Was Grandma a Slut?

Things I never knew

I knew my father never approved of my grandmother. It wasn’t a secret. But he loved my mother like she was the oxygen that filled his lungs. He was Nebraska-roots-prudish. My mother was New York-sophisticated. Grandma was Vegas-glitz-and-glamour.

They made it work.

My father, a Columbia literature professor, still clinging to his down-home roots and my mother, a socialite, were an example of opposites attract. She forced him to parties and galas, and he softened her big city attitude.

I was their only child, an intern at a huge publishing house in New York.

Now Grandma was dead.

There wasn’t a question. We all flew to Nevada.

But Grandma did everything her way. Even in death. And Mom was going to honor her wishes come Hell or high water … or my father’s protests.

I loved the idea of Grandma. She was always a curiosity to me. Never allowed to accept her invitations to visit, her presents on my birthday delighted me. As a young child, sparkly dress-up gowns and plastic, glittery high heels arrived. Upon turning thirteen, I received rhinestone chandelier earrings. When I turned eighteen, I received the real deal — stilettos and thigh-high fishnet stockings with the whimsical note wishing that I make the most of my assets.

My parents were aghast.

I arrived the day of her “Celebration of Life”. Mom was arranging the display my grandma had insisted on in her Last Will and Testament. The cocktail-party-wake was in her high-rise apartment overlooking Sin City.

I gawked at the commissioned life-sized portrait of my embarrassingly-nude grandma perched on a red velvet couch with a faux leopard skin throw, barely covering her most private possession. It hung proudly over the mantle of the imposing stone fireplace.

People milled around the jewelry Mom had set up, as if this were an estate sale.

“Really, Mom?”

“It’s what your grandma wanted. She was a bit of a show off. Let her have her moment.”

“Okaaay … where’s Dad?”

“I don’t know. Maybe behind us somewhere?”

I wandered through the crowd and found my dad snookered with another full glass of whiskey on the rocks in the den. I motioned for him to come out. He reluctantly followed me.

By now, there were dozens of distinguished men milling about my mother’s display. With inordinate care, a boastful looking man set a veiled structure in the middle of the family jewels. I had heard he was a famous sculptor.

It was a frenzy.

With a whip of the cloth, the man revealed the treasure beneath. It was a blown-glass sculpture that was … oh my God … a likeness of her vagina!

Everyone gasped.

Tuxedoed men, tears welling up with nostalgia, fingered and stroked it.

“An amazing likeness,” one said.

“A true testament to her honey hole,” said another.

They all had glazed looks in their eyes.

“Mom, this is horrifying,” I whispered, wanting to keep my grandmas’s hoo-ha under wraps.

My father took one last gulp of his drink. “Heavy on the HOR.”

For more of Tracy’s twisted brand of humor, keep reading!