Page 8 of The Very Virile Viking

The best Angela could come up with was, "Tsk-tsk-tsk!" Then, "That statement is outrageous, even for

you, Grandma. You know very well that Carmen is a respected professor of women's studies at Merryvale College. True, she goes off the deep end with some of her feminist philosophies, but she is by no means a man-hater."

"Ha! I heard her on the college radio station one day. She said any woman who lusted after George Clooney was a brainless twit."

Angela frowned in confusion. "Why would Carmen be discussing a movie star on a public radio station?

She's not usually into entertainment issues."

"She was talking about how young girls are given the wrong standards in picking a man. Seems she's writing a new book, Men to Avoid in the New Millennium . She said women would be better off using logical standards to pick a mate, like a Bill Gates-type fellow, rather than lusting after a hunk of the month, like George Clooney."

Hunk of the month? I wonder if that's Carmen's phrase, or Grandma's? "That doesn't mean she's a man-hater."

Grandma was already lighting up another Virginia Slims. She inhaled deeply before replying in a puff of smoke: "Honey, any woman who fails to lust after George Clooney has to be a man-hater."

Angela had to laugh at that. "Even you, Grandma?"

"Especially me."

"I suspect that Carmen's point was, in this postfeminist era, women should have learned at least one thing: Looks aren't everything."

Grandma waggled her eyebrows at her. "They don't hurt."

"Furthermore, Grandma—"

"Uh-oh! I know I'm in trouble when you start a sentence with 'furthermore.'"

"Furthermore, Grandma," she continued, shooting her grandmother an exaggerated scowl for interrupting her, "I know better than anyone that all the man-pleasing acts in the world by a loving wife aren't going to keep a bound-to-stray, overly attractive husband at home."

Grandma nodded gravely. "Perfect example: the Creep."

"Precisely."

"Ay-yi-yi!" a feminine voice shrieked. "Is that a cigarette I smell in my nice clean house?" Juanita came barreling down the hallway that led from the kitchen to the front anteroom, all five-foot-nothing of her.

But then she noticed Angela, and a smile spread across her face. "Angela, I didn't know you were here already. I made your favorites for lunch… chicken frijoles and 'spicy-dicey ricey.'" That latter was the name a much younger Angela had given to Juanita's special jalapeño-pepper-and-wild-rice dish.

"Oh, Juanita, I've missed you—and your cooking— so much." Angela, at flve-foot-seven, had to bend over to hug the tiny housekeeper, who had been a second mother to her since she was a toddler. That was when her mother and father had died in a car accident, and Grandma and Grandpa had stepped in

as her parents.

"How about my cooking?" Grandma asked, clearly miffed. "I thought my penne pasta with pesto marinara was your favorite."

Grandma and Juanita had been fighting a gentle battle for years in the kitchen over whether the Italian dishes of her homeland were better than the Spanish dishes that Juanita preferred. It had not been unusual to have lasagna and tacos on the dinner table at one time.

"Now, now, I love both of your cooking," Angela said.

"Hmpfh! Well, come then, Angelina. I've set the table out on the side porch. Hope that damn dog doesn't get a whiff of my frijoles, or he'll be galloping down from the hills faster'n a cat with a hot tail. Ate a whole ham I baked last week before I could catch him."

Grandma made sure she got the last word in, though. "We're going to eat in bianca for dinner tonight. All white. Chicken in garlic sauce, angel hair pasta with shrimp, cauliflower fresh from the garden, even white fudge mousse." Grandma took one last drag on her cigarette then.

That caught Juanita's attention, if Rose's insistence on an Italian menu had not. "Put out that stinkin'

cigarette."

Sometimes it was hard to tell who was mistress of Blue Dragon.

Sometimes it just did not matter.