Deliciously Obedient (39 page)

Lydia
took that as her invitation to dive in and rescue Grandma. “She’s
right.”

“
But
you don’t live here any more,” Caleb argued. “I do. All that
lilac crap is gone from the room now.”

“
Let
me guess,” she shot back. “Now it looks like the Red Sox threw up
in there. With a touch of Dr. Who.”

“
I
haven’t had a room like that since I was seventeen,” he argued,
but she could tell she’d hit a soft spot.

“
Five
bucks says if I go in there I’ll find a TARDIS on something.”

He
pursed his lips and turned away, marching into the apartment. “I’ll
make a pot of coffee,” he called back to the group.

“
Decaf!”
Sandy shouted, then turned to Madge. “You can’t have caffeine for
a while,” she explained. “Doctor’s orders.”

“
The
doctor can go fuck himself.”

“
I’m
not that well hung,” Alex said to her, deadpan.

The
entire group froze in place, Pete’s mouth agog.

“
What?”
Alex asked, clearly embarrassed. “Everyone else can make jokes but
I can’t?”

“
You
have the biggest joke of all, dear,” Madge said, patting his cheek.

Puzzled,
he frowned and asked, “What’s that?”

“
That
girlfriend of yours.”

Lydia
snorted.

Madge
turned to her with raised eyebrows. “As if yours is better? Now
you’ve got two of them hunting you down. The one with the glowing
green eyes and the geeky Viking.”

Alex
smirked.

“
And
your girlfriend knows all about threesomes,” she added, pointing to
Lydia, then Alex. “Maybe you should introduce them to each other.”

Sandy,
Pete, and Miles stared pointedly at Alex, who protested. “My
girlfriend knows nothing...no...we’re not...not that there’s
anything wrong with that, but we’re not in a threesome.”

Knowing
she could get bitten, hard, by Grandma, she rescued Alex—and
herself—nonetheless, patting Madge’s shoulder and looking
pointedly at her mom and dad. “I think Grandma’s medicine is
having a cognitive effect,” she said softly, twirling a finger
around her own ear.

Pete
leaped at the chance to believe
that
, his face flooding with
relief.

“
Right.
So Josie works at that threesome dating service for shits and
giggles,” Madge said.

Lydia
caught Pete’s eye and mouthed, “
Crazy!”

“
Let’s
get you a glass of water and your slippers,” Sandy said, shaking
her head slowly and exchanging bemused looks with her husband.

“
I
want all of you to leave me and Ed and Lydia alone,” Madge insisted
as she stood next to the car and began walking to her apartment with
determined, if slow, steps. It pained Lydia to see her moving
turtle-like, through her back was ramrod straight, eyes alert, aware,
and very pissed.

Sandy
sighed. “We will, Mom. We hear you. Let’s just get you in bed and
resting and then
—
”

Madge
made a rude noise. “I’m only going to bed with Ed. And it won’t
involve resting.” Wink.

Alex
cringed as he walked with the group. Ed seemed not to have heard, his
attention caught up in watching a little boy riding a bicycle across
the street, streamers pouring from the handlebars, the boy a blur.

“
I
remember teaching you how to rid a bike, Alex, when you were about
his age,” he said softly, enraptured by the scene. Lydia admired
his gentle wistfulness, and wondered if that was how Pete felt about
her. Because Ed’s expression was a mixture of pride and sadness.

“
You
did, Grandpa,” he answered as they reached the main door. Lydia
caught his eye and the doctor smiled, then took out his phone.

“
We
can take it from here if you have to work,” she said. “Besides,
if you aren’t one of the anointed, Grandma might start throwing
things to make you leave.”

Alex
laughed and stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “Thanks. I do
have to be somewhere, and it seems like Madge has more than enough
company.”

“
Is
Ed okay to be left alone? His Alzheimer’s, I know
—
”

“
Oh!
No, he’s fine,” Alex interrupted. “It’s not that advanced.
He’ll be a big help to her.”

“
In
more ways than one,” she said under her breath.

“
I
try not to think about that,” he said in a choked voice. They
shared a sickly smile

“
Lydia!”
Madge called out. “Come help me beat these weirdos off with a
stick.”

Alex
waved as he trotted off to his car. “Have fun!” he called back.

“
Ha!”
she shouted, then marched into her apartment.

Er,
her old apartment.

Sandy,
Pete and Miles were standing in an awkward formation in the kitchen
as Madge sat on the couch, her tie-dyed quilt over her, with Ed
sitting next to her, holding her hand.

