“It’s ma’am now, of course.”
“No, I mean, of course it’s . . . wait . . .”
There was a lengthy pause while the light dawned. “Um,” said Selena. “I. Um.”
She flailed for a script and couldn’t find one. For some reason, all she could see in her mind was the employee handbook from the deli, which had a page on addressing transgender employees.It is very important to address the employee by their preferred pronouns. Failure to do so will be grounds for a Human Resources complaint.
That line had been highlighted.Oh god, I didn’t misgender her, did I? That’s bad—youdon’tdo that, that’s the thing you don’teverdo—I mean, I didn’t know, but oh god, have I said “man” or “dude” or called her a wise guy I can’t remember—
She had a sudden panicked feeling that if she turned around, someone from HR would be standing behind herright this minute.Except it would be even worse because Grandma Billy was afriendand not an employee, which would mean there was an HR forfriendsand ...
“Close your mouth, dear, you’re gonna catch moths,” said Grandma Billy, much amused.
“I’m sorry,” said Selena. “I haven’t said anything horribly offensive to you, have I?”
“You insulted my rooster. I haven’t forgotten that. That rooster may not look like much, but his sire was Dynamo, who once went six rounds with a javelina and sent that pig crying back to his mommy. That rooster has hidden depths.”
“Grandma!”
She grinned. “Lord, you’re fine. It ain’t any kind of secret. It’s been forty-seven years since I made the switch, all the hard bits got knocked off a long time ago.”
“I didn’t know,” said Selena meekly.
“No reason you should. Never met a person so resistant to gossip.” She shrugged. “Had to stop getting the shots when I hit seventy. That was a bitch. You ever have a hot flash in a desert?” She took another slug of mojito and shuddered theatrically.
The silence that followed was awkward but companionable. A white moth spiraled raggedly toward the yucca flowers.
I guess that sort of explains why Billy’s mother thought grandkids weren’t on the table. Although they could have adopted or had a surrogate, so she was just being awful. In addition to the bit with the dead rats.“So anyway, you’ve been married ...” said Selena, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation again.
“Oh yeah. Couple times.”
“Anyway, once Walter and I had lived together for a while, it got ... not good.” She tried to fit words around it. “Like, he knew I have a hard time talking to new people. So then if we hired someone new at the deli, and I told him about it, he’d start asking if I’d screwed up, if I’d offended them.And if I hadn’t worried about it before, then I started to. And it went from a thing that I was worried about to a thing that hemademe worry about.”
“You ain’t bad with new people, you know,” said Grandma. “I mean, you said it tires you out, and I believe that for sure, but you fake it as well as anybody.”
“Do I?” Selena rubbed her hand over her face. “I keep worrying I’ve said something horrible ...”
“Lord, no. I think people are more worried about offendingyou.”
This was a sufficiently novel thought that Selena had to pour herself another mojito.
“He wasn’t all bad,” she said, feeling guilty. Walter had gotten her away from her mother. It was just that there had been nobody left after that to get her away from Walter.
“Hardly anybody is,” said Grandma Billy.
“He didn’t hit me or anything.”
“That’s a damn low bar to clear.”
“Yeah.” Selena sighed. “Yeah, it is. And ... yeah, okay, it was pretty bad. But I was so tired working at the deli and then coming home and getting picked apart—and he just wanted tohelp, I know he wanted me to bebetter, maybe he just wasn’t very good at making people better ...”
Grandma said nothing. Selena heard the glass rattle as she drank.
“And you know, there’s that point where you’re like, ‘I love you, but you’re loading the dishwasher wrong’?”
“Twenty-seven years with Billy,” said Grandma, snorting. “Twenty-seven years, and every damn dish had to soak for three days. Not that we had a dishwasher, but he’d leave things in the sink.” She glared at her mojito. “I miss him something fierce, even now, but bygod, my sink is clean.”
Selena grinned, but it faded. “Maybe it was just that. He loved me. I’m just not good at things, and it bothered him.”
