Bubbe and the iPhone

“This can even help you find a movie,” Dina said.  “I know you and Mrs. Goldberg like to go to the movies.” Bubbe nodded.  Dina also knew she liked to call a cab and escape from the confines of Watertown and walk to Platt’s across the street.  Just for a nosh, she would say.  “You can find restaurants too.”

“And recipes.”  Dina clamped her lips.  No cooking allowed in the apartments at Watertown – not even a “hot pot” or a microwave, but Bubbe still liked to shmy around the kitchen on  holidays at Dina’s apartment or her mother’s, if she wasn’t in Boca.

Bubbe flipped the pages.  There were no photos of Uncle Ethan in this book.  This was Dina and Bobby’s book.  A safe book.

“Bubb, I have to go,” she said.  “I’ll come back soon with Max and the kids and we’ll take you out – somewhere nice.”

Bubbe stood to walk Dina to the door.   The older she got, the slower Bubbe got, so now Dina held Bubbe’s hand, instead of Bubbe holding hers.

“Thank you for my new gadget,” Bubbe said.  Dina rubbed her back and wondered if she would be ok getting back to the sofa without the walker.  Without a word she retrieved it from the corner and placed it in front of Bubbe.  Bubbe gripped it with both hands.

“See you soon,” Dina said.  She hugged her grandmother with both arms and rested her head on Bubbe’s shoulder.  It smelled like Jean Nate’.  Dina didn’t know they still made Jean Nate’.

With a kiss on the cheek and a twist of the bronze-colored door handle, Dina was gone, back in the long hallway that smelled not of retirement, but of being tired.  She texted her girlfriends to say she was on her way to meet them.

Bubbe slipped the iPhone into the wide pocket of her neatly pressed pants and opened her door once she knew Dina was gone.  Her granddaughter wanted this iPhone to dazzle her the way her rhinestone bangle bracelets mesmerized Deeny when she was a girl.  Who was she to argue?

Now all that glittered was technology.

Bubbe moved the walker, then stepped, all the way down the hall to Gertrude Feldman’s apartment.  She knocked on the door, entered and retrieved the iPhone.  Bubbe waved it at her friend.

“Well you were right, Gert,” she said, “It’s an iPhone.”

“Now you can text me when Herschel gets too friendly in the card room, and I’ll come rescue you,” Bubbe said.

“Did she set you up with email?  Because when Sam Levy goes to Florida he likes to email every day. ”

Bubbe nodded.  “And she put music on here too, but I want the soundtrack from Jersey Boys — you know — the songs they play during chair aerobics?”

Gertrude logged off her desktop and the slide show of her trip to Atlantic City displayed on the monitor.   She turned slowly in the ergonomic chair her son the orthopedist gave her for Mother’s Day.

“I’ll set you up on iTunes after Bingo,” she said. “Sylvie…I know she came, gave you a fancy shmancy gift and left, but maybe this is the just the start and she’ll visit more now. You think?”

“No,” said Bubbe.  “But I do wish there was an App for that.”

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