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“Yes, but Gramps recognized them. He told me that he had always liked these earrings. He said something like that before, too, when I had on Vera’s necklace.”
“They’ve known each other for a long time,” Oliver pointed out.
“Without looking, tell me how many rings I’m wearing,” I told him.
“Uh, three?”
I held up my bare hands. “Don’t you think it’s strange that he noticed her jewelry so much? And you know what? They were both gone over Christmas at the same time! And she knew other things, like that I was staying at your house. At my terrible dinner party, she didn’t join in with her bestie Mrs. McGlothen to insult him. And she’s been trying to get us together, just like he does!”
“Do you really think all that means anything?” He still sounded skeptical.
“We can find out. Not through him, because he won’t tell, but I bet that Vera will. I bet that she’ll tell us that they’re…a thing.”
“Gramps and Vera? A thing?”
I nodded. “I think so!”
“Holy Moses. Well, if he’s happy, then good for him,” he said, and I nodded again. “She’s trying to get us together too? You and me?”
“Well, I guess,” I said. “I mean, yes, it seems like it’s a mutual project for them.”
“He keeps repeating to me what I said to him about making up with my father. Life is short. He says that we shouldn’t wait to be happy.” And then, in a move that might not have been the safest for a driver, he reached across the car and took my hand.
Maybe it wasn’t the safest, but I didn’t care. I also liked it a lot when he walked me up to my door at the end of the evening, because he kissed me again—and not like New Year’s.
“Kat,” he murmured, and he bent (far) to put his lips against mine, softly at first but then with more urgency and then with tongue, too. My arms had gone up to encircle his neck so it was easy for him to lift me off the ground and it felt natural for my legs to wrap around his waist. It was…
The best way to describe it happened a few minutes later, when I turned on the faucet of my bathroom sink. Glitter exploded, the song played full volume, and there were so many puffy hearts that I could hardly get a glimpse of myself in the mirror. But I was able to see my smile.
I felt it, too: happiness all the way through me. It had been some kind of day.
Chapter 15
“I don’t know what you mean!”
I didn’t believe her. I had gotten information out of my mom so many times and I had learned to watch for physical changes, little hallmarks that something that was off, tiny signs that the information wasn’t quite right. At the moment, Vera was blinking much too fast and much too often for me to believe that she was being truthful.
“You don’t have to hide it. I think it’s great that you and Gramps—” I started to tell her, but she grabbed my arm.
“Shut it!” she ordered. Now she looked nervous, very nervous. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Ok, I’m wrong about the two of you being a couple,” I answered. “It doesn’t—”
I wasn’t ready for what she did next, which was to use her grip on my wrist to propel me through the lobby and out to the sidewalk. She kept going, too, not speaking but walking fast until we were a good way from the Milaflores Building.
“Penelope McGlothen can’t know about this,” she said. “You can’t tell her!”
“She doesn’t like him, but—”
“Shut it!” she commanded me again. “I’m going to let you in on a few things, but you better keep them to yourself. No, you can tell Oliver, because you probably won’t be able to help yourself from sharing everything with him. That’s what happens when you fall in love.”
“I’m not sure if—”
For the third time, I got told to shut it. Then she did relate a whole lot more, and I didn’t even notice that it was snowing on our heads. I just stood there with my mouth gaping and my eyes as big as the hubcaps on the hearse. And then, yes, I had to tell Oliver. I started to run back to my apartment, but I couldn’t go there! Gramps’s record store was out, too. Finally, I went around the corner and texted him.
“Are you free? Right now? Immediately?”
“Yes. Is something wrong?” he answered.
