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Saturday was my day off, so after checking things off my list that morning—jog, clean out my car, follow-up call to a veterinary clinic in Thousand Oaks—I headed over to the nursing home to spend time with my grandpa. I almost felt like I was interrupting his day since he was in the middle of a pretty intense poker game with a few of his buddies, but he insisted I sit down with him anyway.
“You’re my lucky charm, Noves,” he said, still deep in concentration. He slid two cards across the table, and the dealer—one of his caregivers—slid two back from the deck.
“That’s kind of odd, Gramps, because I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen you win.”
“Oh, bullshit!” he scoffed, shaking his head. “It’s April Fool’s Day. Maybe something exciting will happen.”
I smiled while watching the hand play out. Grandpa did end up losing, but he didn’t complain when we walked outside to the courtyard.
I guess I couldn’t say he lived in a nursing home. It was assisted living, and if you called it a nursing home, he’d get extremely bent out of shape. “I can take a shit in the toilet just as well as you can,” he’d grumble. “Well, sometimes,” he would add with a funny smile.
That was my Grandpa Kent—somewhat of a cantankerous outer shell but just a sweet old man on the inside. The crankiness was just his form of being playful.
“So, what’s happening at the café?” he asked as we sat down in a couple of chairs. His favorite spot was by the water fountain, so after he did his customary finger poke in the cool water, he settled his attention on me.
“Oh, not much. Josiah burned his hand again the other day. I had to cook for a few minutes until he had it taken care of. I hate cooking.”
“Your pretty face needs to be seen out front,” he said with a nod. “So, speaking of men and dating...”
I rolled my eyes. It was my grandpa’s wish to see me find “a nice young man who treats me like a queen.”
“You’ve got yourself a young whippersnapper courting you, huh?”
I panicked. “How’d you hear about that?”
“Levi? That’s what I hear. Meryl told me.”
My cheeks felt hot. Levi was not who initially came to mind. It had been Austin. How stupid was that? “Um, yeah. Well, we’re not really ‘dating.’ Just go out casually.”
“You gave him forewarning, did ya? You need to stop putting up that wall, Nova. Sure, you’re a busy girl, but quit using it to detach yourself from having a serious relationship with someone.”
My grandpa was not just another grandparent who seemed to be lost in his own dating era—Gramps was up-to-date with the world—but the main reason he was so easy to talk to was because he knew so much about me. He’d always taken the time to figure me out.
“He kissed me yesterday,” I told him with a shrug.
“Yeah? Well, that’s some progress. Did ya like it?” he asked in somewhat of a gruff but teasing tone.
I chuckled and answered, “Yeah, Gramps, I did.”
He slightly nodded. “I almost knocked your grandma’s teeth out the first time I kissed her.”
I seriously laughed so hard. “You were that clumsy?”
“No, I was just that goddamn nervous.”
“What did Grandma do?”
“Well, at first she just looked at me with that ‘what the hell is wrong with you’ look she had. You know, right?”
I nodded.
“But then she couldn’t resist my apology for being such a stupid asshole.”
“And?”
“And then she was all over me,” he grinned.
I had to laugh again as I looped my arm through his. “I don’t think Grandma could have resisted you if she tried.”
“Well, she tried.” He seemed deep in thought, so I let him reminisce in silence. “Boy, it really lit her on fire when she couldn’t lock me out of the house. I crawled through the tiny bathroom window—it didn’t latch properly.”
“My mom told me that story. Grandma was mad because you could fit through the window and she couldn’t.”
“That might have upset her more than what we were fighting about,” he joked.
“And what was that? I’m not sure I know that part of it.”
“Well, I had promised her I’d be home by five that night. I think Clover and Meryl were only four and six at the time, and we were going to take them to see Santa at the department store. I was a selfish prick, sure I could sweet talk your grandma into forgiving me for going to the tracks after work. I decided to just do it and apologize for it later.
“Well, I not only lost my money on the race, but your grandma had locked me out of the house.” He shook his head and sighed. “It wasn’t that I was late that night; it was the fact I had promised her I’d be home. Took her for granted. And I let the girls down. It was a stupid mistake, and I’ll never forget how I felt when I saw her comforting them that night, trying to make it all better.” He looked at me and squeezed my hand. “We’re a dumb species, us men. But we’re not much without our women. Your grandma put up with a lot of my stupidity, but hopefully she knew how much I loved her. And because of her patience and tolerance, she made me a better man over the years. I owe a lot to that woman.”
