“Is it your life, Zoe? All I ask is that you make sure of that.” She waves me away, back toward the warehouse, where I can hear a boom box blasting “Respect.” I hold up my hand, palm out, tired of her cryptic morality messages.
The warehouse is overwhelmed with color, an overabundance of light pink. I spot Lydia in the corner, instructing a small dark-haired woman on what to look for in a bloom. The girl is nodding and fidgeting with her apron string. Lydia sees me and flashes me a grin, nodding in Javi’s direction. I shake my head. She motions to the girl, who nods and continues to strip leaves, slicing the stems on a bias with a sharp knife. She stops every few minutes to examine her thumb. I look at my own thumb, the skin still tough and lined with the fine, delicate scars. I run my index finger over the pad and feel the healed incisions. When I flip my hands over, palms down, the skin on the top is newly smooth and creamy, groomed by manicures and coddled with expensive lotions.
“I don’t think it’s even possible to cut my skin anymore. It has to be made of leather by now.” Lydia stands in front of me, her eyes bright and blinking, her mouth curved in a genuine smile. Gone are the double entendres and chilly pretenses from last week. She radiates warmth.
I remember why I’m there. “Can we talk somewhere he’s not?” I jerk my head in Javi’s direction. He’s giving me the stink-eye from across the room, whispering to one of the warehouse runners behind his hand, laughing in my direction. “What is his deal?”
Lydia shrugs and rolls her eyes. “You know Javi. He’s just a pain in the ass. He thinks you abandoned us. He’s wrapped his own insecurities around you, thinks that you think you’re better than us.”
“I did come back. I have come back to say hi. I was on a trip. For months. What the hell, Lyd?”
She leads me to a corner in the front of the warehouse and gives me a metal folding chair. We both sit so our knees are touching. Her foot bobs and I know she wants a cigarette, but when Elisa lurks around, you can’t just simply take a smoke break. I remember the drill, you wait for an errand you can conveniently volunteer for, otherwise Elisa’s eyes dart around like an eagle, performing a constant head count. “Come on, you know him. He’s got a stick up his ass. He thinks you’re a Richie Rich now, all judgy of his wardrobe. That you’re too good for his scene. I don’t know why—”
I cut her off because I can’t keep it in anymore. “I found her. Lydia, I found my mother.” I reach out and grab her shoulders without even realizing it and she looks startled.
“Wait. What?”
“I found my birth mother. She agreed to see me Friday. I got Cash, this reporter I’ve weirdly become friends with, to take me. Can you come with us?” I throw it out there, reckless and unplanned. I suddenly want a guard wall of friends.
“I can’t. It’s Cissy’s birthday.” Cissy is Lydia’s mom. A freckled, blonde version of Lydia, their faces identical. When I met her, in the kitchen of Lydia’s childhood home in Woodbridge, New Jersey, surrounded by rooster decorations and rustic signs painted with things like Fresh Eggs and Home of the Free * Because of the Brave, she’d just baked a pie. She wiped her hands on an apple apron and handed me a homemade chocolate chip cookie from a mooing cow cookie jar. Lydia always took umbrage with her childhood: It had been too happy to retain any sort of street cred, despite her piercings and tattoos. Cissy never batted an eyelash at her punk daughter, her full, fleshy arms wobbling as she hugged both of us at once, as though I was somehow included, too. She smelled like Jean Naté.
“Tell her. See if she cares.” I persist because now that I’ve told her, now that I’ve let Lydia in again, I want to share everything with her. I’ve been friendship starved, and now I want the all-you-can-eat, twenty-four hour buffet.
“Gawd, she’ll want to come.” Lydia curls her lip. “I can’t. We’re going out to dinner. Probably to the Golden Corral or something.” She can hardly stand the provinciality. She pulls my hand up to her face and studies my French manicure. “You’ll cut these, you know.” Little more than a year before, my nails were clipped down to the beds, raggedy and hang-nailed.
“I know. I’m ready for it. I want to come back. I want to be back.”
“And Henry says?”
“He’s fine with it. He wants me to be happy.”
“Will he let you come back every day?” She arches one penciled eyebrow at me, toeing my shin with a black, original Chuck Taylor.
“That’s a trick question. I don’t want to come back every day.” I’m pretty sure that’s true. I stand up, abruptly, dusting imaginary crumbs off my slacks. I’m pretty sure Lydia has never worn slacks in her life. But still, As you are woman, so be lovely darts across my mind.
“Are you leaving?” The snotty tone is back, with an unspoken I told ya so.
“Yeah. I want to be home for Henry.” I say this defiantly, daring her to make a snotty comment.