Page 34 of Ten Beach Road

Thirteen

The days passed in an endless blur of floor mopping, window washing, baseboard wiping, and cobweb removing. Despite Robby the plumber’s constant presence they still had only one working bathroom, which required varying degrees of patience and bladder control and, at times, negotiation. Nicole had worked hard all of her life, but it had been almost two decades since that work had been physical. Pilates and jogging had not prepared her body for what was required of it now. Nor was she comfortable with the outward physical manifestations of hard labor; each jagged nail, each gash and scrape and bruise felt like a personal insult. She continued to put on makeup each morning, but she was pathetically grateful that the bathroom mirror was murky and that there were so few shiny surfaces in which she’d be forced to confront her reflection. Coming up with that “one good thing” during their group sunsets was already a challenge and the most grueling grunt work had not even begun.

It was a sign of just how radically her life had changed that Nicole was actually looking forward to going to the grocery store with Madeline. Until she realized that Madeline intended for them to go in the minivan.

Nicole jangled her keys to get Madeline’s attention and motioned toward the Jag. “Why don’t we take my car? It’s not like we’re planning to buy those huge cartons of . . . everything.”

Madeline stopped where she was and gave Nicole what she was beginning to think of as the “mother look.”

“My car does have a trunk, you know,” Nicole pointed out, trying not to sound too eager. “And we could put the top down.”

“It’s just easier with the van,” Madeline said, clicking the dratted doors open. “Why don’t we save your car for a fun ride somewhere?” She said this as one might when negotiating with a child, then slid into the driver’s seat and waited for Nicole to get in beside her. If she offered an ice cream on the way back, Nicole was going to give her some serious shit.

They drove off the beach to a Home Depot, where they wandered the aisles with a list from Avery in hand, finally finding the brass and chrome polish and extra tools she’d asked for. At the grocery store, Madeline wheeled the cart, pulled coupons from her alphabetized holder, and checked things off the list as Nicole retrieved them. All around them people twice their ages pushed mostly empty carts, which held them upright, or motored by on store-provided scooters. Many of those people stared at her outright.

Nicole stared back, taking in their age spots and wrinkles; the thin hair through which their scalps showed; the cloudy eyes that glimmered briefly with interest as they passed.

In New York you saw the occasional older person hobbling by on a cane or being pushed in a wheelchair, but they were easily overlooked in the jostle of the crowds. In L.A., she encountered very few older people—at least none who looked or admitted to anything near their actual age. She assumed the really elderly were holed up somewhere or had been tucked away by their families. By L.A. standards she was already well over the hill, but her persona as dating guru and matchmaker had kept her on the party circuit. Her income had allowed her to stave off the more obvious signs of aging, which were so prominently displayed here. Nicole shuddered slightly. If they didn’t get Bella Flora finished and off their hands, she’d have to live with whatever Mother Nature decided to do to her.

In the freezer section she paused to watch a wispy-haired woman bent nearly double over her cane traverse the aisle. The woman paused for a moment to catch her breath. Before she hobbled on, she threw Nicole a pitying glance.

Turning quickly, Nicole caught a fleeting glimpse of wild hair and a dirt streaked face reflected off the freezer case. Aghast, she stared at the image while Madeline, who must have just realized that she was no longer beside her, turned and rolled the cart back to her side.

Nicole reached out toward the reflection. The mirror image reached back.

“Please tell me that isn’t me,” Nicole whispered, unable to tear her gaze away from the train wreck of red dust-streaked hair and dirt-smeared face. The black spandex running clothes were stained and bedraggled. “I didnotgo out looking like that.”

Madeline winced. “We were just running out to do some errands . . .” Her clothes were equally dirty, but at least her hair was up in a banana clip.

“Well, it may be okay for you,” Nicole said. “But I don’t go out into the world like this. Not ever.”

“Thanks.” Madeline’s tone was dry. “But it’s just a grocery store. And it’s pretty much filled with strangers. Not really enough to get all fixed up for.”

“But I . . .” Nicole pulled herself up as a guy with a beer belly stuffed into a stained Hawaiian shirt went by. Next came a woman in a snap-fronted housecoat.

Madeline was right. So a few elderly people felt sorry for her. So she could scare children. It was not the end of the world. Pretty soon they’d be back at Bella Flora where nobody cared what she looked like as long as she pulled her weight. And they never found out she was Malcolm’s sister. “Can we go now?”

Madeline looked at her list and then inside the basket, rifling through her coupons one last time. “Yes, we’re good.” She tucked the list into her purse and wheeled the cart toward the checkout. There they unloaded and pushed the cart toward the bagger. “But you need to stop worrying about your appearance. Even with the dirt accents and the windblown hair thing, you’re a very attractive woman.”

Partly mollified, Nicole pulled out her wallet and waited for the cashier, who might have been pushing ninety, to finish scanning their items. His name tag read Horace and his pace was too slow to be termed glacial. When he’d finally scanned and passed all their items down to the bagger and punched in Madeline’s coupon codes, he asked, “Do you want your senior discount with that?”

Nicole blinked. “I’m sorry,” she said, certain she’d misunderstood. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you wanted your senior discount. It’ll save you five percent on your total bill.”

Nicole couldn’t seem to catch her breath. The blood bubbled in her veins, looking for an escape hatch. Madeline blanched beside her.

“Do Ilooklike I should get a senior discount?” Nicole asked.

The cashier shrugged his bony shoulders. “Don’t get mad, now. I’m supposed to ask,” he said.

Nicole’s hands clamped on to the side of the checkout stand, which she figured was better than around Horace’s scrawny neck. “But you can’t possibly ask everyone. How old do you have to be to get the senior discount, Horace?” she asked.

“Fifty-five.” It was Horace’s turn to blink. “But if you aren’t . . .”

“Oh, my God!” She leaned closer prepared to choke the life out of him. The man actually thought she was fifty-five. “This is not happening!”

Madeline took Nicole by the arm to restrain her, then paid the now-trembling Horace. “Come on, Nicole,” she said in her mother tone as she maneuvered Nicole and the cart out of the store. “He just needs new glasses. Or maybe cataract surgery.”

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