Page 16 of Sort of Seeing Someone

The next day, I walk over to the neighborhood CVS for a tube of Chapstick. At some point, this lip color from Yas—amazing as it is—turned my lips into the Sahara Desert. Esther Higgins said I’ll get another chance withthe one, which, by process of elimination, can only beBrody. In the event he rides by on skateboard while I’m packing up my things and we end up making out one last time before my flight to ORD, I don’t want his last memory of me to be the girl with the dry, cracked lips.

In the checkout lane, I notice a book of crossword puzzles. I’m sure none of the clues in the crossword book have to do with popstars or A-list celebrities, but I grab it anyway as a parting gift for Gerda. Then, I double back to the school supply aisle and grab her a fresh pack of Dixon Ticonderogas.

Just then, a ping on my phone. It’s my mom.

Sorry I didn’t call yesterday.The day got away from me.

No worries,I reply back, wondering just how many hours she spent on the pickleball court before she realized it was too late to call her daughter on her birthday.

So…how was your birthday?! Do anything special?she asks, the same way she’d inquire about how my school day was when I was little.

Now, I decide—when I’m next in the check-out lane—is not the time to fill her in on just howspecialmy birthday turned out to be.

Nope! Just your standard b-day, I fudge.

Oh. Okay. Just checking.

She sounds disappointed. I wonder if her Mother’s Intuition can sense the dread of the day?

CVS’s signature four-foot-long receipt prints out after I pay and I scan it for any good coupons before tossing it in the trash with the other five hundred receipts. When looking at it, the date and time stamp catches my eye. It’s 2pm on Friday, September 13th. I know Gerda said she and Betty weren’t leaving until the nighttime, but a part me worries that “nighttime” to a woman her age is really 4pm. I don’t want to miss saying goodbye to her, so I head straight home.

“Find a place to live yet?” Gerda asks the moment she opens Betty’s door after my first knock. I can tell this has been weighing on her mind.

“Yes. But…it’s in Chicago. My sister’s house.”

“Oh, dear. I was afraid that was what it would come to,” she says.

“Please don’t think this your fault—it’s not. My life actually came crashing down in more ways than one and it’s just…time.”

“When do you leave?” she asks me, still standing in her the doorway facing the alley.

“I guess I’ll fly back tomorrow. Nothing is really keeping me here, you know?” I say the quiet part out loud.

“Can we have the rest of this conversation on the patio? For old time’s sake?”

I nod and she follows me across the alley to the backdoor of her OB beach house. We walk through it to get to the patio on the front side, like we’ve done so many times before. However, this time, Gerda walks extra slow through the teeny tiny house. She traces her finger along the walls and marvels all around like the ceiling was the Sistine Chapel.

“I’m really going to miss this place,” she sighs out.

“I am, too.”

“You know my husband, Larry?” she asks. “He actually diedinthe house. Right here, watchingJeopardy!to be exact. I was going to include that tidbit when I replied to your ad. I thought it was a fun fact. Betty talked me out of it. Said she thought it might scare someone away.”

Betty’s gut instinct for the win!

Finally outside the house someonedied in, we each take our respective seats at the table one last time. Gerda’s chair scrapes famously across the cement. I will not miss that sound.

“I feel so bad,” Gerda says.

“Don’t,” I reassure her. “I was renting a place too good to be true. There was no way this could last forever, even I knew that. I’m just grateful for the time I had here.”

“You’re making me out to sound like a scam artist.” Gerda shakes her fist at me.

“You know I don’t mean it like that,” I say. “I’m happy for you! Your new life sounds amazing.”

“What aboutyournew life? What’s happening there?”

“My older sister, Nora, called me yesterday. She needshelp with her two young boys. They can be a little much at times.”

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