“You? Haven’t cooked since Obama was in office.”
“We work,” she snaps. “Eight hours a day. This is our break.”
My eyes shoot to Andrew because
he doesn’t get one?
Seventeen hours a day.
Eighty-hour work weeks.
Health in the fucking gutter,
bleeding for everyone in this room.
And now I’m pissed.
I wanna flip the goddamn table.
I want him to throw it back,
make them swallow the taste of their own shit.
But he lets out a breathy laugh.
“Yeah, nah—you’re right. My bad.”
He turns, dodging my eyes,
myswallow-it-and-I-swear-I’ll-screamface.
He doesn’t say a word,
quiet rage in his jaw as he opens the fridge.
“Andrew!” Nonna calls out. “Vieni qua—siediti and talk to your Nonna before I drop dead, capito?”
Andrew shakes his head. “Nonna, ti giuro—ti voglio bene—but if I stop movin’ for even un secondo, the whole cucina’s gonna catch fire and you’ll never get fed.”
Aunt Lisa smirks from the couch,
swirling her wine.
“Please. The second he stops movin’, he’ll start thinkin’. And we all know howterribilethat would be, eh?”
Andrew closes the fridge,
leveling her with a gaze.
“You know what’sterribile?The amount of wine you drink before noon.”
Lisa gasps, one hand flying to her chest.
“How dare you,” she fake-cries, reeling back against the armrest.
“Eh, Lisa, relax. He’s bustin’ your chops.”
Paola raises her voice from the couch without turning around. “I told you, Andrew. You’re gonna regret it one day when she’s not here.”
