Anger smothers me from inside, nailing my tongue to the top of my mouth and tying my vocal cords into a double knot. It binds my hands to my side and whispers in my father’s voice,“God doesn’t like little girls who talk back.”
“If you don’t kill us in our sleep with your damn candles first.” Lydia’s tone is suddenly grave when she says, “Camilla, look at me.”
Coercing my eyes back to Lydia’s feels like pushing a thousand-pound boulder up a mountain, but I’m getting better at overcoming old habits.
“If you send me away, I don’t have anywhere to go,” I admit. The entire country separates us, but my dad’s disapproval follows me everywhere. My muscles tense, and my heart prepares for the dark like he’s right next to me. “I don’t have anyone else but you.”
Lydia stops stacking stones, and I can still see her over the wall.
“The Ridges’ association with the Coppolas ends with David Ridge. His sons are not obligated to continue his work for another generation,” Lydia says. She taps her black manicure atop the table, reflecting light from acoffeemarque hanging on a nearby wall. “Inez avoided the mob’s meddling because her lover, Gino Coppola, gave his life protecting the family. That arrangement ended with Inez. As far as Giovanni is concerned, Hush is up for grabs.”
“Luca said he has dibs on me.”
Lydia’s fingers go still, and she closes her eyes as if to take a time-out from the conversation. They reopen right away, more green than gold.
“Giovanni wants more than a cut from the profits; he wants my girls. If I say no, he eliminates me and takes my girls. If I say yes, he takes my money and he still takes my girls. Or there’s a third option.”
“Lydia, Talent would never let him hurt you—” And then it dawns on me. I already know what the third option is. I whisper, “He wants Talent.”
Lydia’s eyes are now the darkest green, and her attempt to cap the emotion radiating off her in waves is weak. She pulls her hands from the table and folds them in her lap, closing them into fists like I did the night before. “He wants Talent. If he honors his father’s commitment, Giovanni will extend the arrangement he had with Inez onto me.”
“There has to be another way.”
Devastation looks away and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, releasing it before she asks, “Now do you understand why I don’t want you involved? Giovanni left the office with his offer on the table. Inez paid with a life, and now he wants me to. I don’t know when he’ll come back for an answer. But when he does, you won’t be within reach. I don’t choose this life for you, Camilla. And I won’t choose it for Talent.”
She leaves zero room for argument, and I don’t have it in me to try. The only thing I can do is prove to Lydia that I’m an asset and not a liability. She doesn’t have to go through this alone, and I won’t let her.
“I understand,” I lie.
Searching my face for signs of dishonesty, she probably finds it, but lets it go for now. To my surprise, Lydia smiles. It’s not the smile that she shares with Talent when she thinks no one’s watching. The one that lights up her entire face and shows all of her teeth. But it’s a smile reserved for me, half-curved and attempting.
“Your birthday is right around the corner. Do you think you’ll hear from your family?” she asks.
“Eww, no.” A look of disgust shrouds my face, and the best coffee in Grand Haven can’t wipe it away.
“Twenty-one is a big deal.”
I tap my chin with the tip of my pointer finger and feign interest. “Well, my dad thought locking me in the closet would save my soul, my mom handed me over to a monster without remorse—because again, it was the path to salvation—and my brothers acted like I was never born. The only thing they ever gave me was a fear of the dark. They’re not invited to my birthday.”
Lydia’s smile curves a little higher. “Fuck them. Should we go out to dinner? We have to celebrate.”
“What did you do for your twenty-first birthday?” I ask. I check my phone for the time.
Sipping from her straw, Lydia holds up her finger and swallows before saying, “I gave the mayor a blow job.”
There’s a moment of space between when she pronounces her words and I comprehend them. It’s a single breath. A shrug. A look of complete honesty. Lydia isn’t being ironic, funny, or even crude. She’s casually indifferent and desensitized.
She gave the mayor a blow job on her twenty-first birthday, and that’s that.
My laughter jumps out at her, and she flinches. “Jesus Christ, Camilla. Control yourself.”
The floodgates shoot wide open, and there’s no damming the rush of laughter that drowns everyone in the coffee shop. I toss my head back and laugh until tears fall from my eyes and mascara smears across the top of my hand as I wipe them dry. When it slows down to a chuckle and I think I’ve patched the leak, outrageousness blows the seal, and I fall to pieces all over again.
Lydia flounders back and forth between amusement and embarrassment, half-smiling and hissing, “What the fuck is so funny?”
And for another moment in the abyss, floating in the space between annunciation and interpretation, we’re just two girls laughing about blow jobs over coffee.
“Let’s plan dinner for my birthday. Leave the blow jobs out of it.” Bubbling with endorphins, I dab my eyes dry with my napkin.
