Gabby’s jaw dropped. “You’re cooking forthem?”
“Don’t worry. There’s enough for all of us. Actually, I’m making our batch now. They can have theirs whenever I get to it.”
Gabby stared at her grandmother in shock.
“Close your mouth. You’re going to catch flies.” Apparently done defending herself, Granny said, “Do you know the password for Hulu?”
“I don’t know any of the passwords,” she said, except the ones written on the whiteboard. Come to think of it, Phil had signed up for Hulu, and she’d never thought twice about it. She started to text Phil, but then she stopped herself. The Hulu password would probably be as hard to find as Kramer’s transfer codes. This was more than a password-lookup issue; this was a division-of-the-assets issue. She should probably get her own subscriptions, but on the other hand, she was more worried about living through tomorrow.
Granny yelled down the hall, “IsFamily Feudon Hulu, Burt?”
“Only the celebrity one,” he yelled from the bathroom. “It’s not as good as the regular.”
Gabby’s eye twitched harder. They were all about to die, and he was worried about which season ofFamily Feudto watch. If he wanted to see a family feud, she was about to show him one.
“But I’ve got another problem, Vera. Would you come here?” Burt asked.
Gabby could have a glass of wine, boil dumplings, and gather her thoughts. At the end, she would feed everyone, and they’d stop screaming for as long as it took to eat dinner.
Trying to channel the calm she wanted to feel in the house, Gabby set a pot of water to boil. The steam on her face and the prospect of carbs did some work to calm her.
A few minutes later, she pulled the doughy balls of goodness from the pot and plopped them on a tray with sour cream for dipping. For just a second, a sense of well-being and purpose filled her. Just like Shelly said, not to mention every queen onRuPaul’s Drag Race—she was Gabby motherfucking Greene. One foot in front of the other. Put food on a plate, get the kids to bed, try to figure out how to steal the codes. She had this handled.
“Um, Gabby.” Granny’s voice quavered uncharacteristically.
“Is there something wrong?”
Granny took a deep, troubled breath, like she didn’t know how to say what she needed to say, which was concerning, given that the mob didn’t even raise her blood pressure.
Gabby raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“Burt took too many Viagra.”
You could have bounced a Ping-Pong ball off Gabby’s face. She was dead. Smirnov couldn’t even kill her now.
“Kids, it’s time to eat,” she called while robotically dialing the nurses’ line at the clinic. When the nurse asked her to describe the problem, she said, “Eighty-three-year-old man who took too much Viagra. He’s had a…”
Granny spoke into the phone.
“A painful erection that won’t go away.”
The nurse took it in stride and put her on hold.
“Yuck,” Lucas complained. “What are these? Can I have something else?”
And that was it.
“No. This is what Granny made. Say thank you and eat it.”
Kyle breezed by her and got out the third glass in the last hour because she didn’t care about dishes. “Geez, Mom. Lighten up.”
Gabby’s eye twitched violently.
“No, Kyle, I will not lighten up.” She slammed a plate of dumplings onto the counter for dramatic effect. “Damn it, everyone,” she said in a not-quite-yelling voice. Suddenly the room was quiet, except for the clinic’s hold music and Bubbles’ toenails on the hardwood as he ran to her side, probably confused by her tone of voice. Gabby never yelled at anyone. Seething with anger and still twitching, she started listing her complaints. “I am not your maid. Your chauffer. Your nurse. I am not tech support. I started a new job this week, and I am stressed. I need you all to get it together. Kyle and Lucas, you aren’t babies. I need your help. Granny.” She looked at her. “You can live here, but… I don’t even know where to start. I can’t deal with your dumb boyfriend. I do not exist purely to serve all of your needs.”
She looked back at Burt, who was peering from around the corner. “Particularly Burt’s needs.”
At that moment, the nurse came back on. “Ma’am.”
