Chapter 34
“S he’ll decide if she likes you within the first two seconds of meeting you, so be nice,” Dalia warned, her fingers twisting nervously in the seat of my car.
“When am I not nice?” I asked, maneuvering the car out of the parking spot.
My research on Grandmother Mercier had been thorough; if anyone could be swayed to my side, it was her. If not, I had a backup plan involving a little secret about her black web plant-growing activities under the pretext of being a former florist.
“You’re overly confident,” she groaned.
“I don’t see what the—”
I was abruptly cut off by the blaring horn of some imbecile. Through the rearview mirror, I watched as he drove like an absolute lunatic, careening toward my meticulously maintained car like a bat out of hell.
The maniac’s hand protruded through the open window, his gnarled fingers waving erratically, and simultaneously, his head leaned out. Wait. It wasn’t a he. Her gray hair was tied into a bun. Is that —
“My flower!”
“Grandma?” Dalia’s scream felt like a physical blow to my eardrums.
Our lunatic was none other than Dalia’s grandmother, behind the wheel of the Tesla Model S, with James Bond-like sunglasses on.
She executed a sharp turn, and— fuck no . She scraped against the side of my pristine car. The screech of metal against metal tore through the air in a painfully long wailing shriek. And while she was at it, she also unapologetically shattered my side mirror.
“I believe you just met Grandma,” Dalia said with a smug grin, seemingly unfazed about what had happened.
My pitiful side mirror dangled with a few stubborn cables, swinging back and forth, even though I hadn’t even left my parking space.
Dalia pranced out of my car and enveloped her grandmother in a hug. Everyone wore formal attire and uniforms for Parents’ Day, except for her grandmother. With her long, tiger-patterned dress, she looked like a rock star fresh from a stint in rehab.
“I miss my school days!” The old lady chuckled.
Meanwhile, I emerged from the car and assessed the carnage inflicted upon my vehicle. The paint was brutally stripped from its surface.
Grandmother: one.
My extensive research: nil.
That golem masquerading as a frail, petite grandmother spared me a glance. “Let me guess, he’s the annoying asshole who’s been bothering you for a full semester?”
“In the flesh,” I said in a crisp smile, advancing slowly toward her, each step laden with an implicit threat.
“I’m sorry about the side mirror, young man. You know, I’m old and half blind. I shouldn’t be allowed to drive rental cars.”
I arched my brow. She wasn’t half blind. She did it on purpose. A twisted amusement stirred within me, curling my lips into a semblance of a smile. She was as crazy as her granddaughter.
“Oh, I think you didn’t miss what you aimed to do,” I quipped back. “I see where Dalia gets her spirit from—like her desire to poison me or kick me in the balls—but I’m afraid all of those attempts were futile. It made me even more interested in your granddaughter.”
Dalia’s eyes widened, and the grandmother’s grin deepened, with a lipstick way too red for her age. “I know hundreds of ways I could torture you, young man, if you ever dare hurt my flower. She tells me everything.”
Why does everyone expect the worst of me? I was usually the one doing the threats, but it was almost delightful how she seemed to be speaking my language. “Everything, hmm?”
Dalia’s cheeks reddened as she clasped her hands. “Well, now that you’re here, should we eat somewhere or…?”
“Not now, so many things to do! I’m flying back home this afternoon; it’s just a four-hour flight, can you believe it!” She grabbed Dalia’s arm and surged toward the university entrance as if I didn’t exist. “I want you to give me a tour. Where should we start?”
“The greenhouse,” I said, causing both of them to halt ahead of me. “I heard you were into plants, the most exotic and poisonous kind, right?”
“And after that?” Her gaze bore into mine, sharp and probing, as she released Dalia’s arm.
“After that, I’ll prove to you that your granddaughter doesn’t tell you everything.”
“Levi!”
I managed to coax a chuckle from her grandmother. “I like him. For now, at least.” With that, she resumed walking, falling back into step beside me. “I still have many questions to ask you.”
“I’ll warn you, you probably won’t like my answers.”
“Do you have impure thoughts about my Dalia?”
“Yes.”
“You’re right; I don’t like that answer,” the grandmother pouted. “You didn’t even bother lying. So you’re either dumb or think being honest would get me in your good graces.”
“Definitely the second option.”
