New York City?”
I smiled. “Not in most places. You have to be ten feet away from the building and any overhang. It was my only requirement when I was looking for a place to buy.”
“Big barbecuer?”
“I like to grill. When I was a kid, my parents took me out to Montauk every summer. The place we stayed at had charcoal grills, and my dad would sit outside for hours looking at the ocean and cooking ribs. I don’t know if it was the salt air or the smoke, but those things were the best meal I ate all year. After my parents were gone, I mentioned to Gram how much I loved barbecuing. For Christmas one year, I think I was about thirteen, she got me a smokeless electric grill. It wasn’t the same, but it got me into grilling. I would plug it in by the kitchen window so the breeze would come in—even in the winter—and grill all different dinners for us.” I shrugged. “I find it really peaceful, and food is so good cooked on a charcoal grill.”
“That’s a really nice memory.”
Today I had sausage, ribs, and chicken on the grill. I pointed to the biggest sausage. “I earmarked this one for you. I know how much you enjoy a big, hot sausage.”
Nora rolled her eyes with a chuckle. “You know, I’m on to you. You show a glimpse of a sweet guy and quickly cover it up with something dirty, so I won’t think you’re a big softie.”
I raised a brow. “I thought I’d already shown you there was nothing soft on me.”
“See? There you go again.” She wagged her finger at me. “But I see you, Beck Cross. You’re not the guy you want everyone to think you are.”
“Oh yeah? Then who am I?”
“Someone who goes to the Harry Styles concert and livestreams it for his grandmother because she’s too sick to go. I can’t believe you did that after our limousine ride home.”
My shoulders slumped. “She told you about that?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were doing that? I would have gone with you.”
“I only had one ticket. I really did sell them to someone, a woman at my office. They were for her seventeen-year-old daughter and a friend, but the friend got sick, so her daughter went alone to meet up with her other friends and sneak over to sit in their section. Plus, I wasn’t sure I’d make it more than five minutes at that concert, or that Gram would be awake when I called. She’s a night owl, but her sleeping schedule has been off at the hospital. So I called a nurse to see if she was still up. When they said she was, I figured I’d stop in at the concert and livestream the end for her.”
“You went to Harry Styles all by yourself…”
I nodded. “And I think that’ll be my last Harry concert. I was sandwiched between a gazillion screaming teenage girls wearing boas and too much perfume.”
Nora smiled. “That must’ve been some sight. I can picture it now. You, with your arms folded across your chest like you’re security, standing in a sea of teenyboppers. You must’ve looked as out of place as a fly on a wedding cake.”
I squinted. “A fly on a wedding cake?”
“Yeah. Who wouldn’t stare at a big fat fly sitting on a pristine white cake?”
I chuckled and flipped over the rack of ribs. “If you say so.”
“Anyway…Louise couldn’t stop talking about her private livestream the next day when I went to see her. Apparently a few of the nurses watched it with her. They were young and pretty, too. If your not-so-sly grandmother weren’t so busy trying to push us together, she might’ve fixed you up with one of them. They were swooning over the sweet grandson who would do something so thoughtful.”
My eyes met Nora’s. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I’m glad Gram got you here.”
Nora’s face went soft, but she quickly caught herself and scowled. “Stop saying nice things. It’ll give me a rash.”
Maddie came skipping out of the house. “Nora, do you want to see the badge I’m working on? It’s called digital leadership. I’m making a website to earn it!”
“You are? I actually have a website, too. It’s more of a vlog.”
“What’s a vlog?”
“It’s a video blog. And you know who the star is?”
“Who?”
Nora bent down, putting her hands on her knees. “Your great grandmother.”
Maddie giggled. “Gigi can’t make a website. She told me the only web she knows about is the one growing over her hooha.” My daughter looked at me. “I almost forgot. Daddy, what’s a hooha? I asked Gigi, but she said to ask you because you couldn’t wait to tell me.”
