“This is dream come true.” Babushka shuffled to Heather. “Ve vill move the vedding up. No vone vill know.”
“Nooo.” Heather shifted her gaze to Marlee.
Marlee shook her head in a disjointed sequence of quick jerks.
“Please,” she mouthed.
Heather’s eyes went softer. “It’s not official.” She squared her shoulders. “I just thought I’d be…prepared.” She squatted to scoop up the tests. “So it’d be great, fantastic, amazing if you didn’t mention this.”
Marlee wanted to hug her. Heather was totally taking one for the team. The team being all women everywhere who wouldn’t want a nosy Russian grandma to know their business. Marlee owed her, big time.
“We went through this same thing with Etta. Except she wasn’t really pregnant. Just a good pregnancy scare to round out game night that week,” tennis ball lady said.
“That was a crazy few days while we waited long enough for her to pass the test.” The other old woman ambled toward them at the speed of an eighty-year-old with a bad knee.
What kind of retirement home did these ladies live in, anyway?
“Heather has the glow.” Babushka grabbed one of the tests from the floor and scooped up a box of condoms. “I knew it. I am so proud of my Jase. He does good vork.”
“He sure does,” Heather said from the side of her mouth.
Velma held her hand out for Babushka’s haul. “I’ll put those away for you.”
“These are mine.” The old woman gave Velma a serious once-over. “Get your own rubbers.”
Velma’s lips parted.
Claire chuckled softly under her breath.
Marlee was just super glad she wasn’t sprawled on the floor anymore.
Babushka reached for Heather’s stomach and gave it a rub. “I vill check-in tomorrow.”
Heather looked like she was about to pass out.
“You.” Babushka zeroed in on Marlee.
For real, if Babushka rubbed Marlee’s stomach, she would probably throw up on her.
“Ve vant to decorate trees again. I need your number.” She dug through her oversized Louis Vuitton handbag, pulling out a legal-sized notepad and a pen with a fake flower taped to it with floral tape—like they had at the bank on Hampden Avenue so patrons didn’t accidentally walk off with them.
Marlee scribbled her cell number on the pad, the flower bobbing with each swoop of ink.
The other elderly ladies grabbed their own boxes of Trojan and Durex. Cane lady even snagged a box of ovulation test strips.
“Wha—” Velma started to ask, but then she smacked her mouth closed.
Marlee’s mouth wasn’t open, so she mentally slapped it closed. No way was she going to ask what those were for—besides the obvious checking for fertility.
They were for arts and crafts time at the retirement home. That’s what Marlee was going with, and that was the end of it.
“Ve vere never here.” In the smoothest of moves Marlee had seen in a while, Babushka directed her chin toward the cash register, lifting it just a tad at the end.
It was officially official, Marlee wanted to be Babushka when she got old. All who-gives-a-fuck and no-one-will-take-me-down. Hell, she wanted to be Babushka now.
She should begin Babushka training immediately.
The elderly brigade moseyed off to do whatever they planned to do with around a hundred condoms and thirty-plus ovulation test strips.
