Chapter 6
Joyce
Two weeks later, I figured Richard had forgotten all about me, because I didn’t see anything from him in my social media feed. But then Gabriella showed me how to see notifications differently on my phone, and there he was!
I told her only that I was looking out for a request from an “old friend,” but as soon as his picture showed on my screen, she grabbed the phone from me and teased, “Ooh! He’s definitely a silver fox. Go ’head, Joyce!”
Gabriella took too much liberty in our relationship, if you ask me. Calling me by my first name, too, when we were more than thirty years apart. But that’s how young people do it, I suppose. They’ve got ingrained freedoms my generation wouldn’t have imagined—not if you wanted to be respectable. Not if you wanted to stay out of trouble.
So I didn’t fuss at her for snatching my phone to take a look at Richard. She and I were two different people, with different backgrounds and upbringings. Except, if I’m being honest, I would have to agree that Richard was nice-looking. “He was my friend when I was in high school. I came here to visit my grandmother every summer back then.”
“Summer flings, huh?” Gabriella gave me my phone, as well as a pestering grin.
“I wouldn’t call it that.” I threw the phone in my purse.
Gabriella hadn’t made anything special that morning, so I’d made a quick bowl of cereal.
“You need somebody, you know?” Gabriella said.
“I do not. I’m rediscovering myself for myself first.” I stood to put my bowl in the sink.
She took it, and my spoon, from me.
“I can—”
“I got it, I got it,” she insisted. And in moments like that, I appreciated whatever was in her background that gave her such a sweet sense of hospitality, even if she didn’t call me “Miss” or say “ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
“Go. I need you out of here. Today’s trial recipe is major. I need to concentrate.”
This wasn’t the first time she’d kicked me out of our kitchen. I gave her a playful roll of the eyes and left her alone. When she got in her cooking zone, Gabriella could be somewhat fierce, until it came time for taste-testing.
“Just as well. I’m heading to the airport to get Elijah.”
She nodded.
“And by the way,” I added, “I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience for you, me bringing a kid into the house. A ten-year-old boy, at that. I could pick up a robe or a housecoat for you if that would help.” I wasn’t trying to be funny, but Gabriella had a few tributes to Daisy fromThe Dukes of Hazzardin her closet. A housecoat would provide a quick and easy cover-up.
Her face crumpled in laughter. “A housecoat? Oh my God! IfI ever own a housecoat, please call my family and stage an intervention, because atthatpoint, I have given up on life.”
“I beg your pardon.” I gave Gabriella two slow blinks and a throat-clear, which caused her to cover her lips with a hand. “I am a proud member of the housecoat club. When and if you are blessed to join the ranks of the retired and relaxed, you will consider yourself blessed to own lounging attire.”
She shook her head. “You need somebody to get you out of the house. To get you out ofyourhousecoats. Look at you now—wearing a wraparound.” She pointed at my denim dress. “This is seriously only a belt away from a housecoat.”
A giggle escaped my lips. Gabriella’s quick wit reminded me of myself at her age. Thought I knew it all at twenty-six. Thought getting old was the worst thing that could happen to a person, not realizing that the only way to escape getting old is to die young.
I gave her the index finger. “I cannot with you today. Gotta go get the child.”
She threw back her mass of curls and sighed. “Fine. I’ll keep my sarong on a hook.”
“Thank you. He won’t be any trouble,” I assured her. “Elijah—we call him EJ—is an only child. He knows how to keep himself entertained.”
“To someone like me, who grew up in a house full of people, that sounds really sad,” she remarked. She rinsed my bowl and spoon, then set them in the dishwasher.
“How many kids?”
“Only four kids. Me, my sister, my brother, and a cousin. But mi tia y mi tio, mi abuelita. I’m sorry. Aunt, uncle, grandmother.”
