Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 95264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Mom purses her lips. I know what she’s itching to point out: that I’m borrowing a room in my friend’s dilapidated house in a sleepy town, I have a dead-end job in a store that’s barely surviving, and my custom T-shirt that reads “I hope your penis falls off”—I had it printed in three colors—isn’t about to woo future dating prospects.
“Tell me about Sara,” I prompt. “I still can’t believe Joe brought her home for Christmas.” They only met in November, but literally, every text from my brother is Sara this and Sara that. It’s nauseating.
“Oh, Justine …” Just hearing her name has my mother smiling. “She is lovely.”
“She has great taste, I’ll give her that.” Joe’s gift to me this year was an adorable pair of Sorel suede booties that I know he didn’t pick out.
For the next ten minutes, I’m content to shuffle a few steps at a time and listen to my mom drone on about the many ways Sara Walton is perfect—how smart and kind she is, how elegant and yet down-to-earth, how tall and pretty, how proud her parents must be that she’s taken up nursing when, according to Joe, her family comes from “old money”—the kind that earned them a penthouse in Manhattan and summers in Newport, Rhode Island.
“I’ve never seen Joseph so smitten.” Mom’s eyes light up. “She’s the one. I’d bet money on it.”
“Wow. Must be serious.” A gambler Joan MacDermott is not. She still rolls loose pennies to take to the bank. “Do you think it’ll last, though? A woman like that with Joe?”
“Why wouldn’t it? Your brother’s no slouch. He just got that big promotion at work. He’s one of the youngest executives his agency has ever seen!” she declares proudly.
“He also eats Froot Loops for dinner and spends half his paycheck on baseball cards.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“He’s thirty-four and sleeps on an air mattress.”
“Not anymore. He just bought a proper bed.”
“Either way, the MacDermotts of Boston don’t run in the same circle as the Waltons of the Upper East Side.”
She seems to consider that for a moment. “Maybe not, but your brother’s circle must have crossed with Sara’s at some point, otherwise they never would have met.”
“Fair point.” I still haven’t heard the details of their meet-cute. “I guess I should say hello to my potential future sister-in-law soon, then, huh?”
We’re next in line for the counter. Mom is deciding out loud which six of the nineteen flavors we should order while I glower at the worker who collects the last three limoncellos and tucks them into a large box. Who would take three? That’s excessive.
I stretch up on my tiptoes as the clerk veers back toward the customer, curious who the culprit is.
My stomach drops.
Bill is at the far end of the counter, his long, skinny index finger pointing out other flavors for the worker to fetch.
I haven’t seen him since I discovered the string of racy messages last October. The day I moved my belongings out, I threatened bodily harm if he showed up.
He stayed away.
How dare he come here, to my cannoli spot, and buy up my favorite flavor?
The brunette standing beside him leans in, her plump lips moving as she reads out flavors, and a sinking realization hits me. I’ve seen that face before, attached to a naked body on my boyfriend’s phone.
Rage simmers as I grit my teeth against the urge to scream. Not only did he come here, to my cannoli spot, but he brought Isabelle. They’re probably visiting his parents. They’ll be right next door.
“Justine?”
“Huh?” My head whips back so fast, I kink my neck and a burst of heat explodes.
Mom has moved ahead to the counter where a server with latex gloves and a tight smile awaits, box in hand. “They’re out of the lemon. Can you believe that? No one ever wants the lemon. What about the peanut butter or the mint, or …” Her voice trails. “What’s wrong?”
I feel like I’m going to vomit. “He’s here,” I hiss.
She frowns. “Who’s here?”
“Bastard Bill. And he’s with her.”
Her focus shifts over my shoulder, and she inhales sharply. “Oh dear … this is awkward.”
“Ya think?”
“Has he noticed you yet?”
“Not that I know.” But the longer we stand here, the more likely a run-in will become.
Sympathy twists her features as she studies the panic splayed across my face. “Tell me what you want to do.”
“Shove the biggest cannoli they have down his throat until he chokes to death?”
The worker in the hairnet raises an eyebrow.
In truth, all I want to do is run, and my mom figures that out.
“Let’s pick our flavors and get out of here, okay? How about two of the—”
“Kitty!” A shrill child’s voice carries over the buzz in the bakery.
Fuck me. Bill’s daughter is here, too, and she’s seen my mother, who answers to that nickname as readily as her own. Bill and Joe coined it years ago on account of Mom’s laugh sounding identical to that of the mother in That ’70s Show.