Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine

eaten out by anyone, let alone an old man. I screamed; she screamed; I gagged a little; then he, Mr. Tatum, got up, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, and tried to pretend this was the kind of situation where people can look each other in the eye.
    â€œDid you
follow
me here?” Adrianna said. Then—I forget her exact words—she called me a stalker and said some more in that melodramatic vein. Mr. Tatum tried to calm her down.
    â€œIs something wrong?” he asked. “Everything all right with your folks?”
    My parents’ health was everything we would wish it to be, I admitted.
    â€œThen why are you here?” Adrianna said.
    â€œBecause I thought you said you had a
boy
friend. And I wanted to make sure you weren’t in over your head or needlessly debasing yourself.”
    â€œShut up,” she said. “I am not debasing myself!”
    â€œBut Adrianna!” Obviously it was an effort not to say terribly rude things about Mr. Tatum as he stood right there, fussing with his belt buckle, but I did my best. I alluded to him not by name. I called their relationship ‘this.’ As in “
This
is a terrible mistake.
This
is one of those instances where you’re confusing age with experience. Maybe
this
is something you ought to discuss with a licensed therapist.” Here she clearly took offense, but in an effort to keep things civilized she said, “Well,
that’s
the pot calling the kettle black.” “Well, don’t you think
the old grey mare
just ain’t what she used to be?” And so on and so on, strangling our points in a hideous macramé of clichés. I wouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I’m not judging the book by its cover, I’m just saying all that glitters is not gold. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. I had only cried, “Don’t blame the messenger,” when Adrianna grabbed a Lucite paperweight from the coffee table. “Somebody has to
send
for a messenger,” she howled.
    â€œLadies!” said Mr. Tatum.
    There were no ladies present—it was an imaginary appeal—but it got her to put the paperweight down. They had a brief struggle themselves, which involved an embarrassing number of clutches and endearments I tried not to witness, and then Adrianna tore out of the house and drove off before I could explain—especially that she was my ride.
    Mr. Tatum looked at me with quiet dismay.
    â€œDo you want to sit down?” he said.
    â€œNot where she was sitting.”
    I was aiming to lighten the tense situation, but he didn’t get it. He was
so old
.
    â€œYou’ve had a shock. Why don’t you sit down on the Chesterfield?” He indicated a high-backed leather sofa, tufted and cracked. “I’ll get you some water.”
    Once he had passed me the green rippled Depression glass, he began: “It’s not what you think . . . ”
    â€œYou don’t know what I think, Mr. Tatum.”
    He raised a purple-veined, age-spotted hand. “Please. I’ve known you forever. Call me Don.”
    â€œAnd I’ve known you,” I scoffed, “since you were fifty.” I sat with my arms folded, ankles crossed. “Where is Mrs. Tatum right now? Tutoring refugees? Shopping for Christmas presents? Taking your grandchildren to dinner?”
    â€œMy wife died eight years ago,” he said softly. “I believe you came to the funeral.”
    â€œDid I?” Oh god. There rose a dim memory of being dragged to a funeral parlor for some lady’s untimely demise, a vague recollection of a woman who had somehow seemed to die of her femaleness. I couldn’t recall the details, but I wasn’t about to be disarmed by pity, so I expressed my condolences to Mr. Tatum swiftly, and then reminded him that this match with my sister was hardly what anyone in my family might have hoped for. The fact that he and Adrianna were carrying on