Fran’s gasp alerted me to the words I hadn’t intended to ever say aloud, and I bolted upright on my stool. “You didn’t hear that!”
“Oh yes, I did.”
“Yes, yes I did!”
This time when I groaned, it echoed around the store. “Ugh!”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Mary Fran said, laughing.
“Safe! Safe with me!”
I shot a death glare at Rudder and then turned an exasperated sigh on my clearly amused friend. “He could drive a person to drink, you know that?”
“I know. You’ve mentioned it before.”
“Because it’s true.” I slipped off my stool, crossed to the small refrigerator behind the counter, and extracted the Tupperware container of kiwi normally reserved for Rudder and his far sweeter (read: less annoying) counterpart, Baboo. When Rudder began pecking at the side of his cage in anticipation, I simply pulled out a single piece of his favorite fruit, returned the container to the fridge, and then slowly placed the kiwi onto my tongue. “Mmmm…yummy, yummy kiwi.”
“Now who’s being a pill?” Mary Fran asked through lips that were most definitely twitching.
I closed my mouth, chewed the rest of my kiwi, and then swallowed dramatically. “He started it.”
“Snort! Snort! S-nort!”
Mary Fran held up her hands, crossing guard style. “Enough, you two. Enough.”
I lowered my head in shame (not really, but I made it look good) and returned to my stool. “So when’s Drew coming home?”
Mary Fran’s smile was back and I was glad. Especially considering the reason—a reason that, prior to January, had been on par with hell freezing over. “Friday.”
“Your glow is back.”
“I know.”
“I’m happy for you, you know.”
“I know that, too,” she said. “And I also know I have you to thank for it.”
“Yes, yes you do.” I allowed myself a moment of mental back patting and then leaned against the edge of the counter. “That’s the thing with someone who’s really smitten, as my grandfather says. It drips off them.”
Mary Fran lowered herself onto her own stool and eyed me closely. “Then I’m guessing you saw it dripping off him last night. At both the award show and your party.”
“Him?” I echoed with a squeak.
“Your grandfather.”
I wanted to protest, to tell her she was seeing things that weren’t really there, but to do so would be akin to delusion, and I wasn’t the delusional type. Most days, anyway.
I stood and wandered around the store, stopping every few steps to peer into the cat cages, Max’s hamster condo, and at a half dozen goldfish that would likely end up in someone’s toilet within the next few months. “As much as I loved and miss my grandmother, I’m not opposed to my grandfather finding someone to live out his remaining days with, I’m really not. But Ms. Rapple? Seriously? I-I just don’t get what he sees in her.”
“He doesn’t see her the way we do.”
I made a fish face against the outside of the glass tank and when the fish didn’t respond, I shrugged and turned back to Mary Fran. “You mean he doesn’t see her as a mean, nasty shrew who has nothing nice to say to anyone, ever?”
“She says nice things to your grandfather.” Mary Fran patted me back over to my stool, but when I didn’t heed the invitation, she joined me over by the bin of cat toys I felt a sudden need to organize. She let me arrange and rearrange for a few moments and then, when I tried to move on to the bin of dog toys, she grabbed my hand and held on until I looked at her. “She’s making him happy, Tobi.”
I tried to speak, but all that came out on the first three attempts was an odd raspy noise and an audible swallow.
“And, quite frankly, he’s softening her in return.”
“Did you say softening?”
Mary Fran nodded.
“We’re still talking about Rapple, aren’t we?”
Again, Mary Fran nodded.
And again, I swallowed.
“Did you not see the way she encouraged him to eat his vegetables last night? Or the way she gently rubbed his back when he could barely sit still in the moments leading up to your category?” Mary Fran gently tugged me back toward the pair of stools but stopped short of pushing me onto mine. “She calmed him with her voice, with her touch. And it was…sweet.”
I tried to keep my bottom lip from hitting the floor, but the only reason it didn’t was because, well, lips can’t hit floors unless one is sprawled out on the ground—which I wasn’t.
Yet.
“You do realize you just called Ms. Rapple sweet, yes?”
Mary Fran shifted from foot to foot. “I said her behavior toward your grandfather was sweet. She’s got a long way to go until I call her sweet.”
I felt my shoulders relax ever so slightly at her answer. “I think it’s an act. I mean, we’re talking about Rapple, no?”
“People have been known to change, Tobi.”
“Name one.”
“You.”
I drew back so fast I nearly fell off the back of my stool. “How have I changed?”
“For starters, you’re kicking butt with your company.”
“That’s not me changing, Mary Fran. That’s just things working out. With a lot of hard work.”
“There’s the fact that you allowed yourself to give Andy a shot despite all the hurt caused by what’s-his-name.”
“Nick. And while we’re on the subject, might I remind you that you, too, talked a good game about never getting involved with another man again?”
“Oh, I remember. Still pinch myself, on occasion. But I never said you’re the only one making changes.”
I knew a slippery slope when I saw one.
“So…” I cast about for yet another new topic of conversation, but, in the end, I took us back to the point of my first veer-off. “Did you happen to watch the news last night when you got home from the party?”
Mary Fran looked as if she was about to protest my steer-job, but, in the end, she let it go and for that I was grateful. There would be time to figure out this Grandpa Stu/Ms. Rapple thing later. Or, with any luck, maybe I’d bide my time long
