Hello There, Do You Still Know Me?. Laurie B. Arnold

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СКАЧАТЬ I’d be reunited with my cranky grandmother.

      “There you are!” Rosalie Claire scurried into the kitchen. “Since you three have been on the beach all afternoon, you must be starving. What do you say we spoil your appetites with a backwards dinner? Dessert first?”

      “Yes, please,” I said, because I knew what was in store.

      We pulled up stools at a narrow wooden table in the corner of the big industrial kitchen, its chrome counters polished to a shine. Rosalie Claire served us three fat slices of her famous blueberry pie. Then she unzipped her fanny pack and pulled out a jumbo Milk Bone for Leroy. He sniffed it and hung his head.

      “Tired of Milk Bones? Who can blame you, boy? They are a little on the dry side.”

      Leroy thumped his tail in agreement.

      She dropped the Milk Bone into the trash and poked around in her pack. Out came a gigantic juicy bone.

      “Try this,” she said, and Leroy snatched it.

      “Holy guacamole!” Violet’s eyes went wide. “That thing is huge!”

      “How’d you do that? How did it even fit?” Noah stared at the fanny pack.

      Rosalie Claire smiled. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

      “But how does it work scientifically?” Noah asked.

      Rosalie Claire shrugged. “Honestly? I’d tell you if I knew, but I don’t. There actually might be a good scientific explanation, although I’ve always chocked it up to one of life’s great mysteries.”

      “Speaking of magic, this blueberry pie is almost as magical as your fanny pack.” Rosalie Claire may have spoiled Leroy with meaty bones, but she spoiled me with her pie. It tasted exactly like my mom’s. Kind of like summer sunshine sprinkled with sugar. That’s because when my mom was a kid, they’d both learned from the pie master herself, Rosalie Claire’s Grandma Daisy.

      Grandma Daisy had lived next door to my mom when she was growing up in Truth or Consequences. She would go over there as much as she could. My grandmother hated that. Partly, I think, it was because Grandma Daisy was African-American, just like Rosalie Claire, and Florida was as white as vanilla pudding. I think my grandmother was prejudiced, although she’d never admit it. And the other part? My mom liked hanging out with Grandma Daisy a whole lot more than she did with her own mother.

      By the time we finished our pie, the sky had turned into an orange sherbet sunset.

      “How is it possible that my stomach’s growling like a garbage disposal? We still get dinner, right?” Violet asked.

      “Of course. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a backwards dinner,” Rosalie Claire said.

      After we’d eaten plates of rice, black beans, and fresh snapper caught that day in the sea, we headed to the yellow bungalow. Violet and I shared the double bed in the guest room and Noah flopped down on a futon on the floor.

      “Could you stay here the whole year instead of going back to New Mexico?” Noah asked as he pulled up his covers. “You’d be able to surf every day after school.”

      The thought made my heart feel as warm as the noonday sun.

      “Admit it, Madison. It would be awesome. Then I could visit you during every single school vacation.” Violet yawned, tired from all the time she’d spent in the ocean.

      I agreed it would be super awesome. From the second I arrived at La Posada Encantada, I’d felt as light as air. I couldn’t remember feeling that way since before my mom died.

      Leroy sailed onto the bed, sandwiched between Violet and me, and promptly fell asleep. The three of us yawned in unison, listening to the crashing waves on the shore, the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the ceiling fan, and the rat-a-tat-tat of Leroy’s snores keeping the beat like a snare drum. Finally, we nodded off, first Violet, then Noah, then me.

      I don’t know how long I’d been asleep, or even if I’d dreamed, when a wild racket jolted me awake.

      Someone was yelling my name.

      I crept out of bed and peered through the window into the moonlit night.

      Outside in the stone courtyard stood my grandmother, Florida Brown. She lugged a suitcase large enough to fit half the contents of a department store.

      Before I could answer, she collapsed onto the ground in a dead faint.

       CHAPTER THREE

       Florida Comes to Stay

      By the time Rosalie Claire and I got my grandmother into the bed in Room Four, she’d come to and didn’t remember fainting.

      “My goodness, let’s not make a fuss. It’s only a tiny touch of exhaustion, probably because getting here was an utter nightmare. I made a teensy mistake and accidentally told the taxi driver to take me to the wrong town three hours in the opposite direction.” Florida yawned and her eyelids grew heavy. “Oh my, this bed feels divine.”

      “Are you sure you’re all right?” Rosalie Claire’s eyebrows knit together with worry.

      “Did you faint because of your headaches?” I asked.

      “I’m perfectly fine.” Florida’s voice sounded thin and tired. “I just wanted to see you, Madison.” She clutched my hand and drifted to sleep.

      I went back to my room and slipped quietly into bed so I wouldn’t wake Violet. It was a surprise and a comfort to know my grandmother had missed me. I tried falling back asleep, but Leroy’s snores, the crashing of the waves, and my worries about Florida kept me up until the sky turned light on the horizon.

      I didn’t wake up until ten o’clock, after dreaming about Florida fainting in every imaginable place. She’d fallen off building rooftops, from craggy cliffs, and even into a giant bathtub full of green Jell-O.

      Violet, Noah, Rosalie Claire, and I went to Thomas’s Café for a late breakfast of icy watermelon juice and gallo pinto, a combination of rice, black beans, onions, peppers, and salsa with tortillas. We were eating on the patio beneath the shade of the feathery palm trees when Florida sashayed in, movie star-style. She was back to her old glamorous self. Every dyed red hair had been teased and sprayed into place. Her ruby lipstick was drawn on in a perfect pout. The second she spotted us she lit up. I almost kicked myself for losing sleep worrying about her half the night. She looked as if she felt better than ever.

      “Well isn’t this the most adorable place! I already feel like a new person. Must be the salty sea breeze. It will be just the thing to keep my complexion moisturized.”

      She slipped into the wicker chair beside me.

      “Oh, that coffee smells heavenly! Honey, could you pour Florida a nice full cup?”

      For the record, I wasn’t allowed to call my grandmother anything other than Florida because the word “grandma” made her feel old.

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