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Enzo
Igive up.
After trying and failing to concentrate for the last hour, I jump out of my seat, head to the bedroom, change quickly, and then walk into the hall. While I wait for the elevator, I replay my conversation with Devon a hundred times.
I have a shit-ton of work left to do tonight, and it’s almost ten o’clock, but I just can’t seem to focus. Arriving at the pool in the basement level of my building, I toss my towel onto a chair, not even bothering with a locker. It’s empty this time of night. An hour ago, executives would still be lingering in the lap pool, some having just come home from work, but it’s almost closing time, and the pool is silent and empty.
I stare at the still water, at the reflection of the lounge chairs lining the long lap pool, and jump in. The shock of it is exactly what I need. Clearing my mind, I swim back and forth, the only sound an echo of my soft splashes. After a while, realizing I’m exhausted, I hoist myself out and check the time on the wall.
Feeling a bit better, I’m about to leave, but I sink into a plush cushioned seat instead.
Doubt creeps into my consciousness, something that’s been happening more often of late.
Who the hell do you think you are?
Swimming a lap pool in the middle of March in an apartment complex reserved for the very wealthiest, I am not Enzo DeLuca, son of a pizza shop owner, a boy who pretended to read by memorizing word configurations and tricking my parents and teachers.
I’m not a kid from a small town in PA.
Or even one of the “lucky” few who somehow got into an Ivy League school.
I am one of the richest men in a city filled with people like Hayden, ones who think having three houses means you haven’t made it yet. At least, that’s what the reflection in the pool tells me. But I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not even sure what it means.
Angrily, I stand and leave, trying to shake the feeling of inevitability that’s been haunting me since that call with Devon.
By the time I’m back in my apartment, changed, wine in hand and laptop at the ready, I know the swim hasn’t worked. My problems haven’t gone away, or even retreated.
I grab my phone, scroll to her number, and press the button.
“Are you all right?”
My mother has trained Lus well. The girl has a PhD in worry.
“Yes, geez. I can’t even call my baby sister?” Standing, I move to the very same couch that evokes a not-so-innocent memory of Chari every time I look at it.
“At ten o’clock at night on a Thursday?”
“OK,” I say, stretching out my legs. “I’ll give you that one.”
“What are you looking at?”
This is something we’ve done on our calls since I left for college. Just Lusanne and I, no one else.
“The Manhattan skyline,” I tell her. “If you look really close at the lights’ reflection on the water, you can see purples and pinks and not just white. It looks so calm, from here at least.”
In fact, it’s beautiful. One of the biggest cities in the world, sitting just outside my window, so deceivingly serene.
“You?”
“I can see the water too,” she says. “Hold on.”
There’s rustling in the background, which is when I realize it is indeed Thursday and Lusanne is working at Tris’s.
“I’m sorry, Lus, I totally forgot. You’re working.”
“No worries,” she says as the noise behind her ceases. “It’s snowing again, so it’s kinda slow. But I can see it now, Lake Shohola. Mostly it looks like a black abyss with a few lights here and there. But I can see the snow coming down if I look hard enough.”
Funny, it’s not snowing here.
