Cherry Red

Content warning: Mental health/ self-harm.

Lyla Anderson shifts the ill-fitting dentures across her gums. Corpse-white, cheap Chinese resin: all that Medicaid would spring for. She massages her jaw, attempting to quiet the shriek inside her skull from the phone.

“Mrs. Anderson,” the voice continues. “Are you still with me?”

Agony. Lyla wrenches the receiver from her face. But still the shriek continues. Loud, piercing, bubbling from inside, from the walls themselves, pushing her batty until—

—she finds it. That budget hearing aid, stuck again at maximum volume. One twist, and peace returns. She gives a wheezy sigh.

“Mrs. Anderson?” The woman’s voice is quieter now. Still urgent, but blessedly tolerable. “I know this comes as a shock, but it’s crucial you keep listening.”

Lyla forces her tongue into service and the phone back to her ear. “I am listening. You said I’ve won a $400k lump sum, or two million over ten years.”

“Exactly correct! Halloween Bingo—who could have guessed? But let me offer some off-the-record advice.” The woman’s voice goes low. “The lump sum’s highway robbery. Take the ten-year payout and your family will worship you for years.”

“I’m sure they will.” Lyla squints at her end table, past the stack of brochures with their sun-dappled pools to the dusty school photos. Two boys, one girl. A pathetic output from her three strapping sons. And what mealy-mouthed grandchildren they are, too. She’s embarrassed, accompanying the three pale grubs in public. It’s a regular lesson in hubris.

“So I’ll put you down for the ten-year plan? That comes to a little over $16k a month—”

“No.” Lyla frowns at the pools on her brochures, imagining a body rendered weightless. It’s one decision made, at least. “I want all my money today.”

******

All three sons barely across town, and not a one free to escort their mother to city hall. Not that she will ask. Busy-busy making honey, those office drones, always forgetting who they serve.

Lyla settles for the bus, head shrouded in a scarf—vintage, not old—and gives a smile as fake as her teeth when she poses for her oversized check. Pumpkins in the corner, festive aplenty for this season of decay. Such an honor, yes, the largest Bingo payout in state history. A few pictures for the newspaper? Fine, fine. But no, she will not remove her scarf. Her translucent hair is a secret she shares only with the mirror.

The family will see her picture. Will they put it on the fridge, she wonders, just as she’s forced to commemorate the grandchildren’s insipid artwork? No, they’ll calculate their share before the blurb’s half-read.

The bank’s another chore. Ages to cash her check; overpaid clerks must inspect every angle as she stands around, fingers gnarled against her cane, inching ever closer to the grave. The morning wasted before she holds her stack of cash.

Schmoozing hands rest heavy on her back as the clerks escort her outside, sensing, she supposes, that the process will repeat itself soon. Lump sum split three ways. She’s barely taken half.

******

Lyla rides the bus to the end of the line. Abandons her nuisance cane in the seat and lets shaky legs bring her to the dealership. She spots a cherry-red two-seater out front and nods.

The showroom’s only woman is seated at front reception. Some things never change, but Lyla never looked so smug at her job, oh no. She’d taken every Seawinder Roller Coaster ticket with poise. The receptionist’s patronizing smile nearly makes Lyla’s prune juice too effective and she clenches, cursing herself for saving a dollar on the off-brand Depends.

“Does your grandson work here?” The receptionist tap tap taps her manicured nails on a keyboard, too busy for Lyla and her ticking time-bomb digestive system.

“I’m here to buy a Porsche.”

“Cayenne or Macan?”

Lyla points at the two-seater. “That one.”

The woman leans forward with an insulting squint. “You’ve come here for a sports car?”

“That’s a conversation between me and a sales boy.” Lyla clenches harder. Had she replaced the backup diaper in her purse last week? She’d spilled her purse’s contents on the floor at command of the sons. The Honda Civic’s keys are gone, yes, but the diaper?

The woman’s smile brittles, revealing over-whitened teeth hiding in her purple lipstick. Maggots on a bruise, Lyla thinks. Such gaudy trends these days. The cherry-red car’s a shock, almost. A hint of class still existing in a world like this.

“I don’t think…”

Lyla holds her stare. Easier by far than her bowels.

