Before leaving the office, she looked at the February picture of her Manhattan calendar—a winter scene of ice skaters at the Wollman Rink in Central Park. A pang of longing passed through her. She always loved getting Mary and Harper to join her for a skate, even if Mary was a bit like Bambi with her long legs not quite steady on the blades and Harper held her hand so tightly it cut off her circulation.
While she was putting her all into her work for FTW, she very much missed the city. Dot drew her red Sharpie across that Monday’s date.
They were one day closer to Election Day... and their return to the city.
Chapter 17
Mary started the FTW-provided Jeep Grand Cherokee before opening the garage door.
“Four degrees. This is insane!”
She turned the heat on full blast and warmed her seat and the steering wheel before reversing into the street. She wondered how people survived before these luxuries.
That afternoon, she wore a silver puffer coat over a long, black turtleneck tunic and dark gray yoga pants with tall striped socks and her sneakers. Not her usual outfit, but she made exceptions for the weather. It wasn’t like she was going to run into anyone she knew.
She was headed to the store for ingredients to make her Nonna’s spaghetti and meatballs. She craved a taste of home.
As she drove, Mary sang along to Sabrina Carpenter, a flashback to the song of the summer that had shocked her mother with its lyrics. In the seclusion of the Jeep, Mary belted out the most profane line. “Brilliant,” she thought.
Mary didn’t mind running errands for The Crew. The grocery store was her domain. Besides, she was the only one who really knew how to drive. Dot and Harper were like a lot of city kids, just taking the train, taxis, and Ubers to get around.
Mary was the opposite. Her father had insisted she learn how to drive a stick shift in case she was ever stuck somewhere. “Survival skills,” he’d called it.
She took to driving right away, especially in the city. Sometimes she’d take her dad’s Mercedes sedan across the Verrazzano Bridge, along the BQE to the tunnel and into the city north all the way up the FDR, cut across from the Harlem River Drive, then snake her way south down the West Side Highway before heading back home to Staten Island. It gave her time to think.
As a typical New Yorker, she was insanely aggressive in the car, which often gave her passengers a bit of a heart attack.
“Merge or die,” her brother Frankie said the first time she navigated through Times Square.
With her combat experience in the city, driving in Cedar Falls was too easy. There was light traffic and very polite drivers.
At the store, she whipped around putting items in her cart. She bought a jar of Ragu. “Forgive me, Mother.” She wasn’t talking to the Virgin Mary, but to her own, who never served anything but homemade sauce for dinner.
Everyone was friendly at the Piggly Wiggly. When she couldn’t find fennel seed, she asked a young man working at the store for help. He said he’d never heard of it.
“Let me go ask my grandma—she’s working the register.”
He came back with a cute, owlish woman with sparkly blue eyes wearing a red uniform smock. She led them two aisles over from where they were.
“Son, it’s right here. Always in aisle three.”
“Got it, Grandma.”
“Thank you so much,” Mary said to the woman, missing her Nonna. Turning to the young man she said, “Be good to her. She’s a treasure!”
The boy put an arm around his grandmother and squeezed.
“Always,” he said.
“He’s my favorite. Just don’t tell his brothers.” She poked him in the ribs then went back to her post. Did every grandmother play this favorites game?
When Mary went through the checkout, the boy offered to carry her bags to the car. She nearly turned him down.
“You’re not even wearing a coat.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad out,” he said. “Besides, I like the cold.”
Were they even the same species? She reached in her bag for a five-dollar bill. Her dad had taught her always to have a little cash for tips. “Makes the world go ’round,” he’d said.