"Old Lady Boobs"

Meeka’s grandmother bears the kind of chest that makes me fear growing old. I can’t call my breasts old lady boobs when I consider the two mountains of cascading flesh underneath her over-sized muumuu. She is watching Wheel of Fortune in bed when we enter her room, and arguing with a contestant on the show. “Of Mice and Men—it’s Of Mice and Men—wot are you waitin’ for, go for the jackpot!”



An attractive dirty-blond with cheeks that seem too large for her face fiddles with some wires attached to a large, rectangular machine. She is wearing a smock dotted with pink hearts and clouds. When she tries to attach a wire to Granny’s chest, the young woman receives a slap from Granny’s sausage of a hand. “Let me be, child.” But the woman ignores her and continues to poke at the soft rolls of flesh under Granny’s flowered housecoat.


“Hi, Granny,” Meeka says and practically runs to her side.


Granny grabs the remote and turns off the TV like it is a fly she’d like to swat and not the source of intense delight it was just seconds before. “Come here, my baby girl! Give your Granny Pearl a hug now.” She opens her swollen arms. It is a gesture that takes effort for Pearl, and somehow, this makes me want to hug her, too.


The young woman sighs and puts a hand to her hip.


“Now who’s this pretty child you brought with you today?” Pearl asks, tilting her head back to see me better through horn-rimmed glasses.


Meeka introduces us, but remains next to Pearl, her long legs and torso curled in a semi-fetal position.


“Come here, child.” Granny pats a heavy hand on the other side of her bed.


“Pearl, you know we gotta’ get the show on the road here,” the chipmunk-cheeked woman says.


“Oh don’t cha start with me, Julie. I’ve had enough of you today,” Pearl says and sucks her teeth the way Meeka does when she is annoyed. She sticks out her tongue at Julie and blows hard, Pearl’s saliva spattering all over Meeka and me. “Oooh, sorry children,” she smiles. “Looks like you got a little rain shower on account of dat vexed girl!” She wipes her spit off of our faces. Her hand is warm and soft and makes me understand why Meeka wants to snuggle beside her


“Five minutes, that’s it Pearl,” Julie says all serious. But there is a smile in her eyes—a mother trying not to burst out laughing when she’s disciplining her toddler.


“You know, if I didn’t like you so much, I’d wee on my own!” Pearl calls after Julie in the scratched-record voice I could listen to all day. She turns to me. “Nurses: can’t live with ‘em, can’t stick a catheter in their tot tots!” When she laughs, her swollen rolls of flab quiver. It is a sad, yet somehow, beautiful thing to watch.


Pearl grunts her way to a firmer ninety-degree angle and squints at me. “Eh eh! Wot do we have here?” She fingers my hair as if it spun silk and not the stubborn Brillo-pad it actually is. The gesture leaves me restraining a primitive cry. “Why dat heart of yours got so much anger?”


“I’m not angry.” If my face were a book, it just slammed closed.


“Granny’s an intuitive. She can read people’s auras,” Meeka says, hugging Pearl’s free arm.


I think of my crazy mother and wonder if Sam Fluchter’s begun an underground Aura-Reading cult. “Oh yeah, and what’s mine say?” It takes all my willpower not to roll my eyes.


“Oh, child,” she sighs and shakes her head. “Dat heart of yours is like a storm! I can’t see a ting inside there with all them clouds in the way!” She shakes her head.


“What did you tell her, Meeka?” I fold my arms tightly against my chest.


“I swear, I didn’t tell Granny anything.” Her blue eyes are too wide to be dishonest.


Granny pats her lumpy chest. “Come here, both of you girls.” Meeka rests a mushy head on her grandmother. “It’s okay, child.” It is an awkward idea: putting my head against this over-weight woman’s chest. But then there is her heartbeat and the touch of her fingers stroking my hair. I wonder if Meeka’s hair is also being played with but am too afraid to check and lose the cocoon I’m in with Pearl.


“No wonder you bring this beautiful girl home with you, child! She is angry at life, just like you! But dat is just a bunch of fear talkin’. You must remember dat everyting has a season, and dat everyting…will be okay.” Pearls scratchy-record voice is as smooth as ever, but her heartbeat is suddenly a galloping horse just let out of the gate.


For a moment, there is just the sound of our breath. Someone sniffs, but I’m not sure if it’s Meeka, Pearl or even me.


A few knocks on the open door and we are jolted out of something sacred, safe. “OK, party time’s over people,” Julie says, and moves the large rectangle closer to Pearl’s bed.


“Give me a kiss.” Pearl’s face looks like it is feeling sunshine when Meeka’s lips touch her forehead. She turns to me. “Oh child, it was such a pleasure to meet you.”


“I’ll be back,” I say, awkwardly stepping out of the way for Julie’s wires.


“Of course you will. Now the both of you go off and have some sweeties for me,” she whispers loudly over the humming of the rectangular box. “And hide the evidence from dat momma of yours!”


“You’re gonna get me fired!” Julie says.


“Eh eh, Julie! Dat isn’t possible as I’m your boss! Just keep lookin’ the other way, child, and don’t tell dat Sucuyant!” Pearl says. I am yanked out of the room before I can ask a fleet of questions.