Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
The morning of the barbecue I go downstairs to find Valencia making pasta salad. She smiles at me and walks over to the fridge,
taking out two tubs of Cool Whip and placing them on the island in front of me.
“Oh. I think I’m good with cereal for breakfast, but thanks?”
She laughs. “You told Gramma you’d make her Watergate salad. Better get to work so it can chill before this afternoon.”
Okay, but I didn’t think a salad would have Cool Whip in it. Valencia goes over to a lemon-printed tin and pulls off the top. She flicks through the recipes inside and takes out
a handwritten note card.
Gramma Sharon’s Watergate Salad is written at the top—there are even little cartoon skulls and crossbones drawn around it. Valencia tells me the drawings
were Easton’s addition. I read over the recipe:
Two tubs of Cool Whip
One large can crushed pineapple (undrained)
One bag miniature marshmallows
? cup crushed pecans
Two packs pistachio instant pudding mix
Step one: Mix everything in a bowl and chill. Step two: Serve.
“The word salad is doing a lot of heavy lifting here,” I say.
Valencia laughs and for a second it almost sounds like Gramma Sharon’s cackle, and I can’t help but smile. As she’s getting
out the rest of the ingredients, Marcus enters the kitchen. He frowns instantly, as if he knows what I’m working on.
“We can’t have soda in the house, but sure, let’s make a marshmallow salad,” he says.
“If my mother wants to destroy her teeth, that’s on her.”
“Your son said he’d help her eat it,” Marcus reminds her.
“I’m regretting that statement now,” I say. Valencia and Marcus laugh.
“You don’t have to eat it, honey,” Valencia says. “I’m sending the leftovers home with her anyway.”
“No. A promise is a promise.” And I get to work on the . . . salad. After completing step one, it doesn’t look any better.
Maybe it will after it chills.
But a little before two p.m., when everyone is supposed to show up, I take it out of the fridge and it still looks like a
green, mushy mess of Cool Whip, marshmallows, and pecans. I give it a stir for good measure as Easton reaches over my shoulder
for the jar of Jif peanut butter on the second shelf.
“Disgusting,” he says with a smirk. He grabs a spoon and takes a giant glob of peanut butter before putting the lid back on
and the jar in the fridge.
“You invited JT, right?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He tries to talk around the peanut butter, then licks his lips before continuing. “I’ll tell him to smoke a little
more before he arrives.”
“Good idea.”
The doorbell rings and I put the spoon back into the massive bowl of Watergate salad. “I’ll get it.”
Honestly, I’m hoping it’s Gramma Sharon so she can see the mess I made and tell me, No, no, that’s not it, Valencia must have given you the wrong recipe. Or maybe it’s all a bit! A practical joke the whole family is playing on me because Nate had it at some school event and
made Gramma Sharon make it and everyone hates it.
I pull open the door and it’s Miles instead. He holds out a bag of tortilla chips.
“My mom told me I had to bring something.” I take the bag from him and step aside for him to come in.
“Tortilla chips are my favorite,” I say. Though that’s not entirely true because Takis exist. I just don’t know what else
to say. Valencia comes out to the front hall to greet Miles but then her face drops. “I completely forgot to ask your parents
if there’s anything special we should make you.” So she must know he’s diabetic.
“Nope! As long as I keep an eye on my blood sugar, I’m an omnivore. And a voracious one at that.”
“We’ll see how you like Watergate salad.” Easton emerges from the kitchen, the peanut butter spoon probably left in the kitchen
sink. The doorbell rings again and I open it.
“Hello, family!” Gramma Sharon enters with a canvas tote bag she hands over to me. “I brought corn from the farmers market.”
“Thought you weren’t going to bring anything, Mom,” Valencia says, reaching out to take the tote from me.
She shrugs. “I knew you wouldn’t have corn on the cob and I wanted some. Who’s this?” She turns to look at Miles with suspicion.
“Miles.” He holds out his hand and Gramma Sharon takes it. “Nate and I were friends in a past life.”
“Happy to have you, Miles.”
Valencia asks Gramma Sharon what she’d like to drink and directs Miles and me out to the deck, where there’s a cooler of seltzer.
I take him outside—past the Watergate salad on the kitchen island that he eyes hesitantly. Marcus is already at the grill
with a black apron on. He greets Miles in an over-the-top friendly way, as though Valencia coached him on how to react to
Nate’s old friend coming over. A few moments later Easton comes out to put down cornhole boards.
I pull Miles away so we aren’t in earshot of anyone. “Did you know Nate had guinea pigs?”
Miles thinks for a second. “We were in separate kindergarten classes, and I vaguely remember his class having a pet guinea
pig. Don’t worry, I wasn’t resentful, and it’s not the reason I asked my parents for a pet for years and am now cursed with
the un-cuddliest golden retriever named Chardonnay.”
“Well, I found three guinea pig carcasses buried in the garden yesterday.” I point in the direction of the freshly planted
hydrangeas.
