Chapter 8 #2
This time, the answer comes back almost immediately.
It’s a photo, and it’s of Gray. He’s wearing a bro-cut tee, his hair is dark with sweat, and he’s in a gym.
He’s giving me a thumbs-up, and he’s grinning—probably because he knows he’s not being very helpful, and that’s the kind of thing he’d think is funny.
The way he’s holding the camera, you can see through the holes he’s cut in the sides of the shirt.
His chest is flat, his belly smooth. One pink nipple is visible.
“Oh my,” Gran says.
With a tone.
I lock the phone and put it away.
“He’s a snack.”
“Oh my God, Gran.”
“He is. I’m saying that right, aren’t I? He’s a snack.”
“I don’t know.”
“What a snack. Is that it?”
“Okay,” I say, “thank you for helping. You can go to bed now.”
She laughs as she runs her fingers through my hair again, and she takes her seltzer to her room.
After that, it gets easier. I steal Gran’s idea—well, I guess it’s her friend Judy’s idea.
A purple party sounds, well, kind of gay.
But maybe that’s a good thing, since we need to do outreach to the LGBTQ community too.
At first, I can handle the logistics on my own—calling the Sigma Sigma house to find out about a space, making a list of a few local bands, even coming up with a few carnival-style games that we could have at the informational booths.
People like games, and we do that with some of our community policing events.
But some things, I have to ask Gray, and somehow, the texting starts to turn into a conversation.
Do we have a budget for this event?
Sigma Sigma said they’d cover it up to a reasonable amount.
I was thinking a U-shape layout with the stage at one end.
What stage?
I can’t help myself. I text back, Don’t worry about it, and I catch myself grinning.
He sends me the turd emoji.
Do you think purple lights would be okay? I ask. Or would that be triggering for some people?
Why are we having purple lights?
I need some volunteers who feel comfortable talking to people.
I’ll send you a list of names. Do you like burritos?
We’re not doing food at the party, I say. What about artwork?
What artwork?
Do we have any art done by survivors?
I’ll have to ask Robin.
Back and forth like that. Sometimes the gaps are longer than others, but never too long. And it actually feels like this thing is coming together. I’m composing a message about renting extra tables if Sigma Sigma doesn’t have enough when there’s a knock.
Still typing out my question, I make my way to answer the door.
“Who is it?” Gran calls.
“Why aren’t you asleep yet?” And then I open the door.
Gray’s standing there. He’s still in his workout clothes, although his hair has dried, and it’s stuck in a few places to his forehead. He shows me a takeout bag. “What’s up, buttercup?”
From the back of the house, Gran’s voice floats out to us, “I’m in love!”
Gray shoots his eyebrows.
“Oh my God,” I say.
“Who is it?” Gran asks. “Is it Ronald?”
“Who’s Ronald?” Gray asks.
“He might be Robert or Rodney or somebody else,” I say. “Gran’s in love.”
And then the little delay while my brain was shut down is over, and it hits me: Gray is standing on my porch. And all I can think is that I live with my gran.
“You know,” I say, “now’s not really a good time—”
“Who is it, Sammy?” Gran’s voice is right behind me. And then she says, “Well, hello.”
Gray leans against the jamb. He does his eyebrow thing again, looking past me now, and says, “Hiya.”
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Gran actually elbows me out of the way. “You must be Sammy’s friend. I’m Rosalyn.” And she holds out her hand.
“I’d say you must be Sammy’s sister,” Gray says as he takes her hand. “But you are much, much prettier.”
Gran says, “Oh my,” again like she’s having the tingles, and then she says, “Won’t you come in?”
“He can’t come in,” I say. “Everybody’s got stuff to do.”
“Sure,” Gray says.
“But I’m warning you,” Gran says as she draws Gray into the house, “I hate to let a handsome man get away.”
“He’s gay, Gran.”
Gran looks at me.
Gray looks at me.
