Skills like that aren’t learned by accident.
After the creaks on the steps stop, I stay in the closet and count to twenty because I don’t trust my legs. The cleaning stuff smell gets in my lungs, bright and harsh. The mops’ strings tickle my arm and make me want to scratch. I don’t move. My heartbeat slows enough to stop trying to punch out of my skin. I let the door crack widen and look down the empty hall. No one.
I slip out.
The office door is still a little open, so I slip inside and sit behind the desk, thoughts rushing through my mind so fast I can’t catch one.
The steps creak again, and I stiffen, fear holding my breath.
Then I remember thathedoesn’t make noise on the steps. I watch as my mother comes down the hall and into the office. She doesn’t notice me right away because I haven’t turned the light back on.
When she does, she gasps and smacks her hand to her heart, like it might fall out.
“Bianca!” she says breathlessly.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say, keeping my voice low. “I needed a minute.”
She flips the light on and blinks against it. Her eyes do a quick scan—ledger, phone, door—like she’s counting what could go wrong. “When did you come up here?” she says, eyes darting down at the ledger on the desk.
“Who was that?” I ask.
She flinches. Actually flinches. Her face smooths a second later, the way it always has, like she irons her expressions flat with will. “Don’t,” she says, more to the air than to me. “Tonight is not—”
“Who—”
“Bianca.” My name is a warning. She picks up the letter opener and sets it down like she needed something to do with her hand and thought better of it. “You shouldn’t be up here. Go downstairs.”
“Mama,” I warn.
She drags a palm down her neck, presses her pulse with two fingers. “We’re busy. Go help Zia at the bar.”
“I’m not working,” I remind her.
“Then go smile at people so they feel like they’re getting something for free,” she says, and the old joke falls out of her mouth on habit, dull around the edges. “Please.”
“Who was he?” I ask again, because I can’t let it go now. “The man.”
“Which man?” Her eyes cut to the door and back. The tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth betrays her.
“The one who just walked past me,” I say.
“You were listening at the door,” she says, attempting to accuse me in order to change the subject. “What are you, fifteen?”
“Stop trying to distract me, Mama,” I say quietly.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says, and the more she refuses to answer, the more worried I get.
“Too late,” I say.
She stares at me for a hard second. The lines around her mouth have been deeper since Nonna passed. Around her eyes, too. She looks at my face like she’s measuring how much I’ll push.
She holds my stare a beat longer, then exhales, reaches behind her, and pushes the door shut with the heel of her hand. The latch clicks. She twists the lock.
“Fine,” she says. “Sit.”
“I am sitting.”
She drops into the chair opposite, drags a palm across the blotter like she’d clear crumbs if there were any. For a second, she looks younger and older at the same time. Then she squares up.