“You remind me of my old Arnold, her grandpa. He was a troubled bad boy, but not with me.” She looped her arm through mine, and a reflexive shudder rippled through me.
My skin prickled at the intrusion, my muscles tensing. I forced myself to maintain a mask of indifference as the grandma told me about her love story. All of that for one woman.
“And that’s how my flower here was running naked with only big ribbons around her as a dress, and she cried when we told her she couldn’t go out dressed like that. I think I have a picture—”
Her grandmother finished sharing the sixtieth embarrassing childhood story about Dalia alongside the four-course meal she devoured in front of me. The dining hall was teeming with people, packed to the rafters with eager parents and their hopeful offspring. I had to cast icy glares at anyone daring to infringe on my personal space on the long benches.
“This was very entertaining, Grandma, but it’s time to end this trip down memory lane. I was six, and if you ever show that picture, I’ll tell Levi about how you always cheat at board games!”
“On the contrary, I could go on all day listening to those stories.” Dalia kicked my knee under the table, and I delivered the most pleasant smile I could shape. “You were very naughty even then, and I’d love to see that picture.”
“If you insist, I’ll plant a fork in your hand.” Dalia reciprocated with her first attempt at a threatening smile. Cute.
“You’ll only turn me on.”
Her eyes widened, and she shot a side glance at her grandmother.
“Don’t stop on my behalf. I was young too, and we used to do it everywhere. But you have to be safe, and never do anything you don’t want to do. And you—” The grandmother pointed at me. “You may be a pretty man, but it’s useless if you’re a selfish lover.”
A restrained chuckle escaped my lips. “Oh, I can assure you, I use all of my advantages for Dalia’s pleasure, don’t I?”
Dalia’s palms pressed to her face as she groaned. “This is so humiliating.”
I’d always considered being part of someone’s family utterly exhausting, but I had to admit, this experience wasn’t as soul-sucking as I’d anticipated.
“Well, I know a story about you too, young man.” Maybe I spoke too fast. “It was the first time I met your mom. Was it ten years ago? She was grocery shopping and didn’t see me, but I called out to her anyway.”
News flash, Grandma: my mother was just trying to avoid you, and she had never been really subtle at that.
“I thanked her for the good work she was doing with our Dalia. She approached me first, you know? To give music lessons to Dalia. My flower didn’t like any of the other teachers. She found them strict and scary, too much like her dad.” She chuckled. “But your mother is the only one who made her smile.” She squeezed her granddaughter’s hand. “All the convincing I had to do for her to keep going to your house, my son can be so stubborn sometimes and… judgmental.”
She said it, her eyes locking on mine this time. That was why I loathed small towns.
“Anyway… your mother showed me the gift you gave her on her birthday. It was probably to shut me up, now that I think about it.”
“It wasn’t me,” I deadpanned. My mother and I never celebrated birthdays—she found them overwhelming and unexpected.
Her grandmother laughed again. “Oh, it could only come from you. You’d made her some kind of USB key in the shape of a violin. There were cables still coming out, and apparently, you had soldered it all yourself, manufacturing it from start to finish. I was scared; a child had used a smoldering tool without supervision? And you know what she told me?”
“What did she say?” Dalia responded, drinking in the story as if it were her own with bright wide eyes.
“That she would never stop you because she didn’t want to deprive you of what made you smile, your escape. She really loved that key ring, and—” Her phone rang, and she pulled it out, squinting at the screen as she read her texts.
“You okay?” Dalia mouthed at me.
I was absolutely fantastic. I flashed her a tight smile.
Dalia only knew Mother dearest from inside her music studio. It didn’t work for me to fake my interest in music because she pushed me into Patrice’s care as fast as she could. And now she was also acting all sentimental with Dalia’s grandma? Not that she ever thought of telling me that up front.
It brought to mind the times she’d attempted to hug me. It was so painfully clinical and devoid of any warmth, making me feel like a leper seeking charity. Growing up, I took the lead in our interactions and made it clear that I refused to participate in her forced displays of affection.
“Levi, help me out.” Grandma Mercier snapped me back from the memories I thought I had buried with the rest of my childhood when she thrust her phone into my hands. “I want to send a link to book a hard rock band for our church Christmas concert, but it’s like three pages long. With all these numbers, it looks like a virus.”
