“Hm. I’m going to have a look around while the two of you bake,” Nana says.
Lilly waves her off. “Fine, fine. I’ll catch up with you later. You can tell me what heaven’s like.” She lifts a gray brow dramatically. “Unless you went to the other place.”
“Lilly Ross, you know as well as I do that my mortal soul was never in that sort of danger.”
The old woman chuckles. “I just like to get your goat. Go on, I’ll keep your granddaughter busy while you snoop around my house looking for my secrets.”
Nana rubs her hands together like an evil genius. “Oh goodie. I get to pry. See y’all soon.”
And without another word, she slips into a wall and vanishes.
For a moment I stare at the spot where she disappeared. “I would have bet that Nana wanted to talk to you before snooping.”
“Oh no. Rebecca wants us to get to know one another,” she says while pushing a cannister labeled SUGAR toward me. “We need one cup.”
“It doesn’t bother you that my grandmother has, you know, returned from the grave,” I say, sounding all morose and Friday-night-horror-movie-ish with my voice.
“No, no,” Lilly replies, smoothing her hands down her apron. “There are worse things in life than a dead relative returning to get her granddaughters married off.”
She cocks a brow at me, and I bury myself in measuring the cup of sugar that she’d requested, letting the granules drop like a waterfall into the yellow Tupperware mixing bowl sitting in front of me.
“Now you’ll need to sift two cups of flour,” she tells me, and I’m relieved that we’re no longer talking about my grandmother and marriage.
There’s a steel contraption with a crank and mesh on top, and I assume that’s the sifter. I go about my chore—I mean,baking.
“Aren’t you going to ask why your grandmother wants us to get to know one another?” she says slyly, giving me a flirty look.
Well no, I wasn’t going to ask, but since she said something… “Why does she?”
“I suppose it has to do with my grandson.”
“Oh, of course. But we’re not, you know, together.”
She purses her mouth like she’s trying to hold back a smile as she cracks eggs into her own yellow Tupperware bowl. Wow. These mustard-yellow bowls must’ve been all the rage back in the day.
“Why not?” she says.
“Why notwhat?” This little crank thing is harder than it looks. I have to actually work to get the sucker to move.
“Why aren’t you together?”
“We’re just friends.” Great answer because it does give her what she wants to know, but it’s vague enough that I don’t have to explain anything.
“Why’s that?”
I dump another half a cup of flour into the sifter. “Why are we just friends?”
“Mm hmm.” Lilly’s still cracking eggs, not looking at me as if she’s not paying attention, but I know from experience talking to women about relationships that she’s probably hanging on every word.
“We’re friends because…” Why is this so hard to answer? Why are we just friends? “Well, we dated in high school.”
“I remember. Devlin has never been so happy in all his life.”
I pause. “As in high school?”
“Yes. When you’re done there, we’re going to add our wet ingredients to our dry.”
“Sure. I’m done.”
