CCXXX. my grandmother, joan rivers
Bubbie Joan calls twice daily to tell me stories about doing Hollywood Squares drunk on wine and the 80s. She tells me about getting on Ed McMahon after he accidentally announced her name, about the stage lights and the applause and the hum of the cameras and “Ed wants to pay for your dress” when she calls
twice a day,
every day.
Bubbie Joan pronounces it Yom Kip-per, the way the ladies do, the ones who wear gold jewelry, who grew up in storefronts and took baths in the river, but won’t talk about it unless it’s to make you laugh. She’s got a filthy sense of humor and a cigarette voice, and she sings Dean Martin with scratches like a record player.
She dresses in sequins, but falls asleep on the couch so quickly when we watch The Lion King that I’m not even sure if she knows what happens to Mufasa. I’m not going to be the one to tell her. She dresses in sequins, and her apartment is draped in marble and gold, and I think maybe she’s lonely, but I’m not going to be the one to ask. She smells like exotic countries instead and she doesn’t know how old I am always, but she tells me that she loves me when she calls
twice a day,
every day.
