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I admired the ultimate fuck-you move of her ordering her bushes the week after his burial.
They were thriving now, lush, in full bloom, bees buzzing around them happily.
She would have fresh cuts of them scattered around the house, in practically every single room, sitting on tabletops or windowsills.
“You know, for being so massive, it is still somehow homey-looking,” Wasp decided, slipping into her heels. She’d already ducked into the bathroom to slip into a simple white sundress with oversize black buttons down the front. It was demure by any standards—especially hers—but, to me, it was maybe the sexiest thing I’d ever seen her in. “You’re sure I shouldn’t pull my hair up?” she asked, tossing some of the wild mass over her shoulder. “I know I have decidedly unrefined hair.”
“I like it that way,” I assured her, taking her hand, pulling her onto her feet, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You look beautiful. And you have no reason to be nervous.”
“No? The matriarch of one of our country’s old money families is going to be scrutinizing every inch of me from the childbearing potential of my hips to my tacky nail polish color. I think I have a reason to worry.”
She’d been fretting about the nail polish in a bright red color that she’d wanted to pull over and wipe off.
“My grandmother is partial to red nail polish. It was another thing my grandfather hated. Red nail polish, apparently, was for street walkers.”
“Well, I have a very attractive street-walker position waiting for me should I need it,” she teased, taking a deep breath, then taking my hand as I led her up the paver driveway. “Also, can I repeat that I love your grandmother’s style. Doing absolutely everything her overbearing husband told her not to while they were married. She’s a badass.”
“That she is,” I agreed. I’d never been able to see it while my grandfather was around, when she was under his thumb, when she bowed to his wishes. But when he was gone, she really became her own woman. And she was a fearsome woman to behold.
“Mary-Ellen,” I greeted the middle-aged woman who had been my grandmother’s housekeeper for over a decade. “I like the red,” I told her, meaning her hair. It had been dishwater brown since I’d met her. The red made her blue-green eyes pop.
“I never thought I’d see the day when you brought a girl home,” Mary-Ellen said, shaking her head, giving Wasp a warm smile. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked as we moved into the entryway.
“An entire bottle of vodka with some crushed Ambien around the rim?” Wasp quipped, making Mary-Ellen chuckle.
“Don’t worry, honey. Charlotte is a fair woman. She is waiting for you in the solarium.”
With that, she was gone, leaving me to lead Wasp through the house.
“Hey, you can’t bring me to a certifiable mansion and not let me gawk a little,” she demanded when my hand pressed into her lower back, pulling her along with me.
What can I say?
I was eager to get the introductions started.
My grandmother had been the only family member I ever felt like gave a damn about me. Even after she freed me from Avon Mills, she’d never batted an eye to my increasingly outlandish antics. She never faulted me for going wild after being kept so contained my whole life. I guess because she understood that feeling all too well.
I had plenty of extended family, but my grandmother was my only close relation. I found I was anxious to let her meet the woman I was starting to see a future with. Not to get her approval, per se, but to share something exciting with her, something and someone who was becoming important to me.
“I promise you can gawk all you want later. But let’s go say hello first,” I told Wasp, giving her ass a tiny pat before putting my hand back to the small of her back as we stepped into the opening of the conservatory, a sprawling space of gleaming windows, a myriad of houseplants, and all white furniture.
My grandmother was seated on one of the chairs, a teacup perched on her knee.
A woman of eighty-four, she could have easily passed for twenty years younger. She’d always been tall and lean, dressing in casual cream slacks and solid silk blouses. Today, she had on a dove gray which went well with her perfectly style shoulder-length gray hair. Her face was etched with some years, but she’d aged gracefully, and there was a keen, intelligent look to her bright green eyes.
“Fenway, handsome as ever,” she greeted, arm out, ushering me forward to press a kiss to each of her cheeks. “And the woman who could finally slow you down,” she added, smiling at Wasp. “Bella, it was, correct?”
“Yes,” Wasp agreed, shifting her feet. “It’s nice to meet you. Fenway has told me a bunch of amazing stories about you. I have to say, I am a big fan of your spite-garden,” she said, smiling.
