“Why hello!” said a voice above her head. Kaily looked up and her finger froze
millimeters from the doorbell.
“Can I help you?” the frail old lady on the roof asked her. “If you’re one of those
salespeople, we’re not interested! Really, you’d think that once you get this old you
wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore!”
“Um, no, actually my name is Kaily O’Conner and I’m looking for my
grandmother Mirriam O’Conner. This is where she lives?”
“Huh? Oh. This blasted thing is off again!” the elderly woman reached up her
hand and fiddled with something in her ear. “Okay, better. What did you say? And speak
slowly this time.”
“I’m looking for my grandmother Mirriam O’Conner,” Kaily said, annunciating
each word. “Is this where she lives?”
“Mirriam? Yes, this is her house. Who did you say you were?”
Kaily sighed, she was getting frustrated. “My name is Kaily, I’m her
granddaughter. I came for a visit.”
“Kaily? Oh goodness, you should have said so to begin with! Just wait down
there for a minute and I’ll get off this blasted roof and show you where she is.” The odd
woman disappeared from her line of sight, and Kaily took a moment to look at the
scrunched up paper from her pocket. In her mom’s scrawl, her grandmother’s address
was written and the phone number to call her at while her mom was away on her cruise.
Kaily took a deep breath, it wasn’t that she wanted to go with her mom and her latest
boyfriend on their little vacation, but at least she could have stayed with her best friend
Sylvie. Now she was going to be stuck in South Florida in her grandmother’s retirement
community. On top of that, the first person she meets has to be a crazy, roof climbing
lady who with a salesmen phobia! A breeze rustled Kaily’s waist length waves, and a
river of red fiery hair floated up in the wind. Then she heard a crash.
Kaily followed a moan around the corner of the generic white house and stopped
dead in her tracks. The woman from the roof was lying face up on a crushed peony bush,
a ladder standing a few feet away, balanced against the house and perfectly erect.
“Blast! Well, are you just going to stand there?! Help me up, or get someone who
will!” the angry white haired woman yelled and as she started dialing the number for an
ambulance, Kaily groaned. It was going to be a long summer.
*
*
*
*
*
The next day, Kaily woke up, slowly opening her eyes to the sunny light
gleaming through the windows. Shadows of the wind chimes in her grandmother’s small
back yard danced on the thin comforter, and their tinkling was faint but calming. She got
up and smoothed back the covers of her bed, then walked to the living room. Kaily had
always been a morning person, in stark contrast with her mother who would sleep past
noon every day if she could.
She looked out the front window and started braiding her red-gold hair. Yesterday
had been tiring. She settled into the plushy patterned couch and let her mind wander back
to yesterday’s events. After the woman had fallen from the roof, she had had to be taken

to the hospital. From the ER they called her daughter. The whole time she waited, Kaily
listened, her face frozen in a smile, to the woman complain about the meals, the doctors,
the TV stations, the room she was put in, even the name of the attending nurse.
“What kind of name is Daisy? That’s a name you’d give a cow or a pig, or some
other type of farm animal! Oh, blast! Not the chocolate pudding again! You’d think that
if this hospital is so big, they’d have more meal options. Huh? Oh, fine I’ll eat it. But I
won’t like it! Now look at all those commercials! You’d think…” and on she would go. It
seemed that she didn’t like anything or anyone, and didn’t stop telling you so. That’s
when Kaily’s grandmother finally made an appearance.
“Oh, honey! I'm so sorry I wasn't here earlier! I called your mom when you didn't
show up, and she said that the bus had dropped you off an hour ago, but I had been at my
shuffleboard team practice, and that's when I heard about Roberta falling off the roof
again and how a young redheaded girl had gone with her in the ambulance, so I hurried
here as fast as I could, but that took some time because I had to have one of the
community’s drivers bring me over,” she said in one breath. "My goodness you're so tall
now! The last time I saw you, you were so young, but now you're all grown up! A lady!
Anyway, how’s Roberta? This is the third time this year she's been on someone's roof,
we keep telling her it's dangerous, but she's convinced she's immortal."
"Oh, Mirriam. You're finally here. What took you so long?" Roberta asked
impatiently.
"Shuffleboard practice ran late," Kaily’s grandmother answered cheerfully.
Kaily stared at the two women, her gray eyes open painfully wide. Her eyes
flitted from one person to the other. First she looked at the cranky, stubborn face that
sagged from old age sitting on the hospital bed, then to the grinning face of her
grandmother. Straight faded blonde hair cut in a fashionable bob and a face full of laugh
lines. They could not have been more different, and yet they seemed really close.
The smoke alarm went off and snapped Kaily back to the present.
"Oh no, the scones are burning!"
Kaily walked into the kitchen and watched, fascinated, as her grandmother rushed
toward the smoking oven wearing flower printed oven mitts, threw open the door, and
took out a tray of light brown biscuits from the rack.
"Thank heavens! The scones will just be a little crunchy."
Kaily surveyed the scene before her. Pots and mixing bowls lay piled up in the
sink covered in dough and white, powdery flour. The island in the middle of the kitchen
was covered with an assortment of measuring cups, spoons, spices, cooking
thermometers, open cartons of heavy cream, milk, baking powder, and small blocks of
chocolate. The counters were riddled with dirty plates, knives, a blender filled with some
green liquid, and rolls of aluminum foil and waxed paper. She looked at the floor; it too
was scattered with napkins, dirty towels, and fallen utensils. The kitchen was a mess.
