Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
The cassette ends, and I put the camera down on the card table. I’m glad it’s over, honestly. I’m feeling intensely emotional—missing my grandma from the depths of my soul. I swallow hard. “What’s on the next Althea cassette?”
“See for yourself. Here, let me set it to double speed, because it’s lots of the same stuff, over and over. When you get to the most important part, I’ll put it back on normal speed.” Charlotte exchanges the cassettes and sets the speed, and, suddenly, I’m watching clip after clip of my grandmother coming and going from the building, all of it shot from the same vantage point as in the first cassette. Over and over again, in double speed, Althea Martin comes and goes from her new building without looking up or realizing she’s being recorded. But suddenly, about midway through, she stops on her way out of the building, looks straight up at Lloyd’s camera, smiles, and waves enthusiastically.
“Whoa,” I murmur.
“It gets better.”’ Charlotte slows things back down to normal speed on the camera and also hikes up the volume. Once she does that, the next clip features Grandma not only smiling and waving at Lloyd above her, like before, she beckons to him enthusiastically to join her down below while mouthing, “Come with me!”
“I can’t, Althea,” Lloyd murmurs from behind the camera. He knows her name? Did she come to his place to introduce herself to her new neighbor? Also, was he speaking only to himself from behind the camera or did he actually look up, so that Grandma could make out his words? Either way, Grandma puts her palms together, like she’s begging him to come with her. It’s not clear what Lloyd does in response this time. But whatever it is, Grandma responds by putting her hands on her hips and tapping her toe comically.
“I really can’t,” Lloyd murmurs. “Sorry.”
This time, Grandma drops the “I’m waiting” routine. She pats her heart, and then blows the man above her a kiss before turning and heading off.
Tears spring to my eyes, but I stuff them down. I must admit, it’s classic Althea Martin. A touching and poignant—and deeply kind—exchange. One that admittedly touches my heart.
After that first back and forth, it becomes a rinse and repeat situation throughout the rest of the cassette, so Charlotte speeds it up for me again. In double time, I watch Lloyd capturing Grandma coming and going from the building, time and again. Mostly going, however. Each time Grandma leaves, she stops below the window and invites Lloyd to join her. And when Lloyd communicates his refusal somehow, presumably, she smiles, touches her heart, and blows him a kiss or a wave or both.
“Did you notice he rarely gets her coming back?” Charlotte says.
“Yeah, I did notice that.”
“That’s what makes me think maybe she knocked on his door or something on her way out. I think maybe she let him know whenever she was leaving, so he could quickly grab his camera and shoot a new video of her.”
“Why on earth would she do that?”
“Maybe she knew it made him happy? I think it’s pretty clear your grandma enjoyed their little routine. Keep watching and you’ll see what I mean.”
She’s right. In the earliest clips of Grandma’s comings and goings, her body language is kind and enthusiastic but pretty conventional. Toward the end of the second cassette, however, her movements become increasingly sillier and sillier. In those later clips, whenever Grandma stops to wave goodbye and beckon for Lloyd to join her, she does a crazy little dance that elicits hearty chuckles from Lloyd. Clearly, Grandma’s having a blast mugging for Lloyd’s camera. She’s overtly trying to crack him up. No doubt about it. And Lloyd is having the time of his life. Or at least, the best time he’s had in many long years.
All of a sudden, right after yet another clip of Grandma leaving the building, Charlotte pauses the video. “Did you notice?” she says.
“No. What?”
“That time, for the first time, Althea didn’t beg Lloyd to come out with her before launching into her silly dance. From this point on, she never beckons and begs her to come with her again. I think, either from the passage of time, or maybe due to some conversation they might have had, she now accepts his limitations. He’s not going to leave his place. Ever. And she’s decided to accept him for who he is. Isn’t that lovely?”
“She never beckons to him again?”
“Not that he captures on video, anyway.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Isn’t it? I’d bet anything they had some sort of heart to heart, and she decided to meet him where he was.”
I twist my mouth. “It would make sense for her to go and talk to him, given that he was her next-door neighbor. When she first moved in, I remember coming over and she was busy baking banana bread to give out to all her new neighbors.”