Mary and Daphne #201

“Go to your Nana’s.” This was the directive ringing in my ears, a tinnitus suspiciously resonant with the lingering vibration in my butt. Yep, ladies and boys (mostly boys, buncha pervs), Mary is definitively back at work. I can tell cuz she’s been saying stuff like, “Daffy, can you not see I’m working?” It well and truly (Truly? Yes, truly.) sucks that she can’t do fun stuff during the day.

Of course, Nana says I’m welcome anytime. I think sometimes she’s as bored as I am. Or not. Sometimes I think I’m finally in a groove and the days seem to go by so fast, and other days it feels like I’m back at Square Wuhn learning how to be retired. Nana’s been retired a lot longer than me. She seems to get it.

Now, I’m a very good rule follower, so a-knock-knock-knocking I went on her door, and who should greet me? Nana, of course; it’s her house, ya big sillies

“Hey there, Daffy”, she greeted me. I hope I’m as energetic as she is when I’m forty. I mean, she’s around seventy, but at the rate my manna drain is going – for what is life but an MMORPG – I’ll be lucky to be awake three hours a day when I’m forty. Maybe your thirties are just uniquely tiring, like adolescence. Or maybe I’m going through a belated growth spurt; five-foot-two-and-a-quarter, here I come!

“Mary sent me,” I replied. Oops; didn’t mean to sound churlish (I’m not a churl; really). “I mean …”

“She texted me. Come inside out of the chill, child.”

“Thanks.” What did she call me?

“So you have a case of the bored today?”

“I guess. I mean, yeah, but probably not as bad as Mary thinks.” She thinks I bug her during the workday cuz I’m bored, but the truth is I do it because I’m bored, don’t have the same appreciation for the sanctity of work that I used to, and that I like her. Like, I like like her, if I’m being honest, and you know me: I’m always honest (unless I have a good reason not to be … half a good reason will do in a pinch).

“You just missed Augie and Julia,” she told me.

“Your …”

“Daughter in-law. She had a doctor’s appointment this morning and dropped Augie off.”

“How old is he now?”

“Two.”

“Terrible twos, right?” Like I would actually know. The closest I come to knowing anything about junior humans is Suzy, and if I’m being honest (see above) I don’t think she’s as smart as a two-year-old. Just as cute though, and she’s got them all bested in the fuzziness factor.

“He’s an angel. And so smart! Come see what he painted.”

I dutifully followed Nana to the kitchen table; Grandma of The Year had set up finger painting for the little guy. “Just look at this,” she said. I did, and … See, the thing about honesty is one of the good reasons to not be honest is to spare someone’s feelings. It’s not Nana’s fault she can’t recognize crummy finger painting when it’s painted by her grandson’s fingers. It’s genetic.

“Wow. He … did that by himself? Such fearless use of … brown.” What? I had to say something! I couldn’t just stand there silently as though struck by awe (there must be a word for when one is struck by awe but I can’t think of it; really).

“I keep every one of his paintings and drawings.”

“All of them?”

“Every single one. I’m sentimental. Be right back.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I painted something. I remember discovering if you pop the watercolors out of the tray, you can use them like crayons. I can’t remember what if anything I discovered about whatever paint you use to finger paint. But I did remember painting the kitchen and the delightful sensory experience of rubbing paint between your fingers; not on purpose, of course, but I’m a messy painter. And the o so fun feeling of peeling it off. I wonder if animals that shed their skin like the feeling.

Curiosity got the better of me, and it is for this reason alone, and not for any reasons having to do with a desire to finger paint, that Nana found me rubbing orange between my thumb and forefinger.

And for the record, I didn’t startle or jump or blush or any of those things when she said, “You wanna paint a picture for Mary?” Only someone who gets caught at something would startle or jump or blush. In fact, I’ve never blushed in my life. Never had a reason to. What even is embarrassment, and from whence does the word cometh? It certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with being bare assed. I know because I checked, and anyway, I’ve never been bare assed. Really. No, you’re rambling! Big rambler mutter muffle murmur grumble.

“I wouldn’t know what to paint,” I said because I’d forgotten the word ‘no.’ Understandable given the surfeit of syllables in that word.

“Paint, um … a daffodil.”

“I’m not blushing; you’re blushing.”

“Huh?”

Heccin hell, Daphne! Saying the quiet part out loud? Why not just tell her you’re embarrassed because any sign you enjoy finger painting could be taken to confirm something a certain someone has alleged and a certain someone seems to implicitly agree with and something you vehemently deny?

“Okay,” I said because I forgot the word … I don’t remember the word I forgot. O the irony; the utter, utter irony. Almost positive that’s not an example of irony or almost positive that is an example of irony. One or the other for certain and definitely not both. And would you stop rambling already? I’m trying to relate this story.

“Are you hungry,” Nana asked me.

“I am if you are.”

“You like tomato soup?”

Here’s an interesting thing: despite having been called Daffodilmost of my life, I didn’t know what one actually looks like. Re-reading that, I can see now that it isn’t interesting at all. Sorry, but they can’t all be gems, whatever the ‘they’ in that sentence is.

I ended up spending several hours at Nana’s painting pictures of daffodils (after I googled what they look like) and eating grilled cheese and tomato soup. I don’t care for tomato soup on its own, but dunking a grilled cheese in there is one of life’s little pleasures, which, being one of life’s little pleasures myself, I appreciate. I never did an art appreciation class, but I’m self-taught in grilled cheese appreciation. Maybe that’s the hobby for me – grilled cheese appreciation. I could form a club, just me and the other homemakers getting together at least once a week to eat grilled cheese and gossip and stuff.

