“How are things at DAX?” she asked softly.
“They’re okay.” He shrugged. “Julien hasn’t been normal since you appeared. Whatever you’re giving him, keep giving it, because he’s mostly off all of our cases now.”
She raised her hand to hide the red from the blood that rushed to her cheeks. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Richard side-eyed her. “Oh, come on, Lumi. We all know by now.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, God,” she said.
“What? Don’t be ashamed! If it can’t be me, at least it’s you.”
They both laughed together, and Richard shook his head gently.
“He seems happy, though. In the seven years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him happy like this.”
Lumi looked up from her coffee and furrowed her brow. “Richard . . . oh, God, I shouldn’t ask you this.” She stared down into the depths of her coffee cup.
“I know what you’re going to ask. No, he never brought any other chicks back to the kitchen,” he said, giving her a pointed look. “Anyway, let’s pop the cork on that wine.”
He stood up and walked back to the kitchen to retrieve the object of his affection.
The door swung open. “Did somebody say wine?” Rafelina stuck her head in.
“Rafi!” Lumi exclaimed, and hopped up to embrace her friend.
“Oh, honey,” Rafelina said, gently hugging her friend. She squeezed her closer and stopped dead when her gaze fell on the man in the kitchen.
“Ricardito, is that you?” she whispered. “Oh, my God!”
Richard had been facing the sink, and when he turned around his face lit up. “Rafelina!” He set the wine down and leaped over the kitchen stools to where they stood. “Ohhh!”
Without letting go of Lumi, Rafelina shifted her over to one side and hugged Richard with her other arm, tears streaming freely down her cheeks.
Lumi looked from one friend to the other, completely confused. “How . . . ?”
Richard turned to Lumi, his arm still around Rafelina. “Rafi was my best friend from nursery school to sixth grade.”
Rafelina nodded, wiping her cheeks with a tissue. “We smoked our first cigarette together when we were eleven. And he’s the one who taught me how to put on liquid eyeliner!”
“Oh, wow . . . good job! So what happened? Why’d you lose touch?” Lumi asked.
“My family moved to Boston the summer before seventh grade,” Richard explained. “Back then I didn’t know how to use the internet very well—”
“And I was a horrible letter writer,” Rafelina added.
“And that was pretty much it,” Richard finished. “Never forgot my first bestie, though!” he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze.
“Well, the good thing is we both know how to use the internet now.” Rafelina laughed. “There’ll be no reason not to stay in touch. In the meantime, how ’bout that wine?”
Richard poured the cabernet into three crystal goblets and pulled up a chair opposite the couch for Rafelina. Lumi sipped her wine through a straw as her two friends caught up on the past twenty years. After rounds of raucous laughter, the conversation gradually turned to Lumi and Richard’s time working together at DAX.
“But really, Ricardito, don’t you think it’s strange what happened to Lumi?”
“Nothing is strange when a petty bitch is afoot.”
Rafelina looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”
Richard leaned in closer. “I mean there is someone who had it out for Lumi since she began at DAX.”
“Who?” Rafelina asked.
“Ms. Esmeralda Rincon.” He rolled his eyes.
“Oh, yeah? What’s her deal?”
“Well—wait. I need some background music to tell this story.” He motioned with his chin in the direction of Lumi’s stereo. Rafelina and Lumi exchanged an amused glance, and Lumi sent a playlist from her phone to her stereo. Sultry jazz notes flooded the apartment.
“Ahora sí. So yeah, Esme was receptionist for this other chef . . . what was his name? Verni?”
“Verdi?” Lumi couldn’t help but gasp in shock.
“You know him, Lumi?” Richard asked.
She bit her lip and gave a sullen nod. “We’ve met.”
“Well, she worked for him and apparently they were also, like, an item.”
Upon hearing this, Lumi feared she would become ill.
“Is he hot?” Rafelina interjected, leaning forward and resting her chin onto her palm.
“If you like the Michelin Man, sweetie,” Richard said.
Rafelina blinked her brown eyes. “Um . . . gotcha.”
“Anyway, Verdi and Julien used to be friends. But one night, Verdi brought her to DAX for dinner. Gloria was there, and she said that it was a miracle Esme didn’t faint when she saw Julien. When Esme heard he was looking for a receptionist, she applied for the job, and when she got it, what I heard is that she left Verdi a letter quitting her job and breaking up with him in the same note.”
“Oh, God, that’s horrible,” Lumi said. So that was what Verdi meant about calling it even.
“Yep. Zero remorse. When she first started, she and Gloria were kinda friendly. Gloria told me that she would make ‘joking’ comments about having a five-year plan to marry Julien and become second in his company. She saw he wasn’t interested in her, but she planned on wearing him down over time . . . who knows how,” he said with pursed lips.
“Whoa, that’s some heavy shit,” Rafelina said, blowing out a breath.
“Jesus,” Lumi said, leaning her forehead onto her palm.
“Yep. And now she quit DAX too, so who knows? Maybe she got a new job at the office of the Sexiest Man Alive. Either that or she just couldn’t deal with this,” he said, gesturing at Lumi from head to toe. “Anyway, you ladies up for some tapas? I need to put something in my stomach to soak up the wine, and there’s a cute new place on 207th that would be perfect for catching up with my grade-school bestie and my kitchen buddy.” He winked at them both.
Lumi and Rafelina shrugged and nodded, prompting Richard to toss Lumi a jacket. He and his glossy-haired newfound old friend linked arms on the way out of the apartment.
39
Lumi
The unusually balmy morning of May 27 found Lumi and Julien in bed at his apartment, catching some breeze from the fan. Lumi gazed at her reflection in the glass pane. Owing to the impeccable burn care she had received, her scars had flattened, and left in their place were swaths of different-colored skin: nearly bone white, rosy pink, swirls of an almost maroon color. They did not seem to be planning to get much lighter. But Lumi was getting used to them. Richard was right, they gave the impression that her face was painted. It could have been worse.
Giving herself a tiny smile, she turned back to Julien. “So, are you ready to turn thirty-nine tomorrow?” she asked.
Julien rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face in her breasts.
“Eh. Ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied. The air blowing in their direction undulated Lumi’s curls across the silken pillowcase. He tilted his head up to kiss her and got up from the bed. As he paced over to the dresser to grab his boxers from where they had landed the night before, a small note on a yellow Post-it caught his eye.