Tang Is Not Juice
by Vinnie Hansen
Prologue
The kitchen counter was innocuous, a sandstone Formica, empty and sterile. The toaster gleamed and the white microwave looked brand new.
A shaking hand placed on to the clean surface a vial and a syringe.
The label on the small bottle said: mivacurium chloride. The clear liquid served as a neuromuscular blocking agent, a muscle paralyzer.
Oblivious, the old bag sat in her maroon Lazyboy popping peanuts into her mouth. She acted like she was some sort of queen, but she looked like a toad. A toad about to drown in her own saliva.
Chapter One
Harbor View Estates was slick. Slick marble reception counter, slick brochures, and slick sales pitch. My mom would fall for it hook, line and sinker. I groaned inwardly at my use of cliché . Cliché-ridden language was my mother's province. I was becoming more like her with each waking second; perhaps that accounted for my anxiety. I folded the brochure, and folded it again, clutching it in my damp palm. One day, like my mom, I'd be shopping for a retirement community.
"Harbor View Estates offers three tiers of service," the sales counselor chirped.
The rosy-cheeked blonde, Wendy Keegan, couldn't be more than thirty. In her mauve knit shirt with an HVE logo, she would have been more appropriate hustling spa memberships. I trailed Wendy Keegan and my mom. The hallway was not slick, but dark patterned burgundy carpet to maximize stain concealment and minimize law suits.
"We offer independent living, assisted living and a unique dementia unit," Wendy Keegan explained. "I would assume, given how great you look, that you're considering an independent living unit."
My mom nodded curtly. I resented the way Ms. Keegan was pitching my mom and dismissing me. Could she detect the negativity oozing from me? I had better ways to spend a Monday than to shop for a place to drop. To most people Happy Monday may have been the king of all oxymora, but as a baker, I had the day off.
Mom had dolled up in black slacks, elastic-waisted. From my earliest memories, my mom had conceded style to comfort. She also wore a pink shiny blouse with long puffy sleeves and a tie, the kind of blouse a person could find nowadays only in a thrift shop.
"Our price includes all your meals, snacks, transportation to and from your doctor's office, and a wide-array of activities, the best in the area." The pretty Ms. Keegan looked the way I imagined my mom wished I didÑdecidedly feminine with her pearl earrings and necklace. My mom would surely be suckered in by all this.
When we had arrived at Harbor View Estates, she'd murmured at the grassy knolls and beds of pink and purple asters. "Aren't these grounds lovely?"
"Where's the harbor view?" I'd asked. Perhaps if I climbed one of the man-made knolls and cranked my head just so, I could get a glimpse of a mast. I appreciated places like Capitola Mall and the honesty of its name. Everything should be named that way. Instead of Harbor View Estates, this should be called Santa Cruz Retirement Home Number 27. "Don't you think an estate should have a little more property to it?" I'd asked my mom.
"I don't know why you're so opposed to me moving into a retirement community," my mom had mildly responded.
"I'm not opposed to it. I'm just more cynical than you are."
Now I watched my mom continue down the hall, undeterred by my cynicism. She'd grown up in rural northern California where people knew each other and helped their neighbors. She had no inkling that someone with Wendy Keegan's scrubbed clean, all-American looks could be rattling off a prepackaged, corporate, commission-based-on-sales presentation. Motivated by her need to pay her rent, the girl acted in the interests of the owners of Harbor View Estates, who had profit margins, not my mother's well-being, foremost in their minds.
When did this phenomenon occur? I wondered. When did my mom stop being my mom and become a strong-willed child? When did we switch places? When had I started to look out for her more than she looked out for me?
The decline had not started at retirement. My mother had stayed at her job as a dental hygienist far too long, and had continued part-time at the front desk of the dental office into her old age. She gardened and knitted and traveled to quilt shows. Even when she'd given up that life and moved to Santa Cruz last year, she'd still seemed spry. But who could tell what was going on inside, especially with someone like my mom? My brother Donald's death had no doubt been a blow. Seven years, and pain still stabbed into my heart at the thought of him.
Donald had been a much better son than I was a daughter. He'd visited, for one thing. Not only that, but he used the time to paint rooms, trim shrubs, and force Mom to shop for new towels. When he died, I was too devastated to notice the effect on my mom. Certainly when I'd visited, her house had become shabbier. Looking back now, it did seem she'd become more pinched and world-weary.
Ms. Keegan's black pumps padded down the hallway. I could tell that she'd prefer to be bustling along carrying a clipboard; she had to restrain her pace for my mom even though my mom was a very able-bodied senior. At seventy-five she had a dowager's hump that I blamed on years of stooping over to clean people's teeth, but other than that, she was in good form; she certainly didn't need to spend three thousand dollars a month to be in a facility.
"I'm just shopping," she'd snapped at me. "I think it's best that I do that while I am still in tact, don't you?"
"But you're perfectly healthy. You have years to do this." Last year she had discovered that her LDL cholesterol was high and her HDL was low. Her doctor had suggested a diet and she'd lost fifteen pounds. Now I thought she looked frail and at last report she'd claimed she felt "poky." I wanted her to reassure me that she was in great health, that there was no pressing need for her to receive care. But my mom had never been the reassuring type.