I groaned, and Nora looked exceedingly amused. But she stood and held out her hand. “How about I show you my website and then you can show me yours?”
Maddie beamed. “Okay!”
I watched the two of them walk back into the house hand in hand. I must’ve had a little indigestion again, because I found myself rubbing at an ache just below my breastbone.
Don’t even go there, Cross.
She wants a relationship even less than you do.
Plus, she was a pain in my ass. We bickered all the time. Though shutting her up by sticking something in her mouth was one of my favorite pastimes.
I stole one last glance at Nora and Maddie, now sitting together on the couch, and forced myself to turn away.
A half hour later, we were all sitting at the dining room table eating lunch. I’d cooked way too much food, but at least everyone seemed hungry.
“Daddy, Gigi is friends with a woman named Mad Dog!” Her eyes were filled with delight.
“I know.”
“She wrote on her wall.”
I looked at Nora for a translation.
“My blog,” she explained. “There’s an area where people can leave notes and comments next to each video. Louise has become somewhat of a celebrity.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, when I first started the site, right before our trip, I had one regular visitor and commentor—my dad, William. But the video I did in the hospital the other day got almost two-thousand comments.”
“You’re kidding me.”
She shook her head. “Nope. I know what we’ve been doing has never quite sat right with you, but Louise has touched a lot of people.”
“Where did all the people commenting come from?”
Nora shrugged. “We’ve met a lot of people during our travels. Once we tell them Louise’s story and that we’re documenting it to inspire others living with terminal illness, people start following the vlog and telling their friends. Like when we were at the ranch in Montana, we met a blacksmith. We watched him put shoes on a few of the older horses. Turns out his wife works at a residential retirement community. When we told him about the trip we were taking, he told his wife, and the next day he brought her to the ranch. She’d shown some of our videos to the residents where she worked, and a few who had started to be homebodies reached out to their families to go out more, make plans to do things they’d been putting off. I think a hundred new people followed us that day alone. People hear about Louise—or better yet, meet her—and they can’t help but be inspired.”
“Wow.”
“You should check out my recent vlog posts, read some of the comments. People from all over are rooting for her with each activity. Louise and I have even talked about starting a foundation because so many people have offered to sponsor our trip or just send money via Venmo.”
I searched Nora’s face. “How about you show me the comments after dinner?”
Her genuine smile was beautiful. I rubbed my breastbone again. I should’ve taken a Prilosec or something.
After we finished eating, Nora and Maddie insisted on cleaning up since I’d done all the cooking. Nora set me up with her laptop in the living room, giving me a quick tour of her website before leaving me at the page with all the videos. Of course, I pretended I hadn’t already stalked her videos—especially the ones of her in the bikini. But in truth, I hadn’t checked it in a few weeks. I hadn’t realized she’d continued posting once Gram was admitted to the hospital.
I scrolled down to the bottom and watched the first video done in the hospital. Gram’s face came on the screen. I recognized the background as the ICU ward in Gatlinburg. She must’ve recorded it when I’d stepped out to do a Zoom call once or twice, because the rest of the time Nora and I had been together.
My grandmother looked frail and weak, night-and-day different from the way she looked today. She talked about what had happened to her—giving details of the tumor location and the stroke she’d suffered. The last part got me choked up.
“Listen, I’ve had fun. Lived a good life. Loved hard. Helped raise two boys I couldn’t be prouder of. So if this is my last video, don’t worry, I’ll never be dead—not even when my heart stops pumping. Because you never truly die when you live in the souls of the people you leave behind.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and read through the thousands of comments—people from her night in jail, people from the ranch she’d visited in Montana, her skydiving instructor, people who were sick themselves. There were quite a few posts from people outside the country.
It might’ve been the first time I truly understood what they were doing, why Nora was so taken with Gram and had basically put her life on hold to travel with a woman forty-nine years her senior. My grandmother defined life. And to many who went about their day-to-day existences forgetting to actually live—maybe myself included—she was an inspiration.
