Page 44 of A Lifetime in 30 Days
“Granny,” Vanna said, reaching out to place a hand on Granny’s outstretched arm in the hope of lowering the gun.
But Granny didn’t budge; she just kept right on talking to Vanna.
“She told me if I was doing it right, he wouldn’t have had to come and get some from her.” Granny was shouting now. Her hair was wild,the gold caftan she wore giving her an ethereal glow as she ranted. “Now, you know I knows how to get down,” she said, and demonstrated by dropping it like it was hot right there in the destroyed living room while still holding a gun.
“Give me that,” Vanna said finally, and reached out to grab her grandmother’s wrist. The gun wasn’t loaded, which was the only reason she never really pitched a fit at Granny carrying it all around the city with her. One of her worst nightmares had been having to go and bail her grandmother out of jail for catching a handgun charge.
Granny had no permit, and as far as Vanna knew, she’d never been to a gun shop to buy any bullets. About twelve years ago, the man Granny had been messing with at the time had owned several guns, and when Granny put him out of her house, she’d stolen one of them. That, and his entire collection of original Motown albums.
“Just give it here,” Vanna said, and grabbed the gun out of Granny’s hand. “Did you have something else to drink?”
Granny had ordered a Long Island iced tea when they’d been at Outback, and Vanna hadn’t minded because she knew she was driving her right back to the senior building. Now, however, she was second-guessing that decision.
“Maybe we should go to the ER,” Aden said, and pointed to his forehead.
Granny was still in her squatting position—probably a lot harder for her to bring it back up than it had been to drop it down. She was picking up Frito, so Vanna tossed a questioning glance at Aden. He kept pointing to his head and then pointed down at Granny. So when Granny stood, clutching her dog to her chest, Vanna gasped. “You’re bleeding.”
Instead of acting shocked or concerned for her own safety—which, considering the bumper of her car was now peeking through Vanna’s front windows—Granny lifted a hand to where the blood was on her forehead. She didn’t touch the wound, though, oh no—her grandmother fluffed her hair.
“Sylvia thought swinging that cane was gonna stop me, but when I got hold of her ass, it was on,” Granny said with a bleak grin.
Vanna couldn’t do anything but sigh. It was that or cry, and she didn’t want to do that—not in front of Aden, who was probably thinking he should’ve just ignored her text message and taken himself back to the normalcy of his own home.
Chapter 14
August 15
“You. Are. Lying!” Jamaica basically screamed from outside the dressing room in the department store where they were shopping for swimsuits.
Inside the small space, Vanna shook her head as if Jamaica could see her. “Nope. Not lying. When I left my house today, there were three construction men present, discussing how long it was going to take them to repair part of the front wall of my house.”
Jamaica’s laughter was just as loud as the screeching she’d been doing since Vanna began telling her about what happened last night. She peeled off the one-piece tummy-control suit and tossed it onto the small bench against the wall. “Too plain,” she murmured.
“So, wait, you had to call contractors? How’d you get them to come out so fast? My mother waited a day and a half for a plumber to come out and give her an estimate,” Jamaica said.
Vanna picked up the second bathing suit, but not before turning to the side to view herself in the mirror. Of course, she’d kept her panties and bra on while trying on the garments, so she had to take into account how that would skew the look of the suit, but she still had a precise look she was going for—sexy and unapologetic. Hopefully, this one would be it.
“Aden knew a guy,” she said, and leaned forward to balance herself on one leg while she pushed the other into the suit.
“Ooooh, Aden knew a guy. He knows a lot of guys that come in handy for you, doesn’t he?”
“Stop it,” Vanna chastised as she shimmied into the very tight material. A portion of the sides to this one were just a row of strings, like a ladder, so she had to be careful not to get her other foot—or her arm, for that matter—stuck in one of them. “I’m actually glad he was there. Granny was a mess! Did I mention she pulled her gun on him?”
“What?” Jamaica’s tone was even louder this time because she pulled the door to the dressing room open at the same time. Her eyes were wide as she continued, “Granny was going to shoot Aden?”
“Girl, get in here before somebody walks by and sees all my goodies,” Vanna snapped.
Jamaica squeezed into the dressing room and closed the door behind her. She picked up the pile of bathing suits on the bench and plopped down. “So, why was she going to shoot him?”
“He was trying to help her, wanted to take care of the cut on her forehead or possibly take her to the ER. And she just turned on him.” The swimsuit was pulled all the way up, the top adjusted correctly over her breasts. She turned to the side again, then to the back, and looked over her shoulder.
“Your ass looks hot in that,” Jamaica said. “Like, ole boy’s gonna want to peel that right off you and get busy in the pool.”
“Not!” It was Vanna’s turn to yell, her eyes going wide. But when she turned to look at herself from the front again, she smiled. “It does look good, though.”
Behind her, Jamaica nodded too. “It does, and it’s pink. I’m telling you, we’re gonna look like a bunch of cotton candy by the end of this month.”
“Oh, hush, this is the first event I’ve asked everyone to wear pink. You have your outfit, right? Or do we need to go over to your size section and pick something out?”
