“I called in a reservation at Delia’s,” I tell Ava. Restaurants and cafés are always packed for Sunday brunch, but the staff love us there, so they’re happy to hold a table. After years of waiting tables to pay the bills, Grandma is a generous tipper, and she drilled the habit into me too.
We eat and catch up over Austin’s best waffles, and as always, she’s as interested in Ava’s life as she is mine. She’ll get the lowdown from Ruby and Madison before dinner too.
“Music is keeping you busy, girl?” Grandma asks me after getting Ava’s full report. “That why you’re so hard to get hold of?”
I try to give her a coded warning glance; she knows about my band, but she might forget my roommates don’t. “Playing every open mic I can find.”
Grandma nods. “And it’s going well?”
I can’t suppress a smile at all the good things happening in the last few weeks, even if it is wearing me out. “Yeah, going well.”
“That’s good. Now anyone want to tell me why Ruby is still with that human water stain?”
That makes me laugh and Ava roll her eyes, and we take turns complaining about Niles for the next few minutes. He makes it so easy.
“I think that’s the real reason Ruby made the bet,” Ava says. “She’s so bored with her own relationship, she needs the drama of everyone else’s.”
“What bet?” Grandma asks.
“She bet me that she can find us our perfect boyfriend by the end of the year,” Ava explains. “She’s starting with Sami, and if Ruby wins, she gets Sami’s parking space.”
Grandma fixes me with a skeptical look. “I have to plan fifteen minutes extra just to find a spot when I come and visit. You think a man is worth that kind of hassle?”
“Nope,” I say, grinning. “It was an easy bet to make.”
“That’s my girl,” Grandma says. She raised my mom by herself when her husband took off to become a survivalist in Alaska. And of course Mom raised me when my sperm donor took off and didn’t come back either. They view all relationships with a skeptical eye. Or two. Or even four, when they’re looking at mine.
“You sound pretty smug for a girl spending so much time with the first boy Ruby found for you,” Ava says.
“No, I don’t.”
“Huh. So that’s not where you were last Sunday?”
“I was, but that was more like a first aid situation. Had to monitor his snakebite.”
My grandma does a double take. “His what?”
“Sounds more dramatic than it is,” I say. “But I did feel like I should keep an eye on it. And I meanthe bite.” I cut Ava off before she can joke about keeping an eye on his snake. She always looks innocent until she lays you out with an innuendo and a twinkle in her eye.
She’s not deterred. “So, it’s not you two chatting out on the balcony late at night fourteen million times a week?”
Grandma’s eyebrow goes up.
“Are we being loud?” I ask Ava. Grandma’s other eyebrow goes up. “When wetalk?”
“No,” Ava admits. “But we’ve each seen you out there at least once. You’re saying there’s nothing going on?”
“I’m saying it would be really weird if we both sat on our balconies and didn’t acknowledge each other. I promise, there’s nothing spicy to talk about. Which brings us to the community center. Spill the tea, Grandma.”
“Oooh, yes, please, Grandma Letty,” Ava says.
Grandma can tell a story like no one else, and her best ones are about the ongoing soap opera at the Hillsboro Senior Center, where she makes even the squabbles in the knitting group sound like high drama.
She dives in and regales us with the ongoing saga of the Judy/Norman/Lois love triangle, which in Grandma’s telling is way more riveting than anything we watch on TV. When we get back to the condo, Ava drops us off and heads into the lab but promises to come back for Redneck Movie Night, one of Grandma’s specialties.
Madison is in the kitchen in her pajamas with full bedhead, digging a yogurt out of the fridge, but when Grandma calls, “Hey, girl,” Madi brightens and shuffles over for a Letty hug.
“Redneck Movie Night,” Grandma tells her. “You best be here.”
