Darleen Wiles, aka Grams, has always seen the loose threads I try to hide. By the time I reach her house, after a long day of packing and my shift with the devil incarnate, I’m unraveling.
“Aghhhhh”is my very formal greeting. She opens the door, allowing me to steamroll past her and flop onto her couch at the fanciest senior community in town. Luckily for me, she’s fluent in distressed Marina, and doesn’t need further translation.
The scent of vanilla and orange blossom envelops me as I sink into the plush pink couch that just happens to match my hair.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Grams’ cherry red curls are pushed back by a pair of glasses she desperately needs but insists don’t “suit her face.” Instead, they serve as an expensive headband covered by messy hair—but not her insurance.
“Taco Bell was closed,” I say—well, try to. It comes out in a collection of groans mostly muffled by the couch cushions. We do dinner every Thursday night; I had accounted for dealing with all sorts of challenges leading up to tonight.
Work.
Jenna.
But Taco Bell—of all places—being closed at 7pm on aweekday? That was an unexpected betrayal. The last straw, which I couldn’t even plunge into a Baja Blast.
“First off,how dare they. Secondly, I think maybe there’s more going on than cinnamon twist withdrawal,” Grams says, leaning over to place her hand on my back.
“Well, Aunt Andrea, then Jenna—”
“Say less.” Grams grumbles. She’s never been a fan of the Brooks family—my family. She’s a Wiles through and through. Her loyalty was to my mom, and now,me.
Everyone else can go to hell, and she’ll be the first to say so.
“So, what did those vipers do this time?” Grams asks. Her hand moves from my back to her phone. Soft lo-fi from her puzzle game becomes the background music to our conversation.
“Aunt Andrea is kicking me out—for real this time—because of the audition, I guess,” I huff, shaking my head. “Then, Jenna threw a bunch of my stuff into bags and got into my journals. Grams, it was terrible. I should never have flipped through them at the store.” My explanation begins coherently, but by the time I’ve gotten into full rant mode, I can’t even remember where I started.
But it’s Grams, so she understands. She always has.
Aunt Andrea has often said Grams pities me for losing my parents so early.
If that’s true, pity feels a lot like love. She may not have been around a lot when I was small, but since junior high, there’s always been junk food, fairy tales, and as many old movies as we could watch in a night. I’ve long since realized that Prince Charming doesn’t exist, and happy endings are wishful thinking. Fairy godmothers, however, if they were real, would take the form of Darleen Wiles with her messy red curls and floral cardigans.
She keeps magic alive the same way she keeps my parents’ albums close to her record player.
“You can stay the night here if you want. We can watch a musical, make some popcorn— hell, our whole dinner can be asnack plate. I’m assuming you got the second audition. When is it going to be?” she asks. The sound of pings and clicks pepper our conversation, but Grams has always been good at multitasking.
“Next week,” I answer with a small quake to my voice. Usually, I would have texted her every single detail, but with the way the day went, I barely had time to take a deep breath ’til now. “They want me to come up with an original song for the audition…”
“Well, you’ve got plenty of those. Damn-it! Ugh! I keep missing the letters on this damn app,” she grumbles, throwing her phone down next to her on the soft cushion. I chuckle. Even someone as good as she is at multitasking has her limits.
“That’s because you’re not wearing your glasses,” I say. She hasn’t been wearing them for months, and her eyesight is only getting worse.
“Well, they shouldn’t expect you to be able to choose glasses based on trying them on with those plastic lenses! I didn’t know what I looked like, and those sales ladies were very complimentary,” she grumbles before pushing her glasses down onto her nose and studying her phone. It’s just the two of us here, but she always says she dresses up for herself.
Which would be fine if she didn’t have the vision of a bat.
“But Mari, about this band. You’ve got talent. You always have,” she says.
“They’ve all been practicing for a long time and—” I shake my head, “maybe I don’t have lead singer energy. I’mnotMom.”
She frowns, tilting her head for a moment, her wrinkled hand reaching out to touch my face. I bite my lip, wishing I hadn’t said anything.
“No, you’reyou, Mari,” she says with a firm nod. “And that’s enough.”
I wish she didn’t feel like she had to lie.
“Besides,” Grams’ grin becomes wide and wicked, “would it be rude to say I looked up this Aligned Shadows, and honey, the raccoons outside have an easier time staying in tune.”
