"Precariously balanced? We have a perfectly balanced home."
"Exactly."
"No." I huffed. "That's not what I meant. I meant that we are lovely people and can add another lovely person to our mix."
Grandpa stopped the cart near a bin of apples and turned toward me. "Now that you're thirteen, we need to have a serious conversation."
I knew he was throwing an age joke at me to counterbalance the ones I always threw at him, so I chose not to react. "You want to have a serious conversation in the middle of the produce section?"
"What better place?"
"I don't know, maybe a more private aisle. Like the cleaning products. That aisle is always empty. Nobody buys their cleaning products at a grocery store."
Grandpa didn't give a sarcastic rebuttal, only folded and unfolded the grocery list he had brought. That's when I realized this wasn't a joke. He really wanted to have a serious conversation with me in the middle of the produce section. I looked around. There were only a few people picking through a vegetable bin. I lowered my voice. "What is it?"
"Your mother was supposed to go to the store today. It was her turn."
Oh. I'd thought he was going to talk about meeting someone, but this was about my mom. "I know."
"She hasn't left the house for more than a walk to the park in weeks."
"I know. I think she needs to find a friend or two. It always used to help." I hadn't thought of it before recently, because she seemed fine. But now that she was headed in the wrong direction, I knew she needed something.
He pressed his lips together, then said, "She needs to see a professional."
"What?"
"If she won't leave the house, we'll bring one to her. I've been trying to get your father on board with this idea for a couple of years now, but he isn't having it. You know your dad, alpha male."
"My dad isn't like that," I said, feeling a little defensive.
Grandpa shook his head. "Your dad is a great guy. I've always liked him. But he doesn't want to admit she needs help."
"Is it really that big of a deal that she doesn't leave the house? In the house she is lovely and happy." Everyone had their weird idiosyncrasies. Just because hers was different from everyone else's didn't mean we were hanging by a thread.
"I think it's something she needs to work on."
"But if Dad doesn't . . ."
"You don't think she needs to work on it?"
The image of my mom's face in my theater painting flashed through my mind as an uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. Maybe deep down I did know that, even wanted it. I shook away the image. "Sometimes I do, but most of the time I'm just happy she's my mom."
"Maybe if you talked to your dad about how little she goes out."
"I don't like to worry him. He already feels so guilty when he's gone. He gets home so soon. Can't we just wait and see how she does when he's home?" She really was so much better when he was home. It was like he pushed some sort of reset button on her.
"Like I said, precariously balanced," Grandpa said under his breath and set the cart in motion again, heading toward the dairy row.
"Don't be mad at me, Grandpa."
He flashed me a smile. "I could never be mad at you, hon. I'll work on your dad. You just be their daughter."
"You just need to relax, Gramps. Everything will be fine." It had to be. She was fine. We were all fine.
"Did you ever make callbacks for that play you tried out for the other day?" Grandpa asked.
I shook my head. "No. We were horrible at acting. Pretty much everyone there, even the little children, was better than Cooper and me."
"That's probably not true, but it's good you know your weaknesses."
"Yes, I have many."
"What about him?" Grandpa asked.
We had turned down the soup and canned-vegetable aisle, and my grandpa was pointing to a guy studying soup cans at the end. At first I thought he was asking if he was one of my weaknesses, so I was confused.
"Maybe you should learn his story," he said.
"I thought my list wasn't a matchmaking opportunity but a growth opportunity."
"I thought one of the items on your list was to fall in love."
I choked on my own spit when I sucked in a quick breath. "Shh," I hissed between coughs. He had said that so loud. The guy looked over, probably because of my coughing fit, not because of my grandpa's loud declaration, but it was impossible to know. We took a few steps closer and I realized I knew him. Relief poured through me.
"Hey, Abby," Elliot said. "I don't see you for a month and then we see each other twice in two weeks."
"I know, what are the odds?"
Elliot looked at my grandpa and I said, "Oh, Grandpa, this is Elliot Garcia, Elliot, Grandpa."
"My name is Dave," Grandpa said, extending a hand.
"Right. I always forget you have a name," I said.
"My granddaughter is sarcastic."
I smiled. "Don't get all self-righteous. I learned it from you."
Elliot laughed. "Nice to meet you."
"Isn't it too hot for soup?" I asked, nodding to the cans in front of him.
"My mom's out of town and my dad cooks like . . ." He paused for a moment before he finished with, "Someone who doesn't know how to cook. I was going for a really cool comparison there but couldn't think of anything."
"A monkey in an apron?" I said.
"An angry porcupine?" Grandpa suggested.
"A porcupine?" I asked. "The comparison has to have opposable thumbs so that it might actually have the ability to cook. Like a monkey."
"An angry porcupine. I thought it could use its quills like skewers."
"Oh. Right. I see what you were going for now."
Elliot smiled. "I know who to come searching for when I need similes now."
Speaking of weird idiosyncrasies, my grandpa and I had just proven my mom wasn't the only one who had them. "Well, we'll see you around then," I said, taking hold of the cart and steering it around Elliot, feeling the need to escape any more embarrassment.
"Abby," he called after me.
"Yeah?"
"Are you going to Lacey's Fourth of July party?"
"Yes, actually."
"Cool. I'll see you there."
Maybe Cooper was right. Lacey was just inviting whatever random people she ran into.
"Well, there you go," Grandpa said after we were out of hearing range (thank goodness). "You can all but check the fall in love item off your list."
"Funny," I said. "And no."
"We don't like him? He seemed great. And he found you amusing too, which is a good sign."
"You just like him because he found you amusing."
"That didn't hurt." Grandpa took control of the cart from me and pushed it toward the registers. "We better get going."
I hooked my arm in his elbow, my mind wandering back to our produce-section talk. "You're not too worried about Mom, are you?"
"She'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
"As sure as the sunrise."
I furrowed my brow. "Is that an old-person saying?"
He grunted. "That is the saying of a person who has lived a lot longer than you."
"Exactly." A thought came to me. "You are a genius!"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you."
"No, you just gave me the best idea for my list. I can do it first thing tomorrow." And I'd force Cooper to join me.
THIRTEEN
It was an unearthly hour and my body screamed at me along with my alarm the next morning. Who set their alarm in the summer anyway? I thought about hitting snooze and forgetting my plans. But I knew I couldn't. I was already behind in completing my experiences if I wanted to finish my list before Mr. Wallace picked the final artists. And since I hadn't found a stranger to accost the day before, I needed to do something else from the list to stay on track.
It was four in the morning, still dark outside. Cooper would probably kill me if he knew what I had planned. Or not come. That's why I wasn't going to text him. It would be easier for him to refuse a text. I would just show up at his house. I left a note for my mom on the counter and quietly lifted the keys off the hook by the front door.
Nobody in Cooper's house was awake either. The porch light was still on and all the windows still dark. I decided it was best to let myself in through his window like I sometimes did. I hoped he hadn't taken to locking it. He had a window facing the front of the one-story house. A fact his parents really should've been more concerned about, knowing Cooper. However, they apparently still hadn't even noticed there was no screen. That had been taken off two years ago, when he set up a middle-of-the-night game of parking-lot bowling with Justin and a couple of other guys from school. I shone my phone light on the window and slid it open. Unlocked. I took a breath of relief before I became irritated. Any criminal could just waltz up here and have instant access to his house.