[center][b][color=blueviolet][h3]ȤЄƝƖ ƓƛƬƛƘƖ[/h3]
Location: Bumfuck, USA[/color][/b][/center]

"I still don't see why you didn't give that last boy another chance.  What was his name, Nicky?"  Zeni's grandmother prodded, dashing any hope that the unsubtle when-will-you-settle-down conversation wouldn't happen this visit.    

She let out a sigh on a soft breath, adjusting her grandmama's pillows the way she liked - two deep and fluffed as high they could go.  Turning back, she replied, "[i]Nico[/i], not Nicky, yiayia, and you know he didn't visit me once in the hospital.  I haven't seen him in over a year."  

Her yiayia looked away, pursing her lips in the universal and intergenerational sign of passive displeasure.  Thankfully, Zeni had a trump card.  Helping her favorite elderly relative up from her comfy chair, the brunette slyly added, "Besides, Nico was short for [i]Nicolo[/i]... do you really want your only grandchild to bear the last name of a Sicilian?"  

It was petty to use it against her, true, but her yiayia's experiences in WWII had engendered a longstanding, rather impressively seething hatred of many things - including (but not limited to) Italians.  Yiayia narrowed her eyes and spat to the side, sniffing delicately and dropping the subject.  Zeni escorted her to bed and turned on the DVD of "House, M.D." she'd brought for her, letting herself out after a big hug and yiayia extracting a promise to take her out for breakfast the next morning at the Greasy Spoon.  Exiting her grandmama's cozy bungalow located in the town center of Nowhere, she headed straight for the only coffeeshop she'd found so far, surprising the barista as he swept the floor in preparation for closing.  

"I know you're about to close, but would you mind?"  She murmured, tilting her head to the side with a wry smile.  He nodded, eyes widening almost comically a moment later when she ordered a depth charge.  Pulling her bulky cardigan closer around her slight form, Zeni strolled down the street, sipping her drink with a satisfied hum.  With the sun slowly lowering toward the western horizon, casting a rather pastoral glow on everything, she wondered again why her grandmother insisted on moving here five years ago.  Nothing ever happened here, not really...