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“Sounds pretty.”
“It is. What’s wrong, Enz?”
I don’t try to deny that something is. “I talked to Devon yesterday.”
Her silence tells me to go on.
“He said Chari won’t tell him anything about us. But he knows there’s something wrong.”
“And is there?”
I’m almost at a loss for words, which is why I was hesitant to make this call. But I needed to talk to someone, and Lusanne gets me better than anyone. She always has, at least since we were teens. I think it has something to do with her own struggles with severe ADHD.
“I don’t want there to be,” I say, knowing that’s not really an answer.
“But?”
“She deserves more than I can give her at the moment.”
There, I said it.
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I knew Lus wouldn’t mince words. I relied on it.
“I haven’t seen her in weeks. And she has a bachelorette party on Saturday, so she can’t come to New York this weekend.”
“So come here.”
I brace for it. “I can’t. We’re having some problems with the vodka antidote. Not to mention, once the issues are resolved we’ll have to work overtime to get it approved by the FDA so we can stay on track.”
“Work. Of course.”
“Lus, if I wanted a lecture, I could have called, well, lots of people.” Hayden. Mom. Probably my father is the only one who would say something to the effect of, If you have to work, then work.
“So you can’t come home, and she can’t come to New York.”
“Last week there was the storm,” I say.
“And it’s still friggin’ snowing,” she says, echoing basically every Pennsylvanian’s sentiment by mid-March. “What else did Devon say?”
Lusanne is a goddamn clairvoyant.
So I get right to the punch line.
“He reminded me of the first talk we had about Chari and me. The one where he told me not to screw around with her emotions.”
“Hmmm.” I never told her about that particular discussion. “So are you?”
“Screwing around with her emotions? No,” I answer emphatically. Because I’d never do that.
“So what’s the problem?”
“You have to get back to work. We’ll talk about this some other time.”
“Enzo DeLuca. Spit it out.”
That’s my mother’s tone, and Lusanne wields it like a sword.
