Free Love Is a Thief by Claire Garber

agreed upon the afternoon before Pepperpots’ annual fireworks display and I’d arrived early so I could watch Grandma in all her organisational glory. She was coordinating the evening’s sparkly event and I could see her on the shoreline assembling a herd of volunteers who just happened to be a gaggle of handsome axe-wielding men. Grandma had them chopping large bits of wood, dragging around heavy pieces of scaffolding and generally doing anything that might result in them getting hot and sweaty and taking off their shirts. As yet another man removed all but his trousers and boots I noticed out of the corner of my eye the legend that is Delaware O’Hunt step gracefully onto the deck. She walked purposefully, no, she glided across to meet me. She was rumoured to be close to ninety years of age but looked a glamorous and beautiful seventy. She wore dark glasses and a camel-coloured wool coat and as she crossed the deck in the last of the autumnal rays it felt as if the sun’s sole purpose were to illuminate her. Every head turned, in the restaurant, and from lake’s edge, and even Grandma, not a gesticulator at the best of times, waved manically in the distance. Delaware waved back before gracefully seating herself on a chair next to me. I on the other hand sat heavily, as if under the influence of a completely different gravitational pull. I shifted my chair to face her. She stayed exactly where she was. Then she began absent-mindedly stirring warm milk into her coffee.
    ‘Kate,’ she said to me from behind dark glasses. ‘When your grandmamma explained to me your idea I was unsurehow I would be able to contribute.’ She spoke in a slow and considered way, every syllable carefully pronounced, the words trickling like honey wrapped up in the thickest Texan drawl. ‘I am from a different generation from you, darl, so I can speak my truth but I’m not convinced anything I say will resonate with the women of today.’
    ‘I’m sure—’ I squeaked before clearing my throat and starting again. ‘I’m sure everything you say will be relevant.’ I was practically whispering. ‘So many women are trying to balance a working life with a relationship, with having kids, with maintaining friendships and hobbies.’ I could barely look at her. ‘You were among the first generation of women to do this. You are exactly who we need to speak to. You started the revolution,’ I said, performing a gentle and uncommitted fist shake while looking slightly past her right shoulder.
    ‘That’s sweet,’ she said, placing my fist-shaking hand back by my side. ‘But it didn’t feel like a revolution, that’s for sure. Back then, when I was working all the time, I felt mostly overwhelmed, sometimes a little scared and almost always unsupported. It was a man’s world and I was a silly little girl who had accidentally ended up with a big career. Certainly to the outside world I had it all. I was acting with some of the greatest actors of the time, with incredible directors, I had to kiss some dashing fellows as part of my day job, most of them gay if the disappointing truth be told, but for the early part of my career I always remember feeling somewhat empty.’
    ‘Do you think that emptiness was because you hadn’t fallen in love?’ I winced at the sound of my own voice.
    ‘Well, I was certainly aware of love and the lack of its existence in my life. As my girlfriends paired off, which they all did more quickly than me, I suppose I wondered why love had not come into my life. If perhaps I wasn’t the type of girl who got to fall in love, that perhaps you couldn’t have it all.’
    ‘Were you actively looking for love?’
    ‘You mean going on dates?’ She smiled. ‘Darl, I went on so many dates I could write you a handbook! And it’s funny you should ask because I was reading through some of my old diaries and I came across an entry I had written after one such evening.’ She reached into her handbag and brought out an