"What's the damage?" Grandma leaned over the register and smiled.
"You know the special's always free, Nadine. Always." He winked and grabbed her hand, kissing it gently before nodding in my direction and asking for the next person's order.
Grandma handed me my drink and took a long swig of hers.
"How is it possible that you just ordered something that doesn't even exist on the menu?"
"Oh, but it does." Grandma placed her hand on my arm. "It's just complicated. It's like a hidden menu only for me. Howie knows what I like."
"Are you talking about Howard Shultz?" She was kidding, right? Was I getting punked? Light bulb. I was on the show Off Their Rockers! It was the only explanation.
"Oh look, there they are! And just in time."
Grandma took another sip as Travis, Kacey, Jake, and Char briskly walked through the airport, all of them totally oblivious that shit was about to not only hit the fan but fill the airport to the brim, until everyone within the vicinity suffered a slow smelly agonizing death via Grandma.
"And there he is…" Grandma's voice dropped as Jace walked briskly behind them, paparazzi taking pictures of him until Travis and Jake basically rescued him. Airport security removed the remaining paparazzi.
"What did you do?" I asked.
Grandma took another sip of hot coffee. "He still don't want me."
"Who?"
"The man upstairs." She sighed. "It seems my work isn't yet done. You'd think He'd be pleased. I mean, I basically saved the world."
"How do you figure?" This I had to hear. After all, I was curing cancer, how could what she'd done be any better than that?
"I saved the world from STDs. The way that grandson of mine was going, he was going to be solely responsible for coming up with a new strain. Mark my words. The little slut." She sighed. "But I love him. I may have ruined him, but Grandma fixed all the broken, whorish little pieces, and now look at him." She pointed. "Happy as a clam."
"Right." I backed away slowly.
Grandma's hand shot out and grabbed my arm. "Now drink your coffee and follow me."
"Do I have a choice?" I asked, looking around for a quick escape that wouldn't end up with me being hit by oncoming traffic.
Grandma paused and looked directly into my eyes. "My dear, we always have a choice. The question is never if you have a choice. It's whether your options are better on your own or with my help. Choices come and go. But chances? Only once in a lifetime." She winked. "So why don't you jump?"
"I don't like heights."
"I don't like loud breathers. Doesn't mean I smother people with pillows when I'm irritated," she joked. "Sometimes, my dear, we need a little push."
"Is that what you are? A little push?"
"Hell no." Grandma snorted. "The little push is your conscience. I'm a damn atom bomb. Now are you coming or not?"
I could go home. I could choose safe. I could choose white walls and a sterile environment. What I should choose was the exact opposite of what she was offering. But she was right about one thing: I'd probably regret not taking that old wrinkled hand in mine. So even though I was pretty sure I was making the biggest mistake of my life, even counting the time I tried to dye my hair bleach-blond, I grasped her like a lifeline and prayed to the Man upstairs that I wasn't going to be sent home in a body bag.
****
"I need to disappear for a while." Shaking, Jace let out a loud curse and looked like he needed Grandma's special coffee more than I did.
Grandma released my hand and pushed through her grandsons. "Did I hear someone say something about escape?"
A resounding groan was followed by four horrified faces as Grandma walked up to the ticket counter.
Grandma started firing off questions about her grandsons' honeymoons. I say honeymoons because Travis and Kacey had just gotten married, and in a very strategically set of planned events, so had Char — to Jake, the one she constantly referred to as the whorish grandson. Money had exchanged hands; a preacher, who will have to face consequences once he gets to heaven, married the couple without their knowledge. And the weird part? Jake and my sister Char were so happy it made me a little nauseated.
Char had gotten fired from her job, not that it mattered since the Titus family had more money than God, and now she was taking a honeymoon with Jake Titus, reformed playboy and GQ's Man of the Year.
Clearly, she'd gotten the looks in the family.
Whereas, I'd gotten the brains and less-than-stellar vision. Yay me.
"Beth! Beth dear! Come over here. I need your ID."
All eyes turned to me. Whoever said doing the walk of shame was, well, shameful, lied. This? Walking by both Titus brothers the morning after the wedding, looking like I hadn't slept and being with Jace? Let's just say it wasn't something I ever wanted to repeat. I felt naked. And not a good naked, where you feel free and happy and at peace with the world. No, it was a bad naked. The type of naked where people point and laugh, and you have nothing to cover yourself up with but your hands, and even then you only have two of them, so where's the justice in that?
I took a few steps toward Grandma and Jace. He looked too worried to be irritated that Grandma was manipulating. Maybe that's how she worked. She wore you down so much by the time she offered the little crumb that I'd like to refer to as the gateway drug into crazy land, you were so desperate to escape you didn't just take it and examine it. You freaking ate it and asked for more.