My mother and my sister each take one, knock them together, and pop them in their mouths.
“You’re late,” Ma tells me, walking back into the kitchen. I throw my bag on the ratty couch and take a deep inhale at the sharp tang of garlic and tomato and oregano and the warm yeastiness of bread and pasta and immediately feel my soul heal. Valentina and I grew up helping Ma with Sunday dinner, the whole to-do of it, and it’s what got me involved in my doctorate concentration. TheNakedReactionschannel, too, I guess.
“I ran into May Li,” I tell her, kissing Valentina on the head and moving to the plates to start setting the table. None of the plates match, so I make sure to pick my favorite ones—the heaviest and the thickest and the weirdest shaped. “Remember her? The twin?”
“Is she the normal one or the crazy one?” Valentina asks, sitting down to shave parm.
I cringe. “The normal one, I guess. I’m going to her wedding in a few weeks.”
“I always liked the crazy one,” Ma says. “I remember when youse guys were out on the block playin’ Manhunt and she kicked Bobby Pinto in the nuts ‘cause he pushed your sister onto the pavement.”
This checks out.
Valentina cackles. “Oh yeah, I remember that. She took me home after, too.”
This also checks out, because Annie Li may be batshit, but she was always fiercely protective of people she liked or who couldn’t defend themselves. Including quiet, perfect May Li. And my sister, I guess. Not me, even if I never stood a chance in hell of defending myself against anyone. Including Annie Li.
“I heard she wentrealcrazy, though,” Valentina adds on. My neck prickles at this, considering Ididwatch her rip a cigarette from my mouth, light a plant on fire, pull the fire alarm, and flood an entire fancy-ass party. Which was a travesty, really, because the cookies on the dessert table were from one of the best bakeries in the city, and I had been planning on pocketing some to bring home.
“What do you mean?”
“I was out with some people from Stuy a few years after you guys graduated from college, and we ran into her at some warehouse party at like three in the morning.”
“Valentina, what the hell?” my mom demands to know. She stands with her hands on her hips, the apron my dad gave her twenty years ago bulging around the wordsI AM THE SECRET INGREDIENT. “Three in the morning?”
Valentina rolls her eyes. “She didn’t look good. I mean, I definitely didn’t look good either, because it was three in the morning, but she looked high as hell, and not in the good way. In the scary, empty way. Like in the ‘took too much about three hours ago’ way. And she was hanging off some scrawny dude with a face tattoo.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“My friends weren’t surprised, said that was just what she was up to nowadays.”
“That’s what she’s been up to? Fucked up at three in the morning at some illegal underground party in Bushwick, sucking some molly dealer’s?—”
Ma throws a dish towel in my face, the one with the picture of the oven that says,When in doubt, pull it out. “Nico,” she warns.
Valentina shrugs again.
What the fuck? Annie Li, salutatorian of Stuyvesant High School? I roll this around in my mouth like it’s a taste I’m unfamiliar with. This doesn’t check out, and it makes me feelkinda sad. I wouldn’t wish something like that on my worst enemy, and shewasmy worst enemy.
“Poor baby,” Ma says. “Hope she’s okay. Nico, can you grab a serving spoon?”
I go to open the drawer, but it gets jammed halfway because of the sheer amount of shit in it. I jiggle it until it opens and grab a spoon.
“Have you seen her for any wedding stuff?” Valentina asks.
“Yeah. Once last year at the engagement party.” I dip my finger in the gravy. Perfect. “She looked fine.”Fine as hell.So hot she caused a fire, in fact.
“She’s the one you had that valedictorian beef with, right?”
I shrug like that “beef” wasn’t the single most stressful and dramatic year of my life. “Yeah.”
“What’d you do to her again?”
“I didn’t do shit. She was the one who made my senior year a living hell for some unknown fuckin’ reason?—”
“Okay, enough gossip about the poor girl,” Ma says. “Come sit down.”
Valentina and I battle for the other good chair, the one that isn’t Ma’s. No one wants the wobbly chair. Valentina is victorious. I sit down at the other one and immediately tilt to one side.