‘He’s fucking his secretary,’ one of club members would say.

And being of a certain mind, I’d blurt out, ‘I’d be Mary’s secretary but says she prefers to fuck the interns, so I got this outfit and …’ And the vanilla heterosexuals grilled cheese appreciators would look at me all aghast and stuff and just wouldn’t understand, and they’d stage a club coup, and I’d lose my crown as The Grilled Cheesiest and resign in disgrace.

Whole character arcs I’m writing in my head with Nana right there.

“What are you thinking about,” Nana asked.

O geez; tell the truth? That I invented a hobby and talked myself out of it because I’m insecure about my ability to maintain my position as The Grand Gruyère and can’t bear the thought of having to hand over my crown of cheese cubes and cheese stick scepter to Jenny the Heterosexual Homemaker with the cliched adulterer husband? That’s a heccin good reason to not tell the truth.

“Nothing,” I fibbed. Fibs, ladies and perverts, are what we call lies when we wanna soft pedal our dishonesty. I’m referring, of course, to the royal we because I’m still The Grand Panjandrum of The Pecorino and Provolone Provost Marshall. Now that I think on it, the real reason I’d get thrown out of office is arrogating titles to myself and an embarrassing inability to stop making bad cheese puns. My followers would start off enthusiastic but they’d grow tired of my bleu material and eventually be unable to camembert me anymore.

“You’re thinking about something; you’re smiling. Are you thinking about how excited Mary will be for her pictures?”

“Mary will be so excited, and then she’ll tease me for days.”

“But you did so good, especially not having a brush. It’s not like you made hand turkeys.”

I’m GREAT at hand turkeys, for the record. Just saying. “She’ll tease me cuz I went over to grandma’s house and finger painted. She’ll call me names, tell me I’m adorable, and ask if I got put down for a nap.” And I only needed a nap cuz I ate too much cheese. We sapphics are suckers for cheese; lose all common sense and regularly overeat the stuff. No wonder so many hot girls have tummy troubles … Wonder how mad Mary would be if I broke the spending limit to buy a fondue pot? I should find out. The very worst that could happen is I get a spanking and eat a lot of melted cheese … that Mary could feed to me off a long skewer. A sore butt, cheese, and getting skewered by Mary … This is how trouble starts and I’m here for it.

“You tell her I said to be nice to you or else,” Nana said. “But speaking of, need a nappy? Ha! A nap. I meant a nap … You know you turn almost the same color as your soup.”

“Do not. And I’m doing the dishes.” If Nana had her way, I’d never lift a finger at her house except in the garden, but I’m the kind of person who stops by uninvited, paints flowers, makes silent cheese jokes, and does the dishes. Ya know, a good friend. That’s me.

“Mary and I are going to a party this weekend,” I said by way of small talk. “We used to go to a party, like, every other month before the pandemic.” With friends. We went to a kinky play party through this fetlife group more like monthly.

“What’s the occasion,” Nana asked while she cleaned up the art studio/kitchen table.

“Just because. Our friend Brenna is hosting it.”

“I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a ‘just because’ party. Do young people still have those? We used to have them all the time when George and I were newlyweds. We all felt so grownup hosting dinner parties, but we just sort of stopped once we all had young kids.”

“Um, I think we did more in our twenties, but same, I guess. Dinner parties never really were that big a thing for our generation though; more like appetizer and BYOB parties, and then people started having kids.” Of course, so many of our friends are in the kink scene that getting people together for a dinner party that’s just a dinner party was sort of rare in itself. Private play parties, well, Mary and I met at one, and the only thing private about it was the apartment door was closed (and the guests were vetted). Good times.

“Are you taking a dish,” Nana asked me.

“Yeah, but I don’t know what. I’ve been watching cooking shows all week trying to get excited about something, but everything I get excited about is, ya know, work requiring skill.”

“You’re a wonderful cook.”

“At comfort food. For dinner party food, I bring the dip. Kinda wanna do something special.”

“I’ll help.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“I offered. You’d be doing me a favor; I get bored too some days.”

And so we spent another hour talking about possible show-stopping dishes to prepare. I was less anxious about what I’d bring than about there being no such thing as a dinner party at which all the guests are lifestyle couples. I mean, there’d be dinner, but as happens pretty much at all Brenna’s parties, her twerp of a partner and Jane would head off into their little space and try to take me with them. And new people would be there. Not new to Mary and me; we know Ann and her partner. But new to the rest of the group. New people plus new dynamic equals anxious me.

And Mary did gush over my paintings. One is on the fridge; the other she says she’s gonna have framed and wasted no time in texting a picture of it to our moms and posting it on Facebook. And I only blushed a little, and I only felt flattered a whole bunch despite myself cuz Mary wasn’t (just) teasing me. She really, really was proud of my mediocre painting. She even called me a good artist; not nearly as good as being called a good girl, but I liked it just the same.

And when I told her about the fate of my grilled cheese club, instead of laughing like a normal person, she nodded along like her little girl had come home from Grandma’s house and told her all about the imaginary world she invented, just beaming with pride at my creativity. I’m not weird; Mary is weird. True story.