[Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Don't try this at home.]
After all the freshmen year rituals of joining a sorority, I needed to reconnect with my family back home. It was Christmas break, back at my family's beach house. I liked it that time of year, when the tourists were gone. I could take a stroll on the beach in my big hooded sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, picking up little sea shells and wondering about life. My parents were there and my younger brother, still in high school, and my grandpa, my mother's dad. My grandmother had died five years ago, so we had grandpa over for all the holidays since then. My other parents lived out in California. I didn't see them as much.
I loved my new sorority sisters, but I missed my family. Grandpa was a great story teller. He would reminisce about growing up in the late sixties and seventies. He loved fast cars, blue jeans and t-shirts. He was old school cool with plenty of silver hair now but still prided himself on staying in shape, despite his love for good whiskeys and the occasional Cuban cigar, much to the displeasure of my healthnut mother. Let him have a few pleasures in life, I always thought. He'd been through enough ups and downs. It all added to his mystique.
Plus he'd hit it big time as a sports broadcaster. He always wore the same solid gold Rolex -- I think he said it was called a datejust. I loved the way it sparkled especially by the fire light. He loved to sit by the fire and talk about the great games he'd called on radio and then TV, and how cute the cheerleaders were. He even paid for me to take cheerleading lessons for several years. Everyone said I had the body for it, but the coordination not so much! I hoped I could land a handsome ball player as my boyfriend in college, but so far no luck. The frat boys hit on me all the time, blowing up my phone, but they're not my type. So juvenile, with potential I guess but nothing they've done yet to brag about. My dad and my grandpa could both fix just about anything on a car. These boys these days didn't seem to know the first thing about changing a tire.
I think it was a couple days before Christmas itself. Mom had setup the tree, but only a scattering of presents had appeared underneath it so far. Stockings were hung on the little chimney, but had yet to be filled. It was by no means cold outside, not cold at all compared to my college campus this time of year, but just chilly enough to warrant a little fire in that old brick fireplace. My parents went to bed early. My kid brother would stay in his room for hours playing video games. But Grandpa and I were the night owls. I padded out in my bare feet and pajama bottoms, and my favorite tattered old sweater, to find him in his favorite chair by the fire, poking at a log and puffing on an unusually aromatic cigar. Only a little stained glass lamp and the fire barely lit the room. I don't think he noticed me at first.
"How's the fire, Grandpa?" I asked as I plopped down on the couch.
"Almost as enchanting as this Montecristo" he mused as he puffed on it and replaced the poker in its rack before sitting down beside me, and propping his feet up.
"It does smell nice. Your guilty pleasure?"
"Ha, yeah, I guess you could say that, especially when your mother isn't here to make me put it out. Everyone deserves a little guilty pleasure sometimes." he mused, staring up at the ceiling and exhaling out a long grey whisp of smoke. I could also smell the whiskey on his breath. I noticed an empty bottle on the mantle of the fire place.
"You know I never got a chance to thank you for paying for my college, Grandpa."
"Hey it's the least I could do, my angel." I would have paid for your mother's too but she and your dad got married right out of high school, just like I did.
That was true. They had both started families at a young age. I was 19 and my Grandpa was still in his fifties.
"Thank you, though, I really appreciate it. I even talked to the chearleading coach about maybe trying out."
That seemed to pique his interest. He sat up a bit, tilting the cigar in his hand and facing me. "Oh you did? What did she say?"
"Well she said I had the look for it but all the other girls on the team had competition experience and they didn't have any open slots. But she took my name down in case I could help out somehow."