“
Go
to Jeddy’s and get a cup of coffee,” she barked.

Miles
rolled his eyes. “You’d think we were torturing her instead of
helping her.”

“
This
is Grandma,” Lydia said slowly. “You expected something
different?”

“
Quit
talking about me like I’m not here!” Madge snapped.

“
You
know,” Miles said with a fake brightness that made Lydia’s hair
on the back of her neck stand up. “I think Grandma’s got a
point.” Bending mightily to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, and
extending his hand to shake Ed’s, Miles walked out without a word.

Pete
shrugged at Sandy, who sighed deeply and said, “Fine. If that’s
what Mom wants.”

“
It
is!”

Sandy
looked at Lydia with pleading eyes. “Take care of her?”

“
Of
course.” A round of hugs and kisses galore and the front door
clicked shut.

“
Thank
fucking God they’re all gone!” Madge declared.

“
I
heard that!” Sandy’s muffled voice came through from behind the
thick door.

“
You
were supposed to! See you next weekend, and I love you!” Madge
practically screamed.

“
We’re
the Brady Bunch. In Bizarro world,” Lydia snorted.

Ed
just smiled and looked like he was happy to be here. Lydia thought he
was, likely, the sanest one there.

Madge
looked at Lydia with narrowed eyes. “Eddie,” she said without
breaking her look, “would you make me a nice cup of coffee and some
cookies?”

He
patted her knee and flashed Lydia a thousand watt smile. “Of course
I will.” As he walked into the kitchen he touched Lydia’s elbow
and whispered, “You don’t have to stay long,” followed by a
flirty wink.

Oh,
dear.

She
was the cockblocker.

Madge
patted the empty seat next to her and scowled. “Sit.”

Lydia
sat.

“
Spill.”

Lydia
spilled, pouring out the entire story as fast as she could.
Remarkably fast, as she heard Ed rifling through the refrigerator and
cupboards in search of fulfilling his task.

“
...so
I have two men who both want me, and want me at the same time,
Grandma.” Boy, was that sentence all sorts of
wrong
.

“
The
guy from the video is back and you slept with him?”

Nod.

“
And
the slacker manchild from Iceland
—
”

“
Not
a slacker!”

“—
you
slept with him. Now they both want you. Together. Threesome and all
that.” Her grandma didn’t bat an eyelash. She might as well have
been talking with a calm Krysta. How Madge managed to maintain such
equanimity in the face of sexual extremes gave Lydia pause. Her
grandma made it seem so normal. Not the threesome part, but the
emotional grappling. The subject happened to be unconventional, but
the emotional process just
was
.

“
Advice?”
Lydia asked.

“
Do
I look like Dan Savage?’

“
Hell,
no. He’s waaaaay cuter.”

Madge
hacked out a laugh. “If I have any advice to give, Lydia, it’s
don’t have a heart attack. I taste metal and it burns when I pee.
Who knows what those people did to me. Aliens might have probed my
ass.”

“
That
was just me copping a feel!” called out a lovely baritone voice
from the kitchen.

Madge
laughed at Lydia’s crumpled face. “Just because we’re old
doesn’t mean we don’t get turned on,” she said kindly.

“
Do
you have to talk about it so much?”

“
Do
you talk about sex with Krysta all the time?”

“
Fair
enough.”

“
Do
whatever your clit tells you to do.”

“
GRANDMA!”

“
Oh,
did I say ‘clit’? I meant heart. Whatever your heart tells you to
do.”

“
The
last time I did that, I got on camera and a billion people saw my
ass.”

“
I
said ‘heart’ this time, not ‘clit’.”

Lydia
chortled. “I think I followed both that time.”

“
Try
just the heart for a change.”

Ed
entered the living room with two cups of coffee and a plate of
cookies. Subtle cue for her to leave and let love flourish in
whatever way Madge and Ed wanted it to take form.

Three
days of not seeing Lydia. Three nights of sleeping on Mike’s couch.
Three long stretches of time to fill. Not enough coffee, gym time,
Netflix or portfolio management to fill the hours.

Jeremy
needed Lydia. Not time.

Mike
had flown back to Indiana for a visit with his mom, an act that
Jeremy couldn’t emulate. His dad had died about a year before his
mom, leaving him completely alone. Two aunts and an uncle stayed in
contact, and for big family holidays he always had somewhere to go,
but that had wound down to an annual appearance somewhere at
Christmas. That was it. And, as time passed, he’d become the
eccentric cousin/nephew no one really understood.