“That’s too bad,” Lena said, her voice even sadder than the last few times I turned down her offers to come to visit me in New York. “I’m not sure when I’m going to get the chance to see you again.”

God, how upset would she be if she knew I was really in Providence, less than an hour’s drive from where she was currently enjoying the best summer of her life.

I took a swig of the glass of Cabernet the internet had assured me would pair well with the lamb dish I was making, then hedged, “Maybe in the fall. I might be able to get a couple of days off then.”

If Victor ever shows up and gives me permission to go to Boston, I silently added, taking another big gulp of my pre-dinner glass of wine. I’d already tried asking Yaron if I could leave Rhode Island to visit my best friend. He was usually pretty easygoing with me, especially after I started cooking us dinner every night. But that request clamped him right on up.

“You’ll have to ask Victor about that,” he’d told me.

“Okay, how do I do that?” I’d asked, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. It wasn’t Yaron’s fault he worked for a complete ass.

Yaron had just shrugged. “If he wants to be in touch, he’ll be in touch. Meanwhile, my instructions are to make sure you stay here until he says otherwise.”

So no, that conversation hadn’t made me feel great about myself. I was basically wiling the months away until Victor felt like paying me a visit. Hopefully, Lena could make do with phone calls until then.

“Ah, actually, I won’t be here this fall,” Lena answered. “I got into med school last minute.”

I paused in the middle of taking another sip of wine. “What? Where?”

Lena and I had applied to all the same programs our last year at Mount Holyoke, and as far as I knew, she hadn’t even made the wait-list at any of them.

“Kind of far away,” Lena admitted. “Out in California. Get this. My dad applied for me behind my back! It’s so crazy that I actually got in.”

I wanted to be happy for Lena, but…

“That’s really far away. What is Keane saying about you going to school all the way out in California?”

As it turned out, I had totally been right about something going down at spring break. Lena had hooked up with Keane, this college hockey player she used to know back in high school. It ended badly, but then he got drafted by the Boston Hawks and begged her to forgive him when they ran into each other at the place where she was interning that summer.