“Have they stuck a tracking device in you yet?” Her words were muffled as she turned side to side, as if trying to see farther down the hall.
“What is a yaya exactly?” Dahlia rattled the rail of her bed to get my attention.
“It’s Greek for grandmother,” I said absently, not even looking at my roommate.
Yaya stared at me. “I came to see if you were really sick. Your parents keep telling me you’re on vacation. But that asshat you married, you know I saw him out in the parking lot kissing a blonde with huge fake boobies? I think if I poked one, it would pop like a balloon.”
I pulled my blanket up over my mouth and nose. “Yaya, I don’t want you to get sick. You’ll die, and I couldn’t bear knowing that I was the cause of it.”
She waved a hand at me. “I’m old. And everyone dies, Alena. You know that. I came to make sure you weren’t doing anything you shouldn’t. Getting into trouble runs in our blood, you know.”
If I’d had hair on my eyebrows, I’d have raised them. “I’m lying in bed, slowly dying. What kind of thing could I be doing?”
She spread her hands wide. “The magical kind of things. Things your mother always told you not to even think about. I want you to be very sure of your decision when the time comes.”
Oh dear. Maybe she’d been listening in on our conversation? Time to play it innocent.
“Yaya . . . what exactly are you talking about?”
She smiled, the skin around her deep-green eyes crinkling up. “Your mother got into the wine last night. Several bottles, to be fair.”
I was going to get whiplash from the way she moved from topic to topic. “Wait, Mom doesn’t drink. Are you sure she was drinking? Maybe it was that sparkling apple juice she likes. She keeps several bottles in the pantry for when Pastor Wrightway visits. Between the sugar and the bubbles, she gets a bit silly; we’ve all seen her crack a knock-knock joke after a glass of Martinelli’s.”
Yaya clapped her hands together, just once, then pointed a finger at me. “That’s what you think. You should have seen her. She stood up on the table and wailed at the top of her lungs some song I didn’t know. Something about having faith, you gotta have faith. She didn’t know all the words, but she kept singing that damn chorus over and over. It’s stuck in my head like Krazy Glue now.”
The thought of my straitlaced, prudish, ultraconservative mother getting drunk and standing on the kitchen table was impossible to conceive. Especially singing a George Michael song. “No, she didn’t.”
“She did!” Yaya slapped her hands on her thighs as she laughed. “That blonde out there, Roger’s boinking her now?”
Dahlia choked on a laugh. “Oh, God. Boinking. That’s one I haven’t heard in a while.”
“Yaya. Please don’t make me laugh.” I couldn’t help myself; it was funny. Maybe there was something wrong with me that the thought of my husband boinking some girl named Barbie was enough to send me into hysterics. Or at least something more wrong with me than the Aegrus virus. The laughter’s edge curled tight to the edge of dry tears, and I struggled not to break down again.
The three of us settled, the laughter slowly dying out like a record fading into nothing. Yaya patted my leg. “Alena, there are things you don’t know about our family. I’ll tell you someday. Okay? But for now, will you trust me? Don’t do anything . . . super stupid. Got it?” Her eyes darted around and she hunched her back. “Be careful. Will you do that? Just be careful. Whatever you do, don’t believe everything you hear. We’ll talk soon. I can’t say more, I’m being watched.” She blew me a kiss and backed out of the door. As she turned, my last glimpse of her was a side profile, the shape of her jaw and the fluffy salt-and-pepper curls that fell to her chin.
She pointed as she left the room. “Roger, get your hand out of there. You don’t know where that girl’s been or who she’s been playing with! She could have rabies for all you know, you idiot.”
The door slowly shut on Yaya giving Roger hell. I could easily imagine him cringing as she put him in place, and I didn’t try to stop the smile. What was Roger doing back in the hospital?
The truth circled around me. Probably he was trying to find out how long I had left. Maybe Barbie had put him up to it.
“Oh my God,” Dahlia said. “That’s your grandma? She’s a riot. I wish I’d known her before.”
The two visits back to back had drained me, and I rolled onto my side. “Good night, Dahlia.”
“It’s only five.”
“I’m tired.”
Except I didn’t fall asleep. I lay there, my heart hurting. Roger had been my first love, my first in so many ways. He’d been the hand I’d needed to cling to in order to leave everything I’d ever believed was true. I’d already seen that I didn’t want to be a Firstamentalist, but I didn’t know how to cut my ties on my own.
“I can hear you sniffling.” Dahlia’s voice was groggy with sleep. I closed my eyes tight, squeezing them to block out the light from the doorway. The recipe for macaroons should help. I could envision them fluffing up as they baked.
“Two-thirds cup ground almonds; one and a half cups powdered sugar; three large egg whites, room temperature; five tablespoons granulated sugar; one teaspoon vanilla extract. Preheat the oven to two hundred eighty degrees. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Draw one-inch circles on the back of each sheet, spacing the circles at least a half inch apart. Grind the almond meal with the powdered sugar in a food processor until fine. Sift the almond-sugar mixture twice through a mesh sieve . . .”