“I don’t need your explanations.” Leandra’s blue eyes, the same color as the sapphire earrings she wore the night of the ball, flick warily to my grandma who is at my side.
Because yes. When she asked if she could come to make things right, I said she absolutely better come. Not because what happened was her fault or anything. No. It was more because she’d lend credibility to what I had to say. Okay, because what happened was entirely her fault.
“What’s this? You’re bribing senior citizens into playing bodyguard for you now? Or maybe you thought I’d be softer if you brought an adorable granny in here with you?”
“Adorable?” Grandma rolls her eyes. “Senior citizen? Geez. Watch your mouth, young lady. Your grandmother would be appalled at that kind of talk. The bodyguard bit I like.” Grandma drops down into a fighter stance, fists at the ready. “Bring it on, dearie. Let’s go. You and I. We’ll see who’s old.”
Leandra’s lips quirk at the sides and her eyes dance like twin mirrors reflecting the late afternoon sun streaming through the big windows all over the boutique. “I have no intention of fighting you ma’am. My argument is entirely with him.” Her gaze, levelled at me again, is decidedly unimpressed. She crosses her arms and juts out her chin and dares me to try and come up with an apology or some kind of explanation that she’ll believe.
“Ma’am?” Grandma asks in disbelief. “Oh, that’s it! You deserved that bouquet you little trollop!” She shakes her finger in Leandra’s direction.
“Grandma!” I set my hand on her shoulder. “That’s not helping! And you are old! She’s just being polite with the ma’am stuff.”
Grandma does seem to cool her jets after that. Or at least she drops her wagging finger. “I wanted to come along today. My grandson didn’t have to bribe me, and no, it ain’t no senior citizen day, though I’ll admit that I might have had a moment. You see, that bouquet you got, it was my idea. The whole thing. I’m the one romantic enough to know about the Victorian flower talk. I thought it would be a grand gesture, especially because you were only in it to bump uglies with my grandson. I thought you needed a good dose of wooing.”
“Grandma!” I wish I didn’t have to keep chirping her name like a scandalized parrot, but really. I thought she was going to help me here, not melt me into a molten puddle of mortification.
Because my grandma is one of a kind, she ignores me entirely. “Well, you see, I was also making up a bouquet for a friend who had a no good cheating husband. The bastard was poking a model twenty years younger than him and he’s thirty years younger than her, and- never mind, I suppose you don’t need to know the sordid details. Point is, I mixed up the recipes I was working on and you got her bouquet and he got yours. I realized my mistake when my friend called to tell me that her two-timing poo bag of a husband was sorry and he realized his undying love for her after he received her bouquet and looked up all the meanings of the flowers and they were so sweet and good and filed with promise and hope. And I thought to myself, well, shit, Geraldine, you’ve gone and done it now. Speaking of which, I’m Geraldine. This one’s grandmother. Good to meet the young lady who has so fully captured my grandson’s interest.” Grandma sticks out a hand, but Leandra stares it down like this is some kind of joke. Or maybe she’s just too stunned to move. I know that I am. “I was so worried that he was going to die all alone, but you’ve restored my faith in having grandchildren.”
I take Grandma’s hand in my own because I’m too polite to elbow my own grandmother, and squeeze gently, because hell, she’s my grandmother and she’s old and I’m not going to go all full-on beast with her poor hand.
“Okay, starting over. What my grandma means to say is that she sent me the lists of flowers to include in the bouquet. She got it all mixed up. You got the bouquet for the cheating husband.”
“And since the cheating husband got your bouquet,” Grandma goes on, “my friend called to tell me that they’re going to therapy, so I guess my mistake kind of fixed their marriage, but it also seriously messed with my hopes for having grandchildren. I mean, great grandchildren. I should get my greats straight in a row.”
I very nearly groan.
“I liked the toilet you sent over so much that I’ve taken it for my own use. I hope you don’t mind,” Grandma says and winks.
It’s true. When she called me, I was getting the toilet in a big cardboard box with the dead bouquet delivered. And the message was so clear that I had a near breakdown with my granny. I knew I was now relegated to the doghouse, and my doghouse wasn’t all glitzy and glamorous. It was a cold, lonely, damp place with a pooper and dead flowers as my only company.