We both preferred words.
Gram had her ankles crossed in front of her, an empty cup in her leathery hands, and her eyes on Lucy.
“Has Finn ever told you what a menace he was in junior high?” she asked as she passed a fresh water cup to my grandma.
Gram’s twinkling eyes shot my way. How could she appear so amused while Pops was in surgery when she’d seemed nothing but frazzled and concerned over the last three and a half days? Lucy was a miracle worker.
“No, but I could imagine.” Her gravelly voice had a distinct hint of laughter to it.
Lucy’seyes met mine across the waiting room. It wasn’t huge, but she and Gram were in one row of chairs while I was in the ones facing them. My back was to the doors, and I was fighting the itchy feeling that had me wanting to turn and check behind me for the doctor.
I latched onto her look, holding tight to that brown-eyed stare.
“He never did anything overtly mean,” Lucy said. “But twelve-year-old Lucy might disagree with me. She felt very offended by the cute boy who wouldn’t stop teasing her.”
“So, you thought I was cute?”
She made a face. But it was Gram who answered.
“Shush, Finn, your friend is telling me stories.” She leaned closer to Lucy, whispering but not really whispering, “He always was a bit vain.”
Lucy laughed.
It made me smile as I leaned back into my chair. “Go on, Luce, tell us a story.” Or another, as the case would be. She’d just finished telling us about the time she and her cousins had tried to toilet paper a house and had the police called on them, and before that, she’d been coaxing stories from Gram about what it was like to have me on the farm growing up. We were living in stories for the time being… which was far preferable to the alternative.
“Well, once upon a time—” she said in a lilting voice, like a fairy godmother about to spin a tale.
Gram smiled, the folds of her wrinkles bunching up in satisfaction. But I didn’t miss her glance at the clock. She might be enjoying the company, but she hadn’t forgotten what we were here for. It had been ninety-six minutes since Pops went in, and they’d estimated about two and a half hours for the surgery.
Lucy had noticed Gram’s glance, too, and she faltered at the start of her story.
“Go on, dear,” Gram said, patting her hand.
“Once upon a time,” she said again, “there was a girl. Sweet. Smart. Unassuming.”
“Pretty, too,” I interjected.
“Well, that goes without saying. Heroines are always pretty in their own way.” But her cheeks had an extra blush of pink that made me hide away a grin. “This particular heroine loved books. She almost always had one—or two or three—with her at all times.”
“So that’s why your bag was always so big,” I said.
“Shush,” Gram and Lucy said at the same time.
My mouth turned up at their united front, and I raised my hands in apology and mimed zipping my lips.
With a saucy look my way, she whispered to Gram, “Later, her mother would buy her a Kindle to avoid early arthritis in her shoulder.”
Gram chuckled.
Lucy straightened up, voice returning to normal. “It was good that she had all the books, because she needed them to avoid a certain boy. He was everywhere. In all her classes. The lunch table next to hers. Even at her thirteenth birthday party that he wasn’t invited to.”
“Aw, you didn’t invite him?”
“That was my question, too, Gram!”
“It was girls only,” Lucy explained.
Gram nodded, accepting that. I shook my head at Lucy’s self-satisfied expression when she looked at me.