“But we all have his scribbles,” she continued. “The important works are maintained in his exhibit at the Groff Retreat, but he left these for me. I do hope you’ll find some inspiration in them.”
Lainey worried Elliot might faint. “I get to take these?”
“I haven’t looked at them since the lawyer gave them to me. I think Vincent would appreciate my gifting them to a true fan of…” She reconsidered her words. “Actually, I don’t think he’d appreciate it very much at all, but he gave them to me, so he doesn’t get to have an opinion.”
Elliot swallowed hard as his eyes glistened in the last of the evening sun. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything. Just promise me that if you find something valuable in there, you’ll let me know. I’verecently gotten into the Home Shopping Network, and I have four more payments on my countertop ice maker.”
Lainey made a mental note to send Gran money the moment she could get her hands on some. Gran kissed her on both cheeks and then hooked her arm in Elliot’s as he walked her up the path to her door. He held the box so tightly, like the items inside—whatever they might be—were treasures to him. Without his having to say a word, Lainey knew to step to the driver’s side and let him ride in the passenger’s seat on the way home. Sure, it was his truck, but he’d just been connected to his childhood hero. He couldn’t be expected to wait until they got home.
“Your grandmother is a really special person,” he said. His voice was warm and gentle, like the sun streaming in through the window, dappling his cheeks in soft yellow light.
“Thanks. I think so, too.” The compliment landed squarely in her chest. Gran wasn’t perfect, but she was remarkable. Lainey liked when other people noticed what was so extraordinary about the woman who’d raised her.
She liked that Elliot noticed.
“Are you paying for that place she stays in?” he asked.
“Partially, yeah. She was a modern-ballet dancer with a touring company for years. She danced until her body fell apart and she had to move back to Wisconsin. She’s had multiple knee replacements and now needs a new hip, but that’s a whole other story. She sued a chain restaurant a while back—I can’t say which one for legal reasons—and we thought that would cover all of it, and it seemed like the right move at the time, but there’s just a million tiny little costs to everything. It’s like death by a thousand paper cuts, but the papers are medical bills and overdraft statements and garbage fees, and did you know that there is a yearly maintenance fee for the shuffleboard courts?”
“Seriously?” he responded, adequately enraged on her behalf. “They can’t stand to let the ten-off zone get a little chippy?”
Lainey felt her brows draw together.
“It’s what the tip of the triangle is called,” he explained, his cheeks pinkening.
“I’m still getting to know you, so I can’t tell if you knowing the specifics of a game played almost exclusively by eighty-year-olds is incredibly on-brand or off-.”
His eyes flashed with a mix of amusement and barely concealed irritation.
“Sometimes it feels like I’ll never get on top of all of my money problems.” She let her confession fall out the window and tumble into the wind like a leaf. “I should probably tell you…” Lainey started. Elliot was combing through a leather-bound journal in the seat next to her, his hair thwipping in the breeze of the open window. “The clerk’s reaction, back at the gas station, was not…entirely unwarranted.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
There was something about staring down the highway with another person that hit her system like a highly potent truth serum. She’d probably give up everything if he asked the right questions.
“It means that Gran has a propensity for stealing convenience store candy. Rolos, specifically. Occasionally, Riesens. Caramellos in a pinch.”
“And the place on Peach Street…” He paused, piecing it together.
“…Is a Kwik Trip where I have a deal with the owner. I do four hours of free maintenance on their cursed car wash every month, and in exchange, they pretend not to notice that Gran is cleaning them out of chocolate caramel candies.”
“Why?”
“Why do I cover for her?”
“Iknowwhy you cover for her. She’s your grandmother, and you don’t want her to go to jail. But why candy? Or is stealing something she’s always done?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “She’s never been afraid to take advantage of an opportunity, but she’s never been a thief. I think she was used to being noticed. She’s always had a presence. As she’s gotten older, that spotlight has…dimmed. People don’t notice her the way they used to. Just as a human. Like with that clerk. He wanted her to leave, and yet he never even spoketoher. Like she was a child. I think being able to take things from those people, insignificant things, reclaims some of her power.”
“I can’t imagine her going unnoticed. She’s one of those people who has their own gravitational pull. You both do.”
He said it like an objective observation. Heat rushed to her cheeks. No one had ever described her tendency to take up space with such reverence before. She wasn’t sure what to make of that sort of compliment, so she took the simplest course of action: she stared at the highway and pretended not to have heard him.
When she didn’t respond, he added, “She reminds me a little of my grandmother.”
“Is your grandmother also on the razor’s edge of a rap sheet?”
