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Maybe I’d been gone for several months and out of the house much longer, but I still remembered the way Joni would cry whenever her report cards came home or the teachers called Nonna in for a school conference. Just like I remembered the way those tears eventually morphed into the expression she was wearing now—a blank, practically porcelain face that bore no signs of emotion one way or another besides the tiny divot that appeared just above her perfectly plucked brows.
When that mask went on, Joni’s ears turned off.
There was no use talking to her now. Especially when I was acting like a bully.
I sighed and set down my knife. “I’m sorry. I’m being a jerk.”
She clutched her mug, but eventually, her green eyes met mine. “Yeah. You are.”
“Hey,” I said, reaching across to set my hand on hers. “It was uncalled for. You do think. I’m just stressed because Xavier’s coming in tonight for the ultrasound. I haven’t seen him since the wedding, and…yeah.”
Joni grimaced sympathetically. She stared at my hand atop her knuckles for a moment, then turned hers over and squeezed my fingers.
“Are you worried he’s going to bring up…you know?”
“His horrible proposal?” I filled in. “That would be a no. We’ve both just kind of decided to pretend it never happened.”
Yes, I’d told my sisters. If anything, that night had made it clear that secrets were not the order of the day.
Joni grimaced with what looked like sympathy. “It’s okay. I sort of deserved that comment anyway. I need to be more considerate, I know.”
“Those articles just really hurt.” I packed Sofia’s sandwich in her lunchbox, along with a granola bar. “Especially Mami’s article. Did you ever read it?”
Joni shook her head. I wasn’t surprised—not even hurt, really. My sister had never been much of a reader, which partially explained her issues in school. Even now, when she looked at the tabloids, she was mostly interested in the pictures, headlines, and fashion. I had regular updates on whatever Karlie Kloss or Bella Hadid were wearing that week, but she could never really tell me any of the actual gossip.
“It was awful,” I said. “She called me a terrible mother. Said I was a liar and irresponsible and all sorts of things. And the paper didn’t bother to find out the fact that she barely raised us becauseshewas the one in jail and everything for, you know,killing our dad.”
The more I talked, the more uncomfortable Joni clearly felt. She rotated her now-empty coffee cup around and around in her hands, chewing on her upper lip most of the time. She barely knew our mother at all, having been just a baby when the accident happened that killed our father and sent our mom to prison for vehicular manslaughter while driving under the influence.
Eager to avoid that particular memory, I did a quick search for the article I was discussing on my phone so I could send it to Joni. I wasn’t sure why I felt so strongly that she know. Maybe I wanted her to be on my side. Or maybe I just wanted someone to feel as enraged about the whole situation as I was.
I’d dealt with enough apathy over the last three months to last me a lifetime.
Instead, however, I found something else that shocked me completely.
“Holy shit,” I muttered as the search results loaded.
“What?” Joni asked, as if she didn’t want to know. “What’s wrong now?”
“It’s…holy crap…Page Sixinterviewed her, too. Mami, I mean. This article is from yesterday.”
I flipped the phone around to show Joni the site as it loaded. She took it while I turned, my body shaking, to put away the various lunch materials. I checked my watch to find that school started in an hour. I had to leave, drop Sofia at school, and somehow manage to keep my cool with a bunch of third graders for the next six hours while this garbage was floating around out there.
Crap, crap, crap.
“‘Watch out for my daughter, the Red Hook Gold Digger,’” Joni read from the headline. “Oh my God, that’s a picture of Mami. And Xavier. Andyou!”
She looked up, green eyes bugging.
“You could sound a little less excited,” I said, taking my phone back and tucking it into my coat pocket.
“I’m not—it’s just shocking. Holy crap, my sister madePage Six!”
“And it very well might ruin my whole life,” I snapped at her. “I showed you that so you’d understand why these sites are absolute junk. I would hope you’d be on my side.”
“Of course I’m on your side,” Joni said. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I’m just—my God, I can’t believe Mami would say that about you!”
“She’s mad because I wouldn’t let her see Sofia last spring. I didn’t trust her then, and I sure don’t trust her now.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “God. I have to get to school. Hopefully no one shows up in the neighborhood. She basically told them all where I live! And Xavier’s coming today too…if the cameras see him, they won’t leave him alone.”
