I hate it.
Want it to stop.
I don’t need a man to be happy. My mother didn’t have one for years and years. And she was perfectly content to run her shop, raise Devon and me. I don’t need Enzo, but seeing him standing next to that gorgeous woman, that gorgeous lawyer, triggers something in me. It reminds me that I haven’t really amounted to anything.
I mean, my profession is a noble one, sure. But I know I could be doing more. I feel it in my bones.
“Call him,” she says. And I realize how patient Lisa has been with me. Enzo hasn’t just consumed my life, he’s consumed hers too. Because of me.
“OK,” I say, knowing I will but needing to put the article, and my boyfriend, behind me for the morning. “Enough about Enzo. Tell me about you. How was that big meeting you were nervous about?”
I listen to my friend talk about the contract she was awarded to make signs for a hotel chain as errant flurries fall down just outside the window. It’s a beautiful view, really. As I relax into the moment, it occurs to me again that Lisa is right.
I’m a saboteur.
My daddy issues run deep.
And I refuse to sabotage myself again, not this time.
Not with Enzo. He’s too important to give up so easily.
35
Enzo
I give up.
After trying and failing to concentrate for the last hour, I jump out of my seat, head to the bedroom, change quickly, and then walk into the hall. While I wait for the elevator, I replay my conversation with Devon a hundred times.
I have a shit-ton of work left to do tonight, and it’s almost ten o’clock, but I just can’t seem to focus. Arriving at the pool in the basement level of my building, I toss my towel onto a chair, not even bothering with a locker. It’s empty this time of night. An hour ago, executives would still be lingering in the lap pool, some having just come home from work, but it’s almost closing time, and the pool is silent and empty.
I stare at the still water, at the reflection of the lounge chairs lining the long lap pool, and jump in. The shock of it is exactly what I need. Clearing my mind, I swim back and forth, the only sound an echo of my soft splashes. After a while, realizing I’m exhausted, I hoist myself out and check the time on the wall.
Feeling a bit better, I’m about to leave, but I sink into a plush cushioned seat instead.
Doubt creeps into my consciousness, something that’s been happening more often of late.
Who the hell do you think you are?
Swimming a lap pool in the middle of March in an apartment complex reserved for the very wealthiest, I am not Enzo DeLuca, son of a pizza shop owner, a boy who pretended to read by memorizing word configurations and tricking my parents and teachers.
I’m not a kid from a small town in PA.
Or even one of the “lucky” few who somehow got into an Ivy League school.
I am one of the richest men in a city filled with people like Hayden, ones who think having three houses means you haven’t made it yet. At least, that’s what the reflection in the pool tells me. But I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not even sure what it means.
Angrily, I stand and leave, trying to shake the feeling of inevitability that’s been haunting me since that call with Devon.
By the time I’m back in my apartment, changed, wine in hand and laptop at the ready, I know the swim hasn’t worked. My problems haven’t gone away, or even retreated.
I grab my phone, scroll to her number, and press the button.
“Are you all right?”
My mother has trained Lus well. The girl has a PhD in worry.
“Yes, geez. I can’t even call my baby sister?” Standing, I move to the very same couch that evokes a not-so-innocent memory of Chari every time I look at it.
“At ten o’clock at night on a Thursday?”
“OK,” I say, stretching out my legs. “I’ll give you that one.”
“What are you looking at?”
This is something we’ve done on our calls since I left for college. Just Lusanne and I, no one else.
“The Manhattan skyline,” I tell her. “If you look really close at the lights’ reflection on the water, you can see purples and pinks and not just white. It looks so calm, from here at least.”
In fact, it’s beautiful. One of the biggest cities in the world, sitting just outside my window, so deceivingly serene.
“You?”
“I can see the water too,” she says. “Hold on.”
There’s rustling in the background, which is when I realize it is indeed Thursday and Lusanne is working at Tris’s.
“I’m sorry, Lus, I totally forgot. You’re working.”
“No worries,” she says as the noise behind her ceases. “It’s snowing again, so it’s kinda slow. But I can see it now, Lake Shohola. Mostly it looks like a black abyss with a few lights here and there. But I can see the snow coming down if I look hard enough.”
Funny, it’s not snowing here.
“Sounds pretty.”
“It is. What’s wrong, Enz?”
I don’t try to deny that something is. “I talked to Devon yesterday.”
Her silence tells me to go on.
“He said Chari won’t tell him anything about us. But he knows there’s something wrong.”
“And is there?”
I’m almost at a loss for words, which is why I was hesitant to make this call. But I needed to talk to someone, and Lusanne gets me better than anyone. She always has, at least since we were teens. I think it has something to do with her own struggles with severe ADHD.
“I don’t want there to be,” I say, knowing that’s not really an answer.
“But?”
“She deserves more than I can give her at the moment.”
There, I said it.
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I knew Lus wouldn’t mince words. I relied on it.
“I haven’t seen her in weeks. And she has a bachelorette party on Saturday, so she can’t come to New York this weekend.”
“So come here.”
I brace for it. “I can’t. We’re having some problems with the vodka antidote. Not to mention, once the issues are resolved we’ll have to work overtime to get it approved by the FDA so we can stay on track.”
“Work. Of course.”
“Lus, if I wanted a lecture, I could have called, well, lots of people.” Hayden. Mom. Probably my father is the only one who would say something to the effect of, If you have to work, then work.
“So you can’t come home, and she can’t come to New York.”
“Last week there was the storm,” I say.
“And it’s still friggin’ snowing,” she says, echoing basically every Pennsylvanian’s sentiment by mid-March. “What else did Devon say?”
Lusanne is a goddamn clairvoyant.
So I get right to the punch line.
“He reminded me of the first talk we had about Chari and me. The one where he told me not to screw around with her emotions.”
“Hmmm.” I never told her about that particular discussion. “So are you?”
“Screwing around with her emotions? No,” I answer emphatically. Because I’d never do that.