“Sounds fancy.”
“We’re having fun. How are things there?”
Gulp. She hadn’t exactly told her grandparents about the mess she’d made of the kitchen. She rubbed at the back of her neck, contemplating.
Nope.
No need to bother her grandma about it when there was nothing she could do.
“I saw Sammy Johnson the other day.”
“Oh, he must have stopped by for a baguette. He stops by every week now that he’s living with his mom again.”
“It was fun to reconnect with him.” Robin looked over at the kitchen table, remembering study nights with Sammy in that spot. “Do you remember how we worked on that science project together?”
“A volcano, right?”
Robin had been the artist on the project, and Sammy had been the tech. He’d figured out how to feed extra baking soda into the “lava” every few minutes to make the volcano flow continuously. Robin had added colored dye to the inner workings to make the lava multicolored. By the time they’d finished, the whole thing had stood three feet tall and four feet wide.
“You made a mess of my kitchen for a week getting that thing to work right,” her grandma said. “I didn’t think Grandpa Jim was going to fit it into the van.”
She laughed. “Hey, at least we won the science fair.”
“You always knew how to make a project shine.”
Yeah, she should definitely tell Grandma about the kitchen. “Grandma, I—”
On the other end of the line an alarm screamed.
“Robin, I gotta go!” A fumbling noise and then the phone cut out.
Robin tried her grandma’s number again, but it went straight to voice mail. She got up from the couch to find the number for their landline in Florida.
Her phone pinged a text message.
Grandma
Grandpa set off the fire alarm trying to bake lemon challah. All is well.
Robin smiled. Grandpa Jim kept things lively.
Robin
Glad you are okay.
Thanks for the chat today.
Grandma
Love you, Chickie-poo. Talk again soon.
A weight lifted off her shoulders even as her stomach knotted. Sure, she hadn’t told Grandma about the kitchen disaster or the cakes, but she couldn’t put it off forever.Don’t change anything.Her grandma’s words tiptoed through her mind again.
Don’t worry, Grandma. I haven’t changed much. Just the pipes, and soon the cabinets, the flooring, and maybe the menu…
The front doorbell rang.
Through the frosted window glass, she saw a wavy outline of a strawberry-blonde in a blue puffy jacket. She opened the door.
