“I’m sorry,” said Nadine, trying to keep polite. “It’s not the right job for me.”
Lisanne pointed at her. “You know theHerald. If you take too long, you’ll be pigeonholed as the night web editor. It’ll be some hot new thing coming through getting the jobs.”
“I know.”
“You don’t want to be stuck,” said Lisanne as she sipped her beer.
“I know,” Nadine repeated.
Lisanne looked at her. “Think about it?”
“I will.”
The conversation moved on. Nadine did her best to focus, but her mind kept drifting to tomorrow and Wes, who was going to be living with her for three weeks. Less if they found what they needed, although that thought gave her no pleasure. Did she want more time with Wes? She gulped down the rest of her drink without coming to a conclusion and listened to Lisanne talk.
Twenty
Wes finished the plain noodles that made up the bulk of his meal and tried to avoid the tasteless chewy fish his mother had served. Across from him, Amy moved her own food around her plate as their mother complained about her job and the people she worked with.
Wes picked up a dish to give him an excuse to duck into the kitchen and marshal his thoughts. He’d told Amy about Ella’s Italian internship, and she agreed he did the right thing. “At least she’s done with school now, so you don’t have to worry about tuition next year,” she had said. He knew most of Amy’s money went to rent and hadn’t ask her to chip in. However, she’d been against his suggestion they cover for their sister, insisting Ella should be the one to tell their mother her plans.
“You’re not doing her any favors by letting her avoid Ma,” Amy had said earlier on the phone when he’d asked her to come for dinner. “Ella needs to learn to stand up to her.”
“That would work if Ella was more like you,” he said. “She’s not. You let it roll off your back, but she dwells on it. Remember that recorder recital when she was nine?”
“She quit band because Ma kept telling her she wasn’t good enough,”said Amy. “Point taken. Well, I’m sure you’ll hand-hold Ma through this new catastrophe.”
“That’s not fair,” Wes said. He loved Amy, but she had little patience for their mother and what she called Wes’s enabling.
“It’s very fair, and the fact that you’re asking me to give up my peaceful night at home to provide moral support because you can’t tell her to act like a human being proves it.”
Wes sighed. “Amy.”
There was a long silence. “Hold on,” Amy said suspiciously. “What are you holding back?”
Then Wes told her he would be leaving for a three-week work assignment, and Amy laughed and laughed. “You’re going to dump all the news on her at once so she doesn’t know where to get upset first,” she said. “Sneaky.”
“Then you’ll come to dinner?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this,” his sister said. “I’ll bring dessert so we’ll have one thing that’s edible.”
Now Wes listened to Amy making conversation with their mother as he cleared the rest of the table. Unlike Ella and Wes, Amy had a natural ability to tune out their mother that had been refined by a year of therapy, which she had started the second she moved out. She simply ignored all their mother’s interruptions and talked about nothing in the most boring way possible. “Then this guy makes a left-hand turn…”
“I have a pain in my foot. Wes won’t bring me to the doctor.”
“The guy didn’t signal once.”
“You didn’t thank me for making you dinner.”
“I was behind him for three lights. Can you believe it?”
Wes put the cupcakes on a plate and brought them out. Their mother eyed them with disapproval. “Waste of money,” she said. “Amy could have made them at home if she wasn’t so busy working.”
“Too bad I inherited the Chen baking gene or lack thereof on thefemale side,” said his sister.
Wes stepped in before his mother took this as an insult to her cooking. “Ma, do you want chocolate, pistachio, or red velvet?”
“You know I only like vanilla,” she said.
