A REAL BEAUTY

By Dallas Nicole Woodburn

Ventura CA

The phone rings. Once. Twice. Then stops. After a brief silence, it rings again. The signal. I quickly pick it up.

“Hi, Gramps! Had a feeling that was you.”

“Did you see it tonight?” he asks.

I gaze out the window at the fiery streaks of orange and crimson brushed across the sky, their outstretched fingers gradually receding into the inky blackness. “Yeah, I sure did. It was a beauty, wasn’t it?”

“Certainly was. Yes indeed. A real beauty. It was almost as pretty as the sunrise. Did you see that gorgeous one this morning?”

I laugh. Gramps is the only person I know who brews his cup of coffee every morning to the sight of stars still dotting the California sky outside his kitchen window. He has the entire morning paper read and the crossword puzzle completed by the time the sun rises to greet the rest of us.  He is a hard-core early bird.  I, on the other hand, have always been a late sleeper. Gramps knows this, yet he still always asks if I saw the sunrise.  It has become something of a joke between us.

“No, gosh darn it! I missed it this morning,” I say dramatically. “I guess I forgot to set my alarm for 5:30 a.m.”

Gramps chuckles. “Yeah, well, you’re a young one yet. Still a teenager. Old people like me, we enjoy getting up early. It’s our nature. Just wait until your time comes, then you’ll see.”

“Yeah,” I say, though I’m not sure I do agree. Deep inside, I don’t really believe I’ll ever grow old. It’s too strange to think about. In my mind, I will always be young, strong, limber — full of life. Mom tells me all young people think they’re immortal. Then one day, she says, you wake up and suddenly realize that you’re not. It supposedly comes as a big shock.

“So, how was school today?” Gramps asks. “Did you get your history test back?”

“Yeah, I got an A on it.”

“That’s my girl!” he says, and proudly.

“Thanks, Gramps. I must have gotten my brains from you.”

“Aww, I don’t know about that,” he replies modestly. “Though I was always pretty good at history. It used to be my favorite subject in school. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. You like it, too, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh. But English is my favorite.”

“Oh yeah, I knew that. You’re the writer in the family. Just like Auden. She used to be an English teacher, did I ever tell you that?”

No, he hasn’t. It’s amazing, really, how little I know about my grandmother. Gramps doesn’t talk about her too often. And when he does, I can never find the right thing to say to keep him going.

Like now. “Wow, Gramps, that’s really. . . that’s really neat,” I stammer, after a moment’s hesitation. I wish I had a way to let him know how much this little tidbit of information about her means to me. A way to tell him that now, whenever I do my English homework — study new vocabulary words, or read Emily Dickinson, or write an essay on the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird — I will think of her and my ordinary homework will suddenly become magical. That now, every day when I’m sitting in second-period Honors English I will try to imagine her up there writing on the board, teaching the class. That now, this part-of-me- that-was-once-a-part-of-her is almost sacred in my heart.

I wish I had a way to tell Gramps everything I’m thinking; a telepathic ray I could shoot from my mind to his. But I only have my own voice, and that is not nearly enough. So I just sit there, listening silently as Gramps goes on to describe the new high-tech KitchenAid mixer he bought at Kohl’s today. I swear, my grandfather is addicted to that store. Mom jokes we have to put him on “shopping probation.”

“Well, I just stopped by there to check things out because today is Wednesday, you know,” he says. “And on Wednesdays they have a special senior citizen discount where all us old folks get fifteen percent off everything. Can you believe that? Fifteen percent off! I guess there are some perks to being an old guy like me, eh?”

“Yeah,” I say. “They give you discounts at Kohls and you get to wake up early every morning and see the sunrise.”

“It’s a good life,” he agrees. “It’d be perfect if Auden was still here, but at least I’ve got you, Sienna.”

“Oh, you. . . you’ve always got me, Gramps.” I swallow. “Well, I should probably go. Homework to finish up.”

“Oh, yes, yes, you go right along now,” he says. It’s like I said I have to attend a meeting with the President of the United States. To Gramps, schoolwork is very important business.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I say.

“Okay. Listen, do you want me to call and wake you up in the morning? You know, so you can see the sunrise. It’s gonna be a beauty.” I can almost hear him smiling.

“No, no, it’s okay,” I say, laughing a little. This is the second part of our joke. He always ends our conversations with this same question, even though he knows what my answer will be.

“Oh, you young people,” he says with pretend exasperation. “Don’t know what you’re missing!”

“Well, you can describe it to me when I talk to you later,” I say. “I need my beauty sleep.”

I smile as he tells me I’m the last person in the world to need beauty sleep, just like he always does. One thing I love about grandparents is they make it seem like you are the most beautiful person in the world, simply because you are their grandchild and that’s what grandparents do.

“Goodnight,” I say. “Love and kisses.”

“Sleep tight,” he replies.

I hang up the phone, take one last look out my bedroom window. The hungry night has devoured all remnants of the sunset now; the sky is an endless expanse of inky-black nothingness. Not even stars dare show their shining faces tonight. I catch a glimpse of my own reflection as I stare out the window. Who is that girl? Sometimes I have an almost out-of-body experience, where it feels like I am standing off to the side, looking at myself, wondering who that person named Sienna Marie is. I try to see myself as the kids at school do. Oh, that ‘s just Sienna, they would say. The quiet girl who sits by herself and reads all the time. She’s really smart, you know. All she cares about is school.

They do not know me at all. I am some other person around them, completely unlike the girl I am with Gramps. Sometimes it feels like I have a thousand different versions of myself floating around inside my soul. The trouble is, it’s hard to tell which one is really me.

