It’s at this point that the phone calls start.
For the next week, Daisy and Iris call the deli every day, multiple times a day. They’re calling Sam’s cell, too, and presumably Luce’s; he always answers but tells them they’ll have to talk to Luce if they want answers to questions about her. They say Luce isn’t speaking to them, and Sam says he’s aware of that, and Daisy and Iris demand that he fix it, make it all right between them.
But Sam can’t do that, can’t begin to work out how. This isn’t like when they were children and fighting over the same toy or video game; Sam can’t break out a schedule to share things between them, or talk to them in a low voice until they all feel a little less wound up. They are, all three of them, fully grown adult women, and it’s up to Luce to decide how she wants to moveforward. At least for now, the answer to that question seems to be, “Here at the deli, without them.”
And it’s pathetic, but Sam’sgladthis is what Luce wants. He’s glad she’s here, even if he does keep catching her making out with Joey in the walk-in. He’s glad to have her company at work and even more so at home; it keeps him from spiraling into the dark pit of Jake-centered despair that he would otherwise, by now, be living entirely within. He doesn’t come up with anything to help the situation between the triplets, and he’s guiltily afraid it’s because he doesn’t really want to.
He can’t keep Luce here forever, of course. She has that job offer for next year, and, anyway, insisting that she stay wouldn’t be so different from what their sisters have done here. Sam doesn’t want his to become another voice in Luce’s head telling her she needs to be small, do what keeps the peace, just for something as inconsequential as his comfort.
But he still feels his stomach sink when, the following Friday afternoon, Daisy and Iris walk through the restaurant’s front door with stormy expressions, their faces identical in more ways than one.
EIGHTEEN
NOW: JUNE
“Daisy,” Sam says, blinking at the two of them. “Iris. Uh. Was I expecting you?”
“We decided it was time to drop by and sort things out,” Daisy says in sunny tones. “We understand that Lucy was upset, but enough is enough, don’t you think?”
At the same moment, raising one eyebrow, Iris demands, “Sorry—do we need to make an appointment? DoesLucyhave to make an appointment whenshewants to come by? Because it seems likeshe’shere a lot.”
Sam doesn’t feel good about it—it isn’t brotherly of him—but he’s always hated it when they do this, the simultaneous-speaking, twin-telepathy thing. They’renottwins, first of all, Luce’s claims of being an emancipated sibling aside. And, secondly, because their personalities are essentially diametrically opposed to one another, the tonal shift is brutal, and it always gives him a headache trying to figure out which of them to answer first.
He decides to tackle Iris’s questions now, since she actually asked him something. “No, you don’t need to set an appointment, and neither does Luce. You’re all welcome here whenever, you know that. I just didn’t realize you’d be comingby today. If I’d known, I might have—” Sam manages to choke back, “Steeled myself emotionally for the fight you’re about to have in the middle of my business, and maybe also looked into soundproofing the walk-in so you don’t put everyone off their food,” but only by the skin of his teeth. He finishes, instead, with, “Prepped you…some lunch?”
“We ate,” Iris says, flat.
“It’s four in the afternoon,” Daisy adds brightly. “So lunch would be a little weird, no?”
“Sure,” Sam says, pinching the bridge of his nose. He can feel the headache building already, especially when they cast him identical impatient looks. God, he’s too old to be in the middle of this—they’realltoo old for him to be in the middle of this—and he feels abruptly ancient and wizened, as though he’ll crumble to dust in the next heavy breeze. “I’ll…just go get Luce, then?”
“Thanks!” Daisy sings out, as Iris mutters, “Whatever.”
Sam goes to the back, telling himself as he does that he is not fleeing from the specter of his younger sisters. Luce isn’t in the kitchen or Sam’s office, but he finds her out back sitting with Joey, looking at something on their phone and laughing. He hates to do it to her when she looks so happy, but:
“I regret to inform you that our sisters are here,” Sam says, and winces when all the blood visibly drains from Luce’s face. “Or, uh, my sisters, I guess, since you’ve decided you don’t want to?—”
“What right do they have to come here?” Luce demands. Her voice is shaking. “Kick them out! Tell them they’re not welcome!”
Joey, Sam notes, is glaring at him now, even though they’re usually chill and mild-mannered. It’s all Sam can do not to glare back; it’s not like it’shisfault the two of them showed up.
Still: “It’s. You know. A business? Open to the public? And also…thefamilybusiness? So, not that I agree with what they’vedone, at all, you know that, but. I don’t know that kicking them out would be?—”
“Oh, what good are you,” Luce snarls, and jumps up, stalking into the restaurant without another word. The door slams behind her.
Sam takes a moment to breathe deeply, remind himself that she didn’t mean that. He knows she didn’t mean it. She’s just hurt and upset and scared and young, this is a lot for her, he can’t possibly expect her to?—
Joey interrupts his train of thought, their voice sharper than he’s ever heard it. “Seriously, Sam? You couldn’t just tell those little cu?—”
“Whatever you’re about to say about my baby sisters,” Sam snaps, his tone harsher than he means it to be, “don’t, all right? I understand that you’re only interested in one of them, and I think, honestly, that I’ve been pretty chill these last few months! As you romanced her before my eyes! But if you finish that sentence, Joey, I swear to God I will come down on you like a ton of bricks for all the ‘fifteens’ that are really twenty-fives because you’re out here with your tongue down my sister’s throat?—”
“Jesus,” Joey mutters, cutting him off and standing abruptly. “I wish Jake hadn’t written thatstupidreview. I liked you a lot better with him around.” And then they, too, stalk into the restaurant, leaving Sam, once again, to try to remind himself to take it easy, to see their side.
It’s difficult, just now. Perhaps that’s because of the inherent stress of the moment. As Sam hears, from outside, voices rising from within Silverman’s, he thinks grimly of the Restaurant Rancidity Index, and wonders if he’ll need to track that chef from the video down and let him know they’ve broken his scale.
It’s difficult to give Joey the benefit of the doubt here because what they said cut deep, struck right at the heart of his own churning, swirling thoughts. He, too, wishes Jake hadnot written thatstupidreview, and not just because it hurt the business, and hurt Sam, and ended things between them before they could even really start up. If Jake hadn’t written that review, he would stillbe here, in the deli, right now, and Jake is the sort of person who would know how to handle this situation with the triplets. Jake would raise his eyebrows and say something cool and collected that would draw the fighting to a halt. Jake would assess everyone’s positions and come up with a compromise. Jake would, if nothing else, have it in him to crack a series of jokes, or start humming a cheerful tune while somehow managing to sound sarcastic, or otherwise bleed the tension out of the room. He wouldn’t be the way Sam always is in situations like this: hopelessly trying to balance everyone’s feelings like a towering stack of dirty dishes, and inevitably sending them all crashing to the floor. He’d be competent. Confident.Helpful.
Abruptly, Sam misses him so much it feels genuinely life-threatening. He’s not sure if he hates himself or Jake more for that, just that it stings and smarts even after he’s pushed past the initial shock of agony and gone back into the deli himself.
