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“Gram, this is who I was telling you about.”
Gram?
“This is Isabel, and this” — he grabs my hand and pulls me next to him — “is her mother, Mae.”
Wise brown eyes size me up as if I’m the prized pig in a luau. “Nice to finally meet you, Queeny.”
I give Remi a stink eye, and he just shrugs me off.
“Nice to meet you too…”
“Gram,” she finishes for me, and I can’t help the cheesy smile on my face.
I’m getting déjà vu from when I met Mama Morales. She is Mama, period. That’s who she is to everyone.
When Gram comes at me with open arms, I go with it. I’m not usually a hugger, but that overwhelming feeling inside me won’t subside. She’s important to Remi, so that makes her important to me. Him bringing me here to meet her is significant.
“You listen to me, missy. If he gives you any trouble at all, you send him to me and I’ll kick his ass for you.”
My head throws back with the force of my laugh.
“Traitor,” Remi hisses before whispering something into Isabel’s ear. The syllables suspiciously sound like “sushi” and “cat named Harry”.
I snicker. Those are my daughter’s abracadabra words.
Isabel perks up. “Gam!” she exclaims, throwing her arms out to a woman she was just hiding from a second ago.
Gram picks my daughter up like she’s done it a million times. “We finally meet, Isabel.” She turns to us. “I got quite the earful from this one the other day.”
I tilt my head. How?
“Ah, yeah about that. I have some explaining to do,” Manny interjects.
I’m more confused than ever.
“Emmie hewp mommy fuck face,” Isabel explains, which means she literally announces it to everyone with a hearing aide.
Cackles and catcalls echo around the room. I look for the emergency exits and panic when I realize they are down a long hallway. They’ll be on me before I can make my escape.
Remi coughs in his hand. “It was the day you almost killed me with mustard oil. When I gave Isabel my phone, she inadvertently called Gram. Giving her a play-by-play.”
“Of course she did. I’m number one on your speed dial.” Gram shakes her purple head. “I tell ya, the kid is a needy shit. It’s ‘Gram this’ and ‘Gram that’. I seriously doubted he’d ever bag a birdie.”
I swear my face resembles a tomato. “Oh, I’m not with— I mean, we’re friends. Just that.” She’s still looking at me expectantly. I hold my hands up in surrender. “Friends.”
“Uh -huh, I knew it.” Her eyes narrow at her grandson. “Couldn’t land the plane, eh?” She nudges him with her elbow. “Why, your grandfather used to use the blue pill to get it up. I tell ya, honey, it’s one hell of a ride.” She cups her mouth toward me. “If you know what I mean.”
“Okay, then. Grandmother, there are children in the room.” Remi’s voice is a bit shrill, and red splotches blot his cheeks.
“How do you think they got here?”
Remi looks like a ripe pomegranate. He hands Isabel to me and motions us to sit on a chair in front of a makeshift stage. “Thank you for the biology lesson, Granada. Why don’t we start?”
“Oooh, you used my full name. I’m shaking in my slippers.” Making a mockery of her grandson, Gram wiggles her fingers in front of him before grabbing a bag from a side table. She proceeds to start passing out feather boas to everyone.
I laugh when Charlie wraps his feathers around his shoulders like a burlesque dancer. “Yeah, more singing and less yammering.” Who knew the salty guy liked the color pink.
Isabel and I settle next to Ruth, who’s eyeing me like she knows a secret I don’t. When I turn to her, she just nods at me and says, “You remind me of when I was younger.”
