Page 37 of The Backtrack
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“Look at my phone,” Pearl said, shoving the phone toward Sam.
Sam was on her hands and knees, cleaning out the area under the kitchen sink—which was so loaded with unopened dish soap, various cleaners and packages of sponges that it was impossible to see the bottom. She sat back on her heels, tore off the cleaning gloves and grabbed the phone.
“What am I looking at?” Sam only saw the lock screen, with a photo of Sam and Pearl toasting champagne flutes on one of her trips to visit Sam in Paris.
“Something’s wrong with my camera. I took photos of the sunrise. It’s the wrong color.”
“The wrong color?” Since Sam had been back, she’d fixed enough tech issues on Pearl’s iPhone to qualify her for a spot on the Apple Genius team.
“Look.” Pearl took the phone back, opened the screen and pulled up a photo of the neon orange sunrise splashed across the screen. “The sunrise this morning was pink, not orange.”
Sam frowned. She missed the tiny Cessna with Damon. She’d gone from being in flight to being on the ground, quite literally. “Grandma, I don’t really know how to fix this.”
“There must be some button.” Pearl grimaced at the phone screen. An alert sounded. “Oh, my,” she said.
“What now?” Sam said as she slipped the gloves back on.
“You remember Roberta Jones?”
Sam cleared her throat as she considered the name. “No.”
“She was on my poker team. Anyway, she had a heart attack and died.” Pearl shrugged, then walked off toward the fridge like she’d just reported the weather.
Pearl’s friends were dying off one by one, which made Sam think about how long Pearl would have if she checked herself into a retirement home. She didn’t want her grandma to just give up.
“Speaking of...”death, Sam thought, but instead said, “new life changes. I found a Realtor who specializes in downsize homes. You know, something smaller. A little bungalow might be nice. More manageable.”
Pearl didn’t say anything as she got a spoon, opened the lid of a yogurt and took a bite.
So Sam carried on trying to make the sell. “She said you’d get a great price for this place and could use that money to pay in cash for a smaller one.”
“And are you going to help me look at thesemore manageableplaces?” Pearl waved the spoon in the air. “Fill out the paperwork? Apply for a loan? Cosign the mortgage when they see I don’t have any income coming in?”
“Well, the Realtor—” Sam started again.
“I’m going to take a nap.” Pearl held her hand up like a stop sign to end the conversation. And without even looking at Sam, she headed off to her bedroom, yogurt still in hand.
Sam pressed her palms into the floor and let her head fall between her arms. Pearl wasn’t even willing to talk about alternative options. She couldn’t force her grandma to do something, even if it would be better for her in the long run.
Yesterday she’d been flying high, quite literally, but now she was grounded like a delayed flight and feeling helpless. She should just keep cleaning out the kitchen, but she wanted to feel good again. So she pulled her cell out of her back pocket and typed to Damon.
Sam:
Cleaning the kitchen today.
Going to need a drink later.
I’ll swing by the bar?
She went to pocket the phone just as it pinged. She glanced at the screen, but it wasn’t Damon.
Rachel:
Twenty minutes out. Bringing snacks.
Sam blew at a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail. Rachel was coming. She’d known this was happening, just not so soon. Having her friend here would be good, though, because she still needed to sort out the CD player. Something she couldn’t talk to Damon or Pearl about.
