Valencia laughs and for a second it almost sounds like Gramma Sharon’s cackle, and I can’t help but smile. As she’s getting out the rest of the ingredients, Marcus enters the kitchen. He frowns instantly, as if he knows what I’m working on.
“We can’t have soda in the house, but sure, let’s make a marshmallow salad,” he says.
“If my mother wants to destroy her teeth, that’s on her.”
“Your son said he’d help her eat it,” Marcus reminds her.
“I’m regretting that statement now,” I say. Valencia and Marcus laugh.
“You don’t have to eat it, honey,” Valencia says. “I’m sending the leftovers home with her anyway.”
“No. A promise is a promise.” And I get to work on the... salad. After completing step one, it doesn’t look any better. Maybe it will after it chills.
But a little before two p.m., when everyone is supposed to show up, I take it out of the fridge and it still looks like a green, mushy mess of Cool Whip, marshmallows, and pecans. I give it a stir for good measure as Easton reaches over my shoulder for the jar of Jif peanut butter on the second shelf.
“Disgusting,” he says with a smirk. He grabs a spoon and takes a giant glob of peanut butter before putting the lid back on and the jar in the fridge.
“You invited JT, right?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He tries to talk around the peanut butter, then licks his lips before continuing. “I’ll tell him to smoke a little more before he arrives.”
“Good idea.”
The doorbell rings and I put the spoon back into the massive bowl of Watergate salad. “I’ll get it.”
Honestly, I’m hoping it’s Gramma Sharon so she can see the mess I made and tell me,No, no, that’s not it, Valencia must have given you the wrong recipe.Or maybe it’s all a bit! A practical joke the whole family is playing on me because Nate had it at some school event and made Gramma Sharon make it and everyone hates it.
I pull open the door and it’s Miles instead. He holds out a bag of tortilla chips.
“My mom told me I had to bring something.” I take the bag from him and step aside for him to come in.
“Tortilla chips are my favorite,” I say. Though that’s not entirely true because Takis exist. I just don’t know what else to say. Valencia comes out to the front hall to greet Miles but then her face drops. “I completely forgot to ask your parents if there’s anything special we should make you.” So she must know he’s diabetic.
“Nope! As long as I keep an eye on my blood sugar, I’m an omnivore. And a voracious one at that.”
“We’ll see how you like Watergate salad.” Easton emerges from the kitchen, the peanut butter spoon probably left in the kitchen sink. The doorbell rings again and I open it.
“Hello, family!” Gramma Sharon enters with a canvas tote bag she hands over to me. “I brought corn from the farmers market.”
“Thought you weren’t going to bring anything, Mom,” Valencia says, reaching out to take the tote from me.
She shrugs. “I knew you wouldn’t have corn on the cob and I wanted some. Who’s this?” She turns to look at Miles with suspicion.
“Miles.” He holds out his hand and Gramma Sharon takes it. “Nate and I were friends in a past life.”
“Happy to have you, Miles.”
Valencia asks Gramma Sharon what she’d like to drink and directs Miles and me out to the deck, where there’s a cooler of seltzer.
I take him outside—past the Watergate salad on the kitchen island that he eyes hesitantly. Marcus is already at the grill with a black apron on. He greets Miles in an over-the-top friendly way, as though Valencia coached him on how to react to Nate’s old friend coming over. A few moments later Easton comes out to put down cornhole boards.
I pull Miles away so we aren’t in earshot of anyone. “Did you know Nate had guinea pigs?”
Miles thinks for a second. “We were in separate kindergarten classes, and I vaguely remember his class having a pet guinea pig. Don’t worry, I wasn’t resentful, and it’s not the reason I asked my parents for a pet for years and am now cursed with theun-cuddliest golden retriever named Chardonnay.”
“Well, I found three guinea pig carcasses buried in the garden yesterday.” I point in the direction of the freshly planted hydrangeas.
He grimaces. “You think someone killed Nate’s guinea pigs?”
