Page 4 of Cherry on Top

“Hi, Mom,” he said into the speaker.

“Oh, darling, I’m so happy I caught you,” Giana said.

“Just in time,” Enzo said. She wasn’t here so she couldn’t see his eye roll. He loved his mother—for forever it had just been him and her against the whole world, but she’d responded to that by hanging on to him far too tightly, and even being three thousand miles away hadn’t really felt far enough from Indigo Bay.

“Are you working?” she asked.

Enzo tried not to let it drive him nuts that she didn’t understand what he did. That she seemed to have some misplaced, misguided idea that he just fucked around with paints all day.

When in reality, he was covering hundreds of square feet with artistic creations that could be seen blocks away.

When in reality, it was work. Work he loved, too, but hard work nonetheless.

“Yes,” he said. Keeping it short and simple. Trying to not be—or feel—defensive.

“I thought you’d be almost done with that one, by now,” she said.

Don’t do it, don’t do it.

“Mom, it’s a five-story building.”

In his mind’s eye, Enzo could see her waving her hand. Dismissing what was actually an enormous expanse of brick to cover. “You know, we have buildings here, too, in Indigo Bay. Buildings you could paint.”

He stifled his sigh. It was inevitable.

“I know,” he said. “But I’ve been so busy, Mom.” Thought you’d be happier about that.

She was proud of him. Always telling him about how she talked to her friends about his accomplishments. Always blown away when he sent pictures of what he was working on.

She certainly seemed to appreciate how solid their financial situation was, compared to years ago, when the deli was struggling, before Luca had ever shown up.

Enzo gazed up at the nearly finished star system sprawled over the brick above him, the dappled blues and grays and purples, dotted with stars. A whole galaxy that he’d painted, on the side of this building that had once been a warehouse but was now going to be a children’s museum.

Could use some more lavender on the edges of that black hole.

Considered the problem as she kept talking.

“You’ve missed so much, already, this year,” she said. “Thanksgiving. Christmas. The spring wine dinner Oliver and Luca hosted, the Memorial Day picnic, and of course, the Festival.”

“Oh, yeah, the Festival.”

Ugh, the Sweethearts Festival. Even if he’d been free, Enzo wouldn’t have come home for that. It made him feel weird and uncomfortable, surrounded by so much love and romance, when he was alone. Preferred to be alone, traveling on his own, making friends where he went, living out of a bag, moving to a new city every six to eight weeks.

It confused the hell out of Giana, but he loved it. And wasn’t he the person he needed to please? For most of his teenage years and early adulthood, he’d never gotten to. Was it any wonder he was so fanatically dedicated to doing it now?

“I’m just saying, you’ve missed so much. You should come home. You know, like I said, we have buildings here. Buildings that could use murals.”

“You’ve said.” More than once.

He wasn’t against painting a mural in Indigo Bay. He was against going back to Indigo Bay.

Whenever he went back, the town seemed to close around him, reminding him every time he turned a corner of the boy he’d used to be. The boy he’d exorcised, but who somehow rose from the dead every time he crossed the town line.

“We just miss you, darling,” Giana said in a small, soft voice, and there it was, like clockwork. The guilt.

“I’ll think about it,” Enzo said. He pulled out a large empty plastic container, already stained with a half-dozen colors he’d already mixed up and used on the mural. He squirted blue in and added red, then white, mixing and mixing with a wooden stake until the color was exactly what he wanted.

“You will?” She sounded thrilled.

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