“Not that it matters,” I mumble.
“Thank goodness,” Gran says, patting Gray’s arm as she leads him toward the dining room table positioned halfway between the sofa and the kitchen. “You could get a nun pregnant just by looking at her.”
I’m trying to hold it back, but the groan balloons inside me.
“It’s so nice to have one of Sammy’s friends visit,” Gran says as she sits Gray at the table. “Sammy doesn’t ever bring anyone over.”
“Is that right?” Gray asks.
“It’s like he’s embarrassed of living with his gran.”
“Gran,” I say.
“Oh no,” Gray says. “He talks about you all the time. Everybody at the station is obsessed with you.”
Gran is glowing. “I’m sure they’re not.”
“Everybody loves Sam too, but I think we all secretly wish you were our gran.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Gran says; it looks like she can’t think of anything else. Finally she says, “Your food is going to get cold. Eat, eat. Sammy, don’t stand there. Offer him something to drink.”
“Oh no,” Gray says. “I don’t want to impose.”
“Then why’d you show up at my house?” I ask.
“Samuel Yarmark!” Gran points at the kitchen. “Get him a drink right now! Sammy says I make the best iced tea. Do you drink iced tea?”
“I do now,” Gray says.
And Gran giggles. She sounds a lot less chipper, though, when she snaps, “Get him some iced tea, Samuel.”
I’m only gone for about two minutes, so I don’t know how it happens, but when I get back to the table, Gran’s showing Gray two different tops—one white and spangly, the other black and spangly. They both look like they’re stretchy enough to be pure Spandex.
“White for lunch,” Gray says. “Black for going out.”
“I knew it,” Gran says. “Sammy sits there and says, ‘I don’t know, Gran.’ This is why you should always keep a homosexual around.”
I almost drop the iced tea. “Gran!”
But Gray murmurs, “That’s not the only reason.”
And Gran’s face turns bright red, and she starts to giggle again.
“Okay,” I say, “he’s got his iced tea, and you got your real-life homosexual. Can he eat his food now?”
“I brought some for both of us, actually,” Gray says. To Gran he adds, “Sammy works too hard.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Gran says.
“There’s enough to share,” Gray says. “If you want to join us.”
“I couldn’t,” Gran says, but like she could if he asked her again.
“No,” I say, “she couldn’t.”
Gran shoots me a look, and if I were eight years old again, she’d be sending me out to cut a switch.
It takes about five more minutes before Gran finally goes back to her bedroom—in that time, she manages to bring out a pair of earrings for Gray to approve and a grainy picture on her old flip phone of Robert or Rodney or whoever.
Gray says he looks hot, but he wants to know who paid the check.
Gran says she did, and then they’ve got to dissect that little piece of information, and they both agree Robert might actually not be such a good egg if he’s making Gran pay on the first date.
But they also agree to wait and see. And then Gran says she’ll tell me all the updates so I can tell Gray, unless it would be more convenient to get Gray’s number and text him herself.
And finally—finally—she’s gone.
Gray’s face is a little too serious as he unpacks the food.
He’d asked me about burritos, but what he brought are burrito bowls.
That’s a good, healthy choice—lots of protein and vegetables, without all the extra carbs.
He’s got little containers of salsa that he lines up on the table.
And he’s still looking so serious as he folds up the empty bag and sets it to the side.
“Okay,” I say, “go ahead.”
He looks up, and for the third time, I get the eyebrows.
“You can laugh about it. Or make a joke.”
“About what?”
I wave a hand. “I know it’s embarrassing.”
His mouth gets a little softer the way it does—I’m starting to learn—when he’s about to smile. “You might think it’s embarrassing. I think it’s cute. Are you going to sit down? I got carne asada and the chicken adobo or whatever it’s called. Which one do you want?”
“It is embarrassing. Anybody would be embarrassed.”
