I blow the air out of my mouth. Because I trust Teddy, I do, and if he didn’t tell us, he has a reason. A solid reason. Or at least I’m telling myself that, because I despise being mad at him.

He coughs into the receiver. “If we want to have time to talk before the Hero Pharm meeting, you should probably get moving. I’ve got coconut waters downstairs.”

I bolt upright in bed, the room tilting. “Hero Pharm meeting?”

“Did you forget? The courtesy meeting Nítuchí scheduled, so I could show you around the remodeled Hero Pharm office? If there’s time, I can take you through the Clouded Cage floors, too. My assistant emailed you both calendar invites with the other Hero Pharm board members who will be there to say hi.”

To say hi. Right. I sweat a bucket of acid at that final phrase. No reprieve, even on a Saturday.

“Give us fifteen,” I reply, and hang up.

I race into the kitchen, misbuttoning and rebuttoning a shirt, and find some old powder that smells and looks and tastes like coffee, labeled ITALIAN FRESH! in a cleaning cabinet. Viloki heresy: They love making instant coffee from “Italian” beans. I stir myself a cup and slurp it down, barely wondering if I’m poisoning myself with a weird, rebranded wood cleaner, and take another to Noni’s bedroom, where I find her, biting her lip, staring into another notebook, as if nothing else exists in the world but her and the notebook’s pages. I sneak a peek at them, sometimes, I’ll admit. Because I can’t resist the insight into her head. Noni only started to make sense to me when I started stealing and reading her journals—she unfurled her weird self on the page so carefully, so brilliantly that I knew she really was born to write. I promised myself I’d do anything it took to pay her way through NYU’s writing program, after I learned she was admitted.

“Nons?” I press the coffee into her hands. “We gotta go. Caffeine.”

She curls her feet underneath her and drinks. “The Hero Pharm meeting, right? I got the calendar invite with—”

I hold a finger out to stop her from speaking, bile rising in my throat.

A fancy-ass Maybach with tinted windows waits for us outside. A driver leaps out to open the back door for us.

Inside the car, Teddy, a tentative smile on his face, hands me one of three large imported coconut waters that rest in the cupholders. “Hi, girls.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Noni demands as soon as we slide inside, her eyes fixed on the window overlooking the streets. “Why’d we find out from a stranger?”

“I’m so sorry, sweet girl.” Teddy uncaps a glass bottle for her, eyes full of hurt. “I—Strangers don’t have your or your mother’s best interests at heart, you know.”