Who is that girl? The question hangs in the air, lingering like the last feeble rays of sunset. Then it, too, gets sucked up by blackness as I turn away from my half-reflection in the window. Who is that girl? I know the question-I-cannot-answer is not gone forever. Just like the sun will re-emerge in the morning, the question will also remain, lurking in the back of my mind to reappear another day.

I know that she loved bowling and was a great dancer. Her mashed potatoes were the best you’ve ever tasted, and she always made chocolate truffles covered in little chocolate sprinkles at Christmastime. Auden loved Christmas. Gramps would buy her one of those big white-flocked trees and she decorated it from trunk to tree-top, and below it she piled the tons and tons of presents she bought for all her children and grandchildren. She loved to shop for everyone but herself.

When I think of Christmas, that’s what comes to mind. Chocolate truffles, a big white- flocked tree, and a mountain of brightly wrapped presents that soon became an even bigger mountain of wrapping paper. And her, beaming with joy, hugging everyone and taking pictures and bringing in new batches of truffles from the kitchen.

Christmas hasn’t been the same since she died. We all still get together, exchange gifts, try to keep up the traditions, but there’s a quiet loneliness underneath all the festivities. I attempted to make chocolate truffles a few years ago, but they were a total disaster.

Now we just do without the truffles. Nobody can make them as well as she did, anyway.

*****

“Hey, Gramps.”

“Hi, pun’kin. Did you see the sunset tonight?”

“Yeah, it looked like the sky was on fire!”Gramps loved my grandmother more than anything in the world. When cynics say that love isn’t real, that marriage can’t last, that it all just ends up in heartbreak, I think of Gramps and Auden and smile. They loved each other more and more with each passing day.

“So, how’d you do on that math test you were telling me about?”

“Fine. I got an A.”

“That’s my girl!”

They met in college on a blind date. He was a senior; she a sophomore. They were set up by a mutual friend, and went to a barn dance on Friday the Thirteenth. Gramps always says that superstition is just a bunch of baloney, because it was the luckiest day of his life.

It was love at first sight. They married and had three sons and a daughter. He took her out on “dates” often, and brought her flowers just because. Once the kids grew up and left home, they traveled quite a bit. Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean, and even an Alaskan cruise. The week she died, they had just returned from a trip to Boston.

“So, Gramps, it’s Wednesday. Did you go to Kohls?”

“You betcha! I found this ginchy jacket. It’s fleece, you know, really warm. Kinda like those ones they sell at Patagonia.”

“Wow, it sounds like you scored a good deal! Have you tried out your new mixer yet?”

“Oh, yeah, I used it to make mashed ‘taters last night. ... Never as good as your grandma’s were, though. She had a special touch.”

“Yeah.”

Auden thought she had the stomach flu the day she died. She was nauseous and very tired. The night before had been the forty-second anniversary of her and Gramps’ first date, and they went out to dinner to celebrate. She assumed she had just eaten some bad seafood.

I mean, she was only sixty years old. Who would imagine she was going to have a heart attack that night?

“Well, Gramps, I should probably go.”

“Yes, yes, get that homework done! Atta girl. Do you want me to call you in the morning in time to see the sunrise? I bet it’ll be a real beauty!”

“No, Gramps, it’s okay. You can just describe it to me when I talk to you later.”

“Alright. Hey, did I ever tell you, Sienna, about your grandma being an early riser? She would have to wake me up to see the sunrise.”

“No, Gramps, I... I never knew that.”

Sometime past midnight, my grandmother got out of bed to get an antacid. Gramps heard a thud and rushed over to see if she was okay.

She wasn’t. Gramps gave her CPR and called 911, but it was too late. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like. Gramps sitting beside her on the floor, staring at the love of his life that was suddenly gone forever. Him, a veteran surgeon who has saved thousands of lives, not being able to do anything to save the one life that mattered most to him.

And downstairs on the kitchen table, sifting in a vase of water she had filled, the still- fresh rose he bought her on their first-date anniversary just a few days before. Gramps had that rose preserved and keeps it in a case on his night-stand, beside the picture of her on their wedding day. He sleeps with one of her sweaters under his pillow, because it still smells slightly of her perfume.

****

I open my eyes. It’s still dark outside.

I’ve been tossing and turning all night — which is strange, because I rarely have trouble sleeping. I grope for my watch, press the “night vision” button. 5:47.

I sit up, turn on the light. For some reason I don’t even feel tired. It’s like I’ve switched bodies with Gramps or something. I wonder if I’m getting old.

Yanking up the blinds, I see the sun is just beginning to rise. I watch as the streaks of pink and purple slowly overcome the darkness, waking up the world. A new day.

I check my watch again. October 15. And then I realize — today is the eleventh anniversary of her death.

 I bet Gramps is sitting at his kitchen table, probably just finishing up his crossword. I picture him looking out the window at the now vibrant sky and thinking of her. This is the hardest day for him — no matter how many years pass, it doesn’t get any easier. I wish I knew what to say, to let him know I understand, that I’m thinking of him and I’m sorry. And that I miss her too.

But it seems my voice is never enough. Who is that girl? I’m always scared I’ll say the wrong thing.

I pick up the phone and dial. Though nothing I say will ever bring Auden back, at least Gramps will know I care. And I suppose it’s better to care and say the wrong thing than to not say anything at all.

I let the phone ring once, twice, and hang up. I sit there in silence for a moment, fingering the quilt she made and blinking away tears. Then I take a deep breath and dial again.

He picks up on the next ring.

“Hi, Gramps.”

“Sienna?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” I take a breath. Where do I go from here? What in the world am I supposed to do now?

I gaze out the window at the streaks of red sunrise fading into day. And for once I know exactly what to say.

“I actually woke up early enough to see the sunrise this morning, Gramps, can you believe it? And you’re right — it sure is beautiful. Just like Auden. A real beauty.

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