Page 3 of Just Beachy

“What? Why?”

“It’s your grandmother.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you in Treasure Island? What does that have to do with Grand?” I swallow. “Is she okay?”

My grandmother’s name is Lillian Louise Wilde. She’s eighty-three now and has been a widow for almost six years. We call her Grand because she is.

“She came down to visit a friend on Treasure Island and hasmissed several flights home. Now that I’m here, she keeps going on about how much she loved family vacations on the west coast of Florida when she was a child. Yesterday, out of the blue, she announced that she wants to live here full-time, and I can’t make her listen to reason.”

I slow down for a semi that’s turning off the highway. “There’s really nothing unreasonable about someone in their eighties wanting to move to Florida,” I venture. I don’t add that Grand is an artist and “reason” is not her “go to” setting, because if anyone knows that, it’s my mother.

“Well,” my mother huffs. “If she were actually going to live down here, she’d be best off in a senior living scenario.” She huffs again. “I’ve been trying to get her to go look at Covington Arms, which is a lovely senior living facility in Tampa. It has all kinds of amenities and activities,including a beautiful restaurant with a gourmet chef, but she’s dug in and you know how hard it is to dislodge her.” This belongs in the category of “takes one to know one,” but I don’t mention this, either. Maybe I’m finally learning to think before I speak.

“I need you here so that you can help me convince her to make the right decisions.”

“Gang up on her, you mean?” Okay, maybe I’m not quite there yet with the “thinking before speaking” thing.

“Now, darling, there’s no need to get dramatic,” she chides. My mother enjoys the theater but is not a fan of real-life drama. She used to refer to me as “Sarah Bernhardt” whenever I “gave in to my emotions” as a child. It was my grandmother who gave me a Bernhardt biography for my sixth birthday and convinced me that being compared to Sarah Bernhardt was a great compliment.

“I need you to get down here and help make your grandmother see reason.Now.”

I am, of course, not the most reasonable member of my family, as my mother has often pointed out, which goes to show just how desperate she is. Personally, I think Grand should be free to choose how and where she lives.

On the other hand, I currently have no life. No career. No plans for anything beyond my visit with Linda. And Tallahassee’s only about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Treasure Island and Pass-a-Grille, where my friend Kyra, her mother, and what I still think of as “the ladies of Ten Beach Road” live.

“I can drive down tomorrow afternoon.”

“Nowwould be much better…” My mother’s voice gets muffled. The next voice I hear is my grandmother’s.

“Don’t let your mother rush you, Sydney. As much as I’d love to see you, I’m perfectly fine. And completely capable of making my own decisions.” She says this with her usual gusto. But there’s a bit of a tremor in her voice that I’ve never heard before.

“I’d love to come down and hang out with you, Grand.” I realize as I say this just how true it is. My grandmother has always been a “force” and an important part of my life. She was a bold woman before bold was considered beautiful. “I can drive down tomorrow afternoon and be there in time for dinner.”

“That would be lovely, Sydney. But notnecessary.”

“I know, Grand. But I am at a bit of a loose end. Would you mind if I came?”

“Of course not. I’d love for you to visit. You’re always welcome wherever I am.”

“Thanks, Grand. I can’t wait to see you.” I smile again, realizing that this, too, is true.

I’ll go down, try to keep my mother from steamrolling Grand, grab some girl time with Kyra, and make sure she knows that Tonja Kay is still on the warpath. Maybe even sip some piña coladas on the beach and get my act together. It’s such a perfect plan that I ignore my mother’s loud—some might say overly dramatic—sigh of relief in the background as I hang up.

This is the first thing I’ve looked forward to since that awful read-through.

• • •

I call Kyrafrom the road the next day and arrange to meet her for a drink out on Pass-a-Grille before I have to face my mother, which means that once I cross over the Howard Frankland Bridge and get my first glimpse of water, I continue south until I can exit onto the Pinellas Bayway, which deposits me onto Gulf Boulevard directly across from the Don CeSar Hotel, the huge pink wedding cake of a building built in the 1920s.

Kyra’s mother, Maddie Singer; Nicole Grant; and Avery Lawford managed to nurse a Mediterranean-style home named Bella Flora back to life when it was all they had left after losing everything in a Ponzi scheme. Not long after that grueling renovation, megastar Daniel Deranian bought Bella Flora for Kyra and their son, Dustin, which definitely contributed to Daniel’s wife, Tonja Kay’s determination to do as much harm as possible to Kyra, her family, and her friends (apparently including yours truly).

I turn left onto Gulf Boulevard, take a short right then a left onto Gulf Way, which hugs the beach and the Gulf of Mexico and leads to the southernmost tip of Pass-a-Grille, where Bella Flora sits. I drive slowly behind a long line of cars with out-of-state plates and pass a seemingly endless row of parked cars that face the sidewalk and the low concrete wall bordering the beach. Wooden walkovers span the dunes, protecting the sea oats and leading onto the soft, white sand that stretches down to the Gulf.

As I inch along, I lower the car windows to take in deepbreaths of the salt-tinged air that’s so different from the lighter, drier air of Southern California.

Even this small thought yanks me back to LA and dredges up all the images I’ve been tamping down the entire drive: the Craftsman bungalow that I fell in love with and turned into my dream home, my life, my career. Thinking of all the things I’ve lost makes my chin quiver. Hot tears turn the sand and water into a blurry mass. Despite the sunshine and the welcoming caw of gulls, I am bereft and pathetic.

I’m so not ready for my mother. For her desire to fix me. To fix my mistakes. To force me to plow forward when all I want is to curl into a ball and hide. It’s hard enough to handle her relentless need for action when things are going well.

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