Kelsey
Francine and I get to the apartment building late for reality TV Tuesday, because our twirlers class
went over, but they absolutely killed it. We gushed about them all the way in the back of the Uber. Lizzie
is popping a second batch of popcorn by the time we get there, and Noelle is updating people on Jimmy,
the guy on her route who is always out on a stoop wearing a bathrobe and a fishing hat full of lures and
fanning his face with a tiny fan. She’s trying to figure out if he’s fabulously wealthy or doing performance
art or what.
Lola is in crisis over the Roger situation. She’s petrified that her boss, Wulfric, is going to find out
she’s been going around town pretending they’re engaged.
“You are playing with fire,” Vicky says. “But it’s been working!” Lola says. “Roger is a bully, but
he’s also a coward and he’s frightened of Wulfric... Well, he’s at least frightened of Wulfric’s r eputation.
Wulfric’s not all that scary.”
Noelle is on the floor against the couch, her fave place because she likes to stretch out her legs and
sometimes lie on the floor. “Well, Wulfric’s a little bit scary,” she puts in.
“Okay. A little bit scary,” Lola agrees. “I am playing with fire, though. Mostly I think he would be
ragey on behalf of his mother. I’m literally wearing his beloved adoptive mother’s jewelry and furs out to
scuzzy bars when I was supposed to put them into his safety d eposit box. He’ll be mad
about that too, but mostly it’s the mother thing. He’s very protective of her. So loyal. He’s liable to... I
don’t even know.”
“Especially if someone stole them from you,” Sienna says. “Well, that wouldn’t happen considering
Wulfric’s bodyguard is always with me,” Lola says.
“The bodyguard is in on it,” I explain to Sienna. “The message to Roger is that Lola is being protected
by both of them.”
“We’d both be fired. If not jailed.” “It’s kind of sweet that a scary man like Wulfric is so fiercely loyal
to his mother,” Mia says. “I mean, it sucks for you if he ever found out, but a man like that, it says
something. It says he’ll be protective of his significant others someday.”
“Yeah. The way a man is with his mother is a total template,” Vicky says, petting Smuckers.
“Whatever his mother taught him love looks like, that’s what he’s going to try to hand you—unless he
does some real work around it.”
“The mother thing is a biggie!” Francine agrees. Lola snorts. “Wulfric in a romantic relationship? Any
woman who links up with him will need a Ph D in psychology and a degree in taming apex predators. And
the patience of a saint.”
Sienna raises her glass. “Here’s hoping he never finds out.” “He won’t,” Mia assures her. “Roger
ke eps to a world of bad lighting and sticky floors. Wulfric moves in a world of mood lighting and
invisible power. Never shall the two intersect.”
They ke ep talking about Wulfric, but I can’t stop thinking about this mother-relationship template
thing. I know it’s true. I’ve seen it play out over and over.
So what does that say about Bruno? “Earth to Kelsey!” Noelle is poking my leg. “We heard you
finally met Bruno’s mysterious assistant. His Miss Moneypenny.”
“Sadie.” I smile. “Yeah. I think she was pretty shocked that I actually exist.” I tell them about our
meeting at that cute restaurant at the hotel. Sadie turned out to be a super high-functioning fifty-something
woman with really thick red hair and bright purple glasses, an attitude like a really powerful diesel train
mowing through every task. “She’s like a machine. I loved her. I can see why Bruno relies on her so
completely.”
“She could be a CEO with chops like that,” Mia says.
“I’m sure Bruno pays her like one.” “So,” she says. “Meeting the assistant! Things are really getting
serious!”
“Well, they are...” “But?” “I am so into that man, seriously. I never thought I’d meet someone so
incredible. I never get sick of talking to him. We can walk and talk for hours.”
“I know!” Vicky says. “Remember when I saw you guys all the way up at Ninetieth or something and
you had walked there?”
I smile, remembering that day. “Things are good.” Mia fires up the next episode of Small-Town Bake
Sale Wars, but are things good?
Bruno believes something terrible and damning about his mother, and he doesn’t want to investigate
it. He doesn’t want to know about her side. He doesn’t want to think about it at all. He took one piece of
information and drew his own worst-case conclusions.
Sure, maybe they are true. But the more I think about it, the more questions I have. What makes a
woman trade her three sweet sons for a life of isolation in the middle of nowhere?
And why isn’t Bruno more curious about what happened? Why is he so intent on believing the worst?