“I know, my love,” he said. “And you are very welcome.”
“Sorry about your handkerchief, too.” It was now a teary, snotty mess balled up in my fist. “I guess I was a little upset.”
Angelo waved the thought away. “I have a drawerful at home.” (I knew it.) “It won’t even be missed.”
“Okay.” I wiped my nose again. “Do you want more tea? My treat.”
“No, I think we should probably walk.” Angelo stood up and I realized that the park was suddenly being overrun with tourists. “Come along, take an old man home.”
I took his arm as we joined the chaos out on Fifty-Third Street. “What would I do without you, Angelo?” I sighed.
“You’ll never know.” He smiled, then patted my hand as we turned the corner.
Chapter 22
“Hey,” Jesse said to me on Friday afternoon at school. “Don’t forget, tonight is the night! Are you ready? Any lastminute concerns?”
I pretended to think. “No horse-drawn carriages. They freak me out. What if the horse is tired and doesn’t want to walk? Or what if it wants to run? The horror!” I leaned closer to him. “The horror.”
Jesse laughed and put his hands on my shoulders. “No horses, okay. Noted. I’ll just scratch ‘rodeo’ off the list of activities, while I’m at it.”
“Good call,” I said. “So what time should I meet you?”
“Meet? You don’t want me to come over, meet the parents, shake the hands, kiss the babies?”
There was, of course, absolutely no way ever that Jesse could meet my parents. How awkward would that introduction be? “Oh, hey, meet the two people who are partially responsible for the downfall of your family empire? Do you want anything to drink?” No, clearly that would not be happening.
“They’ve got a thing tonight,” I said.
“A thing?” Jesse repeated.
“A …” My mom was right, I was a terrible liar. “A benefit auction. A silent one. For children. Who have diseases. Bad ones. The diseases, not the kids.” Yep, gotta work on those lying skills.
“A silent benefit for good kids who have bad diseases,” Jesse repeated. “Got it, okay. Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“I just think you don’t want me to meet your parents.”
“Oh, I do!” I told him, and that was no lie. “You don’t even know how much I wish you could. I really wish you could because I think they’d like you a lot. But … they’re just not home tonight. It’s you and me. And my dad will still break your neck if I don’t come home by curfew, by the way.” I had no idea what my curfew was, or if I even had one, but I thought it sounded more believable that way.
“Well, if he does, maybe then they could have a silent auction for me?” Jesse grinned, leaning forward, and I kissed him, risking yet another detention.
Worth it.
“You’re antsy tonight,” my mom said as she stirred the chili on the stove, but just the thought of eating made my stomach flip. “What’s up? Friday night jitters?”
“I’m fine,” I said, then remembered what Angelo had said about the word “fine.” “I’m just thinking about everything that I have to do next week. Take another French quiz, find the Oliver documents, get the Oliver documents, get a pedicure. It’s a lot on my plate.”
My mom chuckled and I knew she thought I was joking around, which was great. Gotta butter the parents up, after all. If I had learned anything from watching hours of television, it was that parents are gullible. And yes, mine were spies and probably had a combined IQ score somewhere in the four digits, but I was their kid. All that intelligence had to distill down into something, right?
“Hey,” I said. “Remember that girl Roux I was telling you about? Well, she’s having some people over tonight and Jesse Oliver is going to be one of them, so I thought I should go.”
“Okay,” my dad said, where he was trying to solve the day’s crossword puzzle. The Friday puzzle was never good to him. I glanced over his shoulder.
“Forty-nine Down is ‘asinine,’” I told him. “Trust me. I know it is.”
My dad frowned. “No, it’s not.”
“Are we looking at the same puzzle here? Because the puzzle I’m looking at—”
“Is mine,” he finished. “Can you please corral your nosy daughter?” he asked my mom as I started to inspect the rest of the puzzle. “Let’s all just stick to our respective talents, shall we?”
“You should probably do it in pencil,” my mom replied. “In case you mess up.”
“He wouldn’t mess up if he put ‘asinine’ for Forty-nine Down,” I said. “Do they even make pencils anymore?”
“Of course they make pencils!” My mom sounded almost offended at the idea. “What about standardized tests? And grocery lists?”
But my dad and I had tuned her out. “Look!” I said. “It’s seven letters and the third one is an I!”
“Hey, when are you leaving again?” my dad asked. “Soon, right? Like, right now?”
“Ha, nice try. I still have to get ready.” I had to get a lot ready, that was for sure. “I think I’m—”
And then someone knocked at the front door.