“Sorry,” I say, trying to avoid eye contact. “I just had to tell Mason something.”
“Your mom’s here,” Jana says, grinning at me.
I hate this moment so much. Jana loves my mom, but not for any good or even decent reason. Mom, love her as I’m genetically programmed to do, is basically a walking advertisement for old money, though that’s not actually anywhere in her background.
Her name’s not even May Weese.
Jana and I have known each other for a very long time, and in that time, my esteemed roommate and friend has also gotten to know my parents. She doesn’t like my dad. He’s too dry and whiny—Jana’s words, not mine—but mom, Jana loves mom.
There hasn’t been a conversation between the two of them that hasn’t yielded my friend some kind of ammunition to throw at me for her own twisted amusement. Judging by the fact I could count her teeth from the size of the smile on her face, I’d say she’s already achieved that goal.
“Mason?” I ask.
He stands there a second before saying, “Oh, right,” and walking past the three of us and going to my room, closing the door behind him.
Good boy.
“Jana, as always, I appreciate you getting my mother to tell you embarrassing stories about me, but you’re supposed to be at work right now, aren’t you?” I ask.
“Actually, the boss gave me the day off,” she says.
“Say, Jana, you’re supposed to be at work right now, aren’t you?” I repeat.
She finally takes the hint.
“Fine,” she says, “but you and I have a couple of things to talk—” she bursts into laughter. Over the next painfully long thirty seconds, she tries again and again to finish the sentence, but every time, she just starts laughing again.
“Just go,” I tell her.
As I hear her laughing even after she’s left the apartment and is walking down the hallway, I realize I haven’t done a very good job inspiring fear around this place. That’s something I’m now rather eager to change.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Oh, good heavens, darling,” mom says in her aristocratic tone. “The way you speak sometimes…”
“Mom, it’s just you and me. You can drop the stupid voice,” I tell her.
“It’s not stupid,” she says in her natural and refreshingly boring voice. “We haven’t spoken since you called me back, and I was concerned you might attempt to do something silly like make a statement against your father and I.”
“How can I make a statement about it before I know what you’ve actually done?” I ask.
“Sit down, dear,” she says. “There are a few things I think you should know.”
“I thought the best approach is plausible deniability,” I answer, but I do take her advice and sit down on the couch. “If you’re willingly telling me what’s going on, that must mean—”
“You act as if your father and I are so predictable,” she says, tinges of that almost raspy, almost British voice creeping in at odd intervals. “This is quite serious, I assure you.”
“Tell me you left me out of it,” I say. “Tell me you didn’t involve me in whatever scheme the two of you have been working. That’s my boyfriend in there. We just got back from court where his brother was remanded for more than a few dozen things, and I’ve just about had my fill. What’s worse, I’ve been so nervous to talk to him about this that I never got around to it, so he’s totally unprepared for any of this. Just tell me you left me out of it,” I repeat.
“Well, dear,” she says, her phony voice now dominant, “it should reassure you that your father and I never intended to involve you in our business ventures, as we know you don’t agree with some of our more unique practices.”
“Save it, mom,” I tell her. “If you didn’t drag me into this somehow, you’d be saying that you didn’t involve me, not that you ‘never intended to.’ Can we skip the PR and just get this over with? I'd rather be doing just about anything right now, and I even have plans for some of it.”
“I wish you would call me mother,” she says, seeming to ignore everything else altogether.
“Say what you have to say,” I tell her.
“Well dear,” she says, “over the last few years, we’ve been following what we thought was sound business advice, only to find out we’d been led into crime by the greed of others.”