She's Up to No Good(28)
“When I text you, you send back gibberish.”
“Oh, darling.” She turned around to face me, one hand on her hip, the other gesturing with a spatula. “Have you not figured out how much fun I have teasing you and your mother?” She smiled, turning back to the pan. “Never underestimate me.”
“I don’t,” I said through clenched teeth. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. I know your game. And I’m not interested in a setup.”
“A setup?” She slid thick-cut pieces of French toast onto a waiting plate. “What kind of setup?”
“This Joe guy. I know you think it’d be cute because he’s Tony’s great-nephew and all, but I’m not interested.”
“Of course, you’re not interested.”
I narrowed my eyes. Agreeing too readily was always a sign she was about to play an ace. “I’m serious.”
“I know, dear. You don’t even know him yet. How could you be interested?”
“That’s not what I mean!” She put a plate in front of me. There was syrup on the table and two glasses of orange juice.
“Eat,” she said, setting down the other plate and sitting. “We have a busy day today.”
“Oh, do we? You literally haven’t told me anything about this trip.”
“I certainly have. I have business to take care of.”
“And you won’t tell me what that business is?”
“No. It’s mine. That’s all you need to know for now. But that’s later in the week.”
“Joe said you want him to show me around the town?”
“This afternoon, yes. This morning, we need to run errands.”
“Why can’t you show me around town? I want to hear your stories about it, not some random guy’s.”
“He’s hardly random.”
“Look, historically, your fixups have been disasters.”
“One time—”
“Two. And that second one was enough for a lifetime.”
“You can’t tell me you haven’t seen that before. You’ve been married, after all.”
I rubbed at my forehead, not wanting to relive the worst date in the history of dates. And referring to my marriage in the past tense took some of the fight out of me. “Grandma, I’m not ready. And he lives almost five hundred miles away from me.”
“From your parents’ house, you mean.”
I looked up sharply, but she smiled innocently. So it was a setup, no matter what she said to the contrary. “I’m not moving to Massachusetts. Especially not for a guy.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought things out awfully far for someone who isn’t interested.” I threw my hands up, exasperated. “Now eat your French toast. You’ll need a shower too. I can’t take you anywhere like that.”
Defeated, I took a bite. “Where did the groceries come from?”
“Oh, I texted Joe a list before we left.”
“You text him a lot apparently. Are you sure you’re not interested?”
My grandmother winked at me. “Maybe. A little competition is good for you.”
I shook my head.
I had picked the largest of the three upstairs bedrooms, which my grandmother said had held a double bed and two twins at the peak of the cottage, when everyone used to descend on the shore for the summers. Now, it was outfitted with a queen bed, an antique dresser, and a small matching desk. I turned on the water in the recently remodeled bathroom (no sign of the clanking pipes my mother described from her childhood trips) and stripped out of my sweaty clothes.
Stepping over the edge of the tub, I stood under the shower’s stream, then pressed my forehead against the cool tile wall.
I should be interested in Joe. I knew that. A fling on vacation would be perfect. Not only could I snap some cute social media posts to make it look like I was moving on but it might actually help me do just that.
But the idea of sleeping with someone new—I shuddered.
What’s wrong with me? I wondered. My mother had suggested antidepressants a month ago. But I wasn’t depressed. I was . . . stuck. I knew she was right, and I should sign the settlement agreement. I wouldn’t move on until I was legally free. But I wasn’t ready yet. I had never truly failed before. And I wasn’t quite ready to concede defeat, even though I didn’t want to be with Brad anymore either.
With a sigh, I pulled my face off the wall and began shampooing my hair. If I took too long, my grandmother was likely to take the car on her own. I should hide the keys, I thought as I washed the lather out. Not that it would matter—she would have no qualms about going through my bag to find them. I needed to hurry up and get back downstairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
July 1950
Hereford, Massachusetts
The houses were smaller than the grand Victorian Evelyn grew up in, on a side street she had walked past many times but never ventured down, clustered together with a small alley behind them. Children ran wild through the neighborhood, yelling to one another in a mishmash of English and Portuguese and dashing across the road, half-clothed in the summer evening. On front porches, men sat in undershirts while women in mended dresses brought them their next bottle of beer. It was less than half a mile from her parents’ house yet a world apart from the starched collars and saddle shoes of her childhood. Joseph and Miriam would sit on the porch on a hot summer night, rocking quietly in wicker chairs, but they dressed for the town to see them. Which, in their location, they did.