“I’ll bring an associate right over.” The receptionist clicks away on her show-off heels, letting Lyla make a merciful exit to the facilities.

******

The sales boy’s a huckster. With his white-collar gym muscles, Lyla senses he’d help her cross the street, then smother her with a pillow for her windfall. Eighty-six years she’s been constrained, all leading to a finale like this. Queen Cleopatra and her asp.

He’s refusing to show the two-seater. “I’m sorry, but the 911 Targa 4S just has too much horsepower. It’ll overwhelm a lady like you.”

A lady. Lyla fiddles with a hearing aid so the polyester sweater climbs above her wrinkled belly. It earns an up and down look that would have made her night in 1958. Bright young thing, turning heads under the Coaster’s glow with fingernails as shellacked as her new car.

“I’ve got my license and cash,” Lyla says. “Keep your smart mouth shut on the kick I can handle.”

But he’s stopped listening at her fistful of hundreds. It’s a magic trick, the way the huckster sticks out his elbow, perfect gentleman transformed, and escorts her to the buyer’s lounge.

******

The Porsche takes all her cash and a bite from her checkbook. Six figures for a car, obscene. But the windows slide like butter on fresh-boiled corn and the leather’s smooth enough to line a casket. Every penny an investment.

Tentatively, Lyla drives. The stoplights seem muted, blurry, and a cyclist shoots the finger as she turns. White knuckles on the steering wheel, heart stampeding, she’s forced to question if the sons were right about her faculties. Another driver might have seen that puppy in the road last week. The one she’d only noticed by the bump, and then the smear.

The Manor’s gonna be amazing, the middle son had said after the accident, fiddling Lyla’s surrendered Civic keys between his fingers. There’s shuffleboard. Group meals. You’ll finally make some friends.

Friends? She’d made them in other decades, then watched them all die. Couldn’t they understand some experiences didn’t need repeating?

The sons had nodded between themselves, filial duty complete. And she’d nodded back, then shuffled to the end table for her brochures. This conversation was not a surprise. One month prior, she’d called each retirement facility across two hundred miles, then scoured every paragraph that landed in her mailbox, crafting a ranked list during Jeopardy reruns. She’d hold her nose and acquiesce.

Nods had transformed to head shakes at the sight of her research. Nonrefundable deposit; they musta doctored all those pool photos anyway. There’s no time for tours. Why don’t you ever trust us?

Oak Grove Manor was their final choice. The only retirement facility she’d struck from her list on first read. Lowest star rating across three states—and no pool. The budget option.

Lyla grips the Porsche’s steering wheel. Another mile to the neighborhood’s gated entrance, then she fumbles the passcode twice over. But the luxury car’s a disguise, and she coasts through with a wave.

One street farther to the middle son’s fence. Plastic and fake, like everything else. Like the daughters through marriage with their skin maintenance scheduled at the frequency of oil changes. Their biggest fear, someday bearing a face like Lyla’s.

She snorts as she drops her speed, and it’s almost an insult to her pretty new car. Insults, Lyla understands; she wants to hug the Porsche in solidarity. All those years of soothing nightmares, of wiping butts a waste. Scientist, lawyer, doctor she’d raised. The budget option.

Lyla cracks her window, listening for nonexistent shouting. The son’s pool sits empty, uncovered, as sun-dappled as the photos in her brochures. To the left, his mansion of a pool house, renovated last autumn with a kitchenette, a Murphy bed.

For guests. Imagine.

Carefully, she removes the dentures. Then the hearing aid, placing both on the passenger seat. Considers, foot on the brake, then chucks both into the son’s front yard.

Lyla reverses the Porsche. A minute backward, another, until the runway stretches ahead. Momentum is key, and she expects the car understands, its power humming beneath her feet.

The air holds stillness. Not a soul on the sidewalk. There never is, these days.

She takes a private moment to breathe as the sun warms her cheek—touch; the last sensation to fade.

Then—

Pedal to the floor and Lyla’s in orbit, body pressed tight against the seat. And this is living; defiance in motion. She closes her eyes for these precious seconds reclaimed on the Seawinder Coaster, wind whipping ghosts of black curls as she smashes through the pool fence with a lover lost to time, his teenaged hand clasped tight against nails painted cherry red.

When the splash hits, Lyla finally smiles.

She cracks the window farther.