Free Arm Candy by Jill Kargman Page A

left arm. He watched a huge tugboat move up the river in silence, its wake muted by the thick wall of glass. But the quiet moment was punctuated by beeps from the IV and various calls on the speaker system as the vials filled with a dark red liquid that J. Crew would call oxblood. But it wasn’t an ox, it was his beloved and frail Grammy, and it pained Chase to see this strong, vibrant woman with tubes and needles stuck in her papery skin.
    After the nurse exited, she turned to Chase, gesturing weakly.
    “Promise me you’ll yank the plug if I get all loony,” she said seriously. “I don’t want to be some drooling vegetable like Helen Sinclair from Maidstone. If I ever get to the point where I don’t recognize you or your brothers, just rip it out. Promise.”
    “Grandma, please. Don’t talk like that, I can’t stand it.” Chase winced. “You’re going to be fine.”
    “C’mon, Chasie. I’m ninety-two, I’ve lived my life! Why stick around and have the personality of a hothouse tomatah?”
    Some say tomayto, some say tomahto, but Ruthie said tomatah. She was sophisticated New York but was so down-to-earth and no bullshit; she almost sometimes sounded off the farm. Chase took his grandmother’s thin, veined hand and held it tightly, saying nothing.
    “You know,” she said, looking at her beautiful grandson’s perfect but somewhat sad face. “You’re too darn serious. Why so serious? You’re young. You’ve got the world in your hand.”
    “I’m . . . not so serious.”
    “Baloney. Always the good son. Since you were a little boy with your poncy little suit and your violin case. You were always so serious. Maybe it’s because those darn brothers of yours were so damn reckless. Your mother put too much of a burden on you. So much pressure! I told her, ‘Brookie, let the boy breathe,’ but you were her star, always.”
    “I don’t know about that,” Chase said bashfully.
    “Take it from me,” she said with a wink. “It all goes by so fast, Chasie. You’ve been old since you were a kid! Even with your young face, up here, in your head, you’ve always been an old fogey. Don’t wait till your body is, too. Don’t wait till you’re in this bed hooked up to all this junk to realize you could have had some fun, could have lived a little.”
    Chase sat quietly, digesting his grandmother’s words.
    “Look, I loved my life, I’ve had a great run,” she said, smiling. “But if I could do it over, I’d live it up a little more, go nuts. Rock the boat,” she confessed. “I had so many obligations to your grandfather, so many duties, the campaigns, the political fund-raisers, the attention. It was all wonderful, but sometimes I was itching to break free—just a bit—and I hope you will, Chase. Everyone—all the people you know—will be old, lying here like me one day. What’s it all for, unless you eat it all up? Devour each day. Loosen up, my boy! You don’t know how to have any fun.”
    “That’s not true. I can have fun, Gram.” He smiled, trying to assure her with his boyish grin that he wasn’t some robotic drone drowning in duties.
    “You can’t really have fun if you’ve never broken a rule or two. Now I don’t mean laws, don’t go getting arrested, not like your dumb brothers. I mean rules , the way things are. The status quo. Your schools, your job, your gal are all things that Mom and Dad wanted for you. But do you want that for yourself?”
    “Sure, I mean, what’s not to like about my life?” he asked somewhat defensively. She had touched a nerve.
    “ Like? You just said it yourself. You think you should like life or love it? Ya know how I spell like ? B-O-R-I-N-G. Like is bland. Like is yellow cake without the chocolate frosting. Dress it up. Rev it up a notch, kiddo!”
    Chase looked at her hand in his. He was so hardwired to be The Good Son that he couldn’t even divorce his wishes from those of his parents. They were deeply intertwined, like two necklaces that