My nineteenth birthday, part two

During my winter break, freshman year of college, I visited Grandma Eckman in the senior home twice, once before Christmas and then on my birthday a few days after the holiday. It was a cold, snowy day, and I found her wrapped up in bed. But she roused herself, and we were headed into a nice visit, or so I thought.

She didn’t have her false teeth in her mouth, which made her voice seem a little slurred and kind of freaked me out a little. I could see they were in a glass on the nightstand.

I was feeling warm in my winter coat, and her room was about eighty degrees. Actually, having been there for about ten minutes already, I was starting to perspire. I unzipped it and then laid it on the chair.

In those few moments, she had somehow put her glasses on and teeth in. I don’t think I let on, but I was relieved.

“Now, turn around, turn around,” she instructed, her hands lightly fluttering in the air. “I want to get a good look at you.

I started to comply, but she interrupted me.

“All the way around,” she coaxed, raising her hand and circling with her index finger.

I confess that I felt both foolish and a bit proud. How many 19-year-olds get “sized-up” on a regular basis by an inquisitive great-grandmother.

“You gained some weight, I see,” she noted.

“They call it the ‘freshman ten’,” I explained. “The all-you-can-eat cafeteria. The food isn’t always great, but—“

“Don’t interrupt,” she snapped.

She was staring hard at me, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“Walk to the door and back.”

“What?”

“Don’t argue with me. Just do it.”

“But I—“

“Just do it.”

So I obeyed, feeling more self-conscious than I felt in the gym shower.

“I thought so,” she mumbled, “just like Dale.”

“What?” I asked. No one had ever compared me to my great uncle-her son.

She looked hard at me.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“No, not really,” I answered.

“You will.”

And that was the end of that. She never brought up what she meant again, and mostly I forgot. We had other things to talk about that day. I wanted to share with her about my new life in college—living in the dorm, making friends, classes, changing my major from business to theater, having a role designed for and by me in a mainstage play and all the other excitements attached to my new college-student life.

She listened, or at least seemed to, for about 30 minutes. Then I saw she was getting tired and excused myself.

As I was putting on my coat, she asked me one last question. “When am I going to see you again?”

“Well, Grandma,” I answered in the vaguely hopeful, overly explanatory way that I would develop into an artform, “I don’t know if I will be here at Easter, since it doesn’t coincide with my spring break. And I’ll be looking for a summer job somewhere, too. I need to earn some money to pay for all this fancy education.”

I immediately felt guilty, but at the same time I didn’t want to make a promise that circumstance wouldn’t let me keep. While I intended to see her at the next available opportunity, I didn’t know when that was, and I feared putting any specific idea or time into her head.

“Okay,” she said.

She was used to disappointment, but she didn’t want to pressure me.

“I’ll keep writing to you, though,” I said.

“Good. Love your cards and letters,” she agreed.

She was already falling asleep, so I quietly finished, whispered a quick “I love you,” and was out the door.

It wasn’t until I was in the car, my well-worn orange Chevrolet Nova, that I realized I never told her about so much of how my life was changing, nor about how confused I was about my own evolving feelings. And what did she know about me that she wasn’t telling? What did she mean about Uncle Dale?

And then I began to think about my economics professor. While I was frequently confused about his convoluted presentation of macro-economics, GNP, supply and demand and so on, I truly thought that the man had the most kissable lips I had ever seen. And then there was Curt, a fellow student and actor whose body aroma always made me swoon a little. Unbeknownst to them, these two men lingered in my mind, and their presence stretched into all of my organs, sometimes so much that I felt like someone else was inhabiting my body.

Then my stomach growled, and I realized that I was hungry, and once I returned to my parents’ house, there would be lasagna and chocolate cake and brothers and sisters and fun. My focus immediately changed, and I stepped on the gas.