Page 2 of Vera Stein Is Fine
Vera:
Miss you more than I missThe West Wing.
“What’s got you smiling?” Ruby asked suspiciously.
Ruby had opinions about my screenwriting degree gathering dust forthe last eighteen years and I didn’t need any more of her opinions right now, especially when it came to working for Brody.
“Well, are you going to share your big news?” I asked in an attempt to deflect.
“Not until we have something to toast with,” she said. “Oooh, is that Gillian Anderson over there? My god, that woman knows how to wear a silk blouse. Clothing really drapes so nicely over her breasts. Do you think they’re natural?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Uh, she’s two tables away. Can you not talk about clothing draping her breasts while we’re in earshot?”
“I’m sure she would take it as a compliment,” Ruby said as she considered me.
When the waiter arrived, Ruby ordered us both some sort of superfood green juice and champagne while I stuck with my usual omelet, and she opted for the anchovy eggs Benedict.
I waited patiently for our bubbles to arrive, before holding up my glass in anticipation. Good news could mean anything with Ruby.
When I was a little girl, she and her friends hosted a “going away” party because a producer with a reputation for scummy behavior passed away. The dress code for the party was To Die For. Then there was the incident three years ago when she invested in some sort of crypto scam that was sure to change our lives. (To this day, she still couldn’t explain cryptocurrency to me. But to be fair, I couldn’t explain it to her without reading the Wiki page three times in a row and then promptly forgetting it all. We both walked away with many unanswered questions.)
Ruby scooted to the edge of her seat and raised her glass in a toast, her red-painted nails curled around the stem like talons. “To new beginnings,” she said.
Slowly, I began to nod. “Um, not really how I think of my mother’s death.”
She took a sip from her glass and narrowed her gaze in disappointment at me for so obviously misunderstanding the moment. “I’m going to choose not to be offended by that comment.”
“Okay, then, of what new beginnings do you speak, Grandmama?” I asked like a future lady of the house onDownton Abbey.
Ruby rolled her eyes briefly before leaning in excitedly. “I sold the house,” she declared. “I sold Primrose!”
My heart stilled and those three words floated down softly like feathers on a breeze, taking me what felt like hours to comprehend. I stared at Ruby, completely dumbfounded, grasping for a thought or a word—or anything.
“The house,” I finally managed to say. “You sold our home? The place where we live?” A suffocating heat flooded my chest and then clawed up my throat.
Primrose was the name my mom gave the three-bedroom West Hollywood two-story cottage Ruby bought forty-five years ago. The home where I’d lived for nearly my entire life. (Well, except for college and the year after, when Tess and I were roommates before she abandoned me to get married.) Mom had named it because she always loved houses having names, and even though the name was much more regal than the cottage would ever be, it stuck.
“What—what about— Where will we live?”
“Well...” Ruby paused, and I could see the actual war within her as she tried to hide her own personal glee while still allowing me to process this information. “Well, if you’ll remember, my plan has always been to move into a retirement community. Surely you remember Starlight Palms.”
Her timing was awful. I hated to ask. It felt silly and childish, and I was nearly forty years old, but I had to. “What about me?”
“Vera, honey. Sometimes when a baby bird fails to launch, it just needs a little push out of the nest. A nudge!”
The clank of metal on ceramic sounded as I dropped the butter knife. “Anudgeis going to look at apartments with me. Anudgeis asking me what my future plans look like. Anudgeis encouraging me to start dating again. Not dumping me into one of the most volatile real estate markets in the country!” I could feel the level of my voice climbing with every syllable and the heat in my chest spreading up across my cheeks, turning them red next. (This involuntary bodily reaction brought to you by rosacea, thank you very much.)
And I hadn’t failed to launch! I’d been—I’d been held back. God, Ihated to even think of it that way. But I moved home for Mom because Ruby couldn’t take care of her alone. I stayed at the same job for them. I skipped out on the social life that would have given me networking opportunities. My writing went from a future career to a weekend hobby to a forgotten past. It was all forthem. And this was how Ruby repaid me.
I didn’t ask for this life. I was supposed to fall in love and live in a nice house with an updated kitchen backsplash and go out with friends for happy hour. I wasn’t supposed to be in a position where my grandmother selling her home would absolutely devastate me. But here I was.
“We’ll sort something out,” she said, reaching across the table as though her touch might ground me. “Breathe.” She inhaled deeply through her nose and out through her mouth several times until I mimicked her, just like she used to do with her acting warm-up breathing exercises when she dropped me off for my first days of school, full of nerves and peppered with stress-induced acne.
“Can I get you two a few slices of our house-made banana bread?” the waiter asked.
Ruby looked up at him with a venomous gaze and said, “Shoo. Now.” “You can’t justshoopeople away,” I told her after he’d backpedaled. I somehow had it in me to rein Ruby in even though it felt like my entire world was being broken down like a defunct production set. “Gillian Anderson will hear you and then she’ll think we’re the type of people who treat service workers like shit and she won’t care what nice things you have to say about her... chest.”
I blinked rapidly as my eyes began to well with tears. This could not be happening.
