Byron's hackles were up - he had never in his life seen an elder so rudely treated by her family.
Sunday noon in San Diego, at a large, inexpensive "soup-salad-bread" restaurant, he was sitting alone in one of the big horseshoe-shaped booths, dressed in shorts, running shoes, and the tee-shirt from the morning's 10k race. His flight back to the east coast wasn't until late Monday afternoon, so he'd entered for the exercise, run a decent pace. And was now ravenous.
He had just opened his menu when the family entered – boisterous, argumentative, and radiating ill-concealed animosities and tensions. Several kids, mostly girls. Multiple generations.
The man was short, seriously overweight, nearly bald, red-faced and belligerent, ordering the others about mercilessly.
The end result, unbelievable to Byron, was Grandma (perhaps Great-Gram?) being relegated to sitting by herself in the booth next to the family. Grandma looked both resigned and upset. And lonely. But she bore the situation with something like good grace – far better self-control than Byron would have been capable of!
A waiter brought menus to the mob. Byron studied the group discreetly over the top of his own menu, but most particularly 'Grandma'. Now SHE was ignoring the rowdy bunch. Quite bluntly.
"'Good for you!"' he thought, studying her. She was, in fact, the only interesting-looking person in the swarm – maybe they were excluding her for THAT?
She verged on elegant: medium height, both slender and quite busty (in a semi-secret, discreetly-hidden way, rather ala QE-II) and ramrod straight. Even from twenty feet away her skin looked like parchment, almost transparent but smooth rather than crevassed, and her hands didn't have an "ancient withered rose" look. No old-lady simian vertical lines in her upper lip – in fact, she had pretty white teeth and rather full lips.
She must have been a real beauty in her heyday. Today, she was undoubtedly over seventy, but whether just seventy or an extremely well preserved eighty was moot, although odds were bound to favor the younger. Still genuinely pretty, too – striking dead-white hair done up in a tight bun, held with a single lacquered chopstick. No old-woman's makeup – not even nail polish, no rouge, no lipstick. Single strand of pearls, a dark navy blouse and white pleated skirt that looked as if it really ought to be out of place on her, but somehow wasn't.
Shapely calves, and what appeared (in the few seconds he'd had to watch her stride across the restaurant) to be a solid and well-exercised body. Certainly no great breadth of hips, nor over-thickness at the waist. Unlike the woman who was obviously her daughter – details of facial substructure proved it. And THAT woman looked to be actual "Grandma", hence the excludee, pariah for whatever stupid reason, must be Great Grandmom. "Not THAT's an impressive woman!" he thought.
It truly pained him to see anyone ostracized like that, but especially such a distinguished, attractive older woman. When she had had a few seconds with her menu, he impulsively stood, pulled his wallet out and extracted a business card. "What the hell," he thought, "...an adventure."
He stepped up to her table: the family chatter next door ceased abruptly as they all stared at him. He gave the entire family one slow, sweeping, glacially disdainful look, and then utterly ignored them – they might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. And they knew it.
She looked up, surprised, then puzzled, but interested. He handed her his card, said "Pardon me... but we both seem to be dining alone, and I was wondering if you'd mind my introducing myself, and inviting you to take lunch with me. As my guest. I'm Byron – I'm an oceanographer, just visiting from the east coast. I'd greatly enjoy your company, if you're free."
One of the older kids blurted "She's not alone, she's with US!"
Byron glanced at the speaker, said quietly, "I completely disagree, Miss. She is quite alone in here." He returned his gaze to Grandma.
The Man's jaw worked as if talking, but no sounds issued. His face reddened even more.
"There!" thought Byron – "Fuck the fucking fucker!" and kept his full attention squarely on the lady.
She looked at him with the most astonished expression, which slowly morphed into a sly, self-confident smile. She studied the card for a second, then extended a hand, shook his, and said "What a perfectly lovely idea! I'd be delighted, Doctor Byron the Oceanographer. I'm Theo. Doctor Theo, MD, retired. And I most certainly do accept your offer!"
He helped her rise: the whole family was gob-smacked into staring silence. The man sputtered, as if to start saying something, but at the last moment gave it up, glaring futile daggers at Byron. There was something approaching frank admiration on several of the female faces – perhaps even envy? One of the sub-teen girls giggled, "Hey! Our Great Grandma has a DATE, you guys!"
Byron escorted Theo to his table, seating her so she didn't have to receive more of the baleful familial stares: personally, he would find it exquisitely easy to ignore the whole damned little zoo.
He retrieved her menu, handed it to her. She smiled at him – and was every bit as pretty up close – even better, actually.
"Interesting situation you found yourself in, M'Lady Theo."
