Instead of answering my question, she asks, “How long has Adam Noemi been courting you?”
And there it is. I don’t hold back my sigh. “He’s not courting me, Amá.”
“Good.”
I blink. “Good?”
She glares at me. “Did I stutter?”
I shake my head. “But…I thought you’d want someone like him to be seen with…”Someone like meis what I don’t say.
Amá aggressively shakes her head. “That man hasn’t been able to keep a job in the last two years—”
“It’s not his fault his industry is failing under the enormous pressures of—”
She holds up a hand just as I realize that defending Adam isn’t going to help her believe he’s not courting me. She continues on as though I haven’t spoken: “I admit that, perhaps three years ago, he would have been a good match—”
“When I was still unconscious in the woods?” I ask, but she ignores me.
“But now? No. He’s still charmed the town but that won’t last long, not once he’s unemployed for much longer.” She raises an eyebrow. “The most important thing when it comes to men, Sky, is—”
“Love?” I ask. “Respect?” She rolls her eyes. She knows that I know exactly what she means.
“Money. Money is the only thing that makes men worth the headache. And that man has very little money.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter how much money he does or doesn’t have. He’s not interested in me. That’s been made very clear.” If he were, he wouldn’t have treated me like I was off my rocker when I trusted him with the truth—exactly where I was and who I was with in my eight years’ disappearance. That information isprecious. It’s inextricably connected to significant and personal family lore for us Flores women, as well as historical and cosmic lore, regarding our ancestors in the past and the timeless old gods. And he just…acted like I’d made it all up on the spot.
No genuinely interested man behaves likethat. At the very least, he’d pretend to think I was sane.
Now Amá Sonya blinks. “And why wouldn’t he be interested in you? Does he have any better prospects? What’s wrong with him?”
I am oddly flattered at her being so outraged that Adam doesn’t want me, until she adds, “We all know how you’re seen around here. He may try and seduce you because he knows he may well be on your level soon. Don’t let him. Your destiny is to rise above.”
Well, the reminder ofmy levelis exactly the last thing I needed to hear about right now. I close my planner and toss the pen on it. “Are we done?”
She raises her eyebrow at me. “Next Friday. Breakfast. I’ll pick you up.”
I shake my head. “No, you won’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“If I’m not good enough for you to answer any of my texts regarding meeting for brunch for the last three months? Then I’m not good enough for breakfast on Friday. Why don’t you keep doing what you’ve been doing, Amá, and stick to dining with people onyour level”—I raise my hand high—“and not mine.” I drop my arm and she follows the movement with a scowl on her face.
She opens her mouth to argue, but something in my face stops her. I’m not a little kid she can boss around anymore, and I think that information might finally be dawning on her. Instead, she stomps away in the prissiest way possible and presses the button to the elevator. “Youwillsee me, Sky, because the fantasmas”—she whispers this—“have told me that you have tricked your sisters into not seeing you.”
“Ghosts?” I ask. Because that is her gift. Amá Sonya can see, and communicate with, ghosts. Once, she saw me when I was a ghost, when Sage brought me to her so we could figure out what the hell was happening to me back then.
“Shh.” She looks around, as though we may be surrounded byfantasmas any second. “I was informed that you have Teal thinking that you’re seeing Sage, and Sage thinking that you’re seeing Teal.”
I shrug. I guess there’s no point in denying it.
She steps into the elevator and points at me. “Breakfast. Friday. Or they will find out about your deception.”
I roll my eyes so far back I can see my brain. When I blink my gaze back to normal, the shuttering elevator doors have closed over my lovely grandmother.
Nadia isn’t around when Iget home after work, to absolutely no one’s surprise. But Iampretty startled when I spot Adam sitting on the porch.
He stands when I approach, his hands in his pockets. His eyes are serious, and deep, deep blue. I almost stop walking when we make eye contact, but with sheer power of will, and remembering the hurt he caused me, I hold my head high and say, “May I help you with something?”
