Reds

Back then, the soles of our feet were always pitch-black, and our skin still had enough elasticity to rebound after each sunburn. The heat was so intense that it nearly blurred our vision, warping the air like flames do. Our hands stayed sticky because of the watered-down popsicles we grabbed from Mr. Coolidge’s freezer. Until we grew out of popsicles and grew into our bodies, sitting on sweaty leather car seats in parking lots, missing each other’s lips in the dark. Those summers were sacred for many reasons. But summer of 1978 marked a shift in time.

That was the summer I learned about grief. How it’s even stickier than sugar water and even heavier than Long Island heat. It was one that I wish I could simultaneously white-out from every dusty photo album and hold close to my chest like a precious jewel for eternity.

I was fifteen and torn between two worlds. Half of it I spent watching my grandmother wither away like a lit cigarette tossed carelessly in a parking lot and the other half I spent hanging out with Lisa, Tracy, and Colleen, girls two years above me, who - for some reason - decided I was cool enough to be in their group. In between, I was riding my bike faster than I thought was humanly possible to one location from the other.

Nursing homes were always the most terrifying places to me. The air smelled like it had just been released from a dark, dusty linen closet, and the residents would reach out to stroke my hair or tell me I was beautiful. And to not get old. That summer, my grandmother was either slowly dying in Windsor Gardens Nursing Home or quickly dying in a hospital ward. She was either hooked up to breathing machines or wearing oxygen under her nose and coughing like a wild animal was scratching the insides of her airways. Lung cancer was a beast of its own.

We called her Grandma Jo. She smoked Marlboro Reds like someone was standing behind her with a notebook and tally marks. She went through them like she had something to prove, even when oxygen from a portable tank became her lifeline. When I was 8, I begged her to let me try it.

“Please? Just one puff?”

“You wouldn’t be able to handle it,” she responded matter-of-fact. “Finish your milkshake. That cost me half a pack of cigarettes.”

We were sitting outside of the McDonald’s, me in my pink terrycloth dress and her in a green cardigan and a white A-line skirt. Perfectly poised but reeking of tobacco. That was 7 years ago, back when she still had the energy to chase me around with a wooden spoon and burn my grandfather’s sleeves with a cigarette butt.

Of course, I never wanted to visit. She wasn’t a nice grandmother. She was never a Nonna, despite our Italian heritage and her own immigration from Italy at age 22.

“Do I look like a Nonna?” She’d asked, according to my mother, when my mother brought her a card with the news of her pregnancy and addressed it to “Nonna.”

“Ma! We’re Italian!” She’d exclaimed.

My mother was a little sad after that, but she hid it. Because, surely, in her heart she also knew that Grandma Jo was never going to be a Nonna. There were layers of her childhood that I knew I’d never get to uncover, despite the fact that Grandma Jo at least partially raised us both. My mother, a devout Italian Catholic girl, had suffered a lot of loss in her life: the death of her husband when I was only one year old and the absence of her mother’s affection since before she could remember.

Now, Grandma Jo was sitting upright in her recliner in the depressing room she lived in at Windsor Gardens. I know my mom was paying a fortune for her to live in that miserable place, working doubles at the diner. Her oxygen tank sat by her side partially hidden behind a cardigan that was draped over her walker like a sad paper sack lunch.

“Ma! I said how are you feeling today?” My mom nearly shouted at Grandma Jo. She had that ridiculous diner uniform on, black pumps and all, in preparation for her shift that started in 2 hours. Clearly, it was designed by men for men; how did they honestly expect her to be on her feet all day?

“That skirt is awfully short,” Grandma Jo managed to squeak out, ignoring my mother, and instead looking me square in the eyes. “What happened to your school uniform? Have you been fooling around with boys?”

I turned bright red. She used all of her energy to say something to shame me. This was so pointless.

“Surely you’d have to look extra hard to find them when you go to an all-girl school,” she went on, laughing until she developed a coughing fit. I didn’t move from my chair and just stared down at the floor.

“Maria! Talk to your grandma!” My mom insisted, motioning for me to sit in the chair next to her.

