Binji adjusted the ruched and wrapped fabric under her breasts, further magnifying the pillowy cleavage, which looked even better for the delicate lines that glazed her skin like brushstrokes on a canvas. “You did inherit my looks. You also inherited my son’s insouciance, so you don’t bother with the upkeep it takes to work them to your advantage. Do you know how much moisturizer has gone into this décolletage in the past two decades?” She twisted to give Cullie a view of her butt, which hadn’t held up quite as well to gravity.
Sure, that might seem like a mean thought to have about your grandmother, but only to someone who couldn’t see quite how stunning Binji was. No lies were necessary.
“Why don’t they make bras for the bum? Cutlets are needed there too.” Binji’s brown-bordering-on-hazel eyes—which fortuitously Cullie had inherited and needed no upkeep—lit up. “How’s that for a business idea?”
Cullie groaned. “Right. Brutts?”
“Yes! We should patent that.”
Cullie rolled onto her side and propped the phone against the pillow next to her. “You sound like Ma.” Because if her mother didn’t turn every conversation into a lecture about “potential,” she thought she’d waste away into the ether of bad parenting. “My one patent is causing me enough heartache right now.”
As soon as the words slipped out, Cullie regretted them, because Binji’s eyes started studying her as though Cullie were a diamond she was gauging for cut, clarity, and color.
“Don’t compare me to your mother. I do not have a twig stuck up my lady parts.”
“Ouch.”
“A thorny twig too, lately. Tell me about this heartache business. Is Hot Steve causing you problems again?” Moving off camera, Binji started making sounds that indicated a dress change.
“No,” Cullie mumbled. When an answer was too complicated, no was the perfect stand-in. Hot Steve was not the one causing Cullie problems. Cullie was. He was just using her problems against her.
“You should never sleep with someone you work for. It should be the first lesson women are taught in school.” Binji came back into the frame, this time in a flowy white eyelet dress that was substantially lower on cleavage exposure. A little less New Binji.
Through most of Cullie’s childhood, her grandmother had stuck to tunics and capris, with the odd caftan or midi dress thrown in, and saris and salwar kameez brought out only for special occasions. Always fashion forward and never anything like anyone else’s grandmother, but this new superhot style choice was only six months old. Six months ago, Binji had mysteriously come into some money and bought herself a fancy condo where rich white people went after retirement to enjoy, and flash, their money.
It was yet another of the many ways in which their family had changed after Cullie’s parents’ midlife crisis divorce. But the ease with which Binji had made the transformation was both disconcerting and oddly natural.
“How would you know, Binji? You’ve never worked for anyone.” Must be nice, Cullie wanted to add, but Binji would only remind her that the fact that Cullie had created an app millions of people used did not give her a free pass to be arrogant. Cullie wasn’t in the mood to argue the point. Because, really, it kind of did.
A flash of annoyance passed over Binji’s face. But then she smiled, her upbeat self again, and spun around, displaying a back exposed all the way down to her waist, with a deftly located band of lace across the back of her bra.
“Not only did I work in the home, but I was the best homemaker of anyone I know.” Binji made a face. “Wait a minute. If you consider your grandfather my boss, then, well, I did sleep with him. A lot.” She got that sharp, sexy look as she appraised herself over her delicate shoulder.
That look was all Binji: Old Binji and New Binji all rolled up in one. She always looked you full in the eyes, like she owned herself and she wanted you to know it. Maybe it was the contrast between her two grandmothers, but it was a look Cullie had learned to identify early in life.
“Seven days a week for most of our marriage,” Binji finished with a wink.
“Oh my God, Binji! TMI!” Even as Cullie yelled it, she knew the redundancy of it. As “one of the most elegant coders of her generation” （thanks for that pressure, Fortune magazine）， Cullie understood redundancy if she understood anything. TMI should have been Bindu Desai’s middle name—her platform if she’d been a social media influencer. Binji thrived on Too Much Information.
“JEI, Curly-Wurly! Did you know that LOL really stands for living out loud?” She tucked her sleekly bobbed hair behind her ear. She had professional highlights now, replacing her usual drugstore boxed color in dark medium brown. Another one of the changes since she’d moved into the schmancy new community.
“I’m pretty sure you’re making that up. Just like you made up JEI. Just Enough Information hasn’t caught on in popular culture for a reason.”
“Popular culture is for sheep.” Cullie mouthed it along with her grandmother as she made her favorite declaration. “Now, focus. Dress. Which one?”
“How old is this date?”
“Irrelevant.”
“Relevant. Because: Do you want him to die of a boob-induced heart attack or a sexy back-induced one?”
The most adorable wrinkle folded between Binji’s perfectly tweezed brows. She must have been late on her Botox shot. “It’s urban legend that old people drop dead due to sexual stimulation. I did not raise you to be ageist.”
“My apologies.” Cullie forced herself out of bed and started riffling through her own closet—a veritable treasure trove of black shirts and black jeans. Binji was right, Cullie was too insouciant for daily clothing choices.
Not that how you dressed had much to do with finding someone to hook up with. Cullie might suck at relationships, but she’d never had trouble finding men to hook up with. A fact that would break her mother’s heart and possibly even disappoint Binji.
“Cullie?” her grandmother said in her gentle voice.
Cullie didn’t want to hear the next part. More than anything else, she hated being asked if she was okay. Who the hell was ever okay?
“I’d wear the white one and ease into the hot-pink one for a later date.” She focused on her grandmother’s film-star face and tried to gauge if this guy was special.
Binji scrunched up her nose, revealing how new she was at this “dating-shating thing,” as she called it. Cullie had never seen her so much as mention a man other than her grandfather. Then the move to Shady Palms had happened, and suddenly Binji was the new hottie in town.
“One date at a time, my love. I gave twenty-two years of my life to one man. This time is for me.”
Cullie couldn’t imagine what it would take to put up with the same man for twenty-two years. The only person she’d ever slept with more than once was Steve, and look how that had turned out.
Her heart rate sped up when she thought about the fact that she had promised CJ a new app and she had absolutely no idea what she was going to give her.
And yet, oddly enough, Binji’s words—words that told her to take a chance because mistakes weren’t absolute, that one could reinvent oneself at any point in their life—those words made Cullie feel a little more confident that she would find a way to save Shloka. “The hot-pink one, then,” she said.