Nora walked over, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “Louise is going to lie down. Today was a busy day for her, being sprung and all.”
I started to get up. “Alright, I’ll help her.”
Nora shook her head. “I got it. Enjoy the videos.”
I nodded. But the last video had hit me hard, and I shut the laptop. Even scrolling back to lift my mood by watching a bikini video didn’t appeal to me. Instead, I thought I’d have another beer. On my way to the kitchen, someone knocked at my door.
When I opened it, I found a woman who lived in the building with her daughter. She and Maddie were the same age and had become good friends. They often got together on the days I had Maddie.
“Hi,” the woman said.
“Hello.”
She looked around me. “Is Maddie ready?”
My brows drew together. “Ready for…?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I assumed you knew. Maddie called Arianna and asked if she could come over for a playdate. The call came from your cell, so I thought you were okay with it. She said her great grandmother just got home from the hospital, and the apartment needed to be quiet.”
My daughter ran down the hall with her backpack on.
“Maddie, you called Arianna’s mom and asked if you could come over without telling me?”
“Gigi told me to. She said she needed to rest.”
Considering my daughter could quietly play by herself for hours, and my grandmother knew it, I smelled something fishy.
Arianna’s mom interrupted my ruminations. “We’re happy to have her. Arianna and I are going to the library for story time and then to the park for a little while.”
Maddie clasped her hands together in the prayer position. “Please, Daddy, can I go? I love the li-berry.”
I ruffled her hair. “It’s li-brary, and how can I say no when you’re more excited about the library than the park?”
Maddie jumped up and down. “Thanks, Daddy!”
“I’ll have her back by say…” Arianna’s mom looked at her watch. “Is six okay? That way we have time to stop for ice cream, too.”
I smiled. “That’s great. Thank you very much.”
As soon as I shut the door, Nora came walking down the hall. She looked left and right. “Where’s Maddie?”
“She just went on a playdate, which my grandmother apparently arranged.”
Nora shook her head. “I’m guessing that’s why I was just kicked out of her room, yet she asked me to stay until she woke up—in case she needs help going to the ladies’ room.”
I squinted. “Does she seem like she needs help going to the bathroom?”
Nora laughed. “Definitely not. She’s at it again.”
“I feel like we’re all just marionettes, living in Louise’s puppet theatre.”
“And I fall for it every time.” She sighed. “I should go.”
“No. Stay, please.”
“You just said she doesn’t need my help.”
I was quiet for a minute, debating whether I should be honest. Nora was skittish when it came to me, almost like an abused dog adopted by a new family. She would let me near her when she felt like it, but God forbid I advance first. Yet I went with the truth.
“She doesn’t need help. But I want you to stay anyway.”
“Beck…”
“Can’t we be friends?”
“The last time we had an innocent few hours together, it ended with you getting me off in public, and me returning the favor on the ride home.”
I grinned. “It’s a fucking great friendship, isn’t it?”
Nora chuckled. “I thought we’d already decided we weren’t friends. I believe your exact words were ‘we don’t like each other enough.’”
“I changed my mind.”
She made a skeptical face. “I’m going to call bullshit.”
I started to feel a little panicky, like she wasn’t going to stay no matter what I said. So I was forced to pull out the big guns.
“One drink. Watching the videos and seeing all the comments strangers posted on your wall got to me. I don’t feel like being alone. Besides, I want to talk to you about something.”
Nora looked back and forth between my eyes like she was gauging my sincerity. Then she nodded. “Okay. But not one piece of clothing comes off.”
I could think of a thousand ways to please this woman while not technically removing an article of clothing. But I kept that to myself. Instead, I treated her like any other friend who’d come over. “How about we have cigars and whiskey out on the balcony?”
Nora’s face lit up. “I’ve never tried a cigar.”
It wasn’t my first choice of items for her to wrap her lips around, but it would have to do…for now.
