Escaping To Me
The Bridal Party
The Photographer, angling to get a shot of the bride and groom, nearly collided with Grandma Rachel.
The family made a great fuss, but Rachel, deep in retrospective, was unaware. Her family thought her so senile she was unaware of her surroundings.
That was not true.
Rachel was deep in thought, escaping from this mundane place, these people, taking solace within herself.
She had never had a wedding. She and David eloped because her parents didn't accept him. It would have been a good story, if any of these people had the brains to understand it, which she strongly doubted.
She glanced around the tawdry hall, wondering where had all the real people gone?
These were extra cheap Barbie and Ken dolls; shallow, empty, not living, just animate. And here comes a daughter in law, Norine, with a piece of cake, talking loud and childishly.
“Oh isn't this cake so pretty..."
“Push it up your nose,” Rachel replied, beatifically smiling.
She had such dreams for Jason....he had been such a clever child, now gross and sour, well, who wouldn’t be having married Norine?
Rachel gripped her cane. She didn’t really need it, but it was useful.
“Mom,” called Noah, “You can’t leave, yet.”
She looked at the child from whom nothing had been expected but had actually married a sensible girl.
“I’m going to use the facility, dear,” she lied with a smile, moving to the exit.
Unfortunately, he called one of the dozen young girls to accompany her as if she needed help.
Rachel couldn't recall whose child she was and didn’t care.
Escape to the Bathroom
The bathroom was crowded with giddy things who fell silent as they pasted a plastic smile over their lipstick. Rachel ignored them, and went into a booth.
She wouldn’t mind sitting here for the next hour, thinking her thoughts, but knew she had to return to center stage. She came out, washed her hands. Looking at her escort in the mirror.
Rachel recalled her own youth; she had been so passionate, an Anti-War feminist ...in those days, conversations were about something, contra the quacking of those in the hall.
Rachel smiled to herself; these mindless people who didn’t protest. These sheep who accepted what they were told. Zombies who directed what passed as their minds to tiny things.
These people, male and female, had been the enemy of Rachel the Radical; who was now the matriarch of these...people?
Escaping
As Rachel emerged from the bathroom she sent her escort away, turned and moved towards the exit. This had been her intention the moment she touched her cane; to get away.
She didn't have her own transportation so had to beg lifts whenever she need to travel. She hated that. She preferred to skip lunch and save for a Taxi than ask for a ride.
She saw a grand nephew smoking, His parents had given him one of those stupid names that were so popular.
She said; "Zarien; I need you to take me home now."
He tossed his cigarette, escorted her to his car.
He was silent, having grown with one of her more obnoxious relatives. But she loved his silence and bathed in it until he dropped her at her house. He didn't think to walk her in, he hadn't been trained in that kind of behaviour, which suited Rachel perfectly.
Where She Is Who She is
As soon as she entered her home, she tore off her old lady costume, (purchased
by one of her children for the event), tossing it on the floor, pulling on jeans
and a jacket, and striding into the night.
She owned a large chunk of land, assumed her children had already planned on how they would divide it.
She had, unknown to them, bequeathed it to the animal shelter. Her kids would learn when she died. They were as much family as passengers on the same plane.
She walked the deep dark as she had as a girl...she didn’t feel like a Grandmother.
She felt only a few years beyond the Rachel who had protested the Vietnam War.
Soon she arrived at her hidden cottage which seemed to belong to a Hobbit. It had been built by Fredric Barton-Newton, a lover she had enjoyed five years ago.
Freddy had been a spry seventy, an architect who had created structures for movie characters. He’d lived here with her until he went home to die.
She couldn't but make a blushing smile. Her children had no idea she had a secret life. A secret S-E-X life.
She entered the cottage. She took a Guinness, opened it, swallowed. Alone in the dark in her cottage was how Rachel was Rachel. It made horrible social encounters, like tonight's wedding, survivable.
She could get through anything; knowing that whenever she escaped, herself
was here, waiting for her.
