“Vera, this is Hollis,” Ruby told me as she handed Hollis an espresso.
“So nice to meet you finally.” Hollis took a sip and waved to me before stepping back into the bedroom. “Excuse me while I get changed and attempt to retain some sense of dignity.”
Ruby chuckled and just as she said, “So what brings you here?” I also asked, “So a woman, huh?”
Ruby came to sit down beside me and Marlon immediately jumped into her lap.
Four-legged traitor.
“Don’t be such a stiff,” Ruby said.
“I’m not being a stiff. I’m curious if this means you’re gay or bisexual or pansexual or whatever identity speaks to you or if this is a onetime thing.”
She shot back her espresso all at once and set the cup on her end table, which was a gold crane with a glass circle balanced on its wings. “What is it with young people and all these labels and types? Hollis is... an old, old friend from another life.”
“And she lives here now?”
Ruby nodded. “In her own apartment.”
“And you two are...?”
She turned to me as she began to stroke Marlon between his ears. “My turn for answers.”
“I need a place to stay,” I blurted as the coffee machine dripped into the pot in the kitchen. “Verytemporarily.”
Vera’s tattooed brows furrowed, and her spine straightened. “Well, I’m not technically allowed to have overnight guests here without putting in a request months in advance.”
“You know I hate breaking rules,” I told her.
“Just like Annie,” she whispered, her expression softening at Mom’s name.
I didn’t have the energy for dead-mom feelings right now, so I swallowed back the thought of Mom and powered on. “Butyoulove breaking the rules, and you know I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t in a seriously tough spot.” I hated this. It felt too much like begging, and I was a little angry at her for even making me ask. Wouldn’t literally any other grandmother in the world offer to shelter their own flesh and blood?
She looked down to Marlon, who she’d always had a soft spot for. “Temporarily,” she said, repeating my own word back to me.
Just then Hollis stepped out of the bedroom in cream wide-leg linen trousers and a matching knit tank top with no bra. Her chest was minimal and nearly flat, but her nipples were still visibly sloped. The thought of someone simplyperceivingthe outline of my nipple through my shirt gave me premenopausal hot flashes. But Hollis looked cooler and more collected than most starlets I’d seen on Brody’s arm. Her whole Katharine Hepburn vibe was very foxy. I could see how Ruby might find that hard to resist.
She nodded to me and then to Ruby. “Still on for tonight?”
“I’ll ring you and let you know,” Ruby told her.
Hollis leaned down to give Ruby a kiss on the temple, and I looked away. It felt oddly intimate and like I was twelve years old all over again.
“She won’t tell people that I’m staying here, will she?” I asked.
No sooner had the door shut behind Hollis than another woman and a man shuffled out of Ruby’s room looking disheveled, the man fumbling with the buttons on his silk bowling shirt.
“Thanks for hosting today, Ruby,” the woman said as she led the grinning man out behind her.
I turned to my grandmother, my jaw hanging wide open. “Is your room a fucking clown car?” I asked. “How many more do you have in there?”
Ruby put her arm over my shoulder. “That was just Morty and Willa here for a little afternoon gathering.”
I waited for her to further explain, not even slightly satisfied with that answer.
“Swinging is an evolved lifestyle,” she said simply.
I’d heard of seniors letting loose in retirement communities, and Ididn’t want to be judgy, but I was still in a bit of shock. “So does everyone at Starlight Palms... swing?” I asked.
