Chapter fourteen
CAMILA
“I’m engaged,” I declared in one breath, after endlessly trying to bring up the subject after dinner, while we were still sitting at the kitchen table.
I gave our previously rehearsed version of events, which mixed lies with some real situations. I told her that, during the company party, he proposed to me in a completely spontaneous and unplanned way, so we ended up improvising with beaded rings bought at a stand there.
However, I told her that he intended to formalize everything with our families by giving me a real ring during the dinner he would host at his mansion the following Saturday.
I looked down for a moment, noticing that, sitting on the floor, even Waffle was looking at me curiously, as if he had understood my sentence to the point of knowing that it didn't make any sense. My last relationship had been at the end of college, and that had been almost three years ago.
I was pretty sure my grandmother was convinced I had plans to become a nun.
That, of course, was because she had no idea what I’d done at the company party.
I looked back at her and noticed that she was blinking insistently, as if trying to find logic in those words.
“But why didn't you tell me anything, dear? Why did you hide your relationship from me?”
That question would be the worst to answer.
“It's just... I didn't want to tell you anything while... you know... while...”
“You still weren't sure about your feelings?” she added, looking at me with those kind, dreamy eyes of hers.
I honestly wasn’t sure about my feelings for Michael Turner. It was something like ‘I want him to disappear off the face of the earth’—what was I supposed to call that?
Well, it didn’t really matter.
“Yes, Grandma. Exactly. We met a short time ago, you know? And things happened a little too quickly...” Quickly in the sense of losing your virginity to someone you talked to for a few hours, both of you completely drunk, and getting engaged on the same night.
But then again, it wasn't something worth mentioning. It was something, in fact, that I intended to erase from my mind.
“Oh, dear... come on, tell me, who's the lucky guy? If he was at the party, he works in the same office as you, doesn't he?”
“So, grandma... He's kind of my boss...”
She made a horrified expression.
“Are you talking about the guy who stole your project?”
“Ew, no! Not at all! When I say boss, I mean a bigger boss...”
“Someone superior to him in the company?”
“Let's say... The superior of everyone in the company.”
“My child... you are not talking about...”
“Yes, grandma, that's right. I'm dating Michael Turner.”
“I knew it, Cami! I knew there was something very strange about your dismissal. Now everything makes sense.”
The statement made me a little tense.
“What do you mean everything, grandma?”
“Well, you didn't know how to deal with your feelings, you were afraid that he would think you were a gold digger, and that's why you quit. You thought it was a forbidden love, didn't you, my love?” She held my hands across the table.
Like any good bookstore owner, my grandmother loved books.
All types of books. From classics to modern ones, from horror to fantasy, including suspense, self-help, biographies and even the now out-of-fashion coloring books.
But her favorites would always be romance novels.
The more clichéd they were, the more she loved them.
And what she told me was simply the most perfect plot of a clichéd boss and employee trope.
But my life was not a romance novel.
The different phases of my life could be described in different genres of literature.
The end of my childhood was like a sad and heavy drama with the death of my parents.
My adolescence was more like a teen comedy, of the typical nerdy, clumsy and awkward girl who had trouble fitting in (with the difference that no popular boy was ever interested in me, and with the added bonus of being a year younger than my classmates).
Then came college and, from then on, my days were less like fiction and more like a series of technical books.
I focused entirely on my studies and, later, on work.
However, now I felt like I was living in one of those stories with trials, investigations, courtrooms... and I was the character who would lie to everyone, including a judge.
I hoped the story wouldn't end with me being arrested.
Yeah, I knew it was a custody case, not a criminal murder trial. But it really felt like it.
“Yes, grandma, that's why,” I finally replied, proving once again that I was a liar of the worst kind.
How could I have the courage to lie to my grandmother?
“But what matters is that you're happy, my love. And that you're following your heart. And you are, aren't you?”
We were reaching a critical point of lies.
As if to save me from that conversation, someone rang the doorbell, and I jumped up and ran to answer the door. I already knew who it was, but even so, my first reaction upon seeing my best friend was to throw myself into her arms, hugging her tightly.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” I whimpered, hugging her. “I can’t go on alone with this lie.”
“Oh, girl... What a shame that...” she suddenly changed her tone of voice, which made me realize that my grandmother was arriving in the room at that moment. “What a shame that you didn't tell me this before, you little rascal! Congratulations, I'm so happy for you!”
I sighed and let go of her, turning to face my grandmother and forcing a smile to hide the fact that I was about to cry.
Evy greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and the two chatted for a few minutes, trivial things like my grandmother asking how her parents and husband were and my friend wanting to know about the bookstore.
Until my grandmother announced, “Well, I'll let you guys watch your movies and yap. Just like old times, right?”
“Stay with us for a while, Mrs. Jenna!” Evelyn asked. “We’re ordering pizza, why don't you eat with us?”
“I’ve just had dinner, my dear. And I'm already old, I'm at the stage where I go to bed early and stay with a good book until I fall asleep.”
I lived in that phase since I learned how to read.
Grandma said goodnight to us and left. Evelyn and I also went to my room, because there I could close the door, and we could talk without being afraid that my grandmother would get up to get a glass of water and hear some of the conversation.