“Flowers,” Grandma says, out of nowhere. “Return the earring with flowers.”
“But that’s not- I don’t want to-”
“You can’t stop thinking about her. You’ve been dying to find out who she is. You agreed to a single night, but you want more. She wasn’t like anyone you’ve ever met. She’s special and you can’t let her go, even though you know you should. Am I right?” Grandma asks. Her light blue eyes are dancing again, dancing like she’s back at the masked ball with a few shots of tequilas under her belt. I wish that I hadn’t escaped early, but only so I could have witnessed her dancing. I love when Grandma gets in a wild mood. She’s a lot of fun, no matter what age she is.
Basically, I had the best childhood, teenagerhood, and adulthood ever because of my grandma. She’s a special lady and she knows how to be both serious and wise, and a heck of a lot of fun, life of the party style.
“I think you should return the earring with a recipe for a bouquet of flowers. I’ll make it just for you. Floriography. What I was talking about earlier. Every flower tells a story. Every flower has a meaning. You love plants. You should know these things.”
“If people want to talk to each other, there’s this thing called phones now,” Wes chimes in helpfully from the table. He’s sitting down now, waiting to be served his punishment, I mean pancakes.
“I’m well aware,” Grandma snaps. “For that, you get three pancakes, Wesley. And I’m well aware that neither of you actually like these and you eat them to humor me.” Grandma shakes her flipper at Wesley, then at me. I have to say, I’m stunned. “Oh, you didn’t think I knew, did you? Well, guess what, bucko, grandmothers know everything. So yes, I know who that earring belongs to, and yes, you’ll send her flowers and that earring, and you’ll tell her that you’re trying to communicate with an ancient artform. I’ll make sure you have everything you need. I’ll send it over tonight and if you can find everything, you can send it to her tomorrow. I’m actually putting a recipe together for an old friend of mine. She wants to send her cheating husband, soon to be ex-husband, and don’t give me that look- even at eighty we can still have cheating ex-husbands, and yes he might be thirty years younger than her and thinks he’s a real stud and all that- but…” Grandma pauses. “I’m getting carried away. Anyhow, sit yourself down, Daniel, the pancakes are ready. I have everything under control. Tomorrow you can start wooing the woman of your dreams.”
“If by dreams you mean one night stand who probably never wants to see him again and won’t thank him for being creepy and stalking her down to ‘return’ her earring,” Wes says, using air quotes because apparently, you’re never too old or too cool for those either. “Or maybe you never wanted a one-night stand in the first place. Maybe you always wanted more because she’s beautiful and smart and probably so much higher above you. She doesn’t get a hard on for cacti and other dessert plants. She’s the opposite of you and that’s sexy. Maybe she’s also disillusioned with life and men, and you thought you could be the one to bring her around. Maybe you kept her earring just so that you could look her up and return it. Just so you’d have a reason to contact her again.”
“Wes, that’s enough,” Grandma says, not sharply or meanly because she couldn’t be sharp or mean if she tried. She doesn’t have a cactus like bone in her body. Not that they’re mean, but they sure can be sharp. “I’m not going to tell you again. This is a nice Sunday brunch with my two favorite people in the world, though goodness knows you both could use some attitude adjustments, especially around each other.”
Right now, I wish Wesley would sit on a cactus and get a prickly butthole that takes a good month to medically treat. He always takes the ribbing too far. He knows me too well. He’s my dang brother, but right now he’s pushing that privilege past the point where it’s forgivable. I might have wanted to prove to Leandra that she could trust me, that she should give men another chance. I might have wanted to erase all her bad experiences. I might have wished that in the morning she’d change her mind and give me her name and agree to let me take her on a real date. I might have wished that she’d let me banish all those past hurts with future romantic gestures. Okay, so I did wish it was more than a one-night stand- which I had never done before- but I sure as hell didn’t keep her earring in hopes of doing something sneaky like returning it and forcing her to get reacquainted and I certainly didn’t stalk her to figure out who she was.