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I could buymyselfflowers or coffee or whatever else I needed, as I did just that at a little bodega. I wasn’t rich, but I didn’t need to wait for a man to take care of me anymore.
Not my brother.
Not Xavier.
Not anyone.
I could demand enough of Xavier’s money to give Sofia and little no-name-on-the-way what they needed so I could prioritize my own needs for once.
In my mind, and with an extra spring in my step, I rehearsed exactly how I would inform Xavier of that until I rounded the corner toward my house. I immediately stopped short when I clapped eyes on a familiar long-legged figure seated on my little brick stoop like he’d been waiting for me for years.
Dressed in his favorite dark jeans, brightly colored sneakers, and a bright turquoise hoodie to ward against the mild fall breeze sweeping off the river, Xavier didn’t even notice as I approached.
How could he when he was deep in conversation with my mother?
SEVEN
“What are you doing here?”
The question flew out of my mouth sharper than one of Nonna’s kitchen knives. My mother and Xavier twisted toward me with twin expressions of confusion.
Confusion and guilt.
I hadn’t seen my mother in nearly six months, but she looked a lot better than when I’d run into her at the little bodega where she worked in Hunt’s Point. Instead of ill-fitting jeans and over-bleached hair, she looked much more refreshed, maybe even younger than a woman in her late fifties. Her mottled skin had been plumped, tightened, and painted, her nails covered with two-inch, hot pink acrylics, and her caramel hair reconditioned, professionally highlighted, and almost certainly lengthened with extensions.
Even her clothes looked new. The too-tight black pants, frilly green sweater, and high-heeled booties had nary a scuff nor a pulled thread. That bag looked like real Chanel, not just a street-table knockoff.
Xavier, of course, looked dashing as ever, but unlike my mother, he didn’t exactly look refreshed. Dark circles under his blue eyes told me the man hadn’t been sleeping well. And the tight line of his mouth and furrow between his brows showed that he wasn’t happy either. With my mother or with me, I didn’t know.
“My flight arrived early,” he said. “Thought I’d meet you here instead of the hotel to see the peanut.” He looked behind me, and his frown deepened. “Where is she?”
“Not you,” I said, completely ignoring his question. “Her.” I pointed at my mother. “Mami, what are you doing here?”
My mother threaded a few fingers through her hair and gave me an indecipherable look with green eyes that were irritatingly like my own. In fact, the more I peered at her, the more surreal it all became.
My siblings and I all took after our dad’s side with our coloring—fair, if lightly tanned skin, dark brown-black hair, and the fine-boned stature of Zola genetics. But we all shared our mother’s green eyes, and now that I was looking, I could see other things she’d given me. The lips that were a little fuller than most of my sisters’. High cheekbones and a heart-shaped jaw. And my short, curvy shape. That was definitely hers as well.
But for all the similarities, her face was utterly indecipherable. I found myself wishing I knew her better, if only to understand what in the world she was thinking.
Or planning to do.
“Mamita, are you telling me your mother isn’t welcome at your home?” she asked through a thick Bronx accent as she tucked a few sun-kissed strands behind her ear, from which a thick gold hoop swung.
The guilt trip yanked me out of my stupor.
“Correct,” I said sharply. “She is not. You need to go.”
“Ces, come on. She’s your mum. She has a lot to tell you—”
“Why are you taking her side?” I demanded, turning my ire on him. “You know what she’s said about us in the papers. Or are you forgetting?”
Xavier pressed his broad mouth into a thin line. “I remember perfectly.”
He shot my mother a narrow blue glance I found oddly comforting. It was the same expression he gave his chefs when they misbehaved. The same one that was meant to tell them they risked being literally thrown out by their shirt collars.
That was when most of them did exactly what he said.
Mami, however, had no idea what that expression meant. She unwisely chose to ignore it. “Thank you, Xavier. Such a gentleman, Frankie. You have a good one here.”
