Surprised? Ava thinks. Her mother rarely annoys her, but Margaret is coming dangerously close to doing so now. But before Ava can tactfully inform Margaret that she is perfectly capable of handling herself with PJ and with Potter in the role of father, Margaret says, “Oh, honey, I have to go to wardrobe. Roger is making ugly faces at me from down the hall. Love you, sweetie. We’ll miss you tomorrow night. Bye-bye.”
“Uh… bye,” Ava says. She hangs up and heads down the stairs. The phone call was meant to be supportive, she knows, but it leaves her feeling worse. Mostly because Margaret is nearly always right.
Ava has everything ready to go when Potter rings the buzzer: the soup is simmering on the stove, the grilled cheeses are composed, the salad greens are washed and topped with perfectly ripe slices of avocado. (From experience Ava has learned your chances of choosing a perfectly ripe avocado are approximately one in a hundred.) She and Potter don’t usually eat dessert, but because PJ is coming, Ava bought whoopie pies at the market, as well as some frightfully expensive organic ice pops. She’s playing Wilco—Potter’s favorite band—and the table is set for three, with glasses of ice water at two places and a glass of milk at the third.
She hears footsteps on the stairs, then Potter’s voice and a child’s voice. A child’s voice. This is real, Ava thinks. She’s about to meet Potter’s son.
She opens the door and stands on the landing wearing what she hopes is a carefree, welcoming smile. She notices tiny pinpricks of red on her white blouse—splatters from the tomato soup.
Oh well, Ava thinks. The blouse is a small sacrifice to make for this suddenly all-important dinner.
“Hi, guys!” Ava says as soon as the top of Potter’s head is visible.
Potter turns to give her a warning look. Ava realizes that Potter is pulling seven-year-old PJ up the stairs, and then Ava hears the sobbing. Potter makes it to the landing below Ava’s apartment with PJ in tow. When PJ looks up and sees Ava, he lets out an ear-piercing shriek.
Ava puts a finger to her lips. “The neighbors,” she says. “Mrs. Simonetta.” Mrs. Simonetta is sensitive to noise and has more than once complained about the volume at which Ava plays her Natalie Merchant. PJ’s scream will likely spur Mrs. Simonetta to phone in a SWAT team.
Potter picks PJ up, even though he is far too big. “You have to stop, PJ. Ava is nice. Ava is my friend and she wants to be your friend.”
PJ shrieks again.
The scene on the landing lasts another sixty seconds or so, with PJ shrieking every time Potter tells him Ava is nice and would PJ please climb the final set of stairs so they can eat supper. Mrs. Simonetta clearly isn’t home, because there is no way she would tolerate that kind of commotion outside her door.
Ava resorts immediately to bribery. “If you come upstairs, PJ, I’ll give you an ice pop. I have three flavors: cherry, grape, and orange.” In truth, the organic flavors are pomegranate, fig, and mango, but they can deal with Ava’s deception once they get the child up the stairs.
“I don’t want an ice pop!” PJ screams.
“I also have whoopie pies,” Ava says. She congratulates herself for “treading lightly.” Could Margaret Quinn herself be handling this any better?
“What about a whoopie pie, buddy? It’s chocolate cake with marshmallow filling.”
“No!” PJ screams. “No! No! No!” He looks up at Ava and says, “I hate you! I want my mom!”
Ava draws in a breath. She looks at Potter and sees the expression of helpless agony on his face. “I think he’s t-i-r-e-d from traveling,” Potter says.
“Okay,” Ava says. “Why don’t we try this again tomorrow?”
“But—,” Potter says.
“I am not tired!” PJ screams. “I’m screaming because I hate you! I hate you, lady!”
Ava channels her inner saint. She didn’t even know she had an inner saint, but apparently she does, because she smiles at Potter and says, “It’s fine. Call me later.”
“You win, buddy,” Potter says to PJ. “We’ll go home. But you and I are going to have a serious talk in the taxi.”
PJ races down the stairs. Potter mouths I love you to Ava, then chases after his son.
Ava closes the door of her apartment, flips the dead bolt, and stares at the table set for three, with the candles flickering and the red Gerber daisies showing their perky, optimistic faces. She inhales the scent of onions, tomato, and basil, and then she starts to cry.
KELLEY
He begged Mitzi to put off calling hospice until things got really bad.
Things are really bad.
Kelley had a seizure while watching a football game with Bart, and he lost the sight in his left eye. That sight is never coming back, Dr. Cherith said. And he may soon lose sight in his right eye. Then his hearing will go, his sense of smell, his ability to chew and swallow. He feels like the poor chump in the song “Moonshadow.”
Kelley is dying and there is nothing he can do to stop it. When Kelley was released from Mass. General after the seizure, he gave Mitzi the okay to call hospice and suspend operation of the inn.
The funny thing was that as soon as the hospice workers started showing up, Kelley felt better, stronger, healthier. He guesses he’s the healthiest person ever to use hospice. Today, the twenty-fourth of October, he has enough energy to use his walker all the way down the hall, through the living room, to the kitchen. He wants a cup of tea, and rather than ring his bell, he decides to go in search of the tea himself.
He says to Lara—Lara not Laura, she has corrected him three times, no concessions made for his pronunciation even though he has brain cancer—“Mitzi likes me to drink herbal tea, but would it be okay for me to have a cup of regular Lipton?”
Lara says, “I don’t think a cup of regular Lipton will hurt.”
Kelley decides to press his luck. He says, “What I’d really like is a teaspoon of white sugar in my regular Lipton tea. Not honey, not agave, not raw organic turbinado. Just good old white processed sugar.”
“Does Mrs. Quinn keep something as toxic as that in the house?” Lara asks.
“She does,” Kelley says. “We keep it on hand for the guests. There are packets of Domino in the breakfront. Might you grab me one… or two?”
Lara disappears into the guest dining room and emerges shortly thereafter shaking two sugar packets like castanets. Lara is a stickler about her name, but she is wonderfully lenient about other things, Kelley is happy to see.