Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Fucking Esther.
I threw my phone aside and went over to the closet again.
On the inside of the door was a full-length mirror, and I scrutinized my appearance. I had on dark jeans, a blue-and-white-striped blouse and black blazer from J.Crew, and loafers on my feet. My hair was pulled back into a smooth ponytail. I wore minimal makeup.
It was average, everyday me. Neat, clean, and professional.
My style was a little bit preppy and understated, I supposed, but was it … boring? Unfeminine? Invisible? Grams had made it sound like I might blend into the furniture down there. Was I enough to do something to a man?
I turned to the side and looked at my body in profile. I’d always hated my big chest, which didn’t seem to match the rest of my body. My ass was flat as a pancake. My sisters, Emme especially, were always after me to flaunt the one set of curves I’d been given, but I rarely wore anything that showed them off. Why couldn’t you take some stuff from one part of your body and distribute it to another part?
A moment later, I left the bedroom and headed downstairs, thinking a five o’clocktail sounded pretty damn good.
Grams made us a couple martinis (the old-fashioned way, stirred in a tall glass pitcher and poured into two glasses) and assembled a plate of crackers and cheese. We brought them into the living room, where she’d put on a Sinatra record.
It made me laugh. “You still use that record player?”
“Why wouldn’t I? It still works. And I love my record collection. It took your grandfather and I years to build.” She sat down next to me on the couch and smiled. “He just adores Sinatra. But who doesn’t?”
“Adored, Grams. Past tense. Gramps is gone now, remember?”
“Oh, right.” She touched her cheek with her fingertips. “I’m such a silly potato. I lose track of the years sometimes. Sorry, dear.”
“That’s okay. Hey, would you like to look through your old photo albums with me?” It was something we used to do together when I was young, and I’d always enjoyed it, but I also thought if she was getting confused about time, the photos might help her place people properly in the past.
“I’d love to. Actually, dear, I just found a box of old photos I’d like to put into an album. Maybe you can help me sort them?”
“Of course. Where is it?”
She pointed toward her bookshelves. “Right there by the stereo. The white shoebox.”
I brought it over to the couch and opened it up. There had to be hundreds of old pictures in there, some black and white, some in the faded colors of the sixties and seventies, some in the brighter hues of the years my sisters and I were here visiting. Some said the date at the bottom, but others didn’t. “Wow, Grams. Why don’t I get a pencil and mark lightly on the back of each one when you think it was taken? Then we can arrange them chronologically.”
“Perfect, dear. I should have a pencil in the kitchen by my grocery list.”
I ran to the kitchen to grab the pencil, and when I returned, we shuffled through the photos, sipping our drinks as Grams reminisced. Her mind seemed sharp as ever.
“That’s Lil, your great-great aunt. She was quite the beauty of the family and lived so long she had four husbands. I think that’s a graduation picture.”
I laughed, studying the doe-eyed teenager in a white dress with a high lace collar. “She was very pretty.”
A few minutes later, we came across some photos of Grams and Gramps in their teens. There was one I’d never seen of her on his shoulders at the beach, both of them laughing.
“Oh my gosh, look at you! So cute!”
She giggled. “He was, wasn’t he? And I was so terrible at that age. He used to come pick me up from school in his dad’s Packard. I’d see him pull up through the glass on the door and I’d wait a good five minutes before sauntering out just to make sure everyone knew it was me getting picked up in that fancy car. He’d get so cross with me. Then I’d—”
A knock on the front door interrupted her story. Grams’s face lit up. Then she said, “I wonder who that could be.”
“Are you expecting someone?”
Grams rose to her feet and went to the door. Whoever she saw through the screen made her smile. “Well, hello, Mr. Woods! How nice of you to stop by.”
“I’m here to work on the porch, remember?” The voice was quiet and deep.
“Oh, that’s right.” Grams thumped her temple with two fingers. “Good heavens, I forgot all about that. It’s so nice of you to remember.” She looked over at me. “Stella, dear, come over and meet Ryan Woods. He’s the nice boy next door who helps me out so much.”