“It’s fucking bullshit,” I said. “I recused myself. I went on leave. I’ve been pouring drinks and moping around this city for eight fuckin’ months, and for what? So I could get canned after giving them everything I had for the last eight years? Fuck!”
I kicked a stray can and considered pummeling a mailbox nearby. I had never wanted to hit something so badly.
“Sorry,” I said once I had cooled down. “I just needed to get that off my chest.”
“It’s no problem,” Derek said. “I don’t blame you. It is bullshit, plain and simple. You’re the best man they have. Cardozo said it himself. Now you’ll just be the best man somewhere else. They’ll be sorry once they have to face you in court.”
I grimaced. Was that where I was headed? I still couldn’t totally imagine myself defending shitheads like Calvin Gardner for a living.
“I, uh, I meant to ask you,” Derek said. “Have you heard from Frankie lately?”
I frowned. “Have I heard from my sister whom I live with?”
Derek shifted on his soles. “I just tried to call her a few times in the past couple months, and I haven’t heard from her. I was wondering if…well, is she seeing anyone?’
I sighed. Originally, I thought Derek and Frankie would be good for each other, but my sister had been acting funny for months now. Ever since running into Sofia’s dad, actually. She staunchly refused to tell me anything about that interaction—only that the guy was not in Sofia’s life and never would be.
But she had disappeared that night at Jane and Eric’s well before I left. And I never did find out if she left in the company of the big Brit, who for some reason called her “Francesca.”
“I don’t know, man,” I said truthfully. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, um. Good, I guess.” Derek toed his sneaker into the pavement. “So, you and the heiress, huh?”
I sighed. “Don’t act like you didn’t know.”
“Well, knowing and suspecting isn’t the same thing.” Derek shoved his thumbs into his pockets.
“Was she worth it?”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. But I still didn’t like it.
“I can’t answer that. It’s like asking whether you prefer life without air or water. You need them whether you want to or not.”
Derek looked taken aback. “Need, huh? That’s deep, man.”
I sighed. I wasn’t feeling particularly deep. I was feeling pissed off. And frustrated. And kind of lost.
But underneath all that was a fact that hadn’t been there a year and a half ago.
I could lose my job. I could lose my house, my car, whatever else the world decided to take away from me. But I wouldn’t lose the fact that I was completely in love with Nina de Vries and always would be.
Like the air. Like the water.
“Yeah,” I agreed with Derek. “It runs real deep.”
He nodded, almost as if in awe. “Not a total loss, then.”
“No,” I said. “Definitely not.”
He gave me a sharp slap on the shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger, you hear?”
I nodded. “Thanks, man. You too.”
I dropped my briefcase on the floor with a smack when I returned home, half-inclined to kick it clear across the floor.
“Shoes off, Zio!” called Sofia from the living room, where she was happily ensconced on the sofa watching TV while she chattered to a couple of dolls. It was the tail end of Frankie’s spring break, and she and Sofia had been enjoying a week-long “staycation.” Which also meant I hadn’t seen Nina in just as long.
“Hey,” Frankie said as she looked up with surprise from the kitchen, where she was making coffee. “That was quick. How’d it go?”
I slumped onto a barstool and scowled. “They found out about Italy.”
Frankie grimaced, though it wasn’t with much surprise. When I had told her my plans to be an interpreter for Nina de Vries, my sister had tried to talk me out of it for over a month. It wasn’t until I threatened to tell Sofia the name “Xavier” that she finally shut up about it.
“Ah, Mattie. I…”
“I swear to God, Frankie, if you say I told you so, I will strangle you with that apron you’re wearing.”
My sister just rolled her eyes, and went about pouring herself a cup of coffee. She held up the pot. I nodded, and she poured me a mug.
“So, what does that mean?” she asked tentatively as she doctored hers up, then handed me mine black.
“It means I’m officially a career bartender until I get some interviews lined up.” I shrugged. “Cardozo said he’d give me a reference, even if the DA won’t. I don’t know. I’ll check the public defender’s office. Maybe there’s something there, if not at Legal Aid.”
“Will that...will that be enough?” Frankie asked tentatively. “To cover everything, I mean?”
I stared into the bitter black liquid. Right now, I sort of wanted to drown in it. I hated that she even had to ask me this, that she couldn’t just trust me to take care of her and Sof like I always had. Right now I was a failure in more ways than one.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“Well, I have to ask, though,” Frankie said. “Are you going to learn from this?”
I looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She walked around the kitchen counter to sit with me at the bar.
“It means…” She sighed. “It means have you finally figured out that this girl is nothing but trouble? I mean, I hoped you had, considering you haven’t seen her at all for the last couple of months, right?”
I opened my mouth to tell her that there was nothing going on, that she didn’t need to ask that question, and that I was doing just fine on my own. But found I couldn’t say any of it. I hadn’t been lying to my sister for the last three months, exactly, but I certainly hadn’t told her that Nina and
