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I smiled, relaxing. Could I have a good relationship with my real grandmother after all?

"However," she continued, "even though I, am presenting this ...arrangement to the public as an act of charity, I don't want you to think that I don't expect you to respect all my wishes and demands. If at any time you betray my trust, you'll be on your way faster than you can blink. Am I understood?"

"Yes ma'am," I answered, my heart thumping again. She was like the faucets in our old apartment that could run hot and then unexpectedly turn cold.

"You're well-spoken. I like that and I deplore these profane and dirty expressions children use these days. My grandchildren constantly spew that garbage. They think they're being cute or what do you say, bad, cool?"

"I don't know what I would say. I never met them."

"You will, although as I told you, not often," she admitted, which made my eyes widen with curiosity. "I'm not exactly their favorite person to visit."

"Why not?" I asked, too quickly and too vehemently perhaps, but I couldn't hold back my curiosity.

She stared at me for a moment and then lowered her coffee.

"It always amazes me how young people today have no sense of decorum. When I was your age, I wouldn't dream of cross-examining my elders, but in this day and age everyone is almost proud to talk openly about their weaknesses. You turn on the television set, which I rarely do, and all you-see are people revealing their most intimate secrets. Disgusting. No one has any self-respect anymore.

"I imagine," she went on, "that some other grandmother would announce you to the world, parade you about, maybe even get on a talk show. If you take anything away from your stay here, I hope it will be discretion," she concluded.

She sipped her coffee and a silence fell between us. Minutes later we heard a loud rapping at the front door and Merilyn came hurrying out of the kitchen.

"Are you expecting anyone, Mrs. Hudson?"

"It might be Victoria," she said. "It's like her to arrive just as we've finished dinner," she muttered.

Merilyn went out to the front door.

"You know who Victoria is, don't you?"

"Your younger daughter."

She didn't reply. She sat back and watched the doorway. I turned when Victoria followed Merilyn back. Merilyn stood to the side.

"Good evening, Mother." She turned to me. "And this is Megan's charity case?" she added.

In person my Aunt Victoria didn't look much different from the way she looked in the photographs in the office. Her hair was still as short and dull, her figure just as lean and bony. She was somewhat taller than I had envisioned from the pictures, and her eyes were a darker brown, if not just as coldly analytical. She wore a light tweed skirt suit and a frilly collared blouse. Her shoes had thick, wide heels, which were what gave her an extra two or three inches of height. As the pictures indicated, her features were harsher, and her complexion paler than my mother's.

She wore a rather big-faced, manly looking wristwatch and what looked like a school ring.

"If you are referring to the young lady seated at the table, her name is Rain Arnold," my grandmother said. Her eyes moved toward the ceiling, ordering me to stand, which I did promptly.

"How do you do? I' m pleased to meet you," I said extending my hand.

She looked at me and then laughed.

"Have you been teaching her manners already, Mother? I would have thought you would give it a day or two."

My grandmother's shoulders stiffened and her eyes turned hot with indignation.

"Obviously, I've done a poor job with you when it comes to that, Victoria. The girl offered you a proper greeting."

"Yes, yes, she did." She reached out to take my hand, touched it, muttered a hello, and then moved around the table.

"Were you intending to have dinner with us? When I spoke to you yesterday, you told me you didn't think you'd be here in time and--"

"No, I had something to eat at the office," she said. She looked at Merilyn. "However, I will have some coffee, Merilyn, please." She sat across from me.

"Very good, Miss Victoria," Merilyn said and went to get a cup and saucer. She paused in the doorway. "Will you be having any trifle?"