29 by Adena Halpern Read Free Book Online Page A

again looking at me closely.
    “P-people say that,” I stammered.
    “It’s like looking through time,” Frida uttered.
    “Everyone says that, too,” I said.
    Frida paused. “But I don’t remember Ellie’s brother having a granddaughter.”
    “Sure you do,” I said confidently, knowing Frida as well as I do. Once, when we were kids, I convinced Frida it was raining on a sunny day. Frida was never very brainy.
    “Well, now that you mention it, are you from Chicago?” she asked.
    “Yes, Chicago,” I said with certainty.
    “Oh, of course. Well . . . welcome to Philadelphia.” She smiled.
    Poor Frida, who has known me my entire life and spoken to me almost every single day. No one in my family has ever lived in Chicago; where she got that from I’ll never know.
    “So where is your grandmother?” she asked.
    “Oh, Gram went out to Mom’s house,” Lucy replied.
    “Oh, okay. Well, as long as she’s okay, I guess I shouldn’t bother you girls any more,” she said, turning away.
    Something about Frida standing there in her housecoat got to me. She has always been a gentle, fragile woman I’ve always felt I had to take care of, starting when we were kids, right up to whenshe had a family of her own. Frida was never a great beauty, she never wore the right clothes; she was never young, even when she was young. I don’t know what Frida would have done if I told her it was really me. She isn’t strong like that. She never was.
    “Frida,” I said, stopping her. “Would you like to go to lunch with us?”
    She turned around and looked at us and smiled. I knew that’s all she wanted to hear.
    “Thank you, but I’ve got too many things to do today.” Lie. “Well, have a nice day,” she said, turning again to leave.
    “See you, Frida.” I waved as we watched her walk out the door. My heart sank.
    That really snapped me out of it. Frida. Barbara. Even Lucy saying she couldn’t look at me as her grandmother. No.
    I just couldn’t go through with it, not even for a day. This just wasn’t right.
    “I can’t do this,” I told Lucy.
    “What can’t you do?”
    “I have to get back to my own age. You’ll never look at me the same again. Poor Frida, I lied to my best friend.”
    “You’ve lied to Frida a million times.”
    “When? When have I ever lied to Frida?” I demanded.
    “Last week, when Frida called to ask you to come with her to the symphony.”
    “That was different,” I argued. “It was Bach; you know how I feel about Bach.”
    “No, it wasn’t Bach. You said at the time that you couldn’t look at Frida for another minute. You were sick of her that day.”
    She had me. “Okay, maybe I did, but this doesn’t justify meprancing around the city all day, being twenty-nine years old. Think of your mother, sitting at home thinking I’m seventy-five.”
    “Would you listen to yourself for a second? Mom is not sitting at home thinking that you’re seventy-five.”
    “Well, her life revolves around me. I can’t keep this from her.”
    Lucy paused, took a deep breath, and put her hands on my shoulders.
    “Gram, for once in your life, please, do something for yourself. For no one else but yourself, Gram. All you’ve ever done your whole life is think about other people before yourself. You had Poppy Howard for all those years, and Mom and me and Aunt Frida. When have you ever just done something for yourself, without thinking how it’s going to affect other people? You’ve even said as much before.”
    “It’s my generation.” I shrugged. “That’s the way we were brought up.”
    “Okay, so guess what? For one day, you’re going to live in my generation . . . and believe me, it’s the most selfish generation this planet has ever seen. All we ever do is think of ourselves.”
    “But Lucy, that’s the point. I’m not from your generation. As much as I want to, I don’t know how to think like you.”
    “So what’s wrong with trying for one day? For one day in