You Should Have Told Me

           On the rare occasion when I can’t make a Tuesday visit, I usually try to call Nellie and let her know. This is much easier since she got her own phone; I remember spending long hold times while nurses tried to take my messages when I had to call the nursing home line. At any rate, I was sick—sicker than I’d been in a long time, and had no strength at all for a Nellie visit. So I called.

            “I can’t come today, Nellie. I’m sick.”

            “What? Talk a little softer. Don’t talk so loud.”

            I have never been asked to speak more softly. Most of the time people can’t hear me. But I guessed I had raised my voice a little to make sure she could understand me over the phone, so I chalked it up to a Nellie quirk and obligingly lowered my volume. “I’m sick, Nellie. I can’t come.”

            “But what about the fruit? Can you come tomorrow and get the apples?”

            “No,” I tried to keep my voice low. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

            “What? I can’t hear you. Well, I guess you can’t come. Okay. Goodbye.”

           

            The next day she called me to see if maybe I could come pick up the fruit after all. I was a little better by then, but still weak, and told her no.

            “But it’s such a pity to let them go!” she protested. I was very sorry, but I just wasn’t up to making the trip. Nellie was terribly disappointed. “I guess I’ll have to put them back on the cart,” she concluded.

            The following Tuesday I felt fine, and went as usual to see my little grandmother. It wasn’t until nearly time for me to go that she asked, “Oh, what did your mother call about last week?”

            “My mother?” I was confused.

            “Yes, your mother. You remember, you phoned and told me she called and you had to do something so you couldn’t come on Tuesday.”

            “No, no, I phoned and told you I was sick and couldn’t come!” To be fair, the Russian for “called” is zvonilas and the Russian for “sick” is bolilas. I can see how the two words might be mixed up.

            “You were sick? If I had known that, I wouldn’t have called you the next day and asked about the apples! You should have told me!”

            I shook my head in exasperation. “Nellie, I did tell you! And you told me to speak softer!”

Twirling

            I was a little afraid that the wig would go the way of the eyeglasses and never be seen again; when I arrived the next week and saw that it was still in the bag where I’d left it, my heart sank. “Have you worn it at all?” I asked, fearing for the answer.

            “No,” she admitted. “I was afraid of it.”

            I laughed at her. “Why?”

            “Because…I don’t know. It sits there on that head thing...it’s scary. And I’m not sure how to put it on. You take it out and put it on me.”

            “Have you shown it to any of the nurses? I’ll bet they would help you if I’m not here.”

            Nellie looked sheepish. “I didn’t tell anyone yet.”

            So we took out the wig and brushed it gently, trying to part it down the side instead of the center and place the barrette so that the hair wouldn’t fall across her forehead at all. Then we adjusted it on her head, tucking her own multi-colored hair back underneath the edges. Nellie looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. “Let’s go out in the hall and show someone,” she said excitedly.

            Several nurses and aides were roaming the hall, and Nellie made me wheel her over. She said nothing, but looked expectantly at them, turning her head this way and that—for all the world like a little girl in a new dress, twirling to show the world how beautiful she is. They rose to the occasion, exclaiming over her new hair. “You look so pretty!” they told her…and it was true.

A Critical Point

            Nellie was in an irritable mood. “Look at me!” she commanded. Obediently, I looked. She seemed fine to the untrained eye. “Look at my hair!” her voice was rising, with that note of frantic agitation I’ve come to recognize. Well, her hair is rather thin…and rarely washed…and dyed jet black only on the top layer, leaving a fair quantity of sparse white showing underneath.

            She tugged and fluffed her hair impatiently, trying to make it miraculously thicker or cover her head a little more. “I look terrible!” she lamented. “I can’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror.” I tried vainly to think of something comforting to say, but Nellie wasn’t done. “And in a few weeks my nephew will be giving a concert, and he has invited me…and my birthday is coming up in May, and I will be eighty-six years old, and there will be a party—and what am I supposed to do? Go looking like this? I can’t go looking like this! It has come to a critical point for me—I have to get a wig.”

            The suddenness rather took my breath away, but I had to admit the idea had promise. A wig: that might be just the thing.