He grimaces. “You think someone killed Nate’s guinea pigs?”
I shrug. “Valencia says they all died in their sleep. Didn’t think it was suspicious.”
“Could be poison. Do you trust her?”
Maybe I shouldn’t, but I really do. That doesn’t mean she’s right. She could think they died in their sleep. “She said Marcus hated them.”
“That bodes well for my Marcus suspect murder wall.” He points to the side of his skull. “In my brain, I mean. I don’t want
to look like a lunatic myself.”
“Nate!” Gramma Sharon calls out from the deck. “Bring your friend over and play cards with me.”
“Hope you’re ready to get your ass handed to you.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
His innuendo makes me look at his butt and my cheeks heat—the face ones, I mean. We walk up to the deck, and I pull out a
chair and sit across from Gramma Sharon. Miles takes one to my left at the head of the table.
“Miles.” Valencia comes out from the kitchen with Gramma Sharon’s drink—bourbon. “Can I get you a drink?”
Miles tells her a seltzer is fine, and Valencia walks over with one of each flavor. Miles takes the lemon.
Gramma Sharon lifts up her heart-shaped sunglasses with a smile. “I saw the Watergate salad. It looks great, kid.”
I grimace. “If you say so.”
“Don’t wimp out on me now!” she says with a laugh.
Easton leans against the railing behind me. “At least now you have a friend who can help you finish it.”
“What is Watergate salad?” Miles asks nervously.
Gramma Sharon turns to Marcus. “Go bring out the salad.”
Marcus shakes his head but goes inside and several minutes later reemerges with the giant bowl of Watergate salad in one hand
and a red plastic tray of raw burgers and hot dogs in the other. He sets the bowl on the table in front of us.
“Bon appétit,” he says with a grin. Gramma Sharon reaches out for three paper plates on the other side of the table.
“Oh!” Miles gives a wide, fake, but polite smile. “That looks like a lot of sugar.”
“Sure is!” Gramma Sharon says.
“I’m diabetic and that will probably kill me. So unfortunately, I’m gonna have to pass.”
Gramma Sharon gives a sad tsk and turns back to me. “Guess we’ll have to share his portion.”
Yay.
I grab two spoons—because spoons are probably going to be best for this mess—and pass one across the table to Gramma Sharon.
Gramma Sharon scoops up a massive dollop of the marshmallow salad and plops it heavily on each plate, handing one over to
me.
Miles watches as I scoop up some salad, giving me a look that says even if it wouldn’t put him in a diabetic coma, he’d skip
it. Gramma Sharon isn’t turned off at all and takes a massive spoonful, smiling at me as she does.
“It’s a Beaumont Bee-Bee-Cue!”
Miles and I turn to see JT coming around the corner with a Super Soaker in hand. He shoots it right at Easton’s chest. Easton
flinches, then touches the liquid spot on his shirt and brings it up to his nose.
“Dude, is this tequila?”
“John Thomas!” Valencia scolds.
Meanwhile, Marcus yells from the grill, “Hey, now the party can start.” Again, there’s a tinge of sarcasm there but he manages to make me laugh.
Marcus puts down the meat and crosses the backyard to greet JT—and to confiscate the liquor-filled Super Soaker for his own enjoyment, squirting some into his mouth.
He gives Valencia a sly grin as she continues to scold JT about bringing liquor to their house while he’s underage.
JT insists his own parents don’t mind and it was a gift for Marcus and Valencia.
CRUNCH.
I turn at the sound of Gramma Sharon taking her first bite of Watergate salad, surprised at how crunchy the pecans still are
after sitting in the Cool Whip for so long.
“Mmm!” Gramma Sharon is just as surprised because her eyes go wide. But that mmm wasn’t like a mmm, this is delicious mmm. It was one of shock. She drops her plastic spoon, and it flops into the remaining mountain of Watergate salad.
Her jaw moves and her eyes widen as she makes another “MMM!” sound, this one scared and urgent.
“Gramma?” I say.
She reaches for a napkin and puts it to her mouth.
A light pink foamy mess of marshmallows, Cool Whip, pineapple, and pecans flows out.
“Oh my God.”
Miles looks on in shock as the flood of Watergate salad pouring out of Gramma Sharon’s mouth turns bloodred. She whimpers
as she pushes out the rest of the bloody mess with her tongue. It lands on the napkin trembling in her hand and more blood
flows from her open mouth.
So much blood.
She looks across the table at me, her eyes wide.
“Isth gwath!” she says with another bubble of blood.
“Mom?” Valencia sounds horrified.
Miles jumps up to grab more napkins and Gramma Sharon doesn’t have to repeat herself because I understand her perfectly. Everyone
surrounds the table, wondering what’s happening, panicking at all the blood.
But I’m looking at the plate of Watergate salad in front of me.
And the thick shards of glass mixed in with marshmallows and pineapple.