A/N: Just wanted to let you know this story was beta'd be the amazingly-lovely-super-awesome-loving-dearest Ginger Glinda the Tangerine Thank you so much!
And a shoutout to i'llbeyourcoat, who flashed-beta'd this at the last minute because she's awesome like that!
Another shoutout to 1000thKiss for general awesomeness, too.
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Eight-year-old Maureen Johnson was fuming. It wasn't surprising, since anything not directly related to her needs or wants usually resulted in fuming.
"Mom," she complained, sniffing back fake tears.
"Maureen, it's a good thing to visit your family," her exasperated mother repeated for the umpteenth time.
"No, it isn't," Maureen huffed, crossing her arms and pinching her lips together.
"Maureen," her mother sighed. Deep breaths, Nancy, deep breaths.
"Mom!"
"Now, now, girls," Mr. Johnson warned. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles had taken on a whitish tinge.
"But you guys started it!" Maureen screeched, throwing her arms dramatically out to the side. Nancy let out an almost inaudible growl. Ed—always the mediator—quickly came up with the solution.
"Why don't we play the quiet game?"
"NO!" Maureen screeched, her hands fluttering to her throat. Nancy's reaction was similar, though she wasn't quite as loud.
Ed, oblivious, started the countdown. "1-2-3-4-SILENCE!" Surprisingly, there was silence—for about ten minutes. Then:
"B-but Daddy," Maureen sniffed. "I don't w-wanna go to see my family. All I do is sit and listen to boring grown-up-talk… what does affair mean, anyway?"
The grown-up Johnsons blanched, then both spoke simultaneously.
"It's what happens when-"
"It means-"
But Maureen wasn't done. "And I don't have any kids to play with!"
"Aunt Bonnie and her son Dom will be there," Mr. Johnson reminded her gently, while Mrs. Johnson wiped her brow in relief.
"But Aunt Bonnie scares me! Her lipstick spreads across her whole face!" Maureen was exaggerating, as always. It wasn't Bonnie's whole face, per se, just her lips (with deep wrinkles) and surrounding areas. "And Dom is old, Dad. He's at least 15, and all he talks about is girls… and sex. What is sex?"
"What is so bad about visiting your grandma, anyway?" Mrs. Johnson quickly distracted her faux-leather jacket and sparkly pink tights-wearing daughter.
"Well, I have to act all neat 'n clean when I'm there; I have to answer boring questions; the cookies taste bad, if we have any at all; and, um… I just don't like it!" Maureen ticked each reason off of her small, dirty, childlike fingers. Her parents sighed—again. For the rest of the ride, Maureen could scream and cry and kick the back of her parents' seats, but for all her efforts, they simply ignored her.
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"Oh, it's them! Hello Nancy, Ed, and my little Maureen!" Aunt Bonnie's loud voice seemed to echo around the neighborhood.
Maureen winced, covered her ears, and said, "I am not your little Maureen! I'm not little, either!" She ducked under Bonnie's disgusting lipstick-coated kiss before shrugging off her jacket and throwing it to the ground. Then she marched, diva-style, over to the big, uncomfortable, stiff couch, where she sat down with a harrumph.
"Well, she's the feisty one, isn't she?" Aunt Bonnie's nose wrinkled like she had smelled something unpleasant.
"Well… that's one way to put it…" Mrs. Johnson — whose relationship with her sister-in-law was rocky at best — trailed off, uncomfortable.
"Maureen, get back here and pick up your jacket!" Mr. Johnson nearly growled, so humiliated his face turned a peculiar red color.
"No! I won't do it." Maureen glared at her father, her jaw set just like his.
"Yes, you will." He moved forward, trying to intimidate his resilient daughter. It worked. Maureen promptly burst into tears, her mouth cartoonishly large, burying her face in the crook of her elbow.
"Maureen," Nancy Johnson sighed, already exasperated with her drama queen. Maureen hiccuppedin reply.