“Aw, Grandma’s in heaven right now, nodding her agreement saying, ‘You got that right, mister.’”
“I’m sure she is. Now, back to you, my fiery little Supernova. Tell me about Levi.”
So we talked about Levi for a few minutes, and then, because I’d told my grandpa the story of those four guys in the diner and my interactions with them, I decided to share the most recent news about the saga.
He was truly intrigued.
“So now you can’t wait until he comes in again,” he smiled.
I rolled my eyes but said, “I doubt it. Maybe now that he knows I’ve recognized him there, his anonymity has been compromised.”
“He wants to talk to you, Noves. Don’t be a moron.”
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
“Well, it’s pretty obvious if you ask me.”
“So what if he does come in again? What if I do go talk to him, maybe he does ask me out...?”
“What’s your question?”
“Levi?”
He thought for a second, and then asked, “What do you think about Levi?”
“I like him.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know,” I smiled impatiently. “Enough to want to kiss him again.”
“Fair answer. So, do you consider Levi to be your boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not taken. What’s the problem? Diner Boy asks you out on a date, you say yes.”
“Do I tell Levi? I mean is that something he should know? We’ve kissed, Grandpa, that’s it. What if he feels like we’re a couple now? And will I make it seem that way if I talk to him about it?”
“Then I guess you have to make sure he doesn’t think that. Unless you want to be.”
“I don’t really know.”
“Then you need to go out with Diner Boy and find out for sure.”
“His name is Austin.”
“And where does Austin live? What does he do for a living? What’s his family like?”
“Why don’t you come in and interrogate him for me.”
“Would love to!”
A few seconds of silence passed while we watched a flock of birds overhead.
“You say he comes in on Fridays?”
I nodded.
“Maybe I’ll have to switch my lunch from Wednesdays to Fridays now.”
“I’ll tell him you want a lunch date and seat you together.”
“Okay, but you and Phoebe will have to take turns because I can’t miss having her flirt with me.”
“Ooh, she says you flirt with her, Gramps. Who’s making up stories?”
“Well, maybe it’s mutual. But I think she started it.”
“You know she just wants a bigger gratuity, right?” I teased.
“Oh, I know. She’s half my age.”
“You could be her Sugar Daddy.”
He grunted. “With what money? If I were rich I’d send you off to your vet school and give Meryl the money to hire more employees. Instead, my stubborn daughter pays for her bankrupt father to have a nice place to live. If I could go back and change things, I would.”
“I know. But we’re doing just fine.”
“I wish I could make things easier for you. I screwed that up a long time ago.”
“Grandpa, I’m very happy right now. I have family around me, I have my café family, I’m getting some school in... It’s all working out. The schooling is going slowly but maybe there’s a reason for it. You always say everything happens for a reason, right? My dad left when I was young and my mom died when I was nineteen. Totally altered my life and how it could have been, but apparently that’s how it was meant to be. I’m playing the cards I was dealt.”
“And where is deadbeat dad these days?”
I sighed, wishing I hadn’t brought him up. “I don’t know. The last I heard from him, he was still in Boston.”
“And he still hasn’t sent you a dime, has he,” he stated angrily.
“No, but I don’t want his money anyway. I don’t want anything from him.”
“I don’t want him in your life, he’d better stay far away, but he at least owes you something. Maybe a little piece of your education?” He shook his head. “Boy, I wanted to punch the shit outta him that day. Many days before that, but that was the last time I saw him.”
I knew he was referring to my graduation day, when my father actually showed up after not seeing me for four years. He wasn’t allowed to be within fifty feet of my mom or me, but my grandpa had a very long, very intense chat with him about helping my mom pay for college. My dad claimed to still be unemployed, and that really made my grandpa mad because he knew he was making money somehow—particularly to pay for his drug habit.
“All is well, Gramps,” I concluded. “It’s better that he doesn’t have a part in my life. The last thing I need is for him to have some sort of hold over me.”
“I know. But at the time, it would have helped your mom out. She worked two jobs and that abusive coward didn’t have the decency to help her out. Not even a measly ten bucks.”
“Like I said, it’s probably for the best. I’m doing okay, and I really don’t believe my life is going to be hard all the time. I have a lot to be thankful for.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “You are one of a kind, Nova. One of a kind.”