I don’t argue.
But in my heart, I realize for the first time that some people are just fucking blessed. While Mom and I toil with skin and blood for every little thing we have, others are born into wealth and privilege.
Mid-bite, Mom glances around and lowers her voice. “Have you seen her?”
On instinct, my stomach tightens. “Who?”
“Victoria Danforth.”
Oh hell no.
“She’s your age,” my normally oblivious mother continues, eyes shining with some maternal fantasy that she immediately crushes. “I hear she’s pretty, but remember to stay away—”
“Obviously.”
“But,” she continues, ignoring my attitude, “there might be other kids around this place from the staff. Maybe you could make a friend.”
“No.” I cut off her delusions. “Absolutely not.”
“You haven’t even met any of them.”
We don’t even know they exist, I want to say.
I stab the chicken with a fork. “I don’t need to.”
Mom sighs dramatically. “Enzo, you’re eighteen, not eighty. Don’t spend the summer moping. Make a friend.”
“Mother,” I enunciate, voice flat, “this is a mansion that could buy a small nation.”
“So?”
“So we both know what trouble the type of friends I like to make tends to stir up.” I shovel the rest of the plate into my mouth at top speed. “Trash begets trash.”
My mother gives me that look, the pitying one. “You need to stop believing that.”
“I don’t believe it.” I wipe my mouth and drop my fork. “I know it.”
After lunch, I help my mother carry boxes into the kitchen. It’s not the highlight of my day, that’s for sure. It smells of garlic and sweat. Not a good combo if you ask me.
The cooks move with military efficiency—knives flashing, pans sizzling, orders shouted.
My mother looks happy. Really happy. It settles something in me, and I feel a tiny,tinybit less pissed off to be woken at an ungodly hour and relocated here.
Then Chef Arthur storms past us.
“We have a problem with the ice delivery,” he bellows. “Someone fetch more from the auxiliary freezer. You—” He pauses to snap at me. “Boy!”
I freeze.
Oh, great.
Being an errand boy wasn’t on my summer bingo card, but here we are.
“Yes, you.” He points at me with a knife, which feels like an HR violation. “Freezer. Now. And hurry. The Danforths have been waiting for their lunch for three minutes.”
“Wow. Three whole minutes. How will they ever survive?”I want to say, but Mom’s face pleads with me to behave.
So I nod and head toward the hallway.
