Page 29 of A Break in Communications

So… Lucy’s house. It wasn’t what I expected, even though I didn’t know what I expected, a duplex unit with a yard scattered both with random knickknacks and with Christmas decorations. I sighed, turning off the car and sinking back in the seat, just looking at the house. I wasn’t sure I’d really believed the wholelives with her grandmother looking after herthing until just now, but that was absolutely a house you’d live in with your grandmother looking after her.

After Friday, the last thing I needed was to come here first thing Saturday morning, sunrise still peachy orange on the horizon, to get more of Lucy. But here we were. We’d worked for hours together yesterday, first on everything around Gould and the PR moves with the new task force, and then just everything else we were working on, and maybe it was the competitive atmosphere, but I felt sharper, more focused around Lucy and got twice as much done. When I finally got her to leave, I shut the door behind her with a resignedsee you tomorrow, if I must,and I’d settled back on the couch with a sigh of relief that immediately turned into antsy unease.

Had I just been high on the adrenaline trying to figure out how to get rid of Lucy and then I was crashing? Suddenly I couldn’t focus without her around and it was like I needed to pick a fight with her again to get anything done. I spent hoursjust drifting trying to think of anything other than her smug face, to no avail.

I really needed a girlfriend. I was so lonely I was missing Lucy Masters. And I needed my most recent kiss to not be her.

But instead, here I was, pulled up in front of Lucy Masters’ house, to pick her up and bring her to my family’s Christmas gathering. What a nightmare…

I turned off the music and stepped out of the car, pulling my coat tighter around me, a big thing I was just about swimming in, and I made it up to the door and knocked on the light wood. I was pulling my phone from my pocket when the door unlatched, and I did a double take when it wasn’t Lucy at the door but a small woman with wispy white hair in a wheelchair, wearing a tacky sweater with a reindeer on the front. Woman after my mother’s heart. She looked me over, studying.

“Anna Preston?” she said, and I stood up taller.

“Oh… you’re Lucy’s grandmother?”

She squinted, giving me another studying look, head to toe, and I felt a little awkward under the attention—never been checked out so thoroughly by a woman in her seventies—before she nodded, seeming satisfied. She rolled her chair back to let me in, and she said offhandedly, “You’re not nearly as pretty as Lucy’s always going on about, but you’re not too bad, I suppose. If you’re as good as she says, I’ll let you date her, just because she’s not about to find anyone better.”

Wow. Woman did not mince words. Still, it wasn’t that part that had me stopping in the doorway so much as her comment about Lucyalwaysgoing on about me being pretty. Didn’t exactly make sense for it to be more than the last day or two… maybe the woman just had a penchant for exaggeration. “It’s, er… it’s nice to meet you, ma’am. Sorry, I don’t actually know your name, Lucy only refers to you asGrandma—”

She waved me off. “Ma’amis fine. Lucy is upstairs, finishing getting ready. You really have that woman head over heels, you know. Never seen her care so much about how she looks until she’s going on and on aboutAnnathis,Annathat…”

Why did I feel like I was supposed to apologize? I scraped the snow off my boots and stepped into the house, shuffling awkwardly in the doorway as I shut the door behind me. Woman was… protective of her granddaughter, I guess. Would probably be happy to know we weren’t really dating, but we’d get to that once this whole thing was over. “Well,” I said through a fake smile, “if you’re telling me I pulled off a miracle, I’m not arguing.”

She scowled, folding her arms. “Are you not? Lucy’s been telling me for ages now you love to argue. Damn contrary woman seems to find it attractive.”

For ages?I could not fit these pieces together. Was Lucy just placating her grandmother by pretending to be into me, long before we’d ever gotten into this? I could hardly reconcile the idea that Lucy had just always been into me, let alone enough to gush to her grandmother about how much she loved arguing with me.

She had been… willing to kiss me. More than I’d expected. What? No. This didn’t make any sense.

Lucy’s grandmother scowled. “And you don’t even talk? What’s the point of you?”

“Sorry, just—” I scratched my head. “Lucy and I only just got together… how long has she been talking about me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, god, it’s been terrible. She hasn’t stopped talking about you for months. Oh, let me guess, she’s been too emotionally immature to tell you how much she’s been in love with you.”

I found myself spinning, still trying to put two and two together and getting five. If every time she’d gotten embarrassed and lost her cool when I got flirtatious back at her was because—

I snapped back from the thoughts, relaxing, my hands in my pockets. “So, did you want me to come in and start arguing? Was that what you were hoping for?”

“Ah, well, hoping you’d have some personality to you. I’m not about to sit around while Lucy dates some sad lump who’s only… moderately pretty.”

Strangely, that kind of made me feel good about my appearance. That meant Iwasat least moderately pretty, and not just her flattering me. I doubted she knew the meaning of the word. “Hm,” I said. “Well, you might be disappointed to find my personality is just work. Although, did you expect Lucy to date someone else?”

She laughed, one short bark of laughter, and she nodded. “So, Anna, do you want to know a secret?”

“Oh, do I ever.”

She gestured at her wheelchair. “I don’t actually need this. It’s just been a long practical joke with Lucy.”

I blinked, slowly. “Should we… swap who’s using it for when Lucy gets back down here and pretend it’s always been that way?”

She laughed again, louder this time, slapping her thigh. “Oh, now I wish I’d been telling the truth. That’d be a laugh. No, I actually do need the damn thing. Do you know how awkward it is to use the toilet?”

“No, but I feel like I’m about to find out.”

“It’s like a jungle gym where you’re trying not to pee yourself in the process even though you’re incontinent—”

“Grandma?” Lucy’s voice came from upstairs, and I looked to the staircase, where Lucy pushed out of a bathroom, and I felt an awkward flush seeing her dressed… well, nicely. She alwaysdid, form over function and all—she had sections of her blonde curls pinned back, wearing a black pantsuit with a crisp red shirt, a sophisticated makeup look with red lipstick, and part of my mind wondered why she went out of her way to look so nice. She’d dressed nicely to show up at my apartment yesterday too. Had asked Veronica my favorite cookie and baked it for me.

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