“Shouldn’t you put in the water first?”
He wavered. “Should I?”
“I was taught to start it, put the soap in, and add laundry to the line.”
“What line?”
“The line that tells you how far to fill the machine.”
“There’s a limit?” He set the jug of detergent down before pulling his clothes back out. Haven returned to folding as he glared at the front of the washer. “Where’s the start button?”
“There isn’t a button,” she said. “You choose your setting and pull the dial.”
Her nonchalance at doing laundry annoyed him. “What exactly is my setting? It looks to me like the setting is the goddamn laundry room and the plot is I don’t know how to f**king turn this thing on.”
Her brow furrowed. “Should I . . . do it for you?”
The question caught him off guard. “I don’t know.”
She reached over and turned the dial to colors. It filled with water, and she measured some detergent before putting in half his clothes. She worked briskly, pushing the hamper with the rest of the laundry off to the side before turning back to folding hers.
Carmine stood there, anxious, unsure of what to say. All week long he had invented conversations in his mind, shit he’d say to her when she stopped eluding him, and now that she was in front of him, he drew a blank. “So, you’re good at that shit.”
Awkward.
She smiled softly. “I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“Yeah, well, this is a first for me,” he muttered. “So, who are you?”
She looked confused. “I told you my name.”
“I know, but that doesn’t tell me who you are. Do you have a last name?”
She continued to fold her laundry. “Antonelli, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I don’t really have one, but that’s his.”
He cocked his head to the side, studying her. “Whose?”
“My master’s.”
“What do you mean your master?”
“You know, my master where I came from.”
No, he didn’t know. “Where did you come from?”
“Blackburn. California, I think.”
“You think? Did you live there long?”
She nodded. “Until I came here.”
“And you’re not sure where it is?” He was stunned. “Did you hate the place or something?”
“Depends on what you mean by that.”
“Explain it to me.”
She sighed. “I didn’t like my master, but I had someone there who understood me.”
“What about here?”
“Here I have food to eat and clothes to wear.”
“But no one understands you?”
She shook her head. “My masters treat me nicely, though.”
“Whoa.” Masters? That rubbed him the wrong way. “Why the hell do you keep saying that? It sounds wrong, like you’re a servant or a slave or something.”
She peeked at him as he spoke. “Aren’t I?”
“How . . . ? What the fuck?”
“It isn’t bad here,” she quickly explained. “People like me wish for the kind of place where they don’t have to fear paying for someone else’s mistakes with their life.”
“And wherever you came from, you worried you’d be killed for no reason?”
“No, there’s always a reason,” she said. “Just not one you caused.”
Carmine was taken aback by how much he understood the strange girl. She may not have seen it, but Carmine knew what it was like to pay for others’ mistakes. He knew what it was like to live knowing your life could end because of something that had absolutely nothing to do with you.
But masters? That he didn’t get.
She finished folding her clothes in silence before making a move to leave, but Carmine remained in the doorway, blocking her only exit.
“Do you need anything else?” she asked.
“I need to know why you hate me.”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You run from me; you won’t look at me or talk to me. The only reason you’re doing it now is because you don’t think you have a choice. You have no problem being around my brother, so why the problem with me? Am I that horrible?” She stared at him as he rambled in frustration, her muteness putting him more on edge. “Christ, now I’m f**king yelling at you, like that’s going to fix anything. Is that what’s wrong? Is it my temper?”
“I don’t hate you. I just . . . don’t understand you.”
Something about those words was like a dagger striking his chest. No one had understood him before, but he wanted her to. He needed her to, because for the first time in years, he wondered if someone finally could.
The ringing of his phone thwarted his response. He pulled it out of his pocket, and she took the opportunity to slip past him.
“Haven,” he called, stepping out of the laundry room behind her. “I think you’ll find we’re a lot alike if you take the chance to get to know me.”
He turned away from her to answer the call. “Yeah, Dia?”
“I shouldn’t have hung up,” Dia said. “Do you still need your laundry done?”
“No, I got it,” he said. “Someone showed me how to do it.”
He realized, as he glanced into the laundry room, that he hadn’t even thanked Haven for her help.
* * *
Carmine burst into his father’s office and plopped down in the chair in front of the desk. Vincent put down the medical journal he’d been flipping through and removed his glasses. “Come in, son. You’re not interrupting at all.”
