16
Jamie
I burstinto Gran’s kitchen, my chest heaving, out of breath, just like I have been since last night. The kitchen is cluttered with all of Grandpa’s old implements—toasters, coffee grinders, electric sandwich presses, microwaves. He loved his gadgets, and Gran hasn’t gotten rid of a single one, it’s like a flea market in here. Stacked in between the 1980s kitchen gadgets, Gran also manages to shove her cast iron collection and the big old iron cauldron that they used to do laundry and make lye soap in when Gran was a kid. Someday, this kitchen is going to burst, but today’s not the day.
The screen door slams behind me, and Diedre and Gran look up from where they’re sitting at the table.
Gran has a bowl of shelling beans in front of her. She has a mountain of beans piled high in a bright red bowl, and her hands work fast snapping and stripping the shells. She lifts an eyebrow at my flushed cheeks and sweat-lined brow.
Diedre gives me a happy grin. She’s my Gran’s number one fan and was pleased as pie to be invited over. But this isn’t a friendly get-together. No.
I wave my hand in the air, making a chopping motion. “I can’t do it. I’m done. I’m going to tell him everything. I can’t do it.”
It’s late afternoon. I rushed through cleaning houses and called Diedre and Gran so we could have this chat.
Gran tosses the bean she’s shelling into the bowl. “Now why would you go and do a thing like that?”
Diedre narrows her eyes on me and I flush. “I…uh…well…”
Gavin’s mouth on mine flashes through my mind, the way he touched me, the way he looked at me, what he said.
Diedre gasps. “You had sex with him.”
Gran snaps her long, fat shelling bean in half, and I flinch at the violent motion, because if there was ever a woman imagining snapping a man’s willy in half, that was it.
“Jamie Lynn.”
“I did not!” I deny, but then I go and ruin it because I can feel my face growing hotter.
Gran shakes her finger at me. “Look at you wiggling like a worm in ashes.”
I hold still and stop shifting my feet on the old tile floor.
Diedre grins. She loves Gran’s old sayings. “Good one, Granny Allwright.”
Granny doesn’t have time for nonsense. “You hush, child. Jamie Lynn, you listen to me.” She points at the pile of shelling beans. “But while you’re listening, shell these. I’ve a truckload of them to get done.”
I pull out a wooden chair, the one with the old cross-stitched chair pad with a whisk and the phrase “Don’t be afraid to take whisks.” I scowl at it.
I grab a handful of beans and start snapping. “Gran. Diedre. I’m having second thoughts. We thought Gavin was a terrible person, but it turns out, he’s not. He’s really not. I don’t feel right—”
“Listen here,” Gran interrupts. “Did he insult you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Did he sign a contract, have you slave on a project for months, and then renege, taking nine thousand dollars rightly owed to you?”
“I mean, yes, but—”
“And did he cause you to fall and shatter the work you could’ve sold to someone else, robbing you of even that income?”
“Okay, yes, but—”
“And did he then walk out and tell you he would never pay and that your art, your life, and you were ugly and uninspired?”
“But Gran, I don’t think he meant it.”
Gran gives me a pitying look. “He meant it.”