get into it right then, to try to explain my situation to her. First, I had to explain it to me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. I should have known. Grandma Frank could read vibes before they happened.
“Nothing, Grandma. I just tripped over Guinness and I’m really in a hurry. That’s all,” I said. It was the truth. I had another first date to screw up.
“Speak quickly, then.”
“There’s nothing. Really. At all. Nothing’s the matter.” How lame was that? I didn’t even believe me.
“And the truth is…?” she asked, patiently.
Grandma Frank was my mom’s mom. She lived in a rambling old adobe in Socorro, a dusty little town in the center of New Mexico, famous for its green chile burgers and for having the most powerful radio telescope in the world. Grandma Frank was eighty, lived alone, wove expensive hand-dyed shawls on giant looms, read people’s minds and occasionally answered the door to her little hacienda stark naked—spare yourself, don’t visualize it. And she was the stable one in my family.
“I don’t know, Grandma Frank,” I said, sighing, giving up, letting her suck me in. “Maybe you could tell me. Because I can’t seem to figure it out.”
“You have a date tonight.” She didn’t ask it like a question. She already knew. “That’s good? You’re pleased?”
“Well, it’s not really a date. A date is something you plan. In advance. This is more like a—”
“Sky, darling,” she interrupted. I loved it that she called me that. It meant I was someone else in Grandma-world. “Maybe you’re too rational,” she said, chuckling to herself. “It’s important also to listen to your heart.”
“Yeah? What? And end up like my mom?” I asked her, sounding a little harder than I’d intended.
“But your mother’s very happy.”
“Yeah.” I tried laughing but it came out like a snort. Note to self: You might want to work on that ironic laugh. “She makes damn sure of that. Nothing else matters. If happiness was a church, she’d be kneeling at the altar.”
It sounded so harsh in my head when I did the instant replay. Wow, Dylan, I thought. Where’d that come from?
“From deep inside,” my grandma said. “Sometimes it’s good to hear what you think. Helps you decide if it’s true. Happiness is good, too, Sky.” She continued speaking, not waiting for my comment. Or maybe not wanting to risk another snort. “What is it going to take to make you happy?”
“I don’t know,” I said. But I did. Someone who would always be there. With or without the diamonds.
“Ah, yes, if only it were that easy,” she whispered. “You go now. You’re in a hurry. I love you.” Then she was gone.
The wood floor was hurting my knees. I settled onto my butt. The bridesmaid dress puffed up in front like a just-landed parachute. Guinness came and sat on his haunches beside me. Maybe I wouldn’t go, instead just stay here with Guinness, in my hideout, where things were uncomplicated and I was safe. I put my head against his. “No offense, Guinness, but I like it that you’re so simple.” He jerked away. Offense apparently taken.
I took his big head in my hands and looked him right in the eye. “So, my little pet,” I told him nose-to-wet-nose. “What’s it going to take to make you happy?”
Guinness stuck out his tongue and gave me an enormous Lab-kiss. And then couldn’t stop because, slurp-slurp-slurp, Groom Daddy sweat was too yummy to resist.
4
I’D BEEN LATE getting to Skinny’s. With all that time to spare I’d still managed not to make it on time. No wonder we drove guys crazy! I’d felt better after my talk with Guinness, had taken a quick shower and raced around my apartment trying on different outfits. Good thing my roommate, Andie, hadn’t made it home from the wedding yet, to delay me even more, asking a billion questions I couldn’t answer. I did have to keep stopping to explain to Guinness that we weren’t playing fetch. But that wasn’t why I was late. I’d felt so relaxed in my jeans, short sweater and favorite tennies—really, for the first time in ages—that I’d decided to walk down the long hill from my apartment to the coffee shop instead of driving. Or maybe I was stalling. I never know with me.
Brad was still wearing his suit pants and dress shirt, but he’d pulled off his tie, undone the strangle button on his shirt and rolled up the sleeves a couple of turns. One yummy look.
He was waiting for me in the parking lot, leaning against his old, faded-blue BMW and looking out over Lake Austin, that lengthy stretch of the Colorado River where they’ve dammed it up on the West side of town. I could feel the lick of the flames again as I walked up to those long, long legs. Brad pushed himself off the car—no hands, just legs—told me I looked great and kissed my cheek. There were those lips again, wrapped around the off-center smile. Matt who?
Skinny’s was a big deal to me, my wild life refuge, a place I went by myself not to be lonely. And I never shared it with people who wouldn’t be good to run into at a ragged three in the morning or at ten o’clock on a dateless Saturday night. Brad lived in Dallas, which made him pretty safe.
“Hey, thanks again for the rescue,” I said to fill the silence while we were waiting in line, perusing the pastry case. “I’d been about to do something dire.” It came out breathless. Maybe because of the gravitational pull.
“My pleasure,” Mr. Magnet replied. I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m not really all that fond of bullies.”
“Yeah, me neither,” I answered, witty conversationalist that I am, apparently out of brains as well as breath.
And that was the end of that conversation volley. The quiet grew so thick, it was like having another person there. Then I remembered what Brad had said about Chatty Cheerleader and my vow that Silence was my new best friend. She inched forward in line beside us.
I looked back over my shoulder at him. He stepped closer and smiled. I started rationalizing—we excel at that in my family. Really, Dallas and Austin weren’t all that far apart, less than an hour away on Southwest Airlines. By car, they were hooked together with a straight, flat, slice of the same freeway that linked Mexico to Canada. You just got in the left-hand lane of I-35, set the cruise control for 84 miles per hour, leaned back and prayed. And there was a lot of interface between the people in the two cities. That’s what Brad and I could do, interface.
We moved ahead one half step. Skinny’s was quintessential Austin. Besides the best coffee, Skinny’s could claim the most sinfully decadent desserts on earth. The owner had the genius idea of hiring two pastry chefs: one French pâtissier and one local Austin guy, each to create their own desserts. Hot-blooded sparring between the two had given birth to such creations as Mocha-Morning Blossoms and The Czar’s Chocolate Clouds, Aphrodite’s Cream Puffs and, my favorite, Cupid’s Toes in Cocoa Sauce. Skinny’s wasn’t very big and sometimes the cozy little rooms with the overstuffed chairs weren’t enough to hold the multitudes that crowded there after movies and night classes and on weekends. It didn’t matter. There was always space. Outside, on both sides of the little shop, were acres—okay, maybe not acres—of wood decking, at different levels. On mild nights, like that night in October,
