She’d finished her meal by the time a key turned in the lock, announcing her grandmother’s return.
“Where have you been?” She didn’t intend for her question to come out as sharply as it did. Her tiny grandmother stopped in her tracks. Everything about her screamed color, from her flamingo-pink Capri pants to her azure-colored off-the-shoulder T-shirt. If Laura wasn’t mistaken, there was pink in her hair.
“Out.”
“Out where?” Laura didn’t want her grandmother to feel like she was monitoring her, but she felt some responsibility for making sure her elderly relative stayed safe in a city she was just getting to know.
“None of your business.” Lola certainly had the sullen teenager act down.
“Did you know that I got married in Bali?”
Her grandmother stopped in her tracks, literally froze in the middle of putting her purse down on the console table. The faint smile she’d had on her face while obscuring her whereabouts dropped, and her face took on an unmistakable mask of guilt.
“So you did know.” A knot formed in Laura’s belly. The idea that members of her family had been complicit in this foolishness made her want to scream. Her brothers and her grandparents had all been there. One of them certainly could have stopped her. Or told her about it before her grandfather had the chance. “Abuela, why did no one tell me that I’d gotten married?”
Lola had stepped fully into the dining area, and leaned against the back of the chair opposite to Laura’s. “How did you find out?”
“Abuela!” Laura took a deep breath, trying not to lose her shit. The last thing she needed was to give her grandmother a heart attack. “Why did he know before I did?”
“We were going to tell you, mi amor.”
“When were you going to tell me?” Laura stood up to clear her plate, not wanting to look at Lola in that moment, but her grandmother followed her over to the sink.
“When the time was right.”
Laura tried to focus on the water rushing over her hands, the slippery texture of the dish soap. Whenever she was upset about something, it helped for her to focus on what was right in front of her. She’d always been like that. As a little kid, she’d been all over the place, kind of a wild child. Ballet had given her something to focus all that energy on, and taught her to be present.
Right now, after finding out that her family had allowed her to make a colossal mistake, she felt like she was in a turn that had gone out of control. She was falling, and about to hit the ground, and focusing on the dishes was the only thing that would keep her from throwing the dish at the wall and shattering it into a million pieces.
“Who told you? It was Max, wasn’t it? I may not know you children well, but I know—” Lola pointed up at the ceiling, as though she was calling on God for corroboration. “He has the biggest mouth.”
“It wasn’t Max.” Her older brother might be the family communicator, but even he had been mum on the subject of her secret nuptials. “It was your ex-husband. I found out because he couldn’t file my taxes without my husband’s signature.”
“I’m sorry.”
Laura turned and looked at Lola, pressing her lips together to bite back the mean words that she wanted to say. Her grandmother appeared to be truly remorseful. Though she couldn’t be certain if she was sorry for keeping the secret or the way that Laura had found out. “For what?”
“For not telling you.”
“And you’re not sorry for not stopping me?”
Lola shrugged and all the guilt evaporated from her demeanor. “You were having fun. Since I came back for Alana’s wedding, I never see you have any fun. Charlie is handsome, and so I didn’t pay close attention.”
“Is that everyone’s excuse?”
Lola took her hand and pulled her towards the living room. The older woman was shockingly strong, but Laura didn’t fight it. She even sat down next to her grandmother.
“They didn’t tell you because I didn’t want them to tell you.”
Laura gasped and balled her fists in her lap. “So you’re the ringleader?”
Her grandmother then had the nerve to pat her hand. Pat. Her. Hand. “You looked so happy, and so—in love—the night of the wedding. I didn’t want anyone standing in the way.”
“How could I be in love with him?” Laura stood up, unable to stay seated in the face of such utter bullshit. “I barely know him, and I was drunk.”
“How drunk?” Lola’s brow furrowed, as though it was finally sinking in that she’d made a grave error.
“So, so, so, so drunk.”
“I didn’t know.”
“So you thought I remembered all this time and had decided to say nothing about getting married?”
“I didn’t know you really got married—legally—until you told me.”
“You thought I had just gotten mildly tipsy and decided to have a fake wedding at my cousin’s wedding with a guy I barely know?”
Lola stood up and shrugged again in a way that was growing more infuriating by the moment. “I didn’t know exactly what you were up to, but I thought it was time you had an adventure.”
“I don’t need adventure, Abuela.” She took a deep breath and turned away from her grandmother. “I need structure and discipline.”
Lola made a haughty “pfft” sound. “The last thing you need is more structure. You work yourself into the ground. Dios, there’s nothing to you but skin and bone.” She walked around the coffee table until she was facing her again. Her face was soft, care dripping from her gaze. “You look so tired, mi amor.”
“I’m fine.”
Lola grabbed her arms. Laura’s chest ached at the tenderness that she’d never really gotten from her aloof parents. They were broken people, and they didn’t care much about how people felt on the inside. Her father had been too busy growing a business in a weird competition with her mother’s cousin Hector when Laura was growing up to kiss boo-boos or even attend recitals. Her mother’s answer for most things was an afternoon of shopping or a dosage of Valium.
Lola’s tenderness, on the other hand, was palpable, and it made it difficult to stay angry at her. Even though she’d caused a major inconvenience for Laura.
She pulled away from her grandmother, unable to bear her pity. “I’ll fix it.”
“Can I help you?”
“I think you’ve helped enough.”
* * * *
Laura was hoping that Charlie wouldn’t pick a trendy restaurant for their first and last date. Her hopes were dashed when he called her and told her that he’d made reservations at Juvia, a trendy spot near the beach with a rooftop dining room.
Any hope she had of not being seen by any gossipmongers was dashed when he’d suggested it. She was sure he would have picked another place had she put her foot down, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The notion that this wasn’t a real date was dashed when she picked up the phone and heard his deep, raspy voice. He didn’t even have to be in the room for him to affect her on a primal, physical level. She’d never felt like that before from just words, and it was disconcerting.
The man she’d married tested her hard-won equilibrium over the phone, but he blew it to smithereens when she walked out of her condo building to find him standing by a sexy, black sports car, wearing a suit that looked as though it had found fabric