            Nellie went on in a rush. “So, you have a good hairdresser, right? You have to talk to her and see about making me a wig.” Oh, no. I was practically positive that my little grandmother had no idea how much a custom-made wig would cost. Truth be told, I really didn’t know myself, but I assumed the price would be astronomical. I attempted to head her off with an estimate of lots of hundreds of dollars, and her shoulders slumped.

            Quickly I proposed an alternative. “But there are wig shops, I’m pretty sure, where you can buy wigs already made for a lot less,” I reassured her.

            Her face brightened again. “Really? Where? How much do they cost?” Well, now, that was the problem. I’d never personally sought out a wig supplier before, and wasn’t certain of anything except that such places existed. “But then I would have to go there, wouldn’t I? And somebody would have to take me. Would you take me?” Somehow I had seen this coming. Of course I would. How could I refuse?

            Nellie was ready, I think, to resolve the issue that very day, but she had to content herself with my pledge to find out more information (like the location of a store). She reminded me as I left that afternoon that it was absolutely essential that she get a wig soon.

            So I found a nearby wig shop in the phone book and called to find out hours of operation, average prices, things like that. Hesitantly I asked the pleasant lady on the other end of the phone line if she were…how should I put it?...fairly patient with difficult customers. She laughed gently and assured me that she “loved her elderly ladies.” Ahh—I was relieved. She did understand.

            Nellie’s fire had somewhat cooled by the time I arrived the next Tuesday, and so my announcement that I had found a shop, very close, and we should go now was met with more hesitation than I’d expected. After all, wasn’t this an urgent matter that needed immediate attention? My enthusiasm encouraged her, and she finally agreed to go. It wasn’t too difficult to persuade her; after all, this was a critical matter.

            More difficult, however, was our task when we entered the tiny shop and began the process of trying on wigs. Wigs are usually made with some sort of bangs, the better to cover the woven cap that holds the hair—and Nellie is extremely opposed to having hair on her forehead. On top of that, she has a slightly larger head than I suppose is common for wig-buyers, because every single one she tried pinched. She thought maybe she wanted black; I tried to dissuade her from such a stark color, since black never seems quite natural to me unless it is…well, natural. None of the browns looked very good on her, and she wasn’t impressed with the curly short hairdoes that the sweet proprietor offered. She wanted one long enough to cover a lump on her neck. Maybe, the wig lady suggested, we could order one in a larger size and see how it fit?

             We were close to calling it a day and looking a little more some other time when I saw a pretty silvery grey wig, almost shoulder-length, with no bangs. Hesitantly I pointed it out to Nellie. “Grey?” she asked dubiously. “Would that look good? Won’t that make me look like an old lady?” I shrugged my shoulders; we wouldn’t know until we tried it out.

            The silver wig did look good—surprisingly natural, meeting almost all Nellie’s qualifications. We could even hold the hair back from her face if we got some pretty barrettes. And the day was late, and Nellie was tired…and so she bought it. Or rather, I bought it and she promised to pay me back later. The owner of the shop gave us a styrofoam stand and a brush, out of sheer niceness. When we got back to her room, I asked Nellie if she wanted to wear it for awhile.

            “Oh, no. I’m too tired. Just leave it in the bag so I won’t have to see it. We’ll look at it again next week.”

Someone stole my jacket!

One day I arrived to find Nellie waiting for me at the front door of the nursing home. “Hello! How are you?” I said brightly.

            “Bad,” was her terse reply.

            “Why bad? What’s wrong?” I asked.

            “Somebody stole my jacket!” Nellie was nearly bursting with indignation.

            Oh, dear. “Which jacket?” I tried to think of what might have happened. “Where was it?”

            “It was my white one—the knit sweater jacket that I always wear. It was hanging in the closet and now it’s not there. That new girl must have taken it. I know she took it.”

            Ahh. That jacket. I knew it well—and I’m sorry to say that I am quite certain no one else would have wanted it. It’s old and yellowed, stained from years of wear, not at all pretty. But the fact remained that it seemed to be missing. “You say it was in your closet? Did you look all through, on the floor and everything?”

            “Yes, yes, I looked and everybody else came and looked and the director looked and nobody can find it. You can look again if you want to, but it isn’t there. It was that new girl. I asked her about it and she just acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about!”

