Blessed (6 page)

She smiled into the aging face of her feisty grandmother and took comfort in the smile that was always glimmering in her eyes. “Morning? I think ‘evening’ is more appropriate, Grandma.”

Ardra grabbed a diet soda with lime out of the fridge and sat down next to Piper.

“Grandma, I don’t understand how you can drink coffee so late in the afternoon!”

Piper laughed over her own cup of coffee. “You’re drinking soda, it’s not
that
different!”

Ardra shrugged and twisted the top off of her soda. The caffeine helped clear the last of the cobwebs from her head and reminded her that her stomach was empty. She grabbed some sandwich makings from the fridge and some fruit out of the bowl on the counter.

Back at the table with her banana, apple and sandwich, she asked, “Did you see the RM’s that were all but clawing at each other to talk to me last night? I think that tall blond one really liked me!”

Piper rolled her eyes and corrected her, “They
all
really liked you! It’s the same story all the time! Everywhere we go there are men all but trampling each other to talk to you!” At this point, she turned to the older woman for back up. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you, Arlene?”

Arlene made a cat call into her coffee cup and took another sip, sending a wink to Ardra over the rim. “It’s genetic baby. Don’t worry about it. It happens to all the females in my family. Happened to my mother, happened to me, happened to both of your aunts, naturally it’s going to happen to you too! God forbid you have any daughters!”

The three of them laughed and Arlene shot rapid fire questions at Ardra, trying to catch up on the last year of her life over the course of the small brunch. Ardra answered them as best she could around bites of sandwich and fruit while Piper helped fill in the blanks when she could.

When she had finished the tiny meal, she left the other two women to talk while she took a shower and made herself pretty for the day. Not that it was hard to make herself presentable, but a shower was necessary. So was a tooth brush. The only time she wished that she could stomach coffee was right after drinking a soda. She hated the way that it made her teeth feel squeaky.

She came bouncing back into the kitchen only to find that there were three more people than there had been when she had tossed her banana peel in the garbage can. She kissed her parents and settled in for another round of rapid fire questions from the new addition to the household.

The rigid, thin, perfectly primped woman with her flaming red ringlets and over-the-top sun hat who now stood in the kitchen like the matron of some royal family had been the flashpoint for Ardra’s obsession with fashion. Her mother’s mother was always impeccably dressed and not a single lock of her naturally curly hair was ever out of place. She could walk into a board meeting at any given moment and fit right in with the leaders of the pack. Her only downfall was that she spent so much time looking good that she couldn’t be bothered with silly things like kind words and gentle expression.

It was always straight to business with her and Ardra expected this visit to be no different.

With her parents there, the second round of updates on her life took even longer than the first, even though there were less questions asked. Her parents felt the need to expand on every single answer she gave.

After the conversation died down to a dull roar, it was Ardra’s turn to ask the questions. She wanted to know what her grandmothers had been up to as much as they wanted to know about her.

“How’s the missionary thing going in Florida?” she asked her mom’s mother.

“Oh fine! Fine! Better than fine, actually! The weather there is leagues better than it is here this time of year! These below freezing temperatures really cause my arthritis  to flare up! If I manage to make it up here during the spring or summer,  my allergies act up and I look like a chipmunk! Florida is much more my pace! And the people there are just so nice! They’re all so open to new things! It’s just wonderful!”

“And how’s Bingo in Mesquite, Arlene?” Piper asked her father’s mother.

The cleverly placed question made Ardra fight to stifle a giggle and she kicked her best friend gently under the table instead, earning a sly wink from the other girl.

“Oh I rarely win at Bingo, and when I do it’s only about twenty dollars at a time. I always have fun when I play though and that’s what counts. That’s why I do it. I’ve gotten really good at keeping up with the caller, too! Sometimes they go so dang fast that I used to have a really hard time marking all of my numbers! Nine cards to play on is a lot of numbers to keep track of! I think that’s probably a large part of the reason that I don’t win very much. I’ve probably had several Bingo’s in the past and had just missed a daub or two. I hear it happens more often than you’d think. But,” the woman shrugged and took another drink of her coffee, “what can ya do?”

