“Failing June the Prune’s standards even during the test drive?” January teased, looking at Angelo who stood farther away, his back to us, speaking to two women I recognized.
She had no idea …
Iwas failing my standards.
And that was why I picked fights with him. Because, despite failing to tick any item on my checklist—looks weren’t part of the list—I had developed a weakness for him.
The best way to get rid of weaknesses is to admit them, cleanse them, avoid them, and fill the void with a healthier choice. Hence, my mind was counterarguing and throwing barbs at my heart and body, which seemed to have lost control.
I was relieved when she left, though I was dying to confide in her, in someone, but I couldn’t get my sister involved with this. She had enough trouble of her own without being an accomplice in my illegal, federal crime. And I didn’t want her to know that, despite the different ways we had led our lives until now, we had ended up in not dissimilar ditches, as if this was some fate we couldn’t escape.
After Angelo left, Adam was scrambling with the two women who hadn’t grown out of theirMean Girlsera. I didn’t care if they bought anything or not. Mr. Charm Personified Marchesi had seemed to enchant them into buying the whole shop from the way they looked at him. Now Adam could “seal the deal and take them to the till,” as Rio used to say.
I was too tired to care.
When I had gotten home from Tammy’s last night, I’d crawled into bed immediately. I had showered, peed, and brushed my teeth at Tammy’s, selling her some excuse about my bathroom not functioning. I couldn’t put up the divider at two a.m., so Angelo and I practically shared a bedroom. Took me ages to fall asleep. So, for the second day in a row, I had missed my alarm and morning jog.
I had arrived at work with the image of Mr. Rock ’n’ roll standing in his fitted T-shirt and off-white sweatpants on my balcony then admitting point blank the unsurprising fact that he would never have chosen me. Not that I would have chosen him, either. And that was why I couldn’t explain why I cared so much that he was in love with the twenty-four-year-old female version of rock ’n’ roll.
I had become disoriented in my own life and couldn’t see the end in sight. I missed my seven hours of sleep, my morning routine, and evenings when I didn’t come home to an unattainable, gut-wrenchingly gorgeous Italian playing guitar on my sofa. A man who had put a ring around my finger, moved into my home, sneaked into my thoughts and occupied them, set my body on fire and, as I panicked more and more to realize, had infiltrated my heart and messed the place up. He occupied a piece of it all, a piece of me.
And he was in love with another woman.
I had no choice but to continue living with him; therefore, I had no choice but to kick him out of my thoughts and safeguard my heart. And the only way I knew how to do that in our impossible situation was to sharpen the blurred lines and remind myself, and him, how different we were and how temporary this was. Even if that meant being a total unmannered bitch.
In the afternoon, after a day of confusion, migraine, and strange looks from Adam, I thought that nothing worse could happen than me going home, when the door opened and in sauntered proof that Murphy’s Law was real.
My gut churned again, and I could feel the bile rising.
He roamed the shop with a teenage girl who was his spitting image. Adam had already left, and unlike my policy, for the second time today, I didn’t offer assistance.
“I know you!” he said, stopping at the counter, carrying several products in a basket that his daughter had picked up at the entrance. I’d heard her calling himDad. “You’re … We were in school together, right? You’re … um … don’t tell me, something about the weather, your name … right? You had a funny name, you and your sister? Or was it your brother? Your mom worked at our school. She was the lunch lady or something?” He then turned to the girl who stood next to him. “We went to school together.”
She barely raised her eyes from her phone screen.
“Would that be all?” I plastered a smile on my lips and put everything in a logoed tote I handed out to anyone who bought over a certain sum. The stickers on the products and the tote bearing the nameJune’s Raindidn’t seem to jog his memory.
“Anything else you can recommend to my baby girl?” my bully said, smiling at the girl who was his younger, female replica, and who still didn’t look at him.
I recommend that if you have a crush on some golden boy in school and your frenemy swears he has a crush on you, too, don’t leave him a Valentine’s Day card detailing your secret, precious sentiments, unless you want them repeated in mocking cards left in your locker and thrown in your face by him and his entire circle of friends for two years.
“We have a great natural acne treatment line,” I said with a smile.
The last thing I needed after that was to come home to the sight of Angelo’s black and dark blue boxers swaying in the late afternoon breeze next to my underwear.
I needed a break from it all.
22
Angelo
The footsteps above confirmed that June was home and must have entered from the front to avoid going through the workshop. But she couldn’t avoid me forever.
I stopped playing mid-tune and went upstairs. But before I opened the door more than a crack, I heard moans.
“Oh, my God!” June moaned. “Fuck, it’s so good!”
I shoved my head through the door. She had her back to me, one palm flat on the kitchen counter, her head bent down. She then threw her head back and huffed a loud breath.
