“It is simply impossible not to love you. I can’t imagine a man being an ass . . . a jerk to you. Every man who has ever met you has fallen permanently in love with you. I know because I’ve seen them come around for years, courting you.” Zyah tucked a stray strand of her grandmother’s hair behind her ear. The hair, although streaked with gray, was still dark and thick, adding to her youthful appearance.
Anat laughed again and made a trilling sound through her pursed lips. She could make that vibration so many different ways. Throughout her childhood, Anat comforted Zyah or chided her or assured her using several different melodic pitches. Her grandmother portrayed dozens of emotions by using different melodic tones when warbling at her. She still did it in everyday conversation, and each time the habit warmed Zyah as nothing else could.
“You silly child.”
“You know it’s the truth. Who sent the roses in that blue vase right there on the bedside table?” Zyah asked wickedly.
Anat pressed her lips together, or tried to, in order to look stern. She’d never perfected the look, as hard as she’d tried. “Dwayne River is far too young for me. That would make me a cat woman or whatever you young people call an old woman who goes after a younger man.”
“He’s six years younger than you. That hardly qualifies you as a cougar, Mama Anat,” Zyah pointed out, turning away so her grandmother wouldn’t see her laughing.
Anat knew the term cougar. She’d called herself that more than once when they watched a movie and she saw her favorite movie star. For her movie star, she would forget her vow of living her life free of men and become a cougar. She’d made that statement each time she watched one of his films.
“I think both interviews went well today,” Zyah ventured, changing the subject. She sank into the armchair closest to her grandmother’s bed. “Your friend, Inez Nelson, was really nice. I think she’s going to put in a good word for me. There were three people sitting in on the interview for the grocery store manager position: Inez, a man they called Czar, and another one they called Absinthe. I think Absinthe could have been a lawyer.”
“I thought the position was a grocery store clerk.” Anat eased her body carefully to another position. “Why would they need a lawyer, and what kind of name is Czar? Or Absinthe, for that matter.”
Immediately, Zyah caught up the pillows that had been scattered around the bed and pushed them behind her grandmother’s back. “Czar and Absinthe belong to a club called Torpedo Ink. They own the grocery store with Inez. She wants to get back to her store in Sea Haven, and they need a manager to run the one in Caspar. I’m hoping they hire me so I can stay close to you. The pay is all right, nothing to get super excited about, but it really is the best for around here. I’m kind of looking forward to working there, so I really hope I get the job.”
Anat made another little trilling sound, but this time it signaled she thought her granddaughter wasn’t telling her the truth, and she wasn’t going to put up with it despite the fact that Zyah was all grown up. “You loved your job, Zyah. You traveled all over, which you love to do. You made good money, and you were very respected. Managing a grocery store in a little town is a far cry from what you went to school for,” she chided.
“I came home because I wanted to come home, Mama Anat,” Zyah said quietly and slipped back into the chair, crossing her arms and leveling her gaze at her grandmother.
“I love you, child, more than anything on this earth. You checked on me, and I appreciate that, but now you can go. I’m fine. I’ve got my friends here, and they’ll look after me. You may as well get that stubborn look off your face, Zyah.”
“I am telling the truth, whether you want to believe me or not. I’ve wanted an excuse to come and live with you for a long time, but how do I give up a job like that one and tell you I was lonely for you and wanted to stay here? Someone breaking in and . . .” Just trying to say it made her choke up.
She could barely look at her grandmother’s fading bruises. Some monsters had broken into Anat’s home—her sanctuary—and beaten her so that she fell and broke her leg and arm and cracked some ribs. They stole her husband’s jewelry and beat her more, trying to make her reveal where her hidden safe was. She told them she had no safe, but they didn’t believe her. Fortunately, hearing screams, neighbors called the sheriff, and the robbers had been run off before they killed her. They had threatened her with a knife and told her they were going to “string her up” if she didn’t tell them.