I heaved the door open as soon as I could, and the music almost blasted me right out of the loft, it was that loud. There’s only two reasons to play music at that volume: one, a party, and two, a secret.
And I was pretty sure that my parents weren’t throwing a party.
My mom was the first to see me, arms crossed and brow furrowed as she stood leaning against the kitchen island. Her face totally changed when she saw me, smoothing out into a smile as she stood up straight and uncrossed her arms. “Hi,” she said, but I could only read her lips, not hear her.
My dad was standing across from her, the same worried gaze on his face, but it took him a few seconds longer than my mom to hide his emotions. He just waved and then pretended to lip-synch along with the aria, but I was in no mood for dad shenanigans. There was a pot of something on the stove, which was just as bad a sign as the opera. My dad stress-eats when he’s nervous: after Colton Hooper was assassinated, he put on ten pounds.
Angelo was standing next to my father, his face as calm and genteel as always. He wore a seersucker suit, a gray-collared shirt, and a pink-and-gray-striped silk tie. How he wasn’t melting in the heat, I had no idea, but that’s Angelo for you. He’s a perfect spy because he’s like a mirage, like he exists outside of the world while still living in it. Sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s even real.
But he was very real, and very definitely standing in my kitchen, and, I knew, very much responsible for the music blasting out of the speakers.
He gave me a small wave and a beatific smile as I ran to hug him. “You’re a jerk for being gone for so long,” I yelled, since the music was so loud. “You owe me a million espressos.”
Angelo just grinned and reached for a remote to turn down the music. “Hello, my love,” he said. “Sorry, we were a bit loud, weren’t we. Apologies all around.”
I crossed my arms and looked at him, trying to figure out where he had been. Pale skin meant north, maybe Russia or Scandinavia. Tan skin meant West Africa, maybe the Mediterranean or Colombia. But Angelo looked the same, impassive as ever.
“Well?” I said. “Is anyone going to explain why we’re deafening half of lower Manhattan with our distress signal? I could hear the music all the way around the corner! And isn’t this a speech that you’re supposed to give me, your teenage daughter?”
My dad shrugged. “Your parents like to have fun sometimes. Let our hair down. We get crazy.”
He may have been trying to be funny (emphasis on trying), but the wrinkles were still creased between his eyes and my mom was gripping the dishwasher handle even as she smiled at me.
“How was Roux?” she asked me. “Still Roux-like?”
“She’s insane,” I replied. “You know that. What’s going on?”
Everyone looked in a different direction, desperately trying to avoid eye contact: at the floor, the clock, the window, and I put my hands on my hips and shook my head. “Nope,” I said. “Nope, nope, and nope. We talked about this, remember? We said we were going to work on communicating as a family so that you’re not surprised the next time my best friend, my boyfriend, and I are chased down by a ruthless thug. I thought that was our new rule.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not that big—”
“Seriously?” I said. “You’ve been training me since I was two to spot a liar and now you want to lie to me? That is terrible parenting on your part. For you, not for me. It’s working out pretty well for me.”
My parents glanced at each other, then at Angelo. Angelo stayed serene throughout the wordless conversation, but then he picked up the remote and cranked the music back up into cringe-inducing decibels. “Come here,” he said, beckoning me over, and I steeled myself and crossed the room into our makeshift cone of silence.
I knew that the loud music was there to screw up any potential bugs. After the Colton Hooper incident, my mom had scoured our loft and made sure it was free of all monitoring devices, but you can never be too careful. Ever. And I knew that this aria, in particular, screwed up bugs because of the pitch changes. Anyone trying to hear voices, or even inflections, would be completely out of luck.
I knew all of this in theory, of course, but not in practice.
My parents, Angelo, and I huddled together in the kitchen, looking like the most ragtag, mismatched football team in history, talking about plays while the clock counted down. My mom put her arm around my shoulders, and I let her because I think she was comforting herself more than me.
“There’s been a, um, development,” my dad began as the soprano’s voice hit a particularly high note. I would probably vomit if I ever heard this song again.
“A development in what?” I asked. “Do we have to move again?”
“No,” my mom said.
“Not yet,” my dad added.
“Do they ever agree?” Angelo asked me with a knowing wink.
“What developed?” I asked again. “Someone tell me before I throw those speakers out the window.”
My parents glanced at each other, and I saw my dad reach down to take my mom’s hand. “The Collective was here today,” my dad said.
“Here?” I gasped. “Here? Like, New York here, or in-our-house here?”
“Our house,” my dad replied.
“Our home,” my mom corrected him, then squeezed my shoulder. “Our home is wherever we are, Mags. You know that.”