The look on Barbara Smith’s face after Arlene’s Bingo exposé was priceless. It was something between a scowl of disapproval and jealousy. You could tell that she so desperately wanted to try it and see if it was as fun as Arlene made it sound, but her religious conviction wouldn’t allow her even the small pleasure of a single Bingo game. She had such complete and total resolve when it came to the word of her Lord that she didn’t even drink soda, let alone gamble. Not to mention she’d probably have a coronary the first time someone lit a cigarette in the same room as her.

“Now that you’re twenty one, you should come down and play with me sometime, sweetheart! It’s only a couple of hours away! It would be fun!” She tacked on a final statement intended to drive a little guilt into the conversation, “I do get so lonely down there!”

Without making a commitment that would send Barbara into a fit and without outright telling Arlene no and breaking her heart, Ardra dodged two bullets by saying, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get down there between school and all my volunteer work, but if I get some free time I’d love to come visit you and see your new place!” Then just for fun she added, “Grandma Smith, you should move to Mesquite too! You could join a bowling league and play Bingo with grandma Cooper! You two would have so much fun together!”

That locked the denial into Barbara’s expression and evoked a hearty laugh from Arlene. “I don’t think Mesquite is the kind of place for you anyway Barb. It’s hot most of the year and there is no water to cool you off. Not to mention my house was under two hundred thousand dollars. Doesn’t quite fit in with your taste for luxury.”

“Surely, I don’t know what you mean! I think I have very modest tastes!” Barbra retorted. “My house in Florida is, I daresay, sparse!”

They all laughed politely and Arlene added with finality, “While you may not have much inside your McMansion, you still live in one none-the-less.”

Barbara got all huffy, clammed up and told Frank to carry her bags down to her room. She excused herself to follow him and avoided eye contact with Arlene. The chemistry between her two grandmothers had always made Ardra laugh. While they were two very different women, one would almost kill to have what the other had at times. She watched Barbara disappear down the stairs behind her father and pulled herself from her thoughts to focus on the conversation that had picked up in her absence.

She wasn’t really surprised to find that it was about her. Piper chimed in with, “Ardra, you didn’t show your grandma your necklace yet! That thing is
stunning
! I want to get another look at it myself!”

Ardra absently touched her chest where the metal had rested for most of the day before, “Let me go grab it.” She flew up the stairs two at a time and burst into her bedroom.

As she clasped the chain at her nape and the metal settled on her chest, she realized that she had missed wearing it. It felt so good against her skin.

The same as the last time she had worn it, the warmth spread through her body and made her feel like she was glowing. She appraised herself in the mirror to make sure that she didn’t look like some kind of radioactive superhero.

While she was positive that the necklace made her more beautiful, she didn’t notice any illumination outside of the ordinary.

She did notice that she felt far more solid than usual. The doubt that she had locked away in its box had slowly crept out bit by bit throughout the night and she felt it tickling at the back of her mind. She mentally rounded it up and stuffed it back in there. She had to get through the whirlwind that was bound to be the next few days, then she could take some time and face it head on and figure out what had evoked it in the first place.

She smoothed her hair with her hand before heading back down the stairs to show off what was quickly becoming her favorite birthday present. Not only because her dad had bought it for her on impulse, but because it was just so perfect.

She stood at the end of the table and modeled the piece for her grandmother while Anne, Piper and the older woman all “ooh”ed and “ahh”ed.

“That thing must have cost a fortune!” Her grandmother proclaimed. “Where on earth did you get it?”

“Dad picked it up for me while he and Mom were on their cruise this summer. Total impulse buy.” Ardra caressed it again absently.

“Well I can see why he got it for you! It compliments you so well! I have never seen a piece of jewelry look so....
Made
for someone! It’s absolutely astonishing!”

