stepped out of his embrace and made a face. “She wasn’t there to cheer me on. She was there because my grandfather invited her and she has the hots for him.”
Bookending my shoulders with his hands, Andy waited until my gaze met his. When it did, he gave me the smile that generally turned my legs to mush. But even the addition of his dimples didn’t work this time. I was aggravated. Plain and simple.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, sweetheart, but your grandfather has the hots for her, too.”
I shuddered so hard all conversation in the other room stopped for a moment. When it resumed, I marched over to my cabinet, reached inside the Cocoa Puff box I’d opened for sustenance while I was cooking, and pulled out a gorilla-sized handful. “I don’t get it. What does he see in her? She’s mean-spirited, her breath is questionable, and she bears an uncanny resemblance to the beast currently sitting under the table—uninvited, I might add.”
“Apparently your grandfather sees something very different when he looks at Ms. Rapple.”
“Does Medicare cover eye transplants on wiry bald grandfathers?” I groused. And when I say groused, I mean groused.
Andy waited as I shoved the last few puffs into my mouth and then pulled me close once again, his breath against the top of my head a comfort. “I know she’s not who you would have picked for your grandfather.”
“I wouldn’t pick Rapple for the delivery guy who dropped my pizza on the sidewalk last week, either.”
The sound of a throat being cleared in the general vicinity of the kitchen doorway made me jump back in time to see my grandfather’s hooded eyes gazing back at me. “I thought I’d check and see if you needed any help, Sugar Lump.”
I looked from Andy, to my grandfather, and back again as my heartbeat rose into my ears.
Uh oh.
“Grandpa, I—”
He stepped all the way into the kitchen, pointed at a bowl of green beans on the table, and then hooked his thumb in the direction from which he’d come. “I’ll take these out to the table before Carter starts lecturing everyone on the importance of greenery at all meals.”
I looked to Andy for help, but his eyes were cast down at the floor. Mine joined his until my grandfather (and the beans) were en route back to the living room.
“Please tell me you don’t think he heard me,” I whispered.
Andy’s answer came via his silence and a squeeze of my left hand.
“Crap.” I raked my hand through my hair only to realize, as I did, that I’d completely screwed up the braid I’d let Carter do when I returned from the pet shop that afternoon. Great. Now Carter would be irritated, too.
“Come on, Tobi, let’s just get everything else out to the table and keep things light. With any luck, by the time we’ve eaten and played a few rounds of whatever themed charades Carter has up his sleeve, your grandfather will have forgotten everything.”
I think I managed a placating smile.
And I know I grabbed the basket of rolls and pointed Andy toward the butter.
But as I followed him back out to the table, I knew the chance of my grandfather forgetting what I’d said was slim to none for two simple reasons. One, my grandfather forgot nothing. Ever. And two, the sadness in his eyes as I returned to my seat and encouraged everyone to dig in for dinner was impossible to ignore no matter how hard I tried.
Still, I tried…
I talked about my meeting the next day with a potential client—a microbrewery out in St. Charles County.
I prompted Mary Fran to share some of the more funny stories about Rudder and the rest of the pet store gang.
I quizzed everyone on their feelings about the last episode of the newest, yet incredibly addicting, reality TV show, Suburban Warrior.
And I encouraged Carter (with the help of a few effective under-the-table kicks) to do what he did best—entertain.
Occasionally, when I snuck a peek at my grandfather, I saw him nod at something that was said. A few times, he even spoke when addressed. But the mischievous sparkle that was as much a part of my grandfather as his love for me was noticeably absent. And it was my fault.
Somehow we made it through dinner and dessert. But it was while eating the chocolate cake I’d purchased from Tara’s Tasty Treats that I gave into my guilt and slumped back against my chair.
“Still thinking about what you said earlier?” Mary Fran asked. “About Cassie?”
Realizing she was talking to me, I forced myself to focus just as Carter snapped-to on my left.
“When she first came out, I was mesmerized by her hair. But then, when she turned, it was all I could do not to stand up, march on to that stage, and smack her upside the head for that one ombré strand that just threw it all off.” Carter set his coffee cup down on the table and made himself breathe. “I mean, why? Why!”
Andy pushed his own cup into the center of the table and reached for a cookie from the tray Mary Fran had brought. “Cassie is the one who handed out the last award, right?”
“Yes, that’s the one.” Mary Fran, too, took a cookie and shook it at me. “Tell them what you came up with while we were talking at the pet shop this morning.”
Grateful for the opportunity to step away from my guilt, I seized on the conversational gem I’d been handed—a gem that would surely appeal to my magnifying-glass-packing grandfather.
“Okay.” I pushed my empty dessert plate off to the side and, with the help of the elbows I probably shouldn’t have on the table in the first place, rested my chin atop my hands. “So there are two reasons Lexa’s ad might have started to play on that screen at the top of the spiral stairs. Either the tech crew responsible for running the videos last night pressed the wrong one… Or they pressed the right one and the wrong winner was called.”
Sure enough, I saw my grandfather’s eyebrow cock upward.
Phew…
Sam set down his glass of milk at the far end of the table. “Wait. Each presenter comes out carrying a sealed envelope with the winner’s name in it, right?”
“Yes.”
“So then the only way the wrong name could be called is if the wrong name was put in the envelope—from like a miscount or something, right?”
I used the index finger of my free hand to dab up a chocolate smear from my plate and then licked it off with my overeager tongue. “That would be one way, sure, but it’s not the only way the wrong name could be said.”
When I verified all eyes (including my grandfather’s) were on me, I filled in the blank with the same realization I’d shared with Mary Fran at the pet shop. “The presenter—which in this case was Cassie—could’ve simply called a different name than what was on her card.”
No one said anything for what had to be a good thirty seconds but, eventually,
