Page 20 of Boyfriend of the Hour
Lea emptied another desk drawer of mostly pencil stubs, used hair ties, and other random crap into a trash bag. “Jo, you’ve been saying that for months. You’re out of time.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? I just need another few days. I have a few leads on some jobs, and?—”
“Leads?” Lea shook her head, looking blown away. “That’s all you have after four months? Some more leads?”
“Hey, any more boxes need to go down?”
We both turned as Frankie and Kate walked into the room, Kate with free hands, Frankie carrying a plate of amaretti, freshly baked by the way their sweet, almondy scent drifted through the room. A delicious and totally premeditated ambush.
“We’re almost done,” Lea said stiffly as Frankie set the cookies on the desk and then lowered her five-month-pregnant self into my chair.
“When’s your flight?” I wondered as I snagged a cookie and popped it in my mouth.
“Four tomorrow.” Frankie looked between all of us. “And that’s it for a while. I’m not supposed to travel after six months.”
She and Lea traded knowing looks. There had been a rash of babies in the family lately. First, Lea had baby Lupe last year, and then Frankie got pregnant again within a month of Matthew’s wife, Nina. Everyone was settled and/or nesting like freaking ducks in a pond. Everyone but me.
“So, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition greased with cookies?” I joked as I grabbed another amaretto, ignoring the fact that I was the only one taking advantage of them. “I think the Spanish had better outfits, you know.”
My sisters exchanged guilty glances around the room.
“Don’t do that.” Frankie’s gentle voice broke through the awkwardness. “Don’t mask your nerves with insults, Jo.”
“Since Marie’s not here, someone has to take them,” I shot back.
I’d never admit it to anyone, but I missed my mousy wallflower almost twin like crazy. Despite being born only ten months apart, we were complete opposites and fought like cats and dogs. But home wasn’t really home without the person I’d shared a room with for most of my life.
“Where are the kids, anyway?” I asked Lea as I considered a third cookie. Were I still auditioning, I would have limited myself to one, but these days, did it really matter? “Usually, they sound like a herd of elephants by now.”
“The boys took the kids back to my house,” Lea said. “They knew we needed to talk. All of us.”
“So you said. What is this, an intervention?” I joked. To hell with it, I was going to have that cookie.
Every woman around the room clasped their hands in identical prayer-like positions while they stared at me with identical expressions of frustration, pity, and…dread. No one laughed. No one even argued. The room grew quiet.
And my family wasneverquiet.
“Wait,” I said, cookie halfway to my mouth. “This…is…an intervention? For friggin’ what?”
As a dancer, I’d been freakishly intense about keeping my body clean. Even though that career had ended almost four months ago, I wasn’t much different. I liked to go out with friends, sure. And the occasional random dude. Fine. But I hardly drank, almost never touched drugs beyond alcohol, and basically treated my body like a temple. Compared to other twenty-four-year-olds in this city, I was a saint.
What addiction were they intervening? Nonna’s baking?
“Did you find a place?” Frankie wondered at last.
I didn’t answer, but Lea did it for me.
“She doesn’t have anywhere to go,” she said. “Still.”
“Joni, seriously?” Kate put in. “You told me last week you had some leads.”
Had I told her that? I wondered. Sometimes, I could barely remember conversations from yesterday.
“Honestly,” Lea continued. “How can you leave something as basic as where you sleep to the last minute? It’s crazy!”
“You know what’s really crazy?” I demanded. “That I have five siblings, two of them with rich-ass partners, and none of them can give me any help. Not even a couch to sleep on.”
I glared around the room, full of accusation.
