8
So now the three of them stood on the front porch of their modest but quaint house, with Jeff holding the key poised in front of the lock, and Davey and Brian looking up at him with panicked faces.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase can we go back to the mall?”
“I’m thinking about it…” Jeff said.
But just as he started to withdraw the key and quietly slip away, the door opened on its own.
“Too late,” Davey moaned.
There stood Jeff’s parents. Grandmother and Grandfather Tanner.
Grandmother Tanner’s silver hair sat piled atop her head in a tasteful French twist. Over her shimmering pearl grey dress, she was tastefully loaded with gold and the occasional diamond. Earrings, a bracelet for each hand, four rings, a beautiful necklace ending in a tiny opal pendant. Her makeup was slight but expert, and her skin was perfectly luminous. She would have been a very attractive woman ‘of a certain age’ were it not for the perpetual look of hauteur she wore on her face.
Grandfather Tanner was a bit more just plain folks, though that wasn’t saying much. Under his v-neck sweater, a silk tie was knotted impeccably at the collar of his Italian-made shirt. His dark grey hair was immaculately trimmed. Rimless designer glasses sat perched on the bridge of his nose. The sweet smell of fine tobacco drifted from the hand-carved mahogany pipe he held lightly in his hand.
Jeff grimaced, and tried to fake enthusiasm. “Mother! Father! How are you?”
“I would have been better had my grandchildren been here to meet me on Christmas Eve,” Grandmother Tanner sniffed. “David! Brian!”
“Granma!” Davey said.
Grandmother Tanner smiled. “That’s Grand-mother, David.”
“Grandmom!”
Grandmother Tanner’s teeth set on edge. “Grand-mother.”
“Grandmamma!”
Grandmother Tanner reached down and pinched Davey’s cheeks in a way that was somehow both grandmotherly and sadistic all at once.
Davey caved immediately.
“OKAY, OKAY! GRANDMOTHER!”
Grandmother Tanner immediately let go, and patted his head without a trace of a smile.
A normal person might have objected, but Jeff had grown up with a thousand brutal cheek-pinchings of his own, so it seemed completely by-the-book to him. He barely noticed Davey rubbing his face and stepping far away from Grandmother Tanner.
Jeff sniffed the air. “Boy, something sure smells good.”
“Helen was cooking when we got here,” Grandmother Tanner said.
Helen was Granny Jobson’s first name. Only Grandmother Tanner called her Helen. In return, Granny was the only person who called Grandmother Tanner by her first name, Geraldine. Helen, how are you? Oh, fine Geraldine. That’s nice, Helen. Isn’t it, Geraldine. It was a civil way – barely – they had of sniping at each other.
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Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.
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