her only response is her forehead wrinkling in confusion.
Bernadette steps out onto the porch, still in her lavender housecoat with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. “Are y’all talking about that throne game show?” She sits in the rocker next to Grammy. “You know, Peter tried getting me into that show when we were seeing each other and I couldn’t get past the incest.”
Grammy huffs. “There she goes again. You dated a thirty-eight-year-old man once. Once! And now you’ll never stop talking about it! Peter this. Peter that. Someone mentions any little thing and somehow it’s related to Peter.”
I groan. “No, you’ve got to stick with it. You haven’t even gotten to the mother of dragons. You haven’t even seen Cersei in all of her awful glory!”
Bernadette rolls her eyes. “Peter and I were a brief flickering flame, but we left each other scorched. Forever changed, really.”
“I really didn’t need to know that,” I tell her, but it feels good to come here and find these three women being their regular selves. My life might be upside down, but things are still normal somewhere.
“Well,” says Cleo as she dives back into the bushes. “I found the show quite riveting, so I’ll be watching and I don’t want any spoilings.”
“Spoilers,” I tell her.
We spend the rest of the morning outside, talking shit about their neighbors and hearing about their next great big adventure, a trip to Palm Springs this summer. I try not to think too much about how nearly all my favorite people are three to four times my age.
“I’m so close to figuring it out,” I say. On the floor, surrounding me in a semicircle, are the pieces of Grammy’s old doorbell and her new doorbell. “I don’t get how it didn’t work.”
“Does it have something to do with the password I set up on my iPad?” asks Grammy. “Or maybe if I restart my phone?”
I shake my head, not bothering to explain that the problem is the video doorbell and not her many devices it should link to.
The front door creaks open and Clem tiptoes through the doorway.
“Grammy called me,” she immediately says in defense.
I look over to Grammy as she walks past me with a basket of laundry. “Traitor.”
“I need a doorbell,” she calls over her shoulder. “And you two need to come to a truce.”
I turn to Clem as she sits down beside me. “I’ve installed and uninstalled it twice. Your problem now.”
“Here. Let me see.” She slides her glasses up her nose and takes a look at the instructions.
“Give me those,” I say, motioning to her glasses.
She does and I clean them off with the hem of my shirt. “I don’t know how you can see out of these things. They’re so gross.”
“Does this mean you’re not mad at me?” she asks.
“Oh, I’m still plenty mad. Your glasses were just making it worse.”
“I know you probably don’t want to talk about it,” she says quietly, “but not everyone at school had the same reaction as Patrick Thomas. In fact, a lot of people even thought it was pretty cool.”
“I can’t believe you shared that video to begin with. It was private!”
“I’m sorrrrrrry,” she says. “I was really proud of you, and it’s really nice to see you do something for yourself.”
For myself? So that I’ll have something to occupy my time with once she’s gone and maybe she won’t feel as guilty? “And how did Kyle even get it?” My words are venomous.
“Well.” She clears her throat. “That is sort of my fault. He kept asking me to send it so he could show Alex, and so I did. I really didn’t think he would share it so wide—”
“What were you thinking? How stupid can you be, Clem?”
Her cheeks flare red, an angry trait we share. “I was proud of you!” she says, her voice boiling over as she stands with the pieces for the new doorbell and the instructions.
I follow her to the doorway with my arms crossed.
“It’s not like you’re the shy type,” she says, a screw between her teeth while she holds the doorbell plate in place. “And Kyle loved it! He was so excited for you.”
“Kyle isn’t the person you think he is.”
“He only meant to post it to the Prism group, and he didn’t do it maliciously. You’ve got to stop acting like he’s always out to get you. Kyle is a good guy and I think y’all could be really good friends again if you could get over