“You weren’t gonna be his what?” I ask. It’s hard to picture her following anyone or being anything other than what she wants to be.
“His manic pixie dream girl,” she says, straightening her small shoulders. “It’s this totally sexist feminine trope we studied in my Women’s Studies class this semester, and it completely opened my eyes to the fact that I’ve been exactly that to Ethan this whole time. Actually, I think I might’ve been that to all my boyfriends.” She goes back to the cutting board on the island and starts chopping again. With a vengeance.
“Been what?” I’m not entirely sure what a trope is, but she sounds pissed about it.
She sighs, like I’m testing her patience the tiniest bit. Or like there’s a lot I need to learn. “Just an idea of a girl—you know, the quirky, cute girl who swoops in and shows the sensitive, slightly nerdy guy how to live and enjoy life? That girl.”
I can tell by the way she says it that she thinks it’s a bad thing, so I avoid pointing out to her the irony that right now, madly chopping basil, with her new haircut and the tiny stud in her nostril, and combat boots and little cutoffs, she looks a little manic and a little pixie.
“I was just this idea to him,” she continues, waving the knife as she says it, “and now I’m not.” She balances the cutting board on the rim of a large bowl and uses the edge of the knife to scrape the pulverized basil into the tomato salad. “It’s better this way.”
I reach over to the bowl and risk losing a finger to pick out a grape tomato. “But what about your trip? Did you lose all your waitressing money?”
“I’m probably out a plane ticket, which sucks, but the rest was just gonna be hostels and cheap places we found once we got there. I have plenty left.” She pauses. “I’ll find somewhere else to go on my own. Maybe Morocco. I’ll swim in the turquoise water and ride buses from town to town with locals, and buy cheap jewelry in outdoor marketplaces, and get drunk on weird foreign drinks, and kiss beautiful boys who speak broken English and want to please me.” She twists the pepper grinder over the bowl. “Either that or I’m applying for a study abroad year at that art school I wanted to go to in Italy.”
“How much to cart an old lady along with ya? Either place?” Gran asks from the kitchen doorway. I wonder, mainly for Ryan’s sake, how long she’s been standing there.
“Graaaann!!!” my sister squeals, and rushes over to our grandma, squeezing her in the same tight hug she gave me a few minutes earlier.
Watching them, I can see what everyone has always said. They are two peas in a pod, only they’re separated by sixty years. It’s a quality I can’t put my finger on, a confidence in the way they carry themselves, just naturally. But it must’ve skipped around the genes in the family, because my mom doesn’t have it, and neither do I.
Gran steps back from the hug and surveys Ryan’s latest incarnation at arm’s length.
“Give it to me straight, Gran. What do you think?” Ryan says. She sticks out her small chest, comfortable, and even a little proud to be judged.
Gran looks her up and down one more time. “Sassy. I like it. Except for that little thing in your nose. Looks like you need a hankie.”
Had any other person in the world said that to my sister, they would’ve known her wrath. But since it’s Gran, Ryan bursts out in a laugh that fills the kitchen and makes it impossible not to join in.
Gran turns and walks around the island to me then, laying a slight but gardening-rough hand on my cheek. “And what about you, my dear? I see you have a new look too.”
I look down at my sundress and sandals, and I’m a little proud to tell her. “I went to the beach.”
“On the prowl?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Well it looks good on ya,” she says, her hand motioning in a circle in front of me and sweeping down to my sandy toes. “This. The sunshine, and sand, and sea.”
“Thank you,” I say, a little nervous. Unlike Ryan, I’m not comfortable being looked at so closely. Probably because it feels like that’s what everyone has done with me since Trent died. And because right now it feels like Gran can see straight through my sunburn. “I went kayaking,” I add. “Took a lesson.”
What am I saying?
“Really?” Ryan raises an eyebrow as she hands me an ear of corn.
I set to work peeling the husk and wishing I could take back my involuntary confession.
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” Gran says, using a much more delicate tone with me than she does with my sister. Like I am more delicate than my sister. She gives my cheek a gentle pat. “If you enjoyed yourself, you should take it up. Get out there on that ocean and live in the sunshine, and swim in the sea, and drink that wild air. That’s what I always say.”
“That’s Emerson, Gran. It was on the birthday card I sent you last month,” Ryan says, drizzling olive oil over the caprese salad. Only she could get away with calling my grandma out.
“Great minds then, Emerson and me,” Gran says. She opens the fridge and takes out a bottle of white wine, turning back to me. “Anyway, doll, I’m happy to see you doing something like that. I think it calls for a little celebration, in fact.” She puts the bottle under the opener and uncorks it with a low pop, right on cue. Then she pulls a glass from the cabinet and fills it far beyond what most people would consider acceptable.
Ryan laughs.
“What? No sense getting up to refill it in five minutes,” she says with a wink. “I’m old. I’ve earned the right to sit and enjoy a glass of wine with my two beautiful granddaughters.”
It’s all the invitation Ryan needs. She takes down two more glasses and pours her own glass, finishing off the bottle. I give her a look, which makes Gran laugh.
“What?” Ryan says. “It’s what I’d be doing in Europe right now anyway.”