“Baby, I think that’s enough,” Mom says next to me.
“Huh?” I look down at the plate in front of me, half the pot of rice covering its surface. “Oh. Right.” I scoop some back into the pan and carry two plates to the table, accidentally kicking Jay in the shin as I pass him. He grunts but says nothing.
Mom fills glasses with iced tea, and even Jay deigns to set out forks and knives. God, it’s like something right out of a 1950s sitcom. Jay and Mom banter back and forth in a way that can really only be described as flirting. I’m about two seconds from scratching both their eyes out when the doorbell rings and then the door opens. Luca pops his head through and calls out, “Hello?”
“Luca!” Mom squeals, and runs over to him. She tackle-hugs him, and he lets out an Oof, nearly dropping the grease-stained paper bag in his arms.
“Well, hello to you too, Maggie.” His sandy hair is longer since I last saw him, his curls sticking up everywhere. He’s got on his summer uniform—?ironic T-shirt, board shorts, and flip-flops.
“How’s it working out with that girl Emmy took in?” Mom asks, gripping his already-tanned arms. Other than sun-deprived tourists, Luca’s the only person I know who swims in the ocean this early. “What’s her name? Ella?”
“Eva. She’s doing okay, I guess, considering.”
Mom presses a hand to her heart, and I fight an eye roll. Here we go again, I think. Then mentally slap myself because, Jesus, this Eva girl just lost her mother.
“So heartbreaking,” Mom says. “I’m going to stop by LuMac’s really soon and meet her, okay? She’s our girl now, right? We’ll take care of her.”
Luca flicks his eyes to me and then back. “You got it, Maggie.”
Mom beams and finally releases Luca. He brings the bag from LuMac’s to the counter, unloading two tinfoil pans of pizza fries and a huge plate of brownies covered in Saran Wrap. Then he folds me into a hug, his arms swallowing me. He smells sort of coconutty, like sunscreen.
“Mom sent over some goodies,” he says, my face pretty much still buried in his armpit. “A housewarming gift.”
“Oh, I’ll be sure and thank her when I stop by,” Mom says, but her posture stiffens. She sniffs the brownies like she’s expecting them to be rancid or something.
“She’d love to see you,” Luca says, releasing me.
Mom nods, but it’s impossible to tell what she’s thinking. When Luca and I were around four years old, she and Luca’s mom met at a support group that Emmy was running for people with spouses killed in action. Emmy used to be a licensed counselor, specializing in grief and family therapy, and she immediately took to Mom. She even did a couple of private sessions with her. True to form, Mom clung to her pretty tightly at first but balked once anything got too hard to deal with. Not so coincidentally, that was around the same time she started dating Rob. Or maybe it was Rick. Whatever. Point being, Mom’s therapy was the definition of sporadic. Then, five years ago, Luca’s dad found greener pastures in his secretary’s pants—?god, the man is a walking cliché—?and moved to California, so Emmy decided to start over too. She quit her practice and opened LuMac’s. Without the counseling, our moms interacted less and less, and any lingering affectionate feelings they once shared disintegrated when Emmy tried to “steal” me.
Now I’m the only one who’s really trapped in Mom’s rip tide.
But only for another year. I think. Crap, I don’t know. I get chills just thinking about the whole thing, but I’m not sure if they’re the good kind. On the one hand, I’ve only got a year to put up with Mom’s messes. On the other, I’ve only got a year to get her to stop making them in the first place.
Luca smiles at me and I steal a pizza fry off the top pan. A long string of mozzarella cheese stretches to my mouth. I hear an annoying clicking sound and turn to find Jay watching me. No, not watching. Leering. He wiggles his eyebrows, clicking his tongue again. I ignore him, meeting Luca’s boiling-anger expression. I shake my head and Luca nods, my nonverbal leave it alone received.
“Can I get one of those, Michaelson?” Jay asks, reaching for a fry.
“Sure, Lanier.”
I stifle a laugh. Luca hates it when guys call each other by their last names. “Hey, look at me, I’m too manly for those girly first names,” he always says in an overdone booming voice with his chest puffed out.
Mom calls Pete for dinner while I watch Jay and Luca fake smile and chomp on pizza fries. They never liked each other, even when Jay and I were a thing. It was a pain in the ass then, but the whole Tumblr-sexts incident pretty much cemented their enmity and I’m just fine with that.
“I’m starving,” Pete says as he comes into the room, his hair still wet. We all sit at the table, and he tucks his napkin into his collar. “Looks great, Mags.”
Mom simpers. “Thanks, hon.”
I bite the inside of my cheek and feel Luca’s gaze shift to me. He knows Pete would be hacking at a charred lump on his plate if I hadn’t intervened. But whatever. Let Mom play the adoring wife if that’s what makes her happy. God knows it won’t last long.
Polite conversation ensues. Mom asks Luca about the diner and his brother and when Macon’s very pregnant wife, Janelle, is due. Pete asks Jay when training for fall football starts. Eventually, Luca forces me to talk by asking about the piano workshop in Boston. An instructor at Juilliard runs the whole thing. It’s scholarship based, which means if you’re good enough to get in, it’s paid for. That also means it’s basically one big sticks-up-their-asses ego fest. Mr. Wheeler says I got in because I’m just that talented, but really I got in because he went to high school with the director. Plain and simple. All the other kids there had private tutors and their own personal piano studios. I’ve got an uptight high school music teacher and part-time jobs. Either way, I went and learned a ton of new techniques and got some awesome tips for my audition.
“That’s wonderful, baby,” Mom says after I spit out some details.
“I need to get busy on all the stuff I learned,” I say, picking at my chicken. I cooked it too long. It’s a weird combo of dry and rubbery. “The piano probably needs to be . . . tuned . . .” I trail off as I look around the tiny living area. “Wait a minute.”
I slide back my chair and get up. I walk slowly through the house, unbelieving eyes cutting into every corner.
No. She wouldn’t.
“Where the hell is my piano?” I ask when I circle back to the table.
Mom sits back, squirming in her seat. Pete squirms right along with her. Luca looks at me like he’s waiting for me to combust, and Jay continues to shovel rice into his gaping maw.
“Gracie—?” Mom starts, but I cut her off.
“Where is it?”
She visibly pales. “Baby. There . . . there just wasn’t room—?”
“There wasn’t room?” I say, my voice a rising screech.