“Are you going to diagnose me?” I ask mildly.
She looks up, stunned by my utter lack of remorse. “You don’t feel bad at all, do you?” she says in disbelief, and it reminds me of when my mother found me with one of my “pet” lizards. I’d cut off its tail to watch it wiggle while severed from its body. My mother had said something similar, and I’d stared back at her, dumbfounded. That she didn’t also find this phenomenon fascinating bewildered me. It was also the first time I realized that I might be different—abnormal—and that I needed to be more careful.
I decide to counter Lucia’s emotional response with reason.
“Lucia, if Adam’s recovery didn’t hurt at all, do you know what he’d be asking for next? Otoplasty because he thinks his ears are too pointy, or injections because he doesn’t like the shape of his lips, Botox for his nonexistent wrinkles, or any number of other needless procedures because Adam has an illness.”
She stares at me, unimpressed. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Taking care of one another is what lovers do.”
“Not like this,” she says severely. Her tone is a warning. More than a warning, it’s a threat.
“Are you going to tell him?” I ask because that is where the real danger lies.
“What if I did?” she asks, wary. She knows what I’m capable of when I don’t get my way, which isn’t very often.
“I’d be very upset,” I admit with a little more ice in my voice than I’d intended.
She shakes her head, torn between doing what she thinks is right and her own loyalties to me. We’ve always kept each other’s secrets. It’s the very foundation of our friendship. And she’s always reprimanded me when she thinks I’ve gone too far, like the time I paid a few thugs to beat up her older brother, the one who molested her. She didn’t ask for it and was very cross with me when she found out. We went round and round, but in the end, I convinced her that it needed to be done.
“Do you remember when you went through your klepto phase?” I ask. There were a few years in our teens when I couldn’t take Lucia anywhere without her thieving every pocket-sized item that wasn’t nailed to the shelf. I’d go through her bag later and find all sorts of goodies she’d lifted when no one was looking.
“Yes,” she says sullenly.
“And you remember when you got caught?” She’d stolen a $300 tube of Guerlain lipstick from Saks Fifth Avenue, not because she couldn’t afford it—she had one of the exact same shade already—but because she liked the rush.
“Yes,” she admits.
“And what happened?”
“You took the blame,” she says, looking up at me with shame.
“That’s right. I got charged for it too.” Luckily my mother’s lawyers got me out of it. God bless our legal system that favors the rich. “I did that for you because I love you, as I love Adam. I would do anything to keep you safe, and I know you don’t agree with this particular method of mine, I can assure you, I am doing this to save him from himself.”
“It’s not right,” she insists but with far less passion now.
“I know, darling, but I think we can both agree that I am alsonot right.”
She sighs, her fury having morphed into sympathy now. Sociopaths get a bad rap, but I can’t help that I lack a conscience. Would you blame a child for the birth defect of missing an arm or a leg? Between my felonious father and narcissistic mother, it’s a miracle I’m as well-adjusted as I am.
“Do you really love him?” she asks.
“I just dropped ten thousand dollars on a nose job he doesn’t need, which will result in him looking exactly the same.”
Lucia grins, then snorts a laugh, which sets her off to giggling so hard that tears form at the corners of her eyes. I can’t help but chuckle at the hilarity myself. “You are two peas in a motherfucking pod,” she says. “The Mad Hatter and March Hare at a tea party of sheer insanity. What would Adam do if he found out?”
I’ve seen his temper, and it is something to behold. I’m sure his reaction would be a physical one, as the intellectual sphere is not where he dominates. “I honestly don’t know, but I find that aspect of our relationship thrilling too.”
She shakes her head, flabbergasted. “Mark my words, King Peacock, this thing between you is going to get messy.”
I smile and pat her hand. “Lucia, darling, it already has.”
Chapter20
Adam
Everyone loves my new nose. Everyone except Elliot. He was out of town for the holidays when I went in for surgery and didn’t find out about it until he got back. I was already nearing the end of my recovery by then and didn’t care to hear his lecture. He still gave it to me, then stomped off to the pool house muttering about how he was going to have to go in a completely different direction now that I’d gone and ruined my face.
