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eighty-three-year-old frame.
    “The coffee is on, Iva.
You’ve been standing there long enough. Come talk to Pop,” he said in a voice
that was softening with age but still bore the appealing warmth of a French
accent even after more than fifty years living in the United States. Then he
disappeared inside without waiting to see if I’d accept the offer. None of his
granddaughters ever turned down coffee with Ancel “Pop” Moreau, no matter how
busy or tired we might have been.
    Inside, his townhouse
was uncluttered and clean-smelling, oddly lemony for this time of year. That
was a sure sign my older sister, Darcie, had been around without me seeing her
in the last day or two. She scrubbed and vacuumed and dusted Pop’s place so
often that I’d have thought cleaning was her hobby, which was a depressing
thought for a number of reasons I didn’t want to entertain just then. Darcie should have had something better to do
at least half that time.
    Past the living room,
on the polished dining table, two coffee cups sat next to Pop’s afternoon
bagel—which was Cheri’s usual contribution to our granddad’s daily comfort.
Meaning she was well within cell phone service. If she was ducking my calls,
she must have known or at least expected I’d seen the infamous page seventeen
ad.
    Pop, his cropped gray
hair only a shade darker than his sweat suit, sat in his usual place at the
dark wood dining table, where he could play cards and watch the living room
television and keep an eye out the picture window. The retired engineer
motioned to the chair across from him. “Have your coffee, ma petite , and tell me why you’re standing out on the sidewalk like
an orphan.”
    I should have known
better than to think Pop would miss that kind of behavior, I said to myself as
I took my seat and slumped over the waiting coffee cup. Admittedly, no matter
how bad I felt, Pop’s coffee always smelled like…. Like I thought his native
French countryside would smell, rich and earthy and vibrant. Like the feeling
of being warm on a winter morning.
    My grandfather pushed
up his sleeves as he stirred milk into his own coffee. He had much stronger,
beefier arms than someone would expect of a man in his eighties. Robust. Yes,
that was Pop—and his coffee. My gaze sought out the familiar shapes of his
tattoos, one on each forearm, fading military symbols from his time in the
French navy. These days, with his skin so dark and the ink so old, he had to
tell people what the lines were. Those tattoos and his rough, dark hands with
their thick fingers were what I always thought of first when trying to describe
Pop.
    He saw me staring at
them, as I so often did. “You going to come back over this weekend and draw
with me again, Iva?” He didn’t actually draw with me, but he modeled for me. I must have drawn his hands more
than a dozen times. They said a lot about a man, a lot about this man.
    Sighing, I shook my
head, curls drooping from my hairband to drape over one eye. “No, Pop. I’d like
to, but I’m still working on my portfolio for Gamble & Drey .”
    Pop tilted his head to
and fro and frowned in the way that was a smile for a Frenchman, or maybe just
this Frenchman. It said, yeah, makes
sense . “It’s a lot of work putting together something entirely new, so
different from what you usually do.”
    “Yeah,” I whispered
half-heartedly, picturing all the books on graphic design strewn around the
computer desk in my bedroom. In school, my focus had been drawing and painting,
not graphics or digital art. But that was where the jobs were, especially in
marketing, with ad companies like G&D. “An advertising firm that size sees
so many graphic art portfolios. Mine really has to stand out if I’m going to
have the slightest chance.” My chest fell a little thinking about the long odds
on that one. Companies larger than G&D—as well as smaller and less
prestigious—had already turned their noses up at my resume and samples.