I took hold of the ancient device and glanced at the group chat page she had left open, titled “Christ’s little hellions.”
“Your URL is like a digital address. Those numbers and characters are here to locate and access a web page online.”
Her mouth was agape like a fish out of water, and I realized it was time to wrap things up.
“Yes, I can help you shorten it,” I said.
“Oh, please do.” She rose from her seat. “I’m off to the bathroom.”
She was cunning, but the bathroom was opposite her determined stride toward the checkout counter. She probably aimed to prove my lack of generosity with another test.
“You charmed my grandma.” Dalia’s voice rang with a subtle, playful lilt while I shortened the link. “I think she’ll even offer you one of her cooking recipes.”
“Remind me to never eat anything she cooks,” I responded with a dry quip, rising from my seat. “I’m off to fight your grandmother to pay the bill.”
Making my way to the checkout, I crossed paths with Michel. Our eyes met briefly, but he quickly averted his gaze, hunching his shoulders as he shuffled along with a tray in hand. It had been a while since I hadn’t seen him desperately trying to make friends in our common room. He finally understood not to try so hard.
“Michel,” I called to him. “Are your parents here today?”
Ignoring my attempt at conversation, he continued on his path when a short elderly woman joined him.
“Hi,” she greeted, extending a hand I didn’t bother to acknowledge. “You must be Levi, right? My son talks about you all the time.”
Here we go again. I rolled my eyes at the impending lecture from yet another mother about what a jerk I was. “Yeah, well, if you excuse me, I have to—”
“You’re one of his closest friends here at Pantheon.” She beamed, and I blinked. Was it all a joke? “You’re his role model, you know.”
A dark chuckle escaped me. “Right.”
She kissed Michel’s cheek, her fingers cradling through his hair. “I’m so glad he’s found friends here. He was so nervous and—”
“Mom, let’s go,” Michel interrupted, his fists clenched, avoiding my gaze while his face had turned red.
I frowned—nothing that just happened made sense. I watched him leave, his mother apologizing to me for her son’s rudeness. The same group of Pioneers who had taken Michel to the roof snickered at him, one of them swiping the dessert from his tray. Oblivious, his mother followed her son to find a table to eat at.
Not your concern, Levi.
Shaking off the distraction, I proceeded to settle the bill, sliding my card into the payment slot just before Dalia’s grandmother had a chance.
“You’re fast.” One second, she was laughing, and the next, she was not. “My Dalia likes you, I can see that, and you seem to like her too, am I right? But I can’t shake the fact there’s something… My blooming flower, she has a big heart.” Her eyes scrutinized mine, as if trying to read into my soul through a crystal ball. She’d definitely be the type to have a voodoo doll of me. “I never could offer you my condolences for what happened to your mother. I’m sorry. No child should have to endure that.”
I clenched my jaw. “I wasn’t a child.”
Her hand extended toward me, hovering over my heart, but she didn’t touch me this time. “You were, and in some ways you still are. I think you still haven’t healed your inner child.”
She withdrew her hand, the gulp that followed carrying the weight of her pity-laden gaze. She mustered a feeble smile as if she thought she could offer solace to my supposedly fractured soul. In response, I offered a composed artificial smile of my own.
It was laughable, really. I was perfectly fine and in control. As for my inner child, he was exactly where he should be—six feet under, snug in a coffin, buried deep beneath the fortress of my memories, secured with double-locked gates.
I was thankful the moment Dalia arrived by our side and wrapped her arm around mine. “Are you going to be okay on your way back?”
“I’ll be fine,” her grandmother reassured her with a wink, and she turned to me. “Oh, and Levi, next time I see you, I’ll share my favorite cookie recipe with you.” She grasped Dalia’s hand, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles before giving them a pat. “Don’t worry about your father, my flower. I’ll handle him, okay?”
Grandma Mercier was the only person to have a grip over her son—until I came into the picture.
“I don’t think even you will be able to make him listen to reason this time,” Dalia said.
And then, her eyes, wide and imploring, locked onto mine, silently urging me to take action.
Her lips, so innocent and inviting, seemed to beckon for a solution.
Don’t worry, my broken doll, I’ll free you of your father soon.
It looked like I would be her knight in shining armor after all.