Not in the mood for a lecture, Carmine dived in to what was on his mind. “Why’s that girl here?”
Vincent sighed. “Haven’t we already had this conversation? You said you didn’t care.”
“I care now.” His own words caught him off guard. Did he?
Vincent eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
Good f**king question. “She says some weird shit.”
“I wasn’t aware you cared to talk to her.”
“Yeah, well, she’s staying in my house . . .”
“My house,” Vincent corrected him. “Your grandfather left this place to me when he died. And the girl’s here because I brought her here.”
“Willingly? Because it doesn’t seem like she’s on vacation, cooking dinner and cleaning up after people. She didn’t even own anything.”
“You’re right—it’s no vacation for her—but it’s a big step up from her last home.”
“California,” Carmine said. “Or so she thinks. She lived with a master who could’ve killed her.”
Vincent’s eyes widened. “I’m surprised she told you so much.”
“I asked, and apparently she feels like she can’t deny anyone anything when they ask.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” Vincent said. “If the child didn’t want to tell you, she wouldn’t. She might be trained to serve, but she knows how to keep secrets. She wouldn’t have survived as long as she has otherwise.”
Carmine had no idea how to respond to that. “So, what? She’s going to stay here indefinitely?”
“Yes,” Vincent said, putting his glasses back on. “And she isn’t to leave the house without my permission, so get used to her.”
“Get used to her? Really? There’s seriously something wrong with the way we live.”
Vincent shook his head. “I know how you can be, so unless you need more help with your laundry, I suggest staying away from her.”
“How do you know she helped me with my laundry?”
Vincent motioned toward the computer monitor on his desk. Carmine realized he’d watched the exchange on the surveillance cameras. There were a few in the house, mostly in the common areas. “I wasn’t watching because of you. There still aren’t any cameras in the bedrooms.”
“And it better stay that way,” Carmine said.
“I don’t want to see what goes on in that pigsty any more than you want me to see it,” Vincent said, picking up his medical journal again. “Just be mindful of what I said. I’d appreciate it if you were polite and didn’t try to meddle. The last thing she needs is you making things harder for her.”
Carmine stood. “In other words, don’t be myself.”
“Precisely, son.”
* * *
Carmine arrived at school Monday morning to find Tess and Dominic arguing in the parking lot. He climbed out of the car as Dia strolled over, plopping down on the hood of his Mazda. He shoved her off, and she laughed as she took a seat on her clunker instead.
“What’s gotten into those two?”
Dia shrugged while Tess laughed dryly, pushing past Dominic. “What’s gotten in to us is the fact that your father’s an idiot!”
“Knock it off, Tess,” Dominic said. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
Tess glowered at him. “Dr. DeMarco moved a teenage girl in, and you not only fail to tell me, your girlfriend, but when I find out you say it’s not a big deal?”
Dia leaned toward Carmine. “There’s a girl living with you?”
“Yes, but she’s blowing it out of proportion,” Carmine said. “She’s just some girl.”
“Just some girl living in a house with Mr. I’ll-fuck-anything-that-walks!” Tess said.
“Give me a break,” Carmine said. “Don’t act like you’re upset because of me. It’s not my fault you don’t trust your boyfriend.”
Tess gave him the middle finger before storming off, but Dominic stood there, for once not following.
“That was interesting,” Dia said. “You’re not really banging the girl, are you?”
Dominic chimed in. “They don’t even get along.”
“It’s not that we don’t get along,” Carmine said. “It’s just she runs every time I come near her.”
Dia laughed. “If you’d relax, I’m sure she’d come around.”
“You’ve never met her,” Carmine said. “Hell, you didn’t know she existed until a minute ago. You aren’t exactly an expert on the subject.”
“She’s just some girl, right? We’re not that complicated. Besides, I’m not saying you should bang her, but there’s nothing wrong with making friends.”
Carmine rolled his eyes. “No one says banging anymore, Dia. The nineties are over. People fuck.”
“Not always,” she said. “Sometimes they make love.”
“Not me.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, Carmine was strolling through the school’s corridor toward his second-period class when he spotted his brother in the library. Dominic sat at a computer, furiously typing away at the keys. Curiosity grabbed Carmine and he slipped through the glass doors into the room.