Devoured: A Novel(15)

Ah, shit! I should’ve stopped her because of Gram!

Suddenly feeling nauseous at the thought of my grandmother answering the door and having to face down Lucas’s assistant, I speed down the steps. I’m too late. My feet hit the final stair just in time to hear Kylie complimenting Gram on how beautiful the house is. My grandmother’s not giving her accusing looks or asking her politely to leave, so I’m caught off guard. Then I realize that Kylie wasn’t in court yesterday. Gram apparently has never had the chance to meet her, but now that she has, she’s charmed. Kylie’s praise is making her blush hardcore.

Lucas’s assistant’s sugary act is really starting to freak me out.

“Um, Gram, this is Kylie, she’s—” There’s no way I can introduce her as Lucas’s assistant. I shoot Kylie a pleading look.

“A friend from high school,” she effortlessly adds. When Gram looks away for a split second, Kylie winks one of her brown eyes at me. It’s heavily lined in metallic blue liner. “I’m in town before heading off for vacation in a couple days and hooked up with Sienna online.”

My grandmother’s eyebrows draw together, and I can tell she’s trying to place whether she’s ever met Kylie before. I can read the emotions on Gram’s face as she thinks back to graduation and homecoming dances and piano competitions. Coming up with nothing, she lifts her shoulders slightly and shakes her head, her gray hair springing around her face.

“That’s so wonderful you stopped by for Sienna,” Gram tells Kylie. Then she darts her blue eyes up to me, where I’m still standing on the last step, staring at me questioningly. “Did you want me to cook or—”

A lump forms in my throat. I know I shouldn’t but I’m thinking of the Bowling Green, Kentucky, receipt that I’ve folded until there are hundreds of tiny creases lining it. It’s upstairs, tucked under the magazine on my nightstand. I shouldn’t keep it. I should’ve dropped it where I found it.

Because now I feel like a spy and the only thing I’ll do when I see the slip of paper or Gram mentions cooking for me is wonder whether or not she was actually with my mom this afternoon. It’s going to eat away at me until I have the chance to talk to her about it.

No, I’ll have to confront her in an intervention like scenario because my grandmother always clams up when it comes to talking about Mom.

My mother tends to evoke that type of response from everyone.

“You’ve been busy all day, so you should get some rest,” I say, despite the constriction in my throat. “Plus, Kylie’s got this outrageously unlimited expense account for her job and she’s taking me out to dinner to catch up. Isn’t that right, Ky?”

Biting her lip—either to avoid laughing aloud at the emphasis I placed on the word “unlimited” or to keep from telling me to shut the hell up and that her name’s not “Ky”—Kylie gives us a thumbs up, and replies, “She’s right. My boss lets me be a lush, and I take every advantage of it. And we better get going because I’m starving and we have a reservation.”

Then, Kylie takes Gram’s hands in between her gloved ones and offers her a genuine smile. Once again I’m struck, curious as to why she’s being so nice to the old woman her boss wants to evict. “It was so great to meet you, Ms. Previn, and thanks for letting me borrow Sienna for a while. I promise I’ll take good care of her.”

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what my ex-boyfriend said when he picked me up for junior prom, the night he talked me into giving me up my virginity.

I fidget with the short hem of my chocolate-colored boatneck dress.

Gram’s nose wrinkles and crosses her arms over her chest as if she’s in deep thought. At long last, she says, “You girls have a good time. And absolutely no drinking and driving!”

It isn’t until I’m buckling my seatbelt in the Escalade, which smells like cigarettes and too much pine-scented air freshener, that I realize why my grandmother had such a strange expression on her face just before Kylie and I walked out the door.

Gram and I have different last names—hers is Previn and mine is Jensen, my dad’s last name and Mom’s former married name. Not once had Gram mentioned what her last name is to Kylie.

?



The Tuesday night crowd at the costly fondue restaurant on 2nd Avenue is scant, and Kylie and I are seated in a dimly lit, horseshoe-shaped booth. She removes her coat, revealing an oversized sweater with glasses-wearing owls covering it and a pair of stretchy pants. I’m not one for bold colors or prints like Kylie—I mean, I’ve played with the idea of dying my hair for years because it’s that red—but the way she dresses suits her.