Page 25 of The Boss

I pull it up and play the recording of him saying, “Everything for the wedding sounds fine.”

She frowns, waiting.

“Yeah, that’s it, Ellie,” I make my voice deep and gruff. “Everything for the wedding sounds fine,CLICK. I mean who the hell does that!”

“Um, at least he called?”

I laugh, “Oh, he had to. I started sending multiple pink packages of wedding crap every damn day asking his opinion. Carol at the post office is my new best friend. It had to be so annoying, all the packages and envelopes, I put glitter in them too, Ellie. Glitter!”

“Evil.”

“I know! And yet here I am, the one ranting.He’smanaged to get tomewith his silence. That’s not how it’s supposed to work! He better wear the damn tux I ordered. Or at least let it be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

“Is it pink too?”

“You bet your juicy ass it is. With sequins.” She starts laughing. “Wait until you see it all. I’ve invoiced him for half of the extravaganza too, saying it has to come out of my dowry.”

Her hazel eyes go wide. “It does? Is that normal?”

I hitch a shoulder, “I don’t know, I made it up. And I ordered the absolute most expensive of everything. He and Papa can argue about it. Just as long as nothing about this union is low maintenance, quiet, smooth or easy.”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “Doesn’t appear that it will be, I mean, taking your iPhone away?”

“Oh, I’ve ordered a new one, a fancier one with some secret encryption shit Vix put on there. I’ll get you the new number when it arrives.” I sit down at the table in front of the flip phone and let out all the air left in my lungs. Then I mutter, “Flip phones? I mean,what?”

“People do do that, you know, go off-grid.”

“Nopeopledon’t do that. Seventy-year-old white men who think Mark Zuckerberg is spying on them do that. And we’re mafia. We have surveillance bunkers and offshore accounts and facial recognition locks in our offices. How can he live and run his business without all that?”

“I think maybe you’re about to find out,” she says softly.

I sniff, then straighten myself up and shake off the emotions, “No. Papa’s empire needs me. Bosco made a terrible call last week, he shifted one of our usual routes, bumped into the Cubans and three men died. He’s an incompetent fool and he’s going to ruin the Mancini name. Go figure, the Mancini name needs an actual Mancini at the head! I’m getting out of this and I’m coming back.”

“I believe you,” she nods, meaning it.

“See you at the wedding, gorgeous. And sorry about the bridesmaid outfit.”

“Outfit? You mean dress, right?”

I just laugh and hang up.

I open the ancient communication device on the table and decide to power it on, bracing myself like it’s a bomb. It comes to life faster than I would’ve guessed. The top of the flip has a decent screen, if tiny. There’s the same skull logo displayed as a wallpaper.

“Well, that’s the first thing to go.” I mutter, “Hey Siri, how do I change the wallpaper on an ancient flip phone?” A URL displays on my watch for me to look at later. I feel another stab of loss, realizing my watch is going to go too.

Feeling enraged all over again (because how’s a girl supposed to track her step count without a smartwatch?) I find the “Messages” option. I blink at the empty screen for a moment. First, I have to enter the recipient, but I don’t know his number. I tap the number 7 and sure enough, it populates Q, then Quinn.

Ok, now what?

After I push some buttons and get the cursor to go to the message window, I wait for a keyboard to pop up on the tiny screen.

“Oh my gosh, Luna, get it together, it’s not a touch screen!” I start pressing letters, painfully having to tap every number one billion times just to send the short message.

Luna: Hey! Thanks for the horrible new phone, it’s wifey!

Incoming Call: Quinn

“Ah! What! Damnit! Shit! What do I…ughhhhh!” I jump a couple times, freeze in place to steady myself, and hit the OK button. “Hello?”