“Well?” she asks impatiently.
All images of a forty-year-old Frankie in a downward spiral and OD’ing on antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy are thus replaced by her standing confidently at the head of a conference table, eating men for breakfast as the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. Or maybe just straight up as the President of the United States.
I think about lying to her, then realize I can’t. “Yes,” I finally admit.
“Then why do you have to be apart?” she asks, eyebrows furrowed.
Honestly, I have no idea anymore.
I’m saved by Tita Gloria barging into our apartment. “Frankie,” she exclaims.
“Hi, Lola,” she says, jumping off my lap, totally friendly and upbeat and unaffected by crippling anxiety. She runs to give her a hug.
“Can you help me make the lumpia, Frankie? I’m running behind.” I know that this is code forplease make the lumpia because it is the worst, most tedious task and no one ever wants to do it.
Frankie, who I know for a fact loves to massage the raw meat and shrimp and random other things with her bare hands, sprints downstairs.
“Ask Lolo Ben to get you started,” Tita Gloria calls after her.
We hear the door to their apartment open and slam shut.
She fixes her gaze on me. “This seems to be a theme,” she tells me.
“What?”
“You torturing yourself for no reason.”
I rub my eyes. “Please, don’t hold back.”
“I thought you came to the right conclusions after Rhode Island.”
“I thought I did, too.”
“You went on vacation,” she continues, as if I’m not speaking. “You got yourself a girlfriend. You started sharing your responsibilities. You started leaving Frankie with us to go enjoy yourself. With your new girlfriend. You went on overnights!”
“Mmhm.”
“And now, because of some misguided sense of parental duty, you’ve given this all up.”
I glare at her. “How do you know all of this, anyway? I haven’t told anyone about this.”
“I have my ways.” (Read: Oliver and probably his sisters.)
I pause for a moment. “It’s not only me, you know.”
She raises a tattooed eyebrow.
“It is probably partially a misguided sense of parental duty. But that’s because she fucked up, too. She ran from me instead of communicating.”
Tita Gloria rolls her eyes so hard I’m afraid she’ll hurt herself. “For what, two whole days?”
“The level of detail you know about this is really alarming?—”
“—ruining you for her and all women?Angdramatic dramaticmo. Please.”
“I don’t want to have to ever explain to Frankie why someone has left us ever again!” I explode.
The kitchen is silent for a few beats.
