While my dad loved to regale us with childhood tales of her exacting nature and authoritarian brand of discipline, we rarely saw that side of her. With us, she was gregarious and fun-loving and lenient, perpetually spoiling us and slyly encouraging our mischief （as all the best grandparents do）。 To me she always seemed glamorous and impossibly chic, from the collection of Chanel scarves she’d style a thousand different ways to the extravagant doll clothes she’d sew for our Barbies: faux fur coats with pearl buttons and evening gowns made of gold chain mail or luxe velvet. She was a stickler for things like manners and etiquette, but also cool, like when she’d teach us how to origami-fold our cloth napkins into bikinis or pour us glasses of wine when we turned eighteen and practically dare our parents to chide her for it.
I lean my hip against the countertop as she putters around the kitchen making tea. I’d offer to help, but I know better—she’d accuse me of treating her like an invalid, maybe even mock me by calling me Thomas （the name of her worrywart second-born son, otherwise known as my dad）。 She spent the entire day today assuring anyone who would listen that she’s a “young ninety.”
“Where are you even finding these boys, anyway?” she asks, then stops bustling long enough to hold up a finger. “Wait, let me guess. An app.” She makes a face like she’s just licked a lemon. “Why your generation entrusts their romantic futures to a machine is beyond me. If you think a computer can accurately predict chemistry, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you.” The kettle starts whistling and she moves to take it off the burner.
“It’s how things are done now, Gran. I don’t exactly have men lining up to fill my dance card at the sock hop.”
She swats me with a tea towel. “Some might consider your ageist jokes elder abuse, you know.”
“Now you’re elderly,” I tease as I squat down to pet her Himalayan cat, Pyewacket, so named after the feline sidekick in one of her favorite old movies, Bell, Book and Candle.
“Well, I’m sorry he didn’t work out, honey. Did you like him a whole lot?” She pours the steaming water into a teacup, the lines around her eyes crinkled in concern.
I think about that as I wander out of the kitchen and over to my favorite spot in the house, the vintage tufted couch in her sitting room that she had re-covered in a sunny yellow velvet after my grandfather passed away twelve years ago. She said the color cheered her.
I sink deep into the cushions, feeling myself instantly relax. “Honestly? I’m not sure. I think I liked the idea of him more than I actually liked him, if that makes any sense. It was nice to have someone to think about and go out to dinner with, but he didn’t exactly give me butterflies.” Pyewacket jumps up onto the couch and I scratch behind her ears as she curls herself into a fluffy ball on my lap.
“Never underestimate the importance of butterflies,” Gran warns as she follows me out of the kitchen. “It’ll eventually wear off, of course, but when the going gets tough, sometimes just the memories of the butterflies are enough to pull you through.”
“Tell me a good Pop-Pop story,” I beg, reaching out to take her teacup so she can get settled next to me on the couch.
“Oh, you’ve already heard all my stories,” she says, waving me off, but I catch the tiny smile she’s hiding. She loves any excuse to talk about my grandpa—which is why I asked her, of course.
“Come on, just one that’ll restore my faith in men and prove that true love still exists.”
“Just one of those, huh?” she says with a laugh, then hums as she thinks for a minute. “Let’s see. There was this one time when we were newlyweds, and we’d just been transferred to a base in Texas. So we were in this brand-new place, didn’t know a soul, and I caught some bug. Maybe it was food poisoning, I can’t remember. Anyway, I got sick, and I mean really sick. You know, vomiting and . . . the other thing,” she says, raising her eyebrows and giving me a wide-eyed look, and I have to stifle a laugh. She’s so proper, she can’t even bring herself to say the word diarrhea. “And in those days, we were very private about such things. None of this ‘open door’ stuff you kids are into. I’m not even sure he’d seen me without my face on before we got married!
“So I was really in a state, just terribly embarrassed,” she continues. “I locked the door and tried to keep him from seeing me like that, but he wouldn’t have it. He demanded I open the door, and then he sat with me, and rubbed my back, and brought me ginger ale. He doted on me,” she says simply, the faraway look in her eyes tinged with sadness. “And I remember thinking, Boy, did I choose the right one.”
“Pop-Pop was a gem.”
“True enough.” She smiles at the memory. “So there’s my advice for the day: Pick a man who’ll hold your hair back.”
“Duly noted.”
She picks up her teacup again. “Now, enough of my blathering. What else is new with you? How’s work?”
“It’s good,” I tell her, the question earning a genuine smile. “Busy as always.”
For the last four years, I’ve worked as an editor at Siren, a female-run, female-focused news and entertainment website that covers everything from current events to fashion to relationship trends to pop culture. My boss, Cynthia Barnes-Cooke, founded the site out of her apartment nearly ten years ago, though today Siren employs more than twenty full-time editors and two hundred contract writers. We produce at a punishing pace, publishing more than two hundred pieces of content a day, and I love everything about it: the responsibility of managing a team of writers, the diversity of content I get to work on, helping shape the growth strategy. In our last funding round, the site was valued at more than $200 million.
“Any update on the book? How’s it coming?” Gran asks casually, focusing studiously on dipping her tea bag instead of on me. Even so, I feel myself deflate.
Gran is one of the few people to whom I’ve confessed my ultimate career ambition: to write the next great American novel—or at least, something buzzy enough to get picked for Reese’s Book Club or O magazine’s list of “Summer’s Hottest Beach Reads.” Natalia thinks I’m psyching myself out by starting with such lofty expectations, but I hardly think I’m setting the bar too high （and as Gran’s so impartially pointed out, Reese or Jenna or Oprah would be lucky to have me）。 The only problem? I have no clue what to write about. I know what it takes to stand out in the publishing world, and none of my ideas feels fresh or high-concept enough. What’s the point of writing a book if it’s just going to fade into the background like some sort of literary wallflower?
I’m a wannabe author with writer’s block. I hate myself for the cliché.
“No update. Still searching for a topic that’ll set the publishing world on fire.”
Gran hums noncommittally, sipping her tea.
“I’m going to be in another wedding,” I blurt before she can work her way up to a follow-up question I won’t have an answer for.
“What number is this one?”
I wince. “Lucky number seven.”