Beside myself.
I was a nervous wreck.
Because Jane had just walked back into my life. She was at the lake for the summer. I would see her. The girl who’d been haunting my dreams for years.
The girl who was dating Eddie.
“Fuck my life,” I groaned, spinning around in the desk chair as I held my face in my hands.
“No complaining in the office,” Aunt Pari said as she waltzed into the room, tossing me a look through wire-rimmed glasses. “Scream your head off down there, and you’ll cost us customers. Scream your head off up here, and it will eventually break your heart. I don’t know what was happening down there today, but don’t bring it up here. The office isn’t for negativity.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll keep it bottled up inside until I explode.”
“That’s what we did back in my day. I turned out all right.”
My mother had two sisters—the three Kasabian girls. Since my father kicked me out of the house, I spent most of my time with the Kasabian side of the family. I think their weird ways were starting to rub off on me.
“When your grandfather saw this view, he knew he had to have this location,” Aunt Pari said, telling me a story I’d heard a bajillion times. “Not Brady’s shop, two blocks down. That was the cheaper choice, but Papa wanted this view.”
“Because it was the best.”
“The best. So he paid out of the nose, and now he’s in Glendale, enjoying retirement, while we enjoy this view,” she says, looking back at me with a soft smile. “This is special. It’s a good view. Don’t take out your aggression on the lake.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And I won’t ask you why you were shouting at that girl,” she said, handing me the green, dildo-looking dog toy. “She left this, by the way.”
Oh. Huh. Probably because she got distracted when I was shouting at her. Like an angry troll. I mean… what was wrong with me?
Aunt Pari searched through a stack of papers on the long desk that stretched below the great window. A tiny gold cross swung free from her neck and glinted in the sunlight as she pressed a button on a phone. “Haley? Where is that list of bands for the festival? The ones with in-store events?”
“In your email,” I murmured. “Just open it and read it on the screen.”
“I need a print copy,” Aunt Pari said, gesturing. “I have to hold it in my hands. You kids don’t understand. When all of this technology breaks down, I’ll have the printed copy.”
Aunt Pari was always concerned about techno-failure. For someone who insisted on positivity in the office, she was seriously hung up on the doom of the internet.
After a moment, Haley’s voice came through the speaker: “If you can’t find it, you can print another copy from your email. But remember that the last print job got cancelled when the labels got stuck in the printer, and you need to clear it first. Do you want me to show you how again?”
“No,” Aunt Pari replied, eyeing a giant printer on the desk as if it were a predator before her gaze shifted to me. “Can youhard clear a something-something job from a print spool whatchamadiggy?”
Sadly, I knew what she meant. And though it took her about three lifetimes to find the right email to print, once she did, I fixed the printer issues and gave her the printed piece of paper she desired. It was five minutes that I wasn’t thinking about Jane. And as I soon as they were up, the universe threw me back into my own misery.
“Okay, fine. I take it from all the shouting downstairs that she is Eddie’s girlfriend? The girl with the green dog toy,” Aunt Pari said, gesturing to the rubber pickle sitting on the desk near my elbow.
“Apparently so,” I said, trying to force my stomach not to knot up.
“Didn’t know he was seeing anyone.”
“Knew he was seeing lots of someones. Just not one in particular,” I corrected.
Notthatone. Not Jane. My Jane. Not that she was ever truly mine. But I spent a lot of time when I was younger wishing she’d just look my way for five seconds. Then Eddie started blocking the view.
“Well,” Aunt Pari said, shrugging. “Not as if I run into your brother much these days. Wouldn’t really know what’s going on with his personal life. But I’m surprised that your mother didn’t say anything to me. She tends to share gossip.”
My mother shared what she wanted to. She definitely knew what Jane meant to me. If Eddie was dating Jane, I’m not suremy mother would tell me. She might be afraid I’d react… like I did today.
“Didn’t Eddie leave for the Philippines?” Aunt Pari said.
