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“In case you have to give the cops a description?”
“What? No!” I laugh. “I just—I like to know my friend’s names.”
“Gomez. Amanda Gomez.”
When she walksinto my apartment, Mandy whistles. “This is nice,” she bellows but stretches the word ‘nice’ into two syllables. “I knew you were rich, but this is . . . I think only surgeons live in this building.”
I stiffen. She already knows the trial requires patient insurance or upfront out-of-pocket deposits for treatment and hospital stays. This shouldn’t be a surprise to her.
“I’m sorry,” she hastens to apologize. “I’m working on my filter. It’s not very good yet.”
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-eight? You don’t look it.” It’s hard to believe she is older than me. I laugh nervously. “And no worries about the filter, but no, I’m not rich. My sister is. She’s bankrolling my treatment.”Without her knowledge, I think, but don’t offer Mandy that information.
“Oh yeah? What does she do?” Mandy walks around the apartment on a self-led tour as we talk. She grins when she sees the kitchen with its marble island and brand new appliances. The white subway tile backsplash particularly catches her eye. Then she walks from room to room, making sounds of appreciation at each one.
“Nothing. That sounds bad. I don’t mean ‘nothing.’ She’s a homemaker.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Mandy says with a wide, toothy smile that is growing on me. She pops a piece of gum in her mouth and talks through the chewing. “My mom is too. She’s amazing. So your sister, she married money or something?”
“Sort of. I mean, she did. Her husband owns a company in Mexico, but she has her own money.”
“From what?” Mandy asks.
Geesh. She wasn’t kidding about the filter. Is it common for Americans to talk about money like this? “From her dowry,” I say like it’s the most natural thing in the world, but I know it isn’t.
“Herdowry?” Mandy’s jaw drops, flashing me the pink bubblegum in her mouth. “Like Jane Austen and shit?”
I laugh. “Yeah, Mexico had colonizers too. They brought their dowry ideas with them.”
“No shit?” she says and plops herself on the floor as she leans on the wall for a back-rest.
“No shit,” I say.
“Will you get one too?” she asks.
“What?”
“A dowry.”
My nose crinkles, and I shake my head. “Nope. Don’t think so. There’s a clause Dad has to approve of my husband-to-be, and to Dad, it means he gets to pick him out.”
“So your Dad has money?”
I side-eye her. “Yeah. He does,” I say with resignation.
“So I was right before. You’re a rich girl.”
“I’m really not. I was starting to get sponsors and handle my own money thatI earnedbefore I got sick.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m honestly just curious. I don’t give a shit one way or the other.”
“You say ‘shit’ a lot.”
“Yeah. I like to cuss when I’m not at work or at home because it’s the only time I can.”