            That poor attendant. I could imagine the hullabaloo Nellie had raised when she noticed her loss. She is extremely vocal when she is upset, and even though her rantings are all in Russian I am certain that everyone within earshot must have been fully aware of her displeasure. Hoping to miraculously see the missing article of clothing, I looked in the closet, and found no jacket. I looked on the floor, and found…no jacket. She continued to fume as I tried to calm her. “Everybody keeps saying to me, ‘Maybe it’s in the laundry, maybe it’s in the laundry.’ But I don’t use the laundry!” Her voice rose again to a near-yell. “The director came and looked earlier, and he said that if we don’t find it, they will buy me a new jacket.”

            “Well,” I ventured, “that’s good, right?”

            “But I bought that jacket myself!” She was almost wailing. “It was a good one, and I liked it. It had a little crocodile right here on the front…I liked it.”

          I'm afraid I haven't seen the jacket yet, though weeks have passed now. Happily, Nellie hasn't brought it up again. I am forced to the conclusion that either she has forgotten it, or she's ashamed to tell me that the same thing happened as the last time "someone stole her jacket." Last time it turned out that she had simply left it at her nephew's house.

Don't pay them anything!

         Once, early in our friendship, Nellie took it into her head that she needed glasses. Her eyesight wasn't very good and seemed to be getting worse, and she complained fretfully that soon she might be blind. So, since she insisted that it had to be done, we arranged for her to visit an optometrist. Medride could take her, but there was a problem; Nellie cannot speak English and it's nearly impossible to get accurate prescription eyeglasses if one cannot communicate with the doctor. I would have to go along. Accordingly, I arrived around nine-thirty on the morning of her appointment to find her awake but not at all happy about it--she had barely finished breakfast and was having trouble getting her clothes on. Apparently, Nellie's mornings do not usually begin so early. Attendants scurried to escape her frustrated wrath as I entered and declared hopefully that it was a beautiful morning. She growled at me in reply, but managed to scrape together a bit of civility by the time the van was ready to pick us up.

             The optometrist, whom I'd never met before that day, was a gentle man who did his best to accommodate my adopted babushka once he understood the situation. We waded through the eye exam, hoping that Nellie understood the questions, and finally arrived at a prescription and chose a pair of frames. The trouble hit when the sweet receptionist asked for her co-payment; since Nellie did not have any money, I proceeded to pay for her--and Nellie nearly came unglued. "Why should you have to pay anything? I have insurance, right? Why do you need to pay any more than that? You shouldn't pay! They shoudn't make you pay! Don't pay them anything."

            I tried to calm her. "That's the way it works, Nellie. Almost any doctor you visit will ask for a little bit of money, because the insurance won't pay for your visit right away. It's alright, it's not very much. Don't worry. It's just the way it works." Nellie couldn't believe that we weren't being cheated, swindled, and downright hoodwinked; she shouted and cried and stormed, but finally let me pay the small amount. The glasses would be ready in a few days, so I took my exhausted friend home and planned to go back with her to pick them up on my next day off.

            Our next visit to the optometrist (not quite so early in the morning, this time) passed practically painlessly. The doctor adjusted her frames and sent us on our way, probably glad to be finished with the unreasonable Russian lady. Back at the nursing home, I expected Nellie to put her glasses on at once, but she shut the case in her drawer and told me she was too tired.

            You may imagine my feelings. Not cowed in the slightest, however, Nellie refused to wear her new glasses—not that day, not once since. At least, not once that I know of. There are some things no girl can understand.

Kidnapped

The ritual sack of fruit had become a habit. If I happened to miss a Tuesday visit, Nellie almost invariably called me to insist that I stop by if only for a minute to pick up my apples. "They'll go bad!" she'd exclaim, forgetting that I never asked her to save them for me. I smuggled them home resignedly every week, only rebelling occasionally when she piled up fifteen or twenty because she couldn't remember how many she'd taken.

"I can't possibly eat that many!" I've told her...oh, a good dozen times now. But "six or eight" somehow always morphs gradually into more, and more, and more, until I manage to impress on her (again) that my husband and I don't just sit around eating fruit all day long.

