CHAPTER 24
ACT CASUAL × THREE
For three weeks, I communicated with Erin long distance while she prepared for her move, and I put everything into my business. Chad was no longer a client, so I had even less wiggle room, but thanks to little, disheveled Myra, I’d met with and signed two members of his mah-jongg group. I was a long way from where I needed to be, but I felt better than I had in a while.
I’d also successfully avoided interacting with Grant. I’d been so busy that my excuses appeared legitimate—until today, when suspicion had gleamed in Deanna’s narrowed eyes after I’d told her I didn’t want Grant’s help moving some new furniture in. So I’d backtracked, and on this mid-July Saturday afternoon, Deanna was assembling the new kitchen table, and Grant and William (back to his fully clothed, sans acid, and not-jumping-in-pools self) were either chatting with The Nose or bringing in the new couch. I’d sold the chaouch for a fraction of what Chad had paid and purchased a new one, along with some older pieces from a thrift store on Twelfth Avenue. I pretended I wasn’t avoiding Grant, but he looked alarmingly good moving furniture, so I was definitely avoiding him. Erin was due to arrive any second, and my panic over living with someone was a solid distraction from his Michelangelo-sculpted forearms.
I hadn’t lived with anyone since college, and thankfully Silent Selma—a computer science major—had been so shy that we’d only spoken a handful of words during the whole two years. Fate. After that, I got my own apartment.
I ran upstairs and spent seven minutes on my Schwinn, spinning until it hurt, then pushing past the pain until I heard noise below me, people entering, talking.
Downstairs, a group of numbers congregated. The cycling had helped, but if I was going to avoid hyperventilating at the idea of living with someone, they all needed to be numbers.
A squealing three ran across the room and hugged me, physically wrapped her arms around me, and squeezed before I could think.
I’d definitely made a mistake.
“Thank you so much, Pen,” she said. “This is going to be great!”
I nodded and said something agreeable, then looked around for the dog, whom I imagined running up shortly, like his owner, and chewing my face off.
“Where’s Hulk?” I spied the number ten (Grant) on the new couch, cuddling a teddy bear. Where did he get that stuffed animal, and why was he childishly petting it like it was ... oh, it was alive.
“That’s Hulk.” Erin pointed toward Grant. “He’s actually not that friendly, but for some reason, he likes ...”
“Grant,” Grant said. “It’s the mustache.”
“He wouldn’t let either of us touch him.” William indicated himself and Deanna, and I expected to need them to be numbers, but I didn’t. They were just William and Deanna.
When I reached my hand out to touch Hulk’s brown, curling fur, he growled and showed his teeth, growing in size, like the Hulk.
Everyone except Erin and Grant stayed away from Hulk as we chatted until there was a knock on the front door.
My stomach flipped because I certainly wasn’t expecting anyone else. The Nose, holding a pitcher of what appeared to be lemonade, stood at the bottom of the steps.
“Hope I’m not disturbing,” she said, and it was the first time I’d ever heard her voice. It was gravelly and cut out in places like a poor radio connection. “Saw those two handsome men lifting that heavy couch and thought you could use some refreshment.”
Grant leaped up and took the lemonade from her. “Thanks, Devina. That was really thoughtful of you, wasn’t it, Penelope?”
I realized then that I’d just been staring like a spectator. All these weeks, I’d silently sort of communicated with my neighbor from afar, and seeing her up close was throwing off our balance.
“Would you like to come in?” I asked, stepping aside and unintentionally pressing my arm against Grant’s, who had stepped onto the porch with me since he and ... Devina? seemed to be old friends. I didn’t pull it back right away, and he didn’t move.
“No, thank you. Appreciate it, though. Maybe another time, but Pen, can I speak to you a moment?” Devina motioned me toward her, and I stepped down the front steps. Once Grant had moved back inside and I was close enough, she took my hand in hers, squeezing with intention. I’d originally seen her as a nosy four, but she was definitely an eleven, two lines side by side, neighbors with something invisible connecting them in between. “Wanted to apologize for not being more neighborly. Tend to keep to myself, but glad you moved in, and I’m here for you if you need me. Should’ve said that before, but saying it now.”
She put her hand up to her throat and nodded, which I assumed meant she needed to stop talking.
“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot. And thank you for the lemonade. That was very thoughtful.”
“Owed Grant. He makes a divine green tea.”
She started to back away and wave, so I quickly said, “Please let me know if you need anything.”
She nodded, waved again, and headed for her house.
Grant handed me lemonade in a glass I didn’t recognize when I stepped back inside. “Where did this glass come from?”
“Umm. I bought them,” Deanna said. “You can’t drink everything out of mugs.”
“I have glasses!”
She rolled her eyes. “This lemonade is magical. That was so sweet of your neighbor.”
I nodded. “You know that’s my first time actually speaking to her?”
“She’s a sweet lady,” Grant said. “She’s survived throat cancer on her own. She and her family had a falling-out. They don’t speak.”
“Wow, I didn’t know.”
“How do you know this, Grant?” Deanna asked.
“She talked to me and Grant outside,” William chimed in. “Sounds like she’s had a rough life.” He turned to me. “She’s been worried about you, too, a single woman in this area, so she’s been keeping an eye out. Apparently the neighborhood’s nice, but occasionally there’s an incident, especially during Titans season.”
“Proximity to downtown,” Grant said, nodding.
Erin started talking about her grandparents and some gunshot incident, and I probably should’ve been listening, but I was thinking about Devina and how I’d inadvertently misjudged her. She’d been looking out for me, and I’d assumed she was being nosy.
The conversation bounced from neighborhood safety to something called the Color Wheel, an upcoming cycling event, and then William, Deanna, and Grant stood to leave.
“They’re really nice people,” Erin said after I’d closed the door. “So you and Grant are a thing?”
“What? Why would you ask that?” I threw my hand out in an effort to appear casual and slapped it into the wall.
Her smile was devious. “Oh.”
“What?” I attempted to cross my arms but, forgetting how to configure them, gave up and let them flop by my sides like an ape.
“Nothing. It’s just that—”
“Grant has a girlfriend!” My voice had gone too high. I toned it down, brought it back to casual. “We’re friends. He’s that way with everyone.”
“He wasn’t with Deanna.”
What was wrong with her? “Deanna is his sister.”
“I see.” She was smiling again, like she knew something I didn’t. “I probably shouldn’t say anything, but I know when someone likes someone else. It’s a gift. And, he may not know it yet, but Grant likes you. He looks at you like he can’t get enough. So!” She clasped her hands together and looked around as if she hadn’t just ruined my life. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve done with the place.”
She scooped Hulk into her arms, and we moved in and out of rooms that had embarrassingly not changed all that much, while I tried not to freak out.