Despite the rollator drama, things with Willie have been uneventful. 

Don’t get worked up. My saying that isn’t going to jinx anything.  

Willie has seen to that. 

I was visiting Willie a few weeks ago. I did my usual — brought her a skinny decaf vanilla latte with extra whip that Willie thinks is a sweetened, caffeinated vanilla latte with extra whip, brought physical items we could talk about, armed myself with stories. 

This week’s story was inspired by Love Story: John and Carolyn. We were all on vacation years ago — me, Willie, Indy, my sister, my cousin, my aunt, my uncle. Willie woke me to tell me JFK, Jr.’s airplane never made it to his cousin’s wedding. 

Um, why? 

Willie couldn’t remember, of course, and neither of us could remember if it was the year of The Flasher, which should maybe concern a girl with two parents with cognitive decline. 

But Willie recalled little of JFK, Jr.’s untimely death, or The Flasher for that matter. She was captivated, her memory was jogged, and I had to figure out how to describe to a parent the behavior of a flasher. 

All in all, a pretty tame day as things with Willie go.  

Willie’s nurse, a lovely gentleman with kind eyes and an even keel, quietly handed Willie her medications. We exchanged greetings, then he moved on to the dozens of Indys and Willies in his care. 

Although, let’s be honest. Nobody is quite like Willie. 

I mean, thankfully. I barely get anything done as it is. Dozens of Willies? No. Just, no.  

It was about this time the peace, that fragile Willie peace, shattered like every windshield in every Gerard Butler movie ever. 

As Willie’s nurse moved on, Willie turned to me. Sotto voce, Willie declared her disdain for the staff at the Temple of Doom. 

I know a statement like that should concern me. I know it should. But you have to understand the scads of people Willie doesn’t like, for ludicrous reasons. And the slim minority of people Willie does like — again, for ludicrous reasons. 

There’s her former neighbor in independent living at the Temple of Doom. The day Willie moved in, this neighbor informed Willie that she — that is, the neighbor — was in charge of Willie’s hallway and everybody in it. 

Which is something no one should ever say to Willie, no matter how true it is. Willie once had a new boss who was, in fact, in charge of Willie. 

And told Willie so. 

Willie quit on the spot. 

“I,” Willie told me later, “did not like her.” 

Willie doesn’t like Gwyneth Paltrow because once, on Oprah, her cheekbones were too high. She didn’t like my elementary school friend because she gave me Bic — as in the pen manufacturer — perfume for my birthday. She doesn’t like a family member because they erroneously told Willie —

Huh. I can’t say that here. This family member probably doesn’t know this is the thing that drew Willie’s ire. But it is. So let’s just say it was something irrelevant and minor and Willie stopped exchanging anything more than pleasantries with that relative decades ago. 

And just so we’re clear as to what inspires Willie’s approval, she once initiated a friendship with a neighbor who was shunned by the other neighborhood wives because she didn’t hang her laundry on the clothesline at five in the evening like everyone else. 

“I had a dryer!” she laughed when I asked her, years and a lifetime ago at a party Indy and Willie threw, why she didn’t hang her laundry when she was “supposed” to. 

You could say that was a kindness on Willie’s part, and it was, but it wasn’t Willie’s motivation. 

“I figured if she was bucking the system, she had to be interesting,” Willie told me.  

Given this legacy, I just could not muster any concern for Willie’s aversion to the Temple of Doom staff. In fact, I was going to invite them into the Willie Support Group. 

I asked Willie why the staff — this kind, kind staff who tied balloons to Willie’s rollator on her birthday and moved Willie’s belongings in an afternoon when we realized the memory care unit was an overreach — why the staff was a problem. 

It turns out, Willie signed herself out of her building late one evening. She was going to see her boyfriend. 

“Booty call?” someone asked as I relayed this story later. 

I mean, I would assume so, if only Willie had a phone that worked. 

It was close to ten at night. The staff told Willie she couldn’t go. It became a thing. I later learned my brother was called. Sedatives were deployed. 

Yeah. 

“You know,” Willie said, when I told her I agreed with the staff, “that I hate it when you agree with them.” 

Willie has put people on her permanent disapproval list for less. 

A few days after this conversation, my cousin called me. She and I take Willie to church on a rotating schedule. When she arrived at the Temple of Doom, the staff directed my cousin to Willie’s boyfriend’s apartment. 

My cousin knocked. Willie’s boyfriend answered. 

And Willie — well. Willie refused to come to the door. 

Do not suggest Willie was indisposed. We will have so many words. 

My cousin, concerned, called me. I called the Temple of Doom. One of the ladies from independent living, manning the phone, answered. 

“Oh, I’m not surprised,” she said, when I identified myself. 

Twenty minutes later, as I arrived at the Temple of Doom. Willie was back on her side, like nothing ever happened. 

“I didn’t know who was at the door,” Willie shrugged. 

As I was leaving, the independent living resident — the one who answered the phone when I called — apologized for what she said. 

“Willie,” I said to her, “brings that out in people.” 

She laughed. 

Willie, I thought, would like her.