Black Tuesday by Susan Colebank Page B

service, Jaynie? Met any delinquents yet?” Grams lit up another Djarum clove cigarette. She hacked up a lung with the first puff.
    Her grandmother floated on a raft a few feet from her, her one-piece showing leathery arms and legs, thin with old age. Her stomach, on the other hand, had seventy-two years’ worth of pies, red meat, and ice cream puffing it up.
    Jayne stared at the community swimming pool and tried not to breathe in the smoke. “Yeah, I’ve met a couple.”
    â€œThey trying to hook you up with any doobies yet?”
    Jayne hid her smile in her shirt. Her grams said whatever the heck was on her mind. It was part of the package with her. “I’m not that kinda girl, Grams. Anyway, I mainly just sit around doing nothing but answering the phone for Maria, who runs the center.”
    The Sun Valley Retirement Village might’ve been low on most teenagers’ lists of places to be on a summer afternoon, but Jayne was just glad she was here and not in that cold warehouse Outreach Arizona called home. It’d been only a week since she’d started there, but it was already at the bottom of her list of “all-time greatest experiences.”
    â€œMade any friends yet?” Grams took a drink from the Bloody Mary she kept in the raft’s cup holder, the clove cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.
    Before Jayne could say anything, Ellie called over from the shallow end’s steps, “You’ve gotta be kidding, Grams. Jayne doesn’t believe in friends. She’s into staying in her room all day watching crap TV.”
    Jayne looked up at the cloudless blue sky, trying to get the kink out of her neck. Ellie had been getting pissier and pissier with her lately. Fine by her. That meant Ellie didn’t bother her.
    For her insulin shots.
    For homework.
    For a movie.
    The movie stuff, though, Jayne kind of missed. She just wasn’t ready. Ready for what, she didn’t know. Being normal?
    Scratch that. Feeling normal?
    Scratch that. Going back to her normal self as Ellie’s go-to girl?
    Yeah. Maybe.
    Ellie shrieking into her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. “You were supposed to call me two hours ago, you dork!”
    Jayne squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the sound. This was the fifth call Ellie had gotten since they’d been there. She felt pain pierce her gut.
    Sure looked like Ellie was getting along just fine without her. And based on how much she was going out lately, Ellie didn’t seem to be working on that FIT scholarship. Then again, Ellie never seemed to think about her future unless Jayne was pushing her.
    Grams lowered her hot pink sunglasses and winked a cloudy blue eye at her. “Don’t you worry none about the friend thing, Jaynie. I didn’t have many friends as a girl, either.”
    She started to cough and took a sip of her drink. Grams had been diagnosed with emphysema a couple of years ago, but that hadn’t made her cut back on anything—food, alcohol, or cigarettes. “There aren’t that many quality teenagers nowadays.” She sucked on her cigarette for a good five seconds and went on. “You gotta wait until you’re thirty or so until you meet a divorce attorney or orthopedic surgeon at some cocktail party or PTA meeting. Now those are the kind of people you want to be friendly with.”
    Jayne smiled. Grams had been married three times and had been in and out of hospitals the last couple of years due to broken hips and wrists. Those “friends” of hers must’ve been why she was always getting the best divorce settlements and had the newest, best technology holding her bones and joints together.
    A high-pitched giggle interrupted their conversation. Jayne wondered if Ellie was chatting up the statutory rapist she’d pulled off of her. Danny? Denny? Whoever. Whatever, it didn’t matter. Her sister was a big girl. Jayne wasn’t her