4. Kiera
Kiera
K iera was in her new bedroom, one of Nana’s guest rooms, putting away the last of her clothes in the closet. Some of her stuff was still at the Kappa house, but considering the fact that she shared her room with Lauren there, it wasn’t worth running into her to go back and retrieve it.
Kiera had tried to make this room feel like her own, but Nana was partial to heavy, ornate furniture and the king-sized bed she’d placed in the center of the room dominated the space.
It wasn’t exactly Kiera’s style, but she couldn’t argue that it was an improvement over the twin bed she called her own in the sorority house, or the communal bathroom in the hall.
When she heard a door open downstairs, Kiera knew that her grandmother must be returning from her weekly bridge club, along with Kiera’s dad.
A couple of weeks ago, before Kiera moved in, Nana had driven herself to the grocery store and then instead of coming back here, she’d driven to the neighborhood where she and Papa lived when they first began dating almost fifty years ago.
She’d been disoriented and it was lucky that she still had the presence of mind to call Rhiannon and ask for help.
Since then, Nana had agreed not to drive anymore and Kiera took on a lot of chauffeuring responsibilities since she moved in.
She’d been in class all morning today, though, so her dad used his lunch hour to get Nana home after the bridge game.
Kiera went downstairs and found them both in the large marble foyer. Her dad was helping Nana out of her coat and Nana smiled up at him graciously, saying, “Thank you, Sean.”
“How was bridge?” Kiera asked.
“Oh, it was alright,” Nana said. “That Denise will go to her grave swearing she’s not a cheater, but we both know the truth. Just because my memory’s not so great doesn’t mean I can’t see her sneaking peeks at my cards.”
Kiera and her dad exchanged smiles – Nana had become increasingly serious about her bridge games ever since Papa passed and sometimes Kiera wondered if Nana liked the fact that Denise was a little shifty. It gave her something to fixate on, if only once a week.
“You’ll catch her one of these times,” Kiera’s dad said reassuringly, then he checked his watch and added, “I have to get back to the office and finish up a few things before the end of the day. You two okay here?”
“Of course,” Kiera said as her dad gave her a quick hug. He said goodbye to his mother-in-law and headed for the heavy mahogany front door, then Kiera asked, “Nana, are you hungry?”
“No, but I could go for a cup of tea,” her grandmother said, heading toward the back of the house.
Kiera followed her down the hall to the kitchen.
It was a large room with a long island that had bar seating on one side, as well as an informal dining area at the far end of the room.
Kiera had spent many holidays in this room with her grandma, her aunt and her cousins when they came into town.
She remembered making Christmas cookies with them while her mother sat on a bar stool and watched.
She didn’t like to get her hands dirty, but Kiera and the other kids spread flour all across the island and made a mess that Nana never grumbled about having to clean up once the fun was over.
Now, Kiera watched as Nana shuffled over to the electric kettle on the counter and turned it on. The room seemed much larger now than it used to, and empty - like it could open up and swallow her little old grandmother whole one of these days.
“Let me make the tea, Nana,” Kiera said. “You go sit down.”
“I’m not an invalid, dear,” Nana reminded her, but she did as Kiera asked anyway. “So tell me about your day. How was class?”
“It was good,” Kiera said as she got a tea cup out of the cupboard. “We got our mock proposals back during my grant writing class today and the professor said mine looked very good.”
“Oh, come now,” Nana said with a smile. “You’re young and beautiful – surely something more interesting than that happened to you today. Let me live vicariously for a minute.”
Kiera laughed and poured Nana a cup of Earl Grey.
Her grandmother loved to hear about life at Grimm Falls College, but Kiera hadn’t told her the biggest piece of gossip going around.
Nana had no idea that a large part of Kiera’s decision to move in here had to do with her falling out with Lauren, and the truth was that Kiera was a little nervous to tell her.
Nana wasn’t an intolerant person, but she was from a different generation and she hadn’t really understood when Kiera came out to her family in high school.
She thought it was something she’d grow out of, or something she was confused about, and Kiera didn’t want to concern Nana with her love life now – shambles as it was.
So she artfully avoided the topic and told Nana that she was here purely to look after her.
“No gossip today, unfortunately,” she said, bringing the cup of tea over to Nana at the small dining table in the corner.
“Gossip?” Nana asked, a glaze of confusion over her eyes. This happened every once in a while – she’d ask a question and then forget that she’d asked it. So much the better – Kiera wasn’t in a talking mood on this particular subject, anyway.