I was squirming, waiting for the chance to escape. Lisa, Tracy, and Colleen had invited me to a bonfire at Jones Beach, but I would have to bike back to the school, where they said they’d pick me up. Tracy, whose father was a manager at a car dealership, had a Chevy Nova that could fit all of us. It was Friday, and my mom was working a night shift at the diner that night, leaving me with an unfathomable amount of freedom.

“I have to finish my homework,” I said, anxious.

“Homework can wait,” my mom said with gritted teeth. “You have all weekend. How about you stay 10 more minutes?”

I inched forward in my chair, tapping my foot on the ground.

“Say no before you regret saying yes,” said Grandma Jo, smiling with only her mouth and staring right through me with those ice-blue eyes.

She was still the same mean grandmother I had always known, despite knowing that she didn’t have that much time left on this planet Earth. And I still had no idea if she hated me, tolerated me, or even loved me just a little.

Regardless, I took that as my one-way ticket out and managed to have my bike parked in our little garage 10 minutes before the time they arrived. Sitting on my front steps, I saw Tracy’s car turn around the corner with the windows down. Seeing their halter and tube tops, platform sandals, and denim skirts made me feel plain and insecure in my brown above-the-knee skirt, flats, and plain white loosely-fitting t-shirt.

“I’m underdressed,” I commented sheepishly as I slid into the backseat.

“Awe, you look adorable,” Lisa said, smiling sweetly at me from the passenger’s seat.

Somehow her well-intentioned comment made me feel even more insecure. But I quickly got over it when I thought again about my newfound freedom. The car had a radio, and Night Fever was playing at top volume in our sleepy little neighborhood, much to my neighbors’ dismay. I can’t describe to you the butterflies in the pit of my stomach as the smooth air from the rolled-down windows hit my face during that car ride. It was magical, exhilarating, and terrifying all at the same time.

When we got to the beach, a large group of soon-to-be seniors were gathered around a small bonfire laughing and playing loud music on a portable radio. They were passing around a couple of cups with some brown liquid in it. Lisa and Tracy sat down with their respective boyfriends, and Colleen ran over to hug one of the other girls in their class. And so there I was, standing awkwardly behind the bonfire with nobody to talk to.

One of the boys who I recognized as Danny Russo came up to me and handed me a cup. He winked at me and introduced himself. “Danny,” he said, holding out his hand to shake mine. “I’ve seen you around.”

I laughed nervously. “Yeah, I’m friends with Tracy, Lisa, and Colleen. Nice to meet you.”

I accepted the cup from him and looked down at the mysterious liquid. It smelled like a combination of fruit, sugar, and toenail polish remover. I pretended to take a sip. He gestured at me to come sit on one of the benches by the boardwalk. We made some small talk about his summer football practice and how my first year of high school went. At one point, he put his arm around me, and I laughed awkwardly.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” He asked me, but he didn’t seem like he was trying to kiss me.

I blushed and quickly looked away, down at my ugly brown ballet flats. “No.”

“I can tell you’re not the kind of girl that goes around parking with everyone,” he said to me, leaning in. “You’re the kind that guys marry.” He smiled and walked off toward the rest of the group.

So, I wasn’t the kind of girl that got kissed at the beach or the kind who got taken to a drive-in movie. I was the girl who wore a plain skirt whose grandmother was dying in a nursing home and whose mother worked at a diner.

Eventually, the girls drove me home, after I spent agonizing hours making more small talk with the class of 1979. I climbed in my bed and hugged the teddy bear that I still had from childhood. I kept replaying the conversation with Danny in my head. But I wanted to be that kind of girl. My thoughts circled in my head until they slowly faded away as I drifted off to sleep, like smoke from a dying cigarette.

As the days went on, Grandma Jo was declining more and more. She couldn’t really smoke cigarettes at all anymore without coughing and gasping for air like she was hanging off the side of a cliff, white knuckles gripping the very edge. We knew this because a few days after my beach night, she ended up in the hospital with a bad pneumonia after my mom finally broke down and bought her another pack of Reds.

“Grandma Jo’s in the hospital,” my mother said to me frantically, running her hands through her greasy diner hair and pacing. She was barefoot and her red hair ribbon was splayed out on the counter, but her uniform skirt was still on. “We need to get a ride to the hospital. The car’s in the shop again. Only Marie’s available, but she has a two-seater.”

