“Lynn.”
“Lynn. Tim, Lynn, I’m so happy for you both. And I love you, Timmy, so much. But you have to understand. When I met you, everybody was dead. My husband; two of my kids; my parents, of course; my sister; all of my friends—not everybody, but, yeah, kind of everybody, you know? And I was part dead from it. I didn’t know I was at the time. And believe me—I was so happy and grateful for the love I did have in my life, in the form of you and your little sister, whose name escapes me at the moment. Danielle! That was her name, wasn’t it? My, what a beauty.” Nana smiled at the memory. “She was my … I loved you all equally, all so much. That love was real. And it still is. And Lynn, welcome to the family.” She hugged Tim again and kissed Lynn on the cheek. “Oh, isn’t it exciting? Everyone’s here. There’s so much going on!”
Nana took a drag from the live half of a cigarette, which she had neatly hidden between her fingers by the doorknob.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” said Nana. “You have infinite time here, and there are infinite things to do, but you still don’t end up doing much of it. You do what you love most, over and over.”
She took another breath of smoke, which couldn’t kill her now. “There’s something I think about sometimes, when I’m walking through the town, looking at the different concerts. So many of them were so big in their time, and people loved them, but maybe it’s just ’cause that was all they had, you know? There’s this guy, Dan Fogelberg. I recognize the name, I think your mom liked him, he did this song and that song. I’m not saying he wasn’t great or a big deal or worth seeing. I’m sure he was great. But no one goes to heaven to see Dan Fogelberg. You know what I mean?”
Yes, said Tim.
Yes, said Lynn.
“I love you, Timmy. It’s just … I only knew you for nine years. And I’m young here. You know? I have other things to do besides dinner-at-Grandma’s.”
He got it. And he got her, too, more than ever, and maybe for the first time.
“I love you, Nana,” said Tim.
“I love you, too,” said Nana. “Gotta go.”
Romance, Chapter One
“The cute one?”
“No, the other cute one.”
“Oh, she’s cute too.”
Julie and the Warlord
“Okay,” she laughed after three complicated cocktails. “Now, you, sir …”
“Yes.”
“You, sir … Now … I am … Okay. I feel like we’ve only talked about me. But I don’t know anything about you. Other than that you’re very, um, charming and, well, very cute, of course. Ha, don’t let that go to your head! Shouldn’t have said that.”
“Thank you.”
“But I feel—okay, if this is my—well. Okay: what do you do?”
“What do I do? You mean what is my job?”
“Sorry, I hate that question, too. It’s like, is this a date or an interview, right?”
He finished his bite of sauce-soaked broccolini and answered, but she didn’t hear him clearly.
“Hmmmmmmmmmm? All I heard was ‘lord.’ ”
“Yes.”
“Ooh! Okay, this is fun. Are you a … landlord? Because I do not have the best history getting along with landlords. My first apartment—”
“I’m not a landlord.”
“Are you … a … drug lord?” Julie said, stroke-poking the side of his face with her finger. “ ’Cause that could be a problem.”
“No.”
“You’re not … the Lord, are you? Because I haven’t gone to temple since my Bat Mitzvah. Ha, don’t tell my grandma!”
He laughed politely. She could tell he was laughing just to be nice—and she liked that more than if he had laughed from finding her funny. A nice guy: now that would be a real change of pace for her.
“Then what kind of lord are you, anyways, eh?” she asked with an old-timey “what’s the big idea” accent. God, she was a bit tipsy, wasn’t she?
“I’m a warlord.”
“In-ter-est-ing! Now, I don’t know exactly what this is. But I want to learn. So: what exactly … is … a warlord?” Julie asked, her chin now resting playfully on a V of two upturned palms. “Educate meeeee.”
“Okay. Can you picture where the Congo is on a map?”
“Kinda,” she exaggerated.
“This is Africa,” he said, pointing to an imaginary map in the air between them. “This is the Indian Ocean. This is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is just regular Congo.”
“What? Hold up—”
“I know—that’s just how it is. I didn’t name them,” the warlord laughed. “Anyway. This? All this, here? This is what I control.”
“So you’re like … the governor of it?”
“No. There are areas of the world where it will show up on your map as a certain country. But in reality, no government is in control of that region, in any real way. They cannot collect taxes. They cannot enforce laws. Do you follow?”