21

“TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR young man,” Stormy says. We’re sitting cross-legged on her floor,
setting aside pictures and mementos for her scrapbook. She was the only one to show up for
Scrapbooking to the Oldies today, so we moved it over to her apartment. I’d worried Janette would
notice the low attendance, but since I started volunteering, she hasn’t so much as popped her head in.
All the better.
“What do you want to know about him?
“Does he play any sports?”
“He plays lacrosse.”
“Lacrosse?” she repeats. “Not football or baseball or basketball?”
“Well, he’s very good. He’s being recruited by colleges.”
“Can I see a picture of him?”
I get my phone out and pull up a picture of the two of us in his car. He’s wearing a hunter green
sweater that I think he looks particularly handsome in. I like him in sweaters. I get the urge to cuddle
and pet him like a stuffed animal.
Stormy looks at it closely. “Huh,” she says. “Yes, he is very handsome. I don’t know if he’s as
handsome as my grandson, though. My grandson looks like a young Robert Redford.”
Whoa.
“I’ll show you if you don’t believe me,” she says, getting up and rooting around for a picture.
She’s opening drawers, moving papers around. Any other grandmother at Belleview would already
have a picture of her beloved grandson on display. Framed, above the TV or on the mantel. Not
Stormy. The only pictures she has framed are pictures of herself. There’s a huge black-and-white
bridal portrait in the entryway that takes up nearly the whole wall. Though I suppose if I was once
that beautiful, I would want to show it off too. “Huh. I can’t find a picture.”
“You can show me next time,” I say, and Stormy lowers herself back down on the couch.
She puts her legs up on the ottoman. “Where do young people go these days for a little alone time?
Is there no ‘Lookout Point’ type of place?” She’s digging, she’s definitely digging for information.
Stormy’s a bloodhound when it comes to sniffing out juicy goods, but I’m not giving up a thing. Not
that I even have much juice to offer her.
“Um, I don’t know... I don’t think so.” I busy myself with cleaning up a pile of scraps.
She starts to cut up some trimmings. “I remember the first boy I ever went parking with. Ken
Newbery. He drove a Chevy Impala. God, the thrill of a boy putting his hands on you for the first
time. There’s nothing quite like it, is there, dear?”
“Mm-hmm. Where’s that stack of old Broadway playbills you had? We should do something with
those, too.”
“They might be in my hope chest.”
The thrill of a boy putting his hands on you for the first time.
I get a shivery feeling in my stomach. I do know that thrill. I remember it perfectly, and I would
even if it hadn’t been caught on camera. It’s nice to think of it again as its own memory, separate from
the video and everything that followed.