BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

CHAPTER 27:

BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says “I’m possible.”

—Audrey Hepburn; actress, icon, fabulist

My grandmother on my mother’s side lived to be one hundred years old. Nana

was as WASPy as they make ’em: prissy, reserved, able to avoid confrontation

with the skilled precision of an F-16 pilot. For as long as I can remember, she

always looked exactly the same. She was eternally adorned in a cardigan, pinned

together at the top by an antique broach, her pink lipstick and sparkly brown

eyes shining through a face-full of wrinkles that erupted in a series of “oh dears”

every time she laughed.