Ardra basked in the glow of the praise and when Barbara came up the stairs followed by her father, she turned so that her other grandmother could get a look at it and send a couple compliments her way.

She was shocked when the woman saw the necklace and appeared appalled.

“It looks like it was made by some Aztec witch doctor! It’s like wearing a golden calf around your neck! Where on earth did you get such an abhorrent piece of metal?”

Ardra found herself suddenly defensive, “I got it from Dad for my birthday! I think it’s beautiful! It suits me! I didn’t ask you to wear it and honestly, I’d prefer it if you didn’t!”

“Well you don’t have to worry about that! I wouldn’t put that thing around my neck if you told me my immortal soul was on the line!”

Ardra was so frustrated that she had nothing to say back to the woman. Instead, she stomped up the stairs and slammed her door behind her. Everyone else remained frozen in place and didn’t say a word. Not only was it the first time Barbara had spoken ill of anything that Ardra had ever done, but she was not someone who was prone to temper tantrums. She was usually so far off in her own world that things said about her by others just flew right past her nose.

As she stood in front of the mirror trying to figure out what it was about the necklace could have possibly offended her grandmother so much, she absently stroked the smooth outer edge of the medallion.

A few moments later, there was a soft knock at her door.

“It’s me.” Piper announced as she cracked open the door. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Ardra turned from the mirror to sit in her chair facing her best friend.

Piper sat down on the bed and kicked her shoes off. “What was
that
all about? I’ve never seen her talk like that! And I haven’t seen you storm off like that since that time when we were kids and my arbie beat yours at our fashion show.”

Ardra huffed and glared at the closed door. “I don’t know what her problem is. She’s probably just jealous. Even with all the nice stuff she owns, she doesn’t have anything that even compares to this.” She held up the pendant as if her friend had no idea what she was talking about. “This is the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever seen in my life! And that’s saying something! That woman down there has brought more diamonds into this house than an African slave driver! And I’m not talking the pretentious white guys that brought slavery to the states! I’m talking about the ones there!
In
Africa! The ones that round up kids and send them down mines for days at a time with no food to dig for jewels!”

Piper sat silently on the bed fighting back a smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth while her best friend vented her frustrations. Normally, Ardra was so cool headed that this little outburst was akin to seeing a glacier erupt molten lava.

“Where does she get off talking to me like that? It’s not like I slapped a crucifix around her neck and told her that it was her punishment for killing Jesus! She’s so hypocritical! She can come in here wearing jewelry that costs more than my parents’ Lexus, but the moment I wear a birthday present that is prettier than anything she has even dreamed of touching, her head spins off into another dimension and she gets all holier than thou on me! Who does she think she is? The president of the church? Ugh! I’m so mad at her right now!”

Piper decided that the show had gone on long enough. It was time to step in and play the best friend role and bring her back to earth.

“Ardra, it’s really not that big of a deal. We all know that it’s because she’s jealous. You really shouldn’t be this upset about it! I mean, it was cool to see you stand up to her like that and all, but jeez! You’re kinda going a little overboard here.” She held her hand up in front of her face and mimed pinching a penny for emphasis.

Piper stood and wrapped her arms around her distraught friend then held her at arm’s length to look her dead in the face. She could see reason returning to her eyes. The fire in them cooled visibly and she collapsed back into the chair that she had jumped out of mid-rant.

“Oh my gosh.” She moaned into her hands. “I just flipped out on my grandma!”

Piper could see that she was back to being human so she continued, “Yeah, but it was pretty legendary.”

The scene that had transpired flashed through Ardra’s head and she cracked a smile. “It
was
pretty epic, huh?”

They exchanged hushed giggles and Ardra decided that she couldn’t simply go downstairs and apologize. She had been completely justified in standing up for herself. Removing the necklace and going back down to join the others would have to be good enough. Everyone would be shocked at her outburst and chalk it up to a onetime thing that was best swept under the rug.