“No need for three dots, Rio; we’re not twelve.”
“Party pooper!” Then, “Can I introduce myself properly, now that we’re neighbors and all?”
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I cringed at the thought of introducing Angelo to anyone I knew. But maybe what I couldn’t see wouldn’t hurt me.
“Go ahead,” I replied.
I trusted Angelo to stick to our story. Ihadto trust him—we were dependent on each other.
The text I received on my way back home was a painful and frightening reminder of that.
“Jerry will be interviewed in a few days,” Esther texted.
I called her from my car. “What does that mean?”
“Only that they’re investigating. Jerry is listed as Angelo’s employer, and he introduced you two.”
“Do we need to meet him?”
“He’s briefed, and I don’t want to confuse him.”
Only when we hung up did I realize that if Jerry’s interview was in a few days, ours would be only after that. That meant that this living-with-Angelo thing wasn’t going to end in a week.
Great …
Just then, my phone flashed on its dashboard mount with an incoming call.
“Did you hear?” Angelo asked.
“Yes.”
We were both silent.
“We’ll talk when I get home,” I said eventually, and we hung up.
The coastline flew by the car window to my right. Turning up the volume, I sang aloud with the radio, screaming all the way.
16
Angelo
There was a noise on the line as if the phone had been dropped.
I was about to hang up when music began playing loudly, mid-song. Sheryl Crow burst her lungs out with “If it Makes You Happy,” when an off-key voice sang along with her. It shrieked, “It can’t be that baaaaaaad; if it makes you happyyyy, then why the hell are you so sad?” The voice even dropped disharmoniously at the last two words, along with Sheryl’s.
I grinned, sucking in my lips and halting my breath to stop the laughter that threatened to roll out.
June continued to sing with the radio, replacing lyrics she didn’t remember with mumbles and, “na, na, na.”
She’d never be a singer in a band like Amber, but not for a lack of enthusiasm. I’d give her that.
I felt like I was peeking through a peephole into the secret life of this poised woman. When she screamed the repeated chorus again, I wanted to hang up on this accidental intrusion but couldn’t bring myself to lose the momentum of witnessing a whole new side of her that didn’t involve lists, rigorous routine, manicured spaces, or bitter powder replacements for the best things in life.
After forcing myself to hang up, I used the time to eat and do the dishes before June arrived. I wanted to minimize our forced intimacy.
The day had flown by. My temporary workshop was set. Most of the equipment was organized on two sturdy folding tables that I had covered in felt, and I had drilled a few hooks on one wall for tools and guitar cases; I had brought seven guitars with me so I wouldn’t be behind my commitments to customers.
Rio had come in and introduced herself.
