A Slice of Life at the *Another Day* Nursing Home

Short story

“Honey, you look just like Audrey Hepburn,” Virginia said to C.J., the nurse on hall duty. Virginia smiled to herself, a faraway glance overtaking her face and accentuating her enchanting blue-green eyes. Now, her breasts drooped down to the elastic waistband of her pants, and her hair was done in a tight, frizzy ‘old person’s perm,’ though her grayish-black hair color looked surprisingly good on her.

C.J. was elated by the compliment, but chose to hang her head down in embarrassment, securing her ponytail at the nape of her neck and blowing air through her short brown bangs. She’d recently watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and had been trying to channel the Audrey Hepburn aesthetic.

“Thanks, Ginny. You broke a lot of hearts in your day, I bet.”

C.J. had quickly learned the value of flattering banter. It raised up the spirits of the men and women shriveling under time-wrinkled skin and locked the walls of the nursing home. C.J. felt it odd that the residents were locked in the nursing home walls, to socialize as they withered away to flesh and bones until their spirits inevitably left their bodies and the fire department called the TOD (time of death) and the ambulance workers zipped up a body in the body bag and wheeled them out the back door on a gurney.

Virginia, and the other residents, enjoyed having the nurses around, as they reminded them of life outside the walls. But, there was the dilemma of figuring out which nurses were trustworthy — and which ones were not. So many of them were crazy.

In fact, C.J. wasn’t thrilled with the place either. She wondered how long she’d be able to make it with the toenail fungus, bedsores, and the occasional call to the authorities to report deaths and body pick-ups.

C.J. was going to school to become an RN (registered nurse), knowing that this would be a good income in the late 1990s. Plus she wanted to nurture her knack for comforting people. In this manner, C.J.’s choice made perfect sense to friends and family. But the longer C.J. served pills and Jell-O to the residents on the three wings of Another Day Assisted Living Center, she began to doubt that she was in the right place. Still, she didn’t know where else to go.

Glancing up from walking her pill distribution rounds, C.J. saw a resident in her wheelchair with her shirt pulled up over her head, bra unsnapped, and one heavy breast released from its cotton-and-hook prison. C.J. quit daydreaming and assertively walked over to the resident. “Now, Sueanne, you know you can’t do that out here.”

Sueanne replied by sticking her tongue out at C.J. and smiling with a devilish grin before laughing gleefully. C.J. looked away, rolled her eyes, and let out a sigh before wheeling Sueanne back to Room 32.

Another Day was a building that stood on cheap elegance. The executives knew that at least a pretense of wealth was required to fetch the wealth of residents’ sons and daughters. Their children benefitted from their family’s old money — plantation owners, bankers, politicians, aristocrats, and so on. But, it was hard to keep the carpet cleaned of split pea soup and creamed corn in the formal dining room, complete with heavy oak tables, navy blue and white linens, and lace curtains.

There were alarms on the front and back door, patio, and dining room. These alarms were attached to the residents known as “runners.” Another Day wasn’t looking for a lawsuit when an elderly resident got struck by wanderlust and then hit by a car on the nearby highway.

Elaine Benson worked the front desk at Another Day during the evening. She had a variety of tasks: Bible trivia games, answering the phone, answering to family members, making sure residents didn’t escape out the front door, and serving Jell-O and popcorn snacks.

Elaine’s least favorite job was washing the linens which had been carelessly stained by kitchen staff and residents with the bland concoctions of the ever-new cook. Then there were the puddles of drool laced with pill powder. Some residents were definitely spitting out their medicine unbeknownst to the nursing staff.

Another of Elaine’s tasks was taking roll in an old-fashioned teacher’s notebook after the residents were seated for supper. This way, the nurses had a record for families of what their mom or dad ate on a daily basis.

Hotel-style watercolor paintings lined the three hallways. In the sitting area by the front desk, there were sofas with crumbs in the cracks. Elaine felt this was particularly unwelcoming to family members. In the entry, there was a fireplace with a locked grate covering. Even a monitored fire would just be too dangerous, but it never failed to impress sons and daughters on the initial tour.

These same sons and daughters turned their heads in shame and embarrassment when they heard the high-pitched, sometimes short-tempered voices of nurses guiding a resident through his weekly whirlpool ritual. Elaine heard them talk. She knew they cleaned the gunk between crusty toes, whilst trying to avoid tough and jagged overgrown toenails. The sons and daughters pretended not to hear, brushing away the reality of aging, not wanting to think about it too deeply, for they were headed to the same place one day.

Residents often stopped by the front desk to complain to Elaine, to giggle with her, to reminisce with a paid listener. Sometimes they’d pay a compliment to a new haircut or high-heeled shoes. Elaine figured that a young woman all decked out in fancy clothing might cheer up the residents who roamed the heels with hair the beautician messed up and their fading robes wrapped tightly around their shoulders, their bones pushing at the skin, no matter how large or small the resident was.

No one knew how to play the piano so it just sat in the dining room, collecting dust and going sadly out of tune, dying along with the outcast residents — the sons and daughters of people who had little or no time for them, but plenty of money to spare.

The saddest cases were the families that had no money and would have preferred their parents at home, but just couldn’t cope with caretaking moms and dad with dementia or Alzheimers. They’d realized caretaking is a full-time job that would require sacrificing their own full-time jobs. They just couldn’t feasibly quit working.

These baby boomers couldn’t help wondering if they’d end up in diapers, in a home, in a similar predicament.

Back in her room, Virginia stared at the cover of an old photo album C.J set on her bed, a diversionary tactic. Ginny knew by heart the pictures inside; she could glance through the album in her mind’s eye while only staring at the cover. As she looked at the cover and inventoried the album contents, she remembered the picture of her that her husband wore in his flight suit every time he was away on military business. In the photo, she wore a trendy sailor’s pants suit and hat, circa 1942. Her dark hair was swept out of her face in teasing curves.

Ginny — he’d called her Ginny instead of Virginia — wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. She heaved herself back on top of the quilt she’d made in her youth and placed her right hand over her heart as her eyes were suddenly forced shut by the weight of sadness.

Ginny remembered the first time she laid eyes on her future husband. Baby blues and blonde hair with a movie star swagger. His presence stole her heart from the get-go. He courted her on weekend leaves, taking her to cute little hole-in-the-wall places, and serenaded her with Sinatra. Those were the days.

Eventually, they were married and had two little girls, a curly-haired Susan and a wild-eyed Maggie, absolutely different and wonderful in their own rights. Susan died when she was 25 and Ginny was 49. Yes, Virginia had come to know tragedy too well, and it seemed that most women her age were in the same boat.

Rather than continue thinking, Virginia pulled herself out of bed and toward the bright light of the dining room. Her friend, Annette, had gotten a job in the kitchen. A long time ago, Annette was Maggie’s math and science tutor. Now the woman was pushing 60 and wanted a change of pace.

Annette pretty much got whatever she wanted, so it was no surprise when she landed the kitchen job at Another Day. She didn’t want responsibility for much, so she signed on as a dishwasher. That way, she was with the younger staff in the kitchen. She also got a close-up view of the nursing home lifestyle, which she knew she wasn’t that far from.

On the side, Annette was an elder companion for a wee 80-year old woman who looked more like she was in her 60s. Dorothea had long black locks that she wound up into a monstrously large bun. She had her hair washed and redone by professionals weekly.

She loved getting pedicures, so Annette took her to the Alà Voilà Saloon Salon whenever she could. Both ladies fit in fabulously there. The salon kept raunchy romance novels and boxed wine in large quantities— and gossip was never in short supply.

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