Outside the Lines by Malcom Anne

Author:Malcom, Anne [Malcom, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2016-02-12T05:00:00+00:00

Two Weeks Later

“You get dressed in the dark today girl? You seem to have forgotten your pants,” my grandmother commented as I met her in the common room of her facility. It was as cheerful as a place like that could be, with dated old sofas and an ancient television playing some random game show. Various older people were scattered around, some looking well dressed and relatively stable, others wearing tattered robes and muttering to themselves. The saddest, I thought, was an old woman in fuzzy slippers staring vacantly out the window. Every time I came here, she was sitting in that same spot, staring into the distance.

“What can I say, Grandma, not all of us can have the timeless sense of style you have,” I replied.

My empire line printed dress stopped above my knees and had bell sleeves. My tan over the knee boots meant only a smallish square of skin was showing. I thought I looked awesome, as did Hansen, who showed me his complete appreciation for my boots only hours before. My grandmother did not obviously agree with a self-confessed style savant and a smokin’ hot biker, who seemed to have taken permanent residence in my mind. And maybe my heart.

She shook her head in disapproval. “You’d think I’d taught you nothing,” she snapped.

Not true. She taught me a life of bitterness and negativity may not wither the looks, but it did land you in an old folks’ home with a dementia diagnosis. Not that I’d say anyone deserved that, but I thought maybe karma might have played a part in this one.

“You still wasting time playing on computers instead of having a real job?” She moved from my outfit to my occupation in a not so smooth segway.

“I’m a graphic designer Grandma, it doesn’t exactly consist of playing on computers,” I explained like I had countless times. It didn’t matter I was actually good at my job and earned a decent amount of money. Money that helped pay for what the insurance didn’t cover for this place.

She waved her hand. “Don’t want to hear excuses as to why you won’t get a real job. I’m assuming this has to do with the company you keep. Bikers,” she spat the word in distaste.

You’d think, with her haughty attitude, my grandmother was an upper-middle-class lady who had never encountered people like the ‘thugs’ I spent my time with. Therefore, giving some reason as why she brought into the stereotype.

That was not the case.

She raised me, after my parents died, in what could loosely be described as the ghetto. Or at least on the edge of the ghetto. Our house was tiny and well-kept with an immaculate garden and a sofa which still had the plastic on, but I regularly walked past drug deals and gangbangers on my way to and from school. My grandmother, who’d been living on a pension and the benefit from the state when she got me, had some sort of selective vision. That stuff did not exist for her.

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