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I drive straight to The Grand, where Gertie meets me at the door. “I heard you were looking into buying the actual property,” she accuses, her small body blocking my entrance.
“I’m looking into a lot of properties,” I hedge.
“Not this one. We’re not for sale.” She slams the door in my face.
“Fuck.” I call Harlow again. No answer. I hate bothering Trident on Saturday night, but I have no choice. My finger is pressed to the button when Harlow appears at the outer gate. I run toward her and catch her up in my arms. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, Cal, what are you doing here?” She sounds full of despair.
“Looking for you. Where else would I be?”
“At home, with your family, not with me. I’m a loser, Cal. You wouldn’t know what that means because you’ve never once in your life been in this position, but this is me. I’m a girl with nothing. No family, no home, no job.” She tries to push away, but I’m not having it.
“Whoa whoa, what do you mean no home, no job?”
“I got fired yesterday. I meant to tell you—or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I thought I could live in a pretend world where everything was fine, we’d get married. The co-op board would approve my ownership. I’d get cleared by the CCTV, and the sky would rain roses and hundred-dollar bills.”
Her mascara runs down her cheeks like dirt streaks on a windshield. I wipe them off with my thumbs and pull her close. Her shoulders shake as her tears leak through my shirt. Fuck. I want to ruin someone, but she doesn’t need my anger right now. I lift her in my arms and walk through the lobby doors of The Grand. Gertie opens her mouth to protest but shuts it at my warning look. Now’s not the time to fuck with me.
Back at Harlow’s apartment, I settle her on the sofa and cover her with a blanket.
“You must think I’m worthless.” She swipes at her eyes.
“Because you cry? How do those two things correlate?”
”I should be taking action, sending out résumés, bribing the board members, doing stuff.”
“It’s Saturday night. No one is interested in your résumé or your bribes. Here.” I hand her a tissue box. “I’m going to make you something hot to drink.”
She struggles to her feet. “I can make my own hot drink.”
“If you don’t let me do this, I’m going to throw a tantrum, and no one wants to see a grown man doing that. It would humiliate the both of us. For the sake of my ego and my manhood, please go back to the sofa.”
She makes a face but does as I ask. I text Nelson for a recipe for hot chocolate. He sends me one immediately, along with “Shall I pass along a message to Madame?”
Because I want Harlow to be accepted by the family, I know the apologies will need to come straight from me, not through Nelson. I reply back “I’m calling her right now.”
“Aunt Gia, it’s me. Before you dress me down, let me apologize.”
“Should you be the one apologizing or should someone else?”
“Me,” I say firmly. “Harlow had some bad news and had to come home to deal with it. I’m here with her now. I know that this made a mess of your dinner, and I want to make it up to you. What do I need to do?” I find some cocoa powder and sugar in the cupboard and milk in the refrigerator. She even has a small bottle of vanilla.
“This dinner was for you to introduce Harlow to the family. I don’t think she made a good impression.”
“Twenty relatives is a lot for a first meeting.”
Aunt Gia sniffs. “We’re a big family.”
“Harlow’s alone in this world, Auntie. She lost her grandmother. Her mother isn’t around, and her father, I don’t think she knows where her father is. She only has me, but when we marry, I’m hoping she will have you, too.”
There’s a long stretch of silence from Aunt Gia’s end. I spend that time whisking the cocoa and sugar into the heated milk. When it’s at the right temperature, which according to Nelson is when bubbles start appearing on the surface, I pull the pan off the stove and add the vanilla. As I’m pouring the concoction into a mug, Aunt Gia finally sighs.
“You won’t give in, will you?”
”No.”
“Can I at least have a church wedding? Everyone wants an excuse to dress up, and weddings are the perfect occasion for dresses, hats, and jewels. Don’t deprive us of this.”