"You don't have to go if you don't want to," she'd said.
Out of guilt, I plodded resentfully behind the sales counselor and my mom. I didn't want my mom to live with me and I certainly couldn't afford to pay for her care here. As a baker, I couldn't afford to help my mom out with any of her retirement needs. I felt inadequate, the way she had as a struggling single mother.
Ms. Keegan warbled on about the activitiesÑbridge, bingo, readings, birthday celebrations, hymn sing-alongs on Sunday . . . .
One photo in the brochure showed four female residents decked out for Halloween. Once I'd wanted a store-bought, Superman costume for Halloween. I didn't have enough money and my mom wouldn't buy it. I'd been a regular shit about it, calling her a grinch. I'd thought that she didn't want me to be a tomboy, but in our financially strapped existence, she'd probably seen the outfit as frivolous.
A cherry red electric cart whirred toward us, a half dozen flags waving from poles on its rear. The crazed elderly driver seemed ready to mow us down. Beside her trotted a young woman with bleached blond hair shorn in the modern stick fashion. The tips of her ragged hair were dyed blue. She wore the required mauve shirt with its HVE logo and a black mini skirt.
"Careful, Gladys," Wendy Keegan admonished. The abrupt appearance of the two characters had clearly harshed her mellow, perhaps jeopardizing a potential sale.
Gladys stopped beside us. She was a barrel-chested, wheezy woman with red hair. Even though she was a heavy woman and the weather was warm, she carried a crocheted throw on her lap. "Don't be such a worry wart," she snapped at Wendy. "My Pride Voyager handles like a Ferrari." Gladys sized up my mom. "Besides I have Chrissie to look after me. Don't I, honey?"
The girl stood there sullenly, scratching her arms and not acknowledging us.
I checked out the flags on the woman's cartÑan American flag, one that said Gladys in gold satin on purple felt, one streaming tassels of silver that looked like a wand for a good fairy costume, an AARP pennant, a Giants pennant, a state of California flag, and one that said Caution: Ornery Senior on Board.
Wendy checked her watch. "Chrissie should be helping Nurse Motha."
A silent showdown took place between Wendy and Gladys. Even with my nearly non-existent social life, I'd encountered these moments at parties. Maybe Uncle Fred had drunk too much and was trying to torture the cat again, but neither the host nor hostess wanted to ruin anyone's good time with a shouting match about whose stupid uncle he was. Nor did they want to draw attention to the embarrassing behavior of Freddy. Instead they waged a war of silent commands.
"I'll go help Nurse Moco," Chrissie muttered. In Spanish moco meant snot. Chrissie spun and huffed off down the hall.
Wendy turned away from the elderly woman in the cart. "We have a nurse here," Wendy said, trying to put a positive spin on this little drama.
"A nurse who earns her nicknames," Gladys spit. "If it weren't for her, maybe Mildred would still be alive."
Wendy's face furrowed in irritation.
"Chrissie is a good girl," Gladys insisted.
Wendy plastered a smile on her face. "Of course she is, Gladys." She glanced back over her shoulder.
Gladys wiggled a little straighter in her cart's seat. Her green eyes sparked with indignation and she wheezed in preparation to speak.
Wendy changed her tack. "Gladys, this is Bea Sabala and her daughter, Carol."
Gladys relaxed back into the black seat. "Are you looking for a room?" she said to me with a wink.
"Maybe. I'm a whiz at bingo."
She chuckled, a gurgling, strained sound that turned into coughs. She put a hand on her chest. "The best part of this place is the young helpers like Chrissie."
The viper had decided to strike Wendy after all. She reached up and took my mom's hand. "I'm Gladys Mills."
"Pleased to meet you," my mom said, giving the hand a pump. "I was admiring your Granny Square lap rug."
Gladys's plump, freckled hand kept its hold on my mom's bony fingers. "Do you crochet?" Her green eyes sparkled.
"A little," my mom said with her usual understatement.
My mom had crocheted enough throws to carpet the annual Wharf to Wharf run.
"I used to quilt, but crochet is more portable and relaxing," my mom added.
"Isn't it though?" Gladys exclaimed, finally releasing my mom. "My friend Ida and I tried to start a Crochet and Crab Club, but the women here are the highfalutin tea and opera types. But Ida and I are both transplanted Okies. Came out here with our parents to work in the prunes and almonds."
She pronounced almonds as amends.
My mom looked as though she'd found a new best friend. Gladys Mills was perfect. Her outgoing nature a counterpoint to my mom's blunt reserve. Yet, Gladys knew hard work. My mom, who grew up on a dairy farm near Ferndale, appreciated people who understood the meaning of toil. Gladys scored further points for disliking the hoity-toity. And, the woman liked to crochet. I expected my mom to move in tomorrow.
"Listen, dear, if you come to live at this joint, or you just want the lowdown, look me up. Gladys Mills in 302. I'll tell you which guys still have all their marbles."
Order Tang Is Not Juice
Contents © Vinnie Hansen. Please do not repost or print without permission.