So I was used to taking things home; one day, however, she took the smuggling a step further. I arrived to find a pretty old fashioned baby doll sitting on Nellie's bed. "Isn't she beautiful?" Nellie demanded. "A lady gave her to me. I just love her!" She fondly tickled the doll's chin and directed me to admire the sweet expression on her painted face, which I obediently did. The doll was extremely cute.

Then the conversation took a decidedly bizarre turn. "I really love her," Nellie continued, "but I don't need her." Well, who did need a doll? I didn't see any problem with keeping a pretty thing if she liked it. "So," Nellie concluded, "you need to take her home."

"Me? Why do I need to take her home?" I didn't follow her line of reasoning. I didn't need a doll any more than she did.

"Because. You need to. She needs a good home, and you like her, right?"

Obviously. Wasn't it self-evident? Because I had admired the pretty baby doll, she belonged with me. As I think I may have mentioned, one does not easily win arguments with Nellie, and this battle was not one I felt passionate about. I gave in. Of course I would take the doll home.

Then she seemed to change the subject abruptly. She pointed at a shirt on the chair, and I began to look for whatever rip or tear I needed to mend. "What do you want me to do with the shirt?" I asked, confused, for it looked like it was in pretty good shape.

"Oh, you must take it home too," she told me. "Wrap the doll inside it and carry it that way."

"Is there something I need to fix?" I still didn't understand.

"No, no. Just bring it back next week." Nellie lowered her voice. "You have to hide the baby so no one sees you carry her out!"

Ohhhh. I was going to kidnap the baby. I burst into laughter, and Nellie joined me. Even she could see the humor in this situation. Even though we could not stop our giggles, however, it remained absolutely necessary that I cover the baby doll as I left. What if the lady who had given her to Nellie saw what was happening?

Forbidden Fruit

I can't even remember now precisely how it started. I certainly never intended to go into smuggling. I guess one thing led to another: one day Nellie gave me a couple of apples, and next thing I knew, I was lugging a bag of contraband produce home every Tuesday.

Most nursing homes have some sort of snack cart  for the residents--healthy and not-so-healthy munchies that they can take back to their rooms and eat whenever they want. Nellie's is no exception; I always saw the cart in the hall when I passed, full of apples, oranges, bananas, pudding and jello cups, cookies, crackers and chips. Each afternoon when we sat down to tea, she tried to make me eat approximately one of everything. I tried and tried to explain to her that I really had eaten lunch not too long before and would be eating dinner as soon as I got home, but she always seemed to be sure that actually I was starving. Finally I had to resort to simply refusing to eat it all. "Well, then, you must take it home and eat it later," she insisted.

I sighed. Arguing with Nellie is fairly futile. "Alright," I conceded, "but I don't eat a lot of sweets and chips for snacks. Mostly fruit."

She took me at my word. I think it was the very next week that she welcomed me with a conspiratorial  smile and hustled me in, directing me (in pantomime, because she has gotten so accustomed to resorting to charades with everyone else that she often forgets that she can actually talk to me) to pull closed the curtain that divides her room from the other half. Somewhat mystified, I obeyed. Once the curtain was drawn, she put a finger to her lips and pointed to a well-worn gift bag on the chair. I raised my eyebrows. "What?" I whispered. "What do you want me to do?"

Gesturing impatiently, she let me know that I was to take the contents of the bag and transfer them to my own--the bag I carry the teapot, cups, and kettle in. I looked inside, and rolled my eyes. There were a week's worth of apples--a generous week's worth--snagged from the snack cart and saved for me. What could I do? I loaded up my bag and said "thank you." As I mentioned, it's hard to argue with Nellie.

That, I think, was the beginning. Since then, she's added the occasional orange or banana to the mix (though she rolls up the bananas in newspaper because she can't stand the smell) and sometimes applesauce or fruit cocktail. I've had to explain to her that she really shouldn't take the diabetic shakes for me. Most weeks she has collected a bag of popcorn which she tells me I must feed to the birds. The birds in my neighborhood must look forward to Tuesday evenings; perhaps they celebrate with a movie night. But that was the beginning of my smuggling career.