“No, I mean it. Everything ends well. First of all, Sean proposed.”
“I told myself I was not going to say a thing if this day came. But you know what? I lied. I am going to say something. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Not at all. I said no.”
“Because, honestly, that man is—wait, what did you say?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I said no. Actually, I’d already decided to leave him. I wanted to find a new place to live first, so I hadn’t told him yet. But then he suggested we go out for dinner, and I didn’t realize what he was planning until it was too late.”
“So he proposed but you broke up with him instead.”
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
She reached over and put her hand over mine. “Oh, Penny. That must have been hard. But I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks. That was definitely a low point. He got mad and left me outside the restaurant with no way to get home. Not that I had a home to go to. But like I said, it all turned out fine. I called my friend Theo, and he picked me up. And guess what else? He offered to let me move into his spare room. Housing problem solved.”
“Theo? Who’s Theo?”
“He’s one of my coworkers.”
She pressed her lips together. “Hmm.”
“Don’t worry, he’s a great guy. We’ve been friends for a while, so it’s not like I moved in with a stranger.”
“Stranger danger wasn’t my first concern.”
I laughed a little and was about to explain that there was no reason for her to be concerned—Theo and I were just friends—when one of the staff came over to our table with a white envelope and handed it to Grandma.
“This was in your mailbox. You must have forgotten to pick it up.”
“Well, goodness,” she said, turning it over. “How did I miss this?”
She slipped her finger beneath the flap to pop it open and took out a card. It saidThank Youin shiny blue and silver letters.
“Thank you for what?” she mused.
My eyes widened as I realized what it was. I opened my mouth to tell her to wait, but it was too late. She opened the card, and it released a puff of multicolored glitter.
“What on earth?” she shrieked, dropping the card.
Cackling laughter came from across the cafeteria. Maury Haven howled, leaning forward in his wheelchair and slapping his leg.
“I got you good, Colleen,” he said between wheezing cackles. “Thought you’d open it in your apartment, but this was even better.”
She glared daggers at him. “Maury Haven, you’ll pay for this.”
He just kept laughing.
I tried to help brush the glitter off her clothes, but I had a feeling she’d be finding more of it for weeks. Or longer. I picked up the card from where it had fallen. Inside it readFor the laughs.
“Don’t you laugh with him,” Grandma said.
“I’m not. There’s just glitter everywhere.”
She brushed more off her shirt, sending it pooling in her lap. “Maury Haven is not funny. He’s a menace.”
“What are you going to do to get him back?”
