Page 65 of Mafia Bride
I. Will. Not. Cry. Around. Santino.
The engine roars and Santino backs out of the sloped driveway. I can only see the top of his car as he straightens to the direction of the road, and drives away.
The birds chirp and squeak. The breeze is harder up here, but not quite a wind, as if I’m in some temperate heaven.
Turning to face the house and the woman waiting inside it, I add Loretta to the list of people I won’t cry around.
* * *
Loretta shows me around.Her house is similar to Santino’s in that it feels overtly Italian, but she’s more Versace than old world, with plants in every corner and columns of vines hanging from painted pots. It’s bigger than it looks at the head of the driveway since three stories drape down the far side of the hill. The leaded windows are enormous, and the outside is terraced. There seem to be stairs with terra-cotta tiles and wrought-iron railings everywhere.
The bathroom is massive and marble and I feel too small to be here, but I need hot water and soap.
“Anything you need is in the shower,” she says. “I’ll bring you some clothes.”
“Thank you.” It comes out as awkward as I feel, but I still keep my chin high and my gaze tight. I don’t want her to think I can’t handle this.
In the shower, I run the water as hot as it can go, letting it scald my skin clean, holding my hands over my face so I don’t see what’s spinning down the drain. When the rinse has done all it can do, I focus on the bubbles. Shampoo. Body wash. The smell of jasmine. I scrub scrapes that bleed anew and places the blood couldn’t have touched. Under my arms. The back of my neck. The insides of my thighs. Between my toes.
When I get out, I wrap myself in a towel, finding a tan dress on the counter with packaged underwear, a new toothbrush and comb. A pair of simple sandals is set on the floor.
When I pull the towel away, it’s bloody, and for a moment I think I missed a spot, but it’s not someone else’s blood. The broken glass left me covered in cuts that are clean now, but reopened. I find a first aid kit under the sink and treat my wounds, pretending I’m a student again. My arm isn’t my arm, but my classmate’s and I’m about to pass my first-year trauma final. Compress, clean, sanitize, dress.
Just another day at the office.
The shift Loretta leaves me is the prettiest thing I’ve worn outside a dressing room in weeks. The maxi skirt hits the tops of my feet, hiding the bandages on my legs. The jersey is sleek and golden, with a crossover front that drops low enough to show off the cleavage of a woman shaped like Loretta. But on me, the bottom of the V lands below my sternum with barely a tease visible.
“You get what you get,” I say to the clean-scrubbed face in the mirror, then brush my teeth because my mouth still tastes like fear.
The sandals are way too big, so I’m careful on the stairs as I numbly walk through the house.
Loretta’s on the back patio, shoving something inside a brick oven. I get past the screen just in time to see the lavender floral dress I arrived in as it melts into noxious gas.
“That’s better,” Loretta says when she sees me standing there.
“Thanks for the loaner.”
“Eat,” she says, nodding to an adjacent seating area with wrought-iron table and chairs under thick cushions. The glass-topped table is covered in meats, cheese, breads, and wine. “There’s a phone there, too.”
I spot the black cordless next to a bowl of fruit. A landline. How quaint.
“Thank you.”
Having made my dress into a smear of viscous toxicity, she sits at the head of the table and flicks her hand at the house.
“You can close the doors if you need privacy.”
My desire to talk to my zia outweighs any questions I have. Because what I want, more than anything in this moment, is my mother, who protected me. She taught me how to cook and how to live. She’s gone. But I have my zia.
Avoiding the food that calls to me so urgently, I take the phone, and walk in the house, to the kitchen, and slide the glass door closed. I don’t want Loretta to hear the weakness I’m bound to exhibit.
As I dial, I wonder if the guys at the top of the hill are listening in, then decide I don’t care.
“Zia?” I whisper.
“Violetta!” Zia’s voice instantly soothes me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
