Page 13 of Merry Me
There she stood in all her yuletide glory.
MeMaw was decked out in a bright green sweater featuring the Grinch tangled in Christmas lights that lit up every time she moved. She’d paired it with neon green leggings covered in what I could only describe as dancing candy canes—candy canes that were, judging by their poses,definitelymeant to be sexy.
Her earrings were two oversized Christmas bulbs, dangling precariously from her ears, and her glasses—Lord help us—were red and bedazzled with tiny rhinestones shaped into snowflakes.
She looked like Mrs. Claus’s chaotic cousin who drank spiked eggnog year-round and judged everyone for not embracing Christmas hard enough.
She looked like home.
“Well, don’t all jump at once.” MeMaw sniffed, eyeing everyone like we were a disappointment because we hadn’t broken out in applause at her appearance. She set a leopard print purse shaped like a Christmas tree on the counter. “Honestly, the silence in here is downright rude. I should’ve gotten a standing ovation or at least a slow clap.”
“We were blinded by that sweater,” my dad muttered under his breath.
“And don’t even pretend you weren’t all just sitting around, waiting for me to show up and liven this place up.”
MeMaw’s lipstick was a bright red that bled just outside theedges of her lips. She did that on purpose she’d told me once because it made her lips look more “fuckable.”
Yes, I had thrown up a little at that one.
MeMaw pulled the sprig of holly from her cloud of teased silver curls and flung it at my mom. “Where’s your holiday spirit, young lady? I taught you better than that.”
My mom rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might get stuck. “You also taught me how to get into bars with a fake ID. So thanks for that.”
“And did it serve you well?” MeMaw asked sweetly.
“I’m not answering that in front of my daughter.”
I enjoyed the fact that my mom had someone to keep her in line. All I had to do was tell her she was acting like her mother, and she shaped right up.
It was a blessing in my life.
“Come here, my girl,” MeMaw said as she caned her way over to me. She reached for me with her bedazzled talon-like nails, and I threw my arms around her, breathing in that unmistakable mix of floral perfume and powder—her signature scent since the dawn of time. A scent she said that had always brought lovers to her in droves.
Something I preferred not to think about.
“You’ve been gone for far too long, baby girl,” she murmured, squeezing me with surprising strength. “Still gorgeous, though. Your mother can thank me for those genes.”
“I heard that, Mom.” My mother sighed.
MeMaw sniffed. “You were supposed to.”
She kept one arm wrapped around my waist as her sharp blue eyes surveyed the kitchen like a general preparing for battle. “There’d better still be pizza left. I didn’t come all this way to starve. And by the way, that driveway of yours is a death trap. Nearly broke my hip getting out of the car.”
My mom shot my dad a look. “Did you actually make it into the driveway, Mom?” she asked.
“Or did you use the lawn again?”
“Well, where else was I supposed to park? The neighbor’s kitchen? Heavens, Emily, use your head.”
Mom snorted and pinched the bridge of her nose, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Dad grab MeMaw’s keys from her purse and head out to move her car.
MeMaw’s gaze landed on the Christmas tree in the living room next, and her eyebrows shot up so high they nearly hit her hairline. “Isthatwhat y’all are calling a tree? Looks like a squirrel dragged in a branch and gave up halfway through decorating.”
If it wasn’t obvious, MeMaw was a big fan of Christmas. She considered it her Valentine’s Day and said that the men in her fifty-five and up community were extrain the spiritthis time of year.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I was also sure I didn’t want to know.
“She’s going for minimalist,” I whispered.
