Aging with Gracie by Heather Hunt Page A

residents by firing Mr. Watson. In her heart, she believed that she had.
    Unfortunately, the look of disgust coming from the perpetually sour Nurse North who stood at the back of the room did little to raise her hopes.
    “Oh, well,” she sighed. “Let the games begin!”
    •∞•∞•
    A short while later, Grace slipped her arm out of the sling and propped it up on the pillow that Sally, the sweetest nursing assistant the world had ever seen, had provided for her new employer. For the past two days, Grace had made the table her temporary work station. She just hadn’t been able to stomach the decor, not to mention the smell, in Mr. Watson’s old office.
    “You just make sure you keep that arm above the level of your heart, honey,” the woman had given Grace the curt command before hurrying off toward the middle of the room to settle a dispute that had broken out between two of the residents.
    Grace repositioned her arm and lifted her injured ankle onto the worn seat of a chair. It was really a shame that the place had been neglected for so long, she thought as she looked around the room. The bones of the place, like most well-built southern homes, were impressive. They weren’t just bits of plastic and plaster. They were sturdy materials, brick and wood, that had withstood both time and wear. The furniture fell into basically the same category. Hardy old pieces that basically needed a week’s worth of elbow grease and a fabric facelift in order to restore them to their original glory.
    The rest of the place was a designer’s dilemma, however, and questions abounded in Grace’s mind. Tile, wood, or carpeting for the floors? What about wall colors? And the question that seemed to cause the most anxiety: How will the updates meet handicap and fire codes...and still be aesthetically pleasing? It was a monumental task to tackle, but Grace felt that she was game. She simply needed some help...and at present, it seemed that the help was nowhere to be found.
    She glanced at her simple platinum watch. Jack Ellis was officially three minutes late for their appointment. Minutes that Grace, with practically a million things to do, could not spare. She had just learned from the building inspector that they had exactly two weeks to meet fire codes. She looked toward her tote as if it might hold an answer to his whereabouts, or, at the very least, a game-winning business plan.
    Unfortunately, she had begun to understand that general contractors fell into a league of their own. As the game stood, Grace’s team was close to circling the drain, and her special teams coach was rapidly heading for a “delay of game” penalty. He had exactly one and a half minutes to get his tight little tush there, or she was prepared to send him packing just like she had that sweaty menace, Mr. Watson.
    Wait a minute , Grace thought. Fire him?
    She considered the option for a moment before another thought crossed her mind.
    Can I actually fire him ?
    She flipped open her laptop and accessed the files containing her job description and the contract with Jackson Ellis Construction. She scanned the wording and found her answer.
    Sweet !
    The theme song for her old middle school basketball team came to mind, and she began to hum. Her feet itched to do a victory dance, but unfortunately, even if she were suddenly and miraculously gifted with an innate ability to dance, she was still seriously hindered by her present injuries.
    She glanced around and realized that, though she was by far the youngest person in the room, she was very nearly the most incapacitated. She knew for a fact that most of the residents could take her in a foot race. Emma Walters, a sweet little eighty-year-old woman who had taken to following her around the facility, was certainly proof of that. Grace had even attempted to lose the woman on the back hallway earlier that day, but Emma had dogged her tracks like a hound on a raccoon.
    Goodness gracious! I’m already picking up