“Why? She loves you. She’s obsessed with you. Did you hear her tell me how strong you are because you loaded that bag of steer manure into her car without anybody helping you? And she’s sweet and sincere and a hell of a lot more interesting than most people I meet.”
It doesn’t feel like he’s making fun of me.
But the old part of me, the part I don’t like so much, still wants to crawl down inside my skin and disappear.
Because people don’t live with their gran, and if they do, their gran isn’t always falling in love and showing off her clothes and making your friends pick out her earrings and planning a wedding in Vietnam.
It’s not that I don’t love Gran; I do. But that part of me I don’t like so much gets real loud sometimes, like I’m ten or fifteen—or hell, twenty-two—and the only thing that matters is that people like me.
And that’s another thing I don’t like about myself.
“Chicken or steak?” Gray asks.
I give up and sit. “How much do I owe you?”
“My God,” he says and pushes one of the containers toward me. “You get chicken for being a nerd.”
We eat for a while. It’s pretty good—and it seems pretty healthy.
Gray keeps looking around the house, and I’m sure he’s seeing what I’d see if I walked in here for the first time: the scalloped curtains and the pastel walls and all the little old lady trinkets everywhere.
It’s the kind of stuff you don’t see once you’ve been around it long enough, but I’m seeing it now.
Like Gran’s needlepoint pillow that says GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND GET TO WORK.
A few years ago, I would have made a crack about it.
I guess I thought I was trying to beat everybody else to the punch, like if I made fun of it first, it would show I knew it wasn’t cool—and that meant I was cool.
But I’d been working on that, and so I sit and eat and try to think of something else to say.
It takes me about five minutes before I finally say, “Gran pretty much raised me.”
Gray looks at me.
“With my dad, I mean,” I say. “My mom left before I turned one.”
Gray forks some of the burrito bowl around. People always feel awkward when they hear about Mom; they don’t know what to say.
“Dad says she wasn’t ready for the responsibility of having a kid,” I say. “But it could have been anything. You learn that when you’re police, you know? Sometimes, bad things happen, and you never find out.”
Gray puts his fork down now. “Your grandma seems sweet. And like a lot of fun.”
In spite of myself, I smile. “Oh yeah. Unless you’re a sophomore in high school, and everybody finds out she’s canoodling with the principal.”
Gray bursts out laughing, but what he says is “Canoodling?”
“That’s what she called it.” And even though my face is turning red, I start laughing too.
“God,” Gray says, and I can’t tell if he’s impressed or if he’s trying to stop laughing. “Is she actually going to get married? It sounded like she just met this guy.”
“Probably. And yeah, she did. That’s Gran. She falls in and out of love about ten times a week. If she does marry this guy, it’ll be the fifth one.”
This time, Gray’s laugh sounds funny. “Better her than me, I guess.”
“I guess it probably seems strange if you don’t know her, but she really does fall in love.”
Neither of us says anything after that. We eat.
I wonder if I should turn the TV on; that’s what Gran and I usually do if it’s the two of us.
But I don’t think Gray wants to watch Murder, She Wrote or one of the old VHS tapes of Remington Steele.
He probably wants to watch Bravo. Or does he want to watch ESPN?
I guess I don’t hear him talk about TV much, not that we’d ever had a conversation before yesterday.
I’m still thinking about TV—maybe I could put it on the news—when Gray says, “I think it’s nice.
” At first, I don’t know what he’s talking about, and he must see it on my face because he says, “Your gran. How close you are.” He stops, but then he looks down at his bowl, scraping rice from the side.
“I’m not close with my family.” And then he does that weird laugh again. “That’s putting it lightly.”
I don’t know what to say to that, and Gran says if you don’t know what to say, keep your mouth shut.
“I started WISP for a reason,” Gray says dryly, as though I’d asked something anyhow. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He shakes his head. And then something changes in his face, and he looks like Detective Dulac again, and this other person—Gray, I think—is gone. “Finish your lunch, Sammy. We’ve got work to do.”