Soon enough, Maureen's grandmother Miriam immerged. She was an older lady, with silver and white curls and thick, purple polka-dot glasses. She slowly walked over to sit on the couch beside Maureen (who instantly scooted as far away as she could).
In the space of a few seconds, the Johnson siblings were arguing about something. Nancy obviously took Ed's side, while Dom backed up his mother. Maureen and Miriam were sitting on opposite ends of the couch. The former had stopped crying and was now sitting with her arms crossed over her chest again, while the latter looked mildly amused at her fighting children. The heated conversation took a turn for the worse when Bonnie mentioned Maureen, and quickly turned into a fight. Maureen, who desperately did not want to hear the end of it, ran toward the kitchen. Once there, she put her head down on the table and started crying—for real this time.
Miriam's face turned ice cold when her spunky granddaughter ran from the room.
"You see what you've done?" she accused in a voice so strong it seemed impossible that it could come from such a small body. "You've made Maureen cry." Then she spun on her heel, as gracefully as any self-respecting ballerina, and went to go comfort her crying granddaughter.
"I-I wanna go h-home," Maureen sniffled.
"I don't blame you," Miriam sighed, sliding into the chair next to her. "Relatives can be a big pain in the—butt."
Maureen giggled, "They just don't understand me at all."
"I'll tell you a secret," Miriam said, leaning closer to Maureen so she could whisper in her ear, "Nobody understands me, either."
Maureen's eyes grew wide at this realization, and she smiled tentatively at her grandmother. Impulsively, (and does Maureen ever do something not impulsively?) she reached out and hugged her grandmother tightly.
"There, there," Miriam patted Maureen vigorously on the back. "Now, I need your help." Her eyes sparkled, "Your aunt brought the most horrible cookies, and I think we need to remedy that. Are you in for some intense chocolate-chip cookie baking?"
"Oh, yeah!" Maureen gleefully said, bouncing in her seat.
From then on, visiting Grandma Miriam was a joyous occasion, no matter what.
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13-year-old Maureen crept quietly through her house. She was dressed in one of her favorite costumes—her catsuit. With her unruly curls tucked under a hat, she nimbly padded her way across the hall. She paused before her mother's study door - where Nancy was talking on the phone to someone, presumably a friend—and lay down with her ear against the crack under the door.
"Yes, the whole family was outraged…"
Oh great, what did I do this time? Maureen wondered.
"She had an affair with a woman," her mother laughed, then paused, waiting for the reply.
I don't think this is about me...
"I know, I know. We really should, but Maureen gets such enjoyment out of the visits…"
Are they talking about Grandma?!
Nancy laughed nervously. "Goodness, no! I won't let Maureen turn into one of them!"
Maureen fumed. How dare she talk about Grandma like that!
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"Maureen, what's wrong?" Miriam asked; her face lined with worry. Her granddaughter, usually bouncing out of orbit, was sitting quietly, poking her cookie absentmindedly.
"I overheard a conversation my mother was having… she was talking about you," Maureen admitted after a moment.
"Oh, are they going on about that again?" Miriam rolled her eyes.
Maureen nodded. "I still love you," she whispered.
Miriam smiled sadly and wrapped her arms around her beloved granddaughter. "I would hope so. Ignore what people say when you're yourself—if they can't understand you, they probably aren't worth your time. Unless, of course, they're family… then, just smile and nod."
Maureen returned the hug, happily reassured.
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"Maureen, would you like to explain your behavior today?" a stony-faced Mrs. Johnson questioned her daughter while Mr. Johnson doodled on a piece of paper.
"I love her; what's the big deal?" So she'd been caught kissing a girl… it wasn't like it was her first (or twentieth). 15-year-old Maureen was her school's "wild child", though her parents blindly ignored most of her offences—and paid for whatever damage had been done to various properties.
"The big deal is that you aren't… aren't…"
"Gay?" Maureen laughed, pretending to take a drag from her imaginary cigarette. "'Cause I'm not."
