“More like babbling. Your grandma’s kind of scary.”
“I know.” Talk about hashtag goals. Sometimes I worry I’ll never be as cool as she is, but then again, I have sixty years to hone my skills.
When I push through the door to the garden the humidity hits me like a wet towel to the face. It’s like the regular heat decided to supersize itself. I step back without thinking, driven by a basic survival instinct that doesn’t care whether Felix is standing between me and the sweet relief of AC.
One of us grunts; the other makes a cartoonish “oof.” I’m not sure which noise came from me because I’m too busy bouncing off Felix’s bony chest.
“Sorry,” we say in unison.
I push past him before the awkwardness can go nuclear.
“Where do you want to—” I start to ask.
“Someplace private,” he blurts, before I can finish.
“Butler’s pantry?”
He nods.
The narrow space between the kitchen and the dining room is lined with shelves. Most of them are crammed full of props, with a few punch bowls and chafing dishes mixed in. What the pantry doesn’t have is a place to sit, so after a moment’s hesitation I hoist myself onto the narrow counter, assuming Felix will take the opposite side. When he comes to lean against the cabinets beside me, doubt rears its head.Ishe about to make a move?
“I thought we could— What?” he asks, breaking off before he gets to the good part.
“You tell me.”
“You’re making a weird face.”
“This is just how I look. But thanks.”
Felix shakes his head. “You dialed it up. The whole”—he circles a hand in the direction of my head—“Virginia vibe.”
“Excuse me?” Also: I have a vibe?
“Exactly. Like that.” He touches his eyebrow, and I lower mine to a less aggressive angle.
“You were saying?”
He hesitates as if he’s about to sneeze or isn’t totally sure he can trust me. “It’s weird, right?” Felix finally says, darting a glance at me before returning his attention to the moss-green carpet. “I keep thinking about it, but pretending I’m not, so I don’t freak anyone out. It’s like, ‘How am I supposed to play this?’ Because I could feel my grandfather watching me all night, in case I was about to fall apart.”
Caught up in his monologue, he misses my flinch of guilt.Grandma Lainey and I spent the evening rewatchingThe Way We Wereso we could have a good cry and then dig into two of her pet subjects (Robert Redford and skin care), with a brief sidebar about Brad Pitt, who my grandmother believes to be the blond heartthrob of my generation, when in fact he is also old. That led into a discussion of character actors vs. leading men and which ones made better boyfriends, to which I had little to contribute as my main romantic experience to date was more of a comic relief.
Minus the relief.
Rather than getting into the details, I offer a closed-liphmmm.
“That’s why I thoughtwecould talk about it without triggering an intervention,” Felix continues, like a dam has burst and the words aren’t going to stop until he gets it all out. “I don’t want to upset my grandpa, because then he’ll call my mom, and she’ll freak out and come racing down here. They already think I’m too sensitive.”
“You?” Probably I could have sounded less incredulous, but Felix doesn’t take offense.
“I don’t want to force you to go there. If you’re not there already, you know?” He makes a squeezing motion next to his temple, like he’s starring in a headache commercial. “I figured you must have a theory. About what happened.”
Part of me is flattered he’s asking, but I’m not sure I want to be the first to volunteer information. “You brought me here to talk about yesterday?”
“Why? What were you thinking?”
“Extortion.” It’s too soon to joke about murder, but I also have no intention of admitting that a tiny part of me thought this was headed someplace flirtier.
“I prefer blackmail. Mind games instead of brute force.” For a second, it’s like we’ve flashed back to a more innocent time—also known as yesterday—when slinging wisecracks was the most challenging thing on our agenda.
