Page 27 of Friendshipped
Mom’s voice carries up the stairwell. “Girls, time for lunch.”
Felicia and I get off the bed and traipse downstairs. Memaw and Aunt Glenda walk in the front door and the house fills with the noise of family.
“Look at you girls,” Aunt Glenda says, giving us each a hug.
“They take after me,” Memaw says. “Such lookers.”
Felicia and I laugh and each give Memaw a hug. She’s wearing a jumpsuit that looks like it survived Woodstock and has bright blue eyeshadow on her crinkled eyelids. Some of her curls aren’t fully brushed out from the rollers she obviously had in last night. She’s perfection. Memaw hooks her hand in my arm and we all walk into the dining room.
After we’re all gathered around the table, dad says a blessing over the food. We pass the serving dishes, and right as we start to eat, my phone pings with a notification sound I’ve never heard before.
“Oooh!” Felicia says from beside me in a whisper that may as well be a shout. “That’s the app.”
“What app?” Mom asks.
“Oh, a self-improvement thing I installed on Lexi’s phone.” Felicia says.
I give my sister a glance. She shrugs.
Memaw gives me a perceptive look from across the table. I study the napkin on my lap, setting my phone on top of it.
Memaw knows. She always knows.
When I look back at her, she’s got this impish grin on her face and she gives me an exaggerated wink. How my parents miss it, I don’t know. Subtlety isn’t in Memaw’s wheelhouse.
Holding the phone in my lap, I glance at it. Felicia’s right. It’s the dating app. The logo flashes on my lock screen. I wouldn’t have ever thought to call it self-improvement. But, far be it from me to tell Mom I’m about to meet up with strange men in a quest to find romance. Emphasis on romance, not on strange men, I hope.
I bring a bite to my mouth. Felicia sees her opportunity and snatches my phone off my lap. I drop my fork back onto my plate and try to grapple the phone from her hand under our side of the table.
I quietly murmur in an actual whisper, “Stop it. Give it to me.”
Across the table Memaw’s eyebrows raise.
Felicia’s dead set on reading the message. She tugs at the phone a little harder. My sibling instincts kick in and I tug back. Our hands move up over the table edge now, the tugs getting stronger as we put more muscle behind our effort. Felicia gives my cell one more yank. The phone goes flying right into the serving bowl of mom’s potato salad. It sits there, nearly fully submerged like a chip in dip.
I quickly look around. Only Memaw, Felicia and I are staring at the potato salad.
Aunt Glenda sits obliviously at the end of the table talking in her overly loud indoor voice. “Jenny you have to give me your recipe for these rolls. They are so delicious. Please pass me the butter Derrick.”
“I think I’d like some potato salad,” Memaw announces with a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Oh, Memaw! Let me serve you!” Felicia says with far too much enthusiasm as she pushes her chair back so she can stand.
“Not necessary,” I say, “I’ve got this.”
I jump up and Felicia and I both lunge for the bowl at the same time, grabbing separate sides of it and locking eyes.
Mom, Dad and Aunt Glenda have given up their discussion as to whether yeast or lard makes a better roll and are fully staring at us with wide eyes. Neither Felicia nor I are giving in. We’ve got death grips on the potato salad. Seeing my moment, I drop my side of the bowl, shift to grab the glop-covered phone, and pull it out of the salad. It emerges with a slurping sound and I start to dash into the kitchen.
The momentum of my release causes the bowl to spring back toward Felicia’s face. Potato salad comes flying out of the bowl as if it’s being flung from a catapult. Chunks of potato, dill pickle, onion and pimento slide down my sister’s face and then continue down her front.
“It slipped!” Felicia says as a big glob of potato salad falls from her chin onto the floor.
“What’s gotten into you girls?” Mom asks as she rushes around the table and starts to scoop bits of the salad off the floor back into the serving bowl.
“I’ll get a towel,” Felicia offers.
“You go rinse off,” Mom chides her. “I’ll get this mess.”