“Never mind, Nana,” Kiera said. She sat down across from her and while Nana blew on her tea to cool it, she said softly, “You know, Mom thinks it would be a good idea to hire a nurse for you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Nana said. “What would I need a nurse for?”
“A nurse could help you when I’m not around,” Kiera said. “I worry about you when you’re alone.”
“I was alone for six months before you moved in,” Nana pointed out. “I got along just fine.”
“That’s true,” Kiera said. She reached across the table to briefly pat her grandmother’s hand.
The skin was thin and wrinkled, and when she lifted the mug to her lips, her hand trembled slightly.
It was hard noticing the visible signs of her grandmother’s aging.
Kiera pressed on, saying gently, “That was before the diagnosis. Things will become more difficult over time and it would be nice if you found someone whose company you enjoy now.”
“You worry too much,” Nana said. “Now, what recipe would you like me to teach you tonight? Should we have apple pie or peach cobbler for dessert?”
“Hmm,” Kiera said, pondering the question for a moment. “Apple pie is a welcome classic.”
“Apple pie it is,” Nana said.
She spent the next few minutes sipping her tea and talking about the different variations on the perfect apple pie – lattice crusts and crumbles, tart apples and sweet ones.
Kiera nodded along in all the right places, and while she half-listened, her mind went to Lauren like it had so many times in the past week…
hell, so many times in the past three years.
They were randomly assigned as roommates in their freshman year and Kiera was hooked on her from the start. Lauren was beautiful, she commanded the attention of every room she walked into, and Kiera had always been able to talk to her so easily about everything.
Everything except the fact that she was madly in love with her.
Lauren was as straight as they came – never had so much as an experimentation phase – and Kiera had lived with the fact that she’d never be anything more than a friend for three whole years while she secretly pined for more.
Then on her twenty-first birthday, when she and Lauren, along with some other Kappas, were celebrating at one of the fraternity houses, something flipped inside Kiera’s head.
She had the idea that her time with Lauren was drawing to a close.
They said they’d always be friends, but who knew what would come after college?
Lauren wasn’t the kind of girl who stayed in a place like Grimm Falls without a good reason, and this year might be Kiera’s last chance to make Lauren fall in love with her.
She’d never made a move on her because she always thought it would be fruitless, but suddenly, she couldn’t stand the idea of not trying.
So they drank and danced and those romantic feelings kept bubbling up in Kiera’s chest all night. And instead of pushing them away, she let them build. It was the start of their senior year and it seemed like the right time to take a leap of faith.
If not then, when?
At the end of the night, she and Lauren stumbled across campus with their arms linked, laughing and enjoying the buzz of alcohol in their heads. They split off from the other girls and went up to their room on the second floor of the Kappa house, and Kiera steeled her nerves.
She closed the door and marched up to Lauren. She put her hands on Lauren’s cheeks and Lauren didn’t push her away. She leaned in, and Lauren didn’t lean back. She kissed her, and her lips were just as warm and soft as she’d always imagined. She closed her eyes and inhaled Lauren’s perfume.
And then Lauren backed up, her eyes wide with surprise.
She shook her head, said, “No, Kiera,” and then stepped around her and went into the hall. Kiera stood there, letting the exquisite pain of rejection sink into her bones, and that’s when things went from bad to worse.
She heard Lauren stumble in the hall, and she heard someone catch her.
It sounded like Shannon - Shannon the gossip queen of the Kappa house. She laughed and said, “Lauren, you have red lipstick smeared across your mouth. What the hell did you get into tonight?”
And Lauren said, her words slurred with alcohol, “Kiera kissed me.”
“Oh. My. God!”
Shannon, the gossip queen of the Kappa house.
Of course it had to be her that Lauren ran into in the hall that night.
She’d tell the whole world in ten minutes flat.
With a breaking heart, Kiera went over to the closet and immediately started pulling clothes into a backpack.
There was no way she could sleep in the house that night, less than five feet from the object of her unrequited affections.
“What should we have for dessert tonight?” Nana asked, pulling Kiera out of her thoughts.
“Hmm?”
“I want to teach you a new recipe,” Nana said. “What are you in the mood for?”
“Oh,” Kiera said. “We already decided on apple pie. Remember, Nana?”
“Did we?” Nana asked. “Oh yes, that’s right.”