Children 14 and under weren’t allowed in the hospital wards, and I was just barely unlucky enough to make the cutoff. Grandma Jo looked worse than I’d ever seen her, lying in that dark hospital room with IVs in her arms and an oxygen mask on her face. I’d never seen it covering her face before, just under her nose. Apparently that was still not enough oxygen. Because before I could bat an eye, a giant team of people rushed into the room and moved her to the intensive care unit, where they put a tube down her throat and attached her to a machine that breathed for her. Doctors and nurses came in and out, speaking at length with my mother.

Your mother is very ill…What would she have wanted… We are worried she is approaching the end of her life…Are you sure your daughter wants to be here for this?

The hours blur together for me now, but at some point, the tube was taken out, and I realized that this was not because she didn’t need it. I’ll never forget the way my mother half cried-half laughed when the box of Reds slid out of the coat that now belonged to a dead woman.

The day of Grandma Jo’s funeral, my mom had to work another late night shift. There was no such thing as bereavement leave when there were drunk men to be served and money to make.

Tracy, Lisa, and Colleen had come over to comfort me that day and were sitting on my couch with me. My eyes were dry at that point. I had cried for a while, but the truth was that my feelings toward Grandma Jo weren’t that straightforward.

“We’re so sorry about your grandma,” Tracy said, rubbing my shoulder.

“Do you want a distraction?” Colleen asked, smiling. “Jimmy’s having a party tonight.”

It was the first time I’d ever been invited to a senior party. This was a big deal. I did my best to shake off the feeling that I was doing something wrong while my mom was probably fighting back tears as she scrubbed yet another shiny red booth. But I was 15. And I was one-track-minded more often than I should have been. And soon enough, those thoughts were like yesterday’s memories, and we were back in Tracy’s car singing along to You’re The One That I Want.

The party was in Jimmy Sportiello’s parents’ basement, which was full of old gym equipment, a couple of raggedy couches, and a foosball table. Deja Vu hit me like a truck when the smell of cigarette smoke hit my nose. The image of Grandma Jo sitting in that awful nursing home flashed in my mind when I saw that they were all smoking Marlboro Reds.

“Everyone - this is Maria.” Tracy introduced me to the group.

“Maria! Have a smoke,” said one of the boys, who I recognized as the lifeguard at the city pool. His bronzed skin almost blended into his dirty-blonde hair. He held out an open pack of Marlboro Reds for me to grab a cigarette. An invitation.

I reached out my hand, feeling the pressure.

And just like that, I saw her: Grandma Jo, as a 15-year-old girl in Italy in 1918, being offered her first cigarette. Young and healthy with shiny white teeth, soft skin, and a smooth voice.

I looked around. Everyone was staring at me, some giggling and whispering about my hesitancy. She’s not sure at first, and she takes in her surroundings. Neighbor boys and girls are laughing at the prolonged pause.

I put it close to my lips and slowly opened my mouth.

She looks at the lit cigarette - and shrugs her shoulders. It is actually a rebellion for women to smoke - it’s a man’s habit.

I inhaled as deeply as I could and instantly regretted it as the tickle in my throat became the worst coughing fit I’d ever had.

She takes her first drag - she coughs at first and then stops.

I tried again, but to no avail. My coughing fit worsened and I almost threw up.

And she takes another. And another. She’s laughing with the neighbor kids now, throwing her head back as she sucks the life out of that cigarette. She’s tougher than me.

Before I realized it, I was putting mine in the ashtray, a 15-year-old girl in Westbury, New York, in 1978. I watched the embers slowly dissolve into the dark material and disappear.

“Hey! Don’t waste a perfectly good cigarette!” One of the boys protested.

I apologized a couple times and laughed it off with the girls later. But that was the beginning and the end of my smoking journey. I never wanted to see another nursing home or Marlboro Red again in my life. I like to think that Grandma Jo would have been proud of me for making the decision to avoid a lifetime of rationing money from paychecks for a cigarette fund, making up excuses at work for hourly smoke breaks, and coercing children to spend their diner money on extra packs. But, if I’m being honest, she probably would have laughed at that sentiment and lit another one up, closing her eyes and smiling as the hot smoke first touched the back of her mouth.