29 by Adena Halpern

mouth, stopping me. “I’m kidding.”
    “You see? I really am your grandmother.”
    “Maybe you’re right.” She laughed. “Maybe spending the entire day with you was not the best idea.”
    “Oh, no,” I replied. “You convinced me, and now I’m your problem for the day.”
    “Jeez, Gram, it was just a joke.”
    “Okay, now, let’s make an appointment with your hairdresser,” I instructed. “I don’t want to go to mine. He only knows from blue hair. Then we’ll have lunch, and then the bras, and then”—I giggled when I said this—“then maybe we’ll pick up some hot guys.”
    “Yuck.”
    “It’s my day.”
    “Okay, fine.” She shrugged.
    “After all,” I said, looking at myself in the mirror again, “today is my day of being selfish, and what I say goes.”
    “Now you’re speaking like a person of my generation!” she declared.
    “You bet your damn ass I am.” I laughed.
    “My grandmother’s cursing?” She looked at me, shocked.
    “Oh, please, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of things you’re going to learn about me today. Now come on,” I told her. “Let’s get this day started. Cinderella goes back at midnight!”

frida
    Frida Freedberg was always a worrier.
    She attributed this aspect of her personality to her mother, Hannah, who would wake her up every morning for school with such vehemence that it terrorized her for the rest of her life.
    “Frida?” her mother would whisper as she walked quietly into Frida’s bedroom.
    “Frida?” She would say, a little louder.
    “Frida!” she’d shriek. “You’re going to be late for school and then you’ll never graduate or meet a nice man!”
    Frida’s mother had been dead for fifty years, but she could still hear that penetrating shrill voice stab her in the heart each morning. Frida wasn’t crazy about her mother, but she never told anyone, not her late husband, Sol, and certainly not her best friend, Ellie. Frida never shared such things like Ellie did. Ellie couldn’t keep a secret if she tried. Frida kept things to herself.
    Still, she couldn’t deny that she was a worrier, and this particular morning was no different.
    Ellie had called her that morning sounding shaken up. She’d asked crazy questions. Was this the beginning of Alzheimer’s? Oh, God forbid. So she went down to check on Ellie. They lived in the same building, so it wasn’t so difficult to just take the elevator down a couple of floors to make sure she was okay. Instead of finding Ellie, though, she found her granddaughter, Lucy, and a person Lucy claimed was a cousin. Frida knew that such a cousin did not exist. Frida had known Ellie her entire life, seventy-five years’ worth of knowing, and this young woman was no cousin. Frida even tried asking if the girl was from Chicago, even though Frida knew that no one in Ellie’s family ever lived in Chicago. The girl took the bait and said she was. Still, she did look a lot like Ellie when she was younger. Then again, that could just be a coincidence.
    This was the tip-off that something was wrong. The other woman had to be a nurse or, worse, a social worker, brought in to help the family decide what to do with Ellie. Lucy was probably keeping this from her, fearing she wasn’t strong enough to take the news. What would Frida be without Ellie? Ellie was her dearest friend, a sister in every sense.
    Frida was a champion in the game of jumping to conclusions. A worrier like Frida was worried.
    Then again, another side of her, the saner side, told her that maybe Ellie really did go out to Barbara’s house like Lucy said. She would just call Barbara’s house to find out. Besides, she’d been meaning to call Barbara, anyway, to thank her for such a lovely time at Ellie’s seventy-fifth birthday party the night before. No one would suspect she was worried about Ellie. It was the perfect cover. Then, if Ellie was there like Lucy said she was, allthe worrying would have been for