Kaily’s grandmother finally noticed her standing there. "Finally up, are we? I'm
just making some breakfast, and some snacks for later on," she said, a spot of cream on
her cheek and several unidentifiable stains on her apron. Kaily looked up at the clock on
the kitchen wall; it was only five past six in the morning. She wondered how long her
grandmother had been cooking.
“Get dressed in something comfortable, because after breakfast we’re leaving,”
her grandmother said, “and we probably won’t back in time for dinner. So if you need to,
bring something to go.”
What on Earth was she talking about? Kaily wondered. I thought that old people
didn’t do anything all day long. Kaily, sighed. She turned around and walked back into
the spare bedroom. She had a bad feeling about this.
*
*
*
*
*
“A little higher, yes, just on the left. Right there, perfect! Oh it looks so much
better now, doesn’t it?” a redheaded elderly woman wearing an old-fashioned straw hat
asked.
“Really? I think we could trim it a little more, and then it would look more
symmetrical. What do you think Mirriam?” an aged brunette in gardening gloves
responded.
“I think that what ever you decide, that hedge looks beautiful. But maybe we
should focus on the roses in the corner. They’re looking a little drab, don’t you think?”
And so continued the conversation, completely ignoring the girl on the ladder
holding the ancient, heavy pruning shears. Kaily had somehow been roped into being her
grandmother’s assistant in all her clubs. It all began in the library with the book club,
when all the members used her to get the books on the top shelf. Then, at the knitting
club she had to roll up all the yarn that one of the member’s cats had played with. In
Bridge club, she had to be the dealer, and everyone seemed to cheat! In cooking class,
she did the dishes. In Shuffleboard practice, she led the stretches. And in the water
aerobics, she helped all the seniors get in and out of the pool.
“Kaily, honey, we’re all heading back to Eunice’s house now for some tea. So can
you please put the ladder back in the tool shed? We’ll wait for you out here,” Kaily’s
grandmother said. Kaily slowly got off the ladder her sore calf muscles protesting the
movement. She had been on that ladder for the better part of an hour, and was ready to
fall into her bed at home and go to sleep. However, she folded up the ladder and carried it
into the shed reserved for the gardening club’s equipment. She had never heard of a
retirement community with so many clubs and classes! It reminded her more of a
community center for kids, not for 60+ residents.
She followed her grandmother back to the redhead’s house and when they got
there, gratefully took a seat on one of the plushy, floral embroidered couches in the living
room. Though the outside of all the houses looked the same, Kaily knew that the insides
could not have been more different. Her grandmother’s was full of oil paintings, and
glass balls; on the other hand, Eunice’s was scented and smelled of lavender. All the
paintings on the walls were of mountains and rivers from the north with evergreens
dotting the distance. Eunice eyed her looking at the paintings.
“Beautiful, aren’t they? I used to live in Washington State with my husband,
before he died. It was always so beautiful,” she said wistfully, “But it’s much warmer
here, so I won’t complain,” she laughed, and it sounded like the tinkling of rusty chimes,
youthful and happy, and Kaily joined in.
One by one, the other residents came pouring into the lavender living room; she
recognized a few. There was the tall man with salt and pepper hair from the Bridge club
who knew fifteen different ways to cut the deck, and always turn up an Ace. Then the
brunette named Martha from the garden who said she used to snowboard before she
learned to shuffleboard. Kaily watched the lady in an African robe waltz in, who spent all
of knitting club painting a replica of a Monet watercolor that looked strangely identical to
the original. Then the tall white-haired woman who burned everything during cooking
class sauntered in. And finally the mousy, dark haired swimmer from water aerobics that
was the fastest amongst all the class, her hair still dripping from the pool. Even Roberta
had been released from the hospital and was there complaining to Eunice, who was
looking at her with a vacant smile.
Eunice’s living room was officially full, and Kaily’s grandmother decided it was
time to get everyone’s attention.
“Everyone, everyone! I’d like to officially introduce you all to someone. So if I
could have your attention.”
“Huh?” someone said.
“If I could have your attention, I want to introduce someone special to you,” her
grandmother repeated.
“What did you say?” they asked again.
“Can someone please help Donald with his hearing-aide,” she replied, her smile
completely intact. How does she do it? Kaily thought. She was starting to get a feeling of
deja vu, and she remembered how frustrated she had gotten at Roberta the day before.
“Thank you. I would like you all to meet my granddaughter Kaily, who is going
to spend the summer here! Most of you have met her today during one or another of our
clubs, but I wanted you all to meet her officially and welcome her to the Mimosa Drive
Retirement Community, because as I’m sure she has noticed, we’re not like any others!”
she laughed. “Anyway, Eunice has some tea and brandy ready and the sandwiches, if any
of you are hungry. And we have something without tomatoes for you Estella,” she said
pointing to the robed woman, “and something gluten free for you Martha. That’s all!
Thank you!”
Everyone stopped for a minute and looked at Kaily, waved hello, then turned
back to their conversations. Kaily walked over to her grandmother and gave her a hug.
The first hug she had given her since she had washed up at her door.
“Thank you for that, grandmother” she said, a little awkwardly. Normally Kaily
didn’t like to be the focus of attention, but for some reason that had felt good. As if now
she was one of the rest, excluding the fact that she wasn’t a senior citizen.
“It was my pleasure, honey. And from now on call me Nana, okay?”
“Okay…Nana,” Kaily responded, beaming. For the first time, she was happy her
mom had sent her here; it was going to be an interesting summer. She didn’t know what
she was going to do, but she knew it was going to be fun. Suddenly, they heard a
commotion.
“Roberta’s on the roof again!”
Yep, it’s going to be interesting summer.