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“She smells better.”
“Not all the time.”
It was only when I looked up as Frank, Molly, and their three kids showed up that I noticed my grandmother looking at us oddly. We’d been talking softly, and I was sure she was practically deaf, but the look on her face told me she’d heard the whole conversation.
Once everyone had arrived and we sat down to eat, the meal progressed without major disasters.
Everyone was polite to Owen, and they didn’t ask too many embarrassing personal questions about him or about the nature of our relationship. As the meal went on, I quit stressing about what to say about him and about us.
But I shouldn’t have let myself relax. Mom was offering seconds when Granny asked, “So, how much time do you spend with dragons up in New York? I didn’t know they were still around. You’d think it would make the news if they were running free up there.”
Owen looked completely blank, and I stifled a gasp as he looked to me and two pink spots formed on his cheeks. “Mother!” Mom snapped, and I then noticed that everyone was looking at Granny instead of at us. We were lucky she was known for saying crazy things like that, or we would have been busted.
“He was talking about dragons,” Granny insisted.
“Mama, you know your hearing isn’t so great, so it’s easy for you to mishear things. Now, if you’d let me take you to get a hearing aid, you wouldn’t have these problems.”
“I don’t need a hearing aid. My hearing is perfectly fine. He’s got magic in him, so it’s natural for him to talk about dragons.” She turned to face Owen. “My da used to tell me stories about dragons, but he said they were only in the old country.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Actually, Katie and I were talking about dragons, so you did hear correctly. But we were being figurative. There were some people at work we called the dragons. It was kind of a joke. I’m sorry if we alarmed you.” He then gave her a smile guaranteed to melt a woman’s heart, no matter how old or young she was. It was a good thing he was oblivious to that particular power or he could have been truly dangerous if he was ever tempted to use it for evil.
“You know, though, New York might be the one place where dragons could live without anyone noticing. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there were whole nests of them living in the sewers and subway tunnels. There’s no telling what’s down there.”
“Forget about the subway tunnels,” I threw in, “there’s one who lived downstairs from us. She was a nightmare.” Everyone at the table laughed, but Granny just stared at Owen. Her eyes still measured him shrewdly, but I could tell he’d won an ally by deflecting the conversation away from her hearing problems or mental health. She’d still be watching him, but she wouldn’t try to expose him to Mom and Dad. I was rather impressed with him, myself.
After dinner, he got stuck with my dad and brothers in the living room while the women cleaned up. I knew it was a sexist division of labor, but ever since Dean had broken one of Mom’s good china plates, she wouldn’t let the men wash dishes. I always suspected that Dean had done that on purpose.
Owen offered to help, but he was shooed away as company. I thought I should have been allowed to stay with him, since he was my guest, but I got drafted by the kitchen crew. I figured if he got into trouble with my dad and brothers, he could always blow something up as a diversion. With Granny on his side, he was probably safe anyway.
Mom and Molly put away the food, Beth washed the dishes, and Sherri and I dried them. Actually, I dried them and Sherri leaned against the counter. She shoved her hair back with one hand, then scratched her neck, and then surprised me by reaching up to open a cabinet so I could put a dish away. Molly, passing by, paused and said, “Wow! Look at that!” Only then did I notice the bracelet on Sherri’s wrist.
“Oh, this little thing?” she said with a laugh as she gave her wrist a shake. It wasn’t dripping with diamonds, but it was still a nice piece of jewelry, maybe even real gold, with some gemstones set into the charms. I did the payroll for the store, so I knew exactly how much money Dean and Sherri made, and I doubted it was enough for them to afford jewelry like that on top of their expensive car and house payments.
“Present from Dean, or did you treat yourself?” Molly asked.
Sherri gave a canary-stuffed-cat smile. “I’m not telling.”
“I’m guessing the former, judging by the, um, healthy glow you two had when you got here,” I said.
Sherri snapped me on the shoulder with a dish towel. “Oh, you! Don’t be naughty. How do you know that getting this for myself didn’t make me feel all sexy?”
I tried to study her face without looking like I was staring so I could tell whether or not she was telling the truth. Unfortunately, she could convince herself that anything she wanted to believe was the truth, and therefore when she said it, she didn’t think it was a lie. I was fairly certain she could beat any polygraph test.
The timing of her getting new jewelry clearly out of her price range the day after someone had robbed the jewelry store was awfully suspicious. Maybe Sherri really was a witch, in more ways than one, and she was our suspect. Of course, it was equally likely that the culprit was now selling jewelry and other stolen items out of the trunk of his car, and that was how she was able to afford it.
“You must have bought that at Murphy’s,” Beth said, drying her hands and leaning over to get a good look. “I think I saw something like that there the other day when I went in to get my watch battery replaced.”
Sherri laughed for no apparent reason and tossed her head back. I thought she looked uncomfortable, but I couldn’t tell if it was the discomfort from having stolen it and her sister-in-law recognizing the source or from having it recognized as stolen property she’d purchased illegally. Wearing stolen jewelry in a small town wasn’t the brightest idea. It was too likely that everyone would know exactly where it came from.
After a while, she stammered, “Well, I mean, uh, it’s really not that unique. They probably mass produce these in China and ship them over by the boatload.”
“What are you girls looking at?” Mom asked, joining us.
Molly grabbed Sherri’s wrist and held it out for Mom. “We were just admiring Sherri’s new jewelry,”
she said.
“Oh, that is nice. I think that’s the one I saw in Murphy’s. I even thought about what a nice birthday gift it would make for you. But I guess I’ll have to think of something else, now that you already have it. Dean and I must share the same taste.”
