The text sits in my head all weekend.
Congratulations. You both deserve it.
Four words. From Vanessa Hale. I turn them over like a coin I find on the pavement, one I’m not sure is real currency or just something designed to look like it.
Mia, when I show her Sunday afternoon over coffee and leftover takeout, takes exactly three seconds to respond.
“Absolutely not,” she says.
“It’s just a text.”
“It’s Vanessa Hale.” She puts her mug down. “That woman does not send congratulations. That woman sends congratulations the way a cat brings you a dead bird. It looks like a gift. It is not a gift.”
I stare at my phone. “Adrian says she knows when she’s beaten.”
Mia looks at me with the specific expression she reserves for moments when she thinks I’m being dangerously naive but loves me too
