“Yes, they were young and in love. He was a chipmunk, and she was a bunny.”
I knew that Nonna was getting older, and her accent was still thick even though she’d lived in America for over seventy years, but I was sure that I’d heard her wrong.
“He was achipmunkand she was abunny?” I repeated.
Her eyes twinkled with delight. Nonna didn’t gossip often, she liked to say gossip was the devil’s playground. But when she did decide to take a ride on the horned one’s slide, she put her hands in the air and wooed the whole way down.
She leaned closer to me and whispered even though we were the only two people in the house. “He was stripper and she was with the playboy.”
He was a stripper and she was with the Playboy?I repeated in my head then considered the key words. Chipmunk. Stripper. Bunny. Playboy. It took me a second but then I deciphered what she meant.
“Was he a Chippendale’s dancer and she was a Playboy bunny?”
“Yes!” She threw her hands up. “This is what I say.”
Okay, there wasdefinitelya story there and I wanted to know every detail, but now was not the time.
I was trying to refocus on what I needed to say when Nonna patted my cheek. “See, even fifty years is not too long for true love.”
It was a nice sentiment, one that I definitely wanted to believe in, but just like the Chippendales dancer and the Playboy Bunny story, now was not the time to think about that. There was something I needed to get off my chest. “Nonna, I need to talk to you.”
She gasped and clutched her chest. “You are moving?! You go back to Brooklyn?!”
Her horrified reaction solidified that I’d done the right thing by not subletting my place. I’d known that me keeping one foot on both coasts would be a point of insecurity for her, and I wanted her to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“No. I told you, I let my apartment go. I live here now, permanently,” I assured her.
She didn’t look all that relieved. Her brow furrowed. “Are you sick? Dying?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Oh no! You’re going to marryThat Man?” she asked as she made the sign of the cross.
That Manwas how Nonna referred to Trent. Unlike The Elephant, which was Leo’s endearing name for Maddox, That Man was an insult coming from my grandmother. She’d never warmed to Trent, and I honestly can’t say that I blame her.
The handful of times he’d met her, she’d barely said three words. He’d talked to her about his career, his family, hell he waxed poetic for over an hour about a designer watch he’d just purchased last time he’d seen her. But he never asked her about her.
It always bothered me, but I told myself that was just his way. Not everyone was a great communicator, even though as a lawyer that was sort of his job.
I didn’t miss the fact that Nonna appeared more horrified asking if I was going to marry Trent than she did asking me if I was dying. That was probably something else I should revisit.
“No, I mean, we’ve talked about it, but no that’s not what I need to talk to you about.”
“Okay!” She threw her arms up in the air. “You say we talk, talk!”
There was no way I was going to point out to her that the only reason I hadn’t told her was because she kept asking me questions.
“Um, you know when I left to go to Germany, my junior year.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I know. Your papa come and rip you away.”
“Right.” I took a breath and told her everything that I’d told Maddox. From finding out I was pregnant, wanting to come back to live with her, my father forcing me to home school, going into labor early, the doctors not allowing me to see her, getting the infection and almost dying…everything.
When I finished and took a breath, I saw that she had tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, if you’re disappointed in me.”
She patted my cheek with her hand. I closed my eyes and tilted my face into the comfort of her well-lotioned palm.