Mr. Johnson raised an eyebrow.
"I'm bi." Like Grandma was…
"No, you aren't," Mrs. Johnson challenged. "You just think you are!"
"I am, too!" Maureen made two fingers "walk" down her thigh. "And there isn't anything you can do to stop me."
Mrs. Johnson sighed. "Do you realize how much you are hurting us? Your father especially! He had to go through with his own mother having an affair with a woman, and now his only daughter acting like a, like a—"
"Like Grandma." Maureen set her jaw, daring her mother to disagree.
"Look, Maureen, I know her death was hard on you, but this isn't the way to go. You can't bring her back by acting like her. I don't know what you were thinking…" Mr. Johnson tried to calm her.
"This isn't the way to go?!" Maureen screeched. "If there was one thing Grandma taught me, it was to be myself! Just 'cause you could never accept her doesn't mean I can't!"
"It wasn't about accepting—"
"It is, too!" Maureen stood up and slammed her palm down on the table, shaking in anger.
"Maureen, sit down," Nancy growled. Maureen shook her head, every bit as stubborn as her eight-year-old self.
"Maureen, I know Grandma's passing was hard on you—"
"Hard is an understatement."
"Yes, well…"
"Mom, I'm tired." Maureen suddenly said, turning on her heel and leaving the room. "Say whatever you want, I'm going to be myself. Always."
"Maureen, you get right back here..!" she heard her mother call as she ran down the hall. She tumbled into her room, locking the door and standing in front of the mirror, panting heavily. Hot tears burned her eyes. I miss Grandma, she thought, she would know what to do.
Lying on the floor, she pulled out a box from underneath her bed. Unlike most of the miscellaneous stuff found under her bed, the colorful box wasn't dusty. She gently lifted the top to the box, blowing off an imaginary layer of dust. The contents of the box made her tears spill over, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand.
Inside, a small photo album contained precious photographs of Maureen and Miriam; the stained recipe to homemade chocolate-chip cookies; a few necklaces Maureen had inherited; and a note. It was a love note: the love note that a grandmother gives her granddaughter on holidays and birthdays. She stroked the card's cover, where two hearts (one big with purple polka-dot glasses, and a small one with a full head of curly brown hair) embraced. In her grandmother's crisp handwriting, the words "I love you," were carefully written.
"I love you, Grandma. Always and forever. No matter what."
Maureen shoved everything back under her bed, turned off the lights, stumbled back into bed, where she proceeded to cry herself to sleep.
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Joanne was woken up out of a sound sleep by a pajama-clad, bed-headed diva hugging her waist. Maureen's cold nose was pressed into her side, and her body shook with un-shed sobs.
"Honeybear?" Joanne whispered, tilting Maureen's sad face toward her. "What happened?"
"I had a bad dream," Maureen sniffled, burying her face in the soft curve of her lover's neck.
"Oh, baby." She rubbed the back of Maureen's head. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"It was the same dream… the one with grandma." She sniffed, clinging to her lawyer-lover.
"Oh."
"Yeah… I miss her." Her words were muffled by Joanne's shirt.
"I miss her, too, and I never met her," Joanne admitted. "You make her sound so amazing."
"She was, oh man, she was!" Maureen laughed, though tears were resting precariously on her eyelashes.
"Do you want to tell me another story about her?" Joanne asked quietly, rubbing soothing circles on Maureen's cheekbones. She liked hearing stories about Maureen's spunky, loving, and slightly crazy grandmother.
"Okay!" A sad smile spread across Maureen's face. She thought for a minute. "Well, there was this one time, when I was about ten…"
So Maureen launched into her story. Her eyes sparkled, her lips and hands moved in rapid succession, and she positively bounced in her seat. Joanne, her beloved Pookie, listened intently, gasping and smiling in all the right places.
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A/N: Reviews, and reviewers, are just amazing!