Page 103 of Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

“Yes, dear.”

“You’re Mister Merrill’s mommy, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Are you gonna be my gramma when my mommy and Mister Merrill get married?”

All eyes shot to Mister Merrill then.

He just shrugged.

“I guess so,” his mother said.

“That’s good. I don’t have a gramma. Just a great-gramma, but I call her Gramma ’cause Great-gramma is too long to say.” She looked at Salome in case no one knew who she was talking about. “What should I call you? I can’t be calling two people Gramma, can I? Because two people would answer at the same time, and that would be confusing.” She giggled at her own words.

“You could call me Grandma Good, I suppose.”

“That would be silly.” Maggie giggled some more. “That would be like I have a good gramma and a bad gramma, and my great-gramma isn’t bad at all. Only when she swears at the slot machines. Swearing means bad words. Mister Merrill says I shouldn’t call him poopyhead anymore ’cause there’s a better word. Now I call him Stubb-head.”

“Stubb-head?” his mother sputtered.

Maggie nodded. “Sometimes he’s stubborn.”

“Tell me about it!” his mother remarked, looking pointedly at Merrill.

“Call her Nana,” Merrill’s father suggested. “That’s another name for grandmother. It’s what I called my grandmother.”

Really?

Time to put some brakes on this line of talk, but before he could speak, Salome came to the rescue. “Come down from there, Magpie. You’ve done enough talking for now.” Salome helped Maggie get off the bed and then addressed his mother. “Listen, Mrs. Good, we’re not going to be any trouble at all. It will only be for a few days. You won’t even know we’re around.”

That is doubtful.

Thankfully, Salome had left the e-cigarettes in his truck. They would have given his mother another heart attack, and his father his first one, no doubt.

“That’s all right. Merrill explained the situation to my husband, and we want to help in any way we can,” his mother said.

He hadn’t told his father everything, but enough to know that Maggie was in danger of being taken into foster care. He was relieved to know his mother would cooperate, too. Luckily, Ben had returned to Maryland to join Van. He wasn’t so sure they would have been so compliant, especially Van.

“Well, I’m gonna help you, too,” Salome said to his mother. “Don’t take any offense, sweetie, but you’ve got a line of snow on your roof that shouldn’t be there. I can take care of that, lickety-split, and without going to any fancy pancy beauty salon.” His mother glanced to him and his father for help, but Salome was already searching for something in her purse, which was about the size of a barge. Out of it, she pulled a small case of what looked like crayons. “Touch-up sticks,” she announced. “A woman’s guardian angel in times of beauty stress.”

Holding one after another of the sticks next to her mother’s head, she smiled and said, “Wall-ah!”

He assumed she meant “voilà!”

“See. A perfect match!” she told his mother, who was actually looking pleased, after looking at herself in a hand mirror that Salome also pulled out of her purse.

“In fact,” his mother said, “thank you. I’ve been so embarrassed. I had a hair appointment the day I had my heart attack, and my roots were showing even back then. I can’t believe you did it here in a hospital room.”

“I have other things to show you, too. Did I mention I’m an Avon Lady? Merrill told me you’re a college professor. Well, between you and me, it don’t matter what a woman does for a living, whether she’s a showgirl like I was one time, or a lawdy-dawdy, high-falutin’ egghead, she wants to look good.”

Oh, my Lord! Did she just call my mother a lawdy-dawdy, high-falutin’ egghead, uh, intellectual?

To his surprise, his mother smiled, and his father, behind him, snickered.

And Maggie, already engrossed in her DVD player, remarked idly, “I like eggs.”

Earth to aliens: Is this bizarro-land, or what?