Free Buzz Off by Hannah Reed Page A

complained. “This is killing your grandmother. First, you marry the wrong man . . .”
    True. I had liked Clay more than I should have simply because my mother hadn’t.
    “Your personal life is spread over the entire town like a B movie . . .”
    Not my fault that Clay tried to sleep with every woman in town.
    “And poor Manny Chapman is killed by the same kind of bees you have, and I can look right out this window and see them all over the place. What do you have, a death wish?”
    Heavy sigh.
    “Now you’re linked to what might turn out to be murder, through some kind of sex triangle!”
    “Okay, that’s going too far,” I said. “I have a few bullet points for you. One, I have no control over Clay’s actions. Two, Manny’s death has hit me hard enough without you going through this big lecture, okay? Three, he was killed by wasps, not honeybees. Four, I’m not involved in any triangle. And five, I refuse to take responsibility for Clay’s bad behavior ever again.”
    “Not taking responsibility has been your problem all along.” Mom made a sour expression. Worry lines were permanently etched in her forehead. I knew that if I pointed them out to her, she’d blame those on me, too.
    Grams came out of my bedroom carrying a cardigan.
    “Mom’s ready to leave,” I said to her, taking the sweater and putting it on. But my goose bumps and shivers weren’t from coldness. Extra layers wouldn’t help bring back Manny or Faye. “Thanks for rescuing me at the river.”
    Grams beamed. “You’re welcome, sweetie. Take care of yourself. If you don’t want to be alone, you can come stay with us for a while.”
    “I’ll remember that.” No, thanks! Eating poisonous mushrooms would be less painful than staying with my mother.
    “I’ll drive,” Mom said to Grams at the door, picking up an ongoing conversation that they carried from one scene to another. You’d think she’d have given up by now.
    “I’m perfectly capable, Helen.” Grams refused to give up the driver’s seat, which annoyed my mom no end. The Cadillac Fleetwood was Grams’s pride and joy. It had been the height of luxury in the mid-nineties, she took great care with it, and she never, ever allowed anyone else to drive it.
    Mom gave me an eye-roll and grimace that implied we were on the same side. It said, Look what I have to put up with .
    Grams is third-generation Morainian, Mom is fourth, making me fifth, and our family one of the oldest in town. The old cemetery, next to The Wild Clover, is filled with names from both sides, since my father came from this area, too. If you’ve been in Moraine as long as we have and you’re from Grams’s generation, you get automatic acceptance in the old guard’s eyes. They watch out for each other and know more of the goings-on than they’d ever admit.
    My cousin Carrie Ann came up the sidewalk as Grams and Mom were leaving.
    “How are you doing, Carrie Ann?” Mom said, rather stiffly. Carrie Ann was my dad’s sister Marla’s daughter. Mom had never gotten along with Aunt Marla and she didn’t have any use for my cousin or her hard ways, but she was bound by her manners.
    “Pretty good,” Carrie Ann said. “Thanks for asking.”
    We watched them drive away at a max of ten miles per hour with a jerky stop at the Main Street crossing.
    “I’m ready to chew off my left arm,” Carrie Ann said. I noticed she had a hunk of gum in her mouth. She was a visual gum chewer, rolling it around while she talked. I couldn’t help staring at it. “I quit smoking this morning and it’s killing me. This nicotine gum is the only thing saving my sanity.” She pulled a piece out of her pocket, peeled off the foil and popped it in her mouth right along with the old one.
    It was beyond me how my cousin could pull off quitting two addictions at once. But it was her business, not mine. Hunter had refused to date smokers in high school and probably still avoided it. Was she quitting for him? I wanted to ask