Be Rude but Love Me | ✔

CHAPTER 24

"Hello, Mrs. Lambert!" I shake my head at Lucy as she greets the old lady. "I'm Lucy, Tracy's little sister."

This morning, when Lucy woke up, she'd caught Ellie and me talking about Mrs. Lambert, the town's old but lovely widow who makes cookies and pastries sometimes for church and school activities . We were talking about how good they were and how she should have opened a pastry shop or something when her husband had died. Lucy heard it all and insisted we visited her because well, aside from being intrigued, she wanted to taste those pastries too. Which is why the three of us now find ourselves in the old lady's house.

I allow myself to be crushed in a hug by Mrs. Lambert who, in spite of her old looks and fragility, embraces me with the strength of my father. Maybe I should eat more pastries as I grow up. "Tracy Graham!" Her voice is frail, trembling from her old age.

"Hey, Mrs. Lambert, it's been a while," I tell her and kiss both her cheeks.

"Yes, it's been. Oh, Ellie. You're back."

Ellie greets her before we all move to the living room. Mrs. Lambert scrutinizes Lucy carefully once we're all sitting in the living room. "She's your spitting image." She says in awe.

Lucy is quick to respond with a scrunch of her nose. "No, I'm not."

"Oh, but you are." Mrs. Lambert insists. "Just like her when she was your age."

She smiles and Lucy, backing down, pouts in her seat. "Where have you been, dear?"

I launch into the same story I told Will's mom a week ago about how my parents and I moved out of town. I tell her a little about my life outside of Harlem and how difficult it had been to leave everything and everyone behind. I notice Lucy writhing in her seat and after a few minutes, she gets up, tired of being seated in the same place.

"Oh well, it was for the better, dear," Mrs. Lambert comments after I reveal the reason of my family's departure. "She's dynamic."

"Who, Lucy?"

"Yes. She's going to be someone. I can feel it." Mrs. Lambert says, totally comfortable with Lucy prowling around her house. "Let me get you those pastries that you loved as a child."

At the word pastries, Lucy, who had been hiding God knows where, pokes her head from behind a wall and her whole face brightens up. I'm almost blinded by the greediness on her face, like a light too bright for my eyes.

Mrs. Lambert talks incessantly while we are there, almost like an older version of Lucy, and I know that this is how Lucy is going to be anyways when she grows old. Talkative, relentless in her storytelling, recounting memories. God have mercy on her husband.

It's with much regret that we leave the house one hour later with much effusion from Mrs. Lambert who makes me promise to come to see her before I leave town again.

"I will, I promise." I climb in the car, waving to this old lady I love very much. "She's such a good person."

"I don't like when people say I'm just like you," Lucy pouts from the backseat. "I am me, you are you."

"I know," I agree to placate her. The smile from her in the rear-view mirror lets me know she's satisfied with the answer. "So, where to, chauffeur?" I tease Ellie.

"Where to, opportunist?" She quips right back, knowing that without her car, I would have been stuck on foot.

"That's where you shut up, Tracy!"

I give Lucy a death glare but she only grins wider. After giving Ellie a few instructions, we find ourselves driving around the Harlem, Ellie and I pointing at things that interest Lucy. She's already seen it all but somehow, she wants to drive around again. She says that's what tourists do. I don't dare disagree with her. We stop at a small restaurant, grabbing a quick lunch, and half an hour later we're on the road again.