Page 22 of Mafia King
Gia gives me a knowing wink and my stomach takes a nose dive. Up until our last thirty minutes in the beach house, I would have joyfully turned our trip to Italy into savory gossip. The house, the food, the wine, the sex. All crushed with a few words from Siena Orolio. Now I’d be gossip of a different sort.
“Come!” Gia grabs my hand and tucks it around her arm. “You’ll be so much more comfortable in the kitchen than out here with the horrible men.”
I let her lead me deeper into the house. It’s smaller than Santino’s, but most are, and decorated with the same level of stuffy tradition. Ornate furniture, knickknacks, still life oil paintings. Lots of gold paint. But the farther in Gia drags me, the more the whole scene shifts. A room off to the side, the door ajar, looking refreshingly modern. Sleek white couches square off with a massive bean bag chair. In one side room, a TV the size of the pickup truck sits on a wall with every recognizable gaming console below it. Instead of heavenly miracles in oil and canvas, there are movie posters with busty women.
“Oops!” Gia dances around me to snap the door shut. “Tavie’s room is such a mess.”
With me on her arm, Gia sashays toward the upstairs kitchen, which is populated with women’s voices.
“Violetta!” Paola catches us before we go in. “Gia, go.” She shoos her daughter into the kitchen, then when she’s out of earshot, Paola’s shoulders drop and she holds out her hands. “I am so sorry. What happened with Siena, it was… I didn’t expect it. I would never have brought her if I knew.”
“Knew that I didn’t know?”
She nods slowly, then gradually, the movement turns into the shake of a no. “I wouldn’t have brought her if I knew she would say things like that.”
So she was aware of my ignorance that day, and she’s admitting it now.
“Thank you for being honest,” I say.
“If this makes you feel any better, Santino looks happier than I’ve ever seen him.” She puts her hand on her chest and taps her gold cross. “I swear it’s the truth.”
“I believe you,” I say, but don’t mention the rest—that I wish he wasn’t happy.
“You’re wearing it.” She taps the brooch with the Furies. “It suits you.”
“Is this Santino’s new bride?” A woman’s voice comes from the other side of the archway leading to the kitchen. She’s in head-to-toe beige that matches her hair dye. “Guglielmo’s niece?”
“Anette,” Paola says. “This is my husband’s sister. The woman of the house.”
In a moment, I’m pulled in with the women. They smile and greet me. I recognize many of their faces from church and the pork store. From funerals and weddings. They’re the adults in my world, and only now have I graduated to live among them.
“You look so tan!” Francine says. I scour the dark corners of my brain and remember her waiting outside St. Barnabas to walk her son, Aldo, home from school. “I hear you just got back from Amalfi!”
“I did.”
“How was it?” a young woman with meticulously ironed hair asks dreamily. A quick glance at her finger tells me she’s engaged. Her face is bright, open, expecting. Friendly.
An old woman shelling peas breaks in with a thick accent. “It was her honeymoon. How do you think, Lucia?”
Lucia blushes and turns her attention back to cutting slices of bread.
“It was great.” I’d probably get more piqued interest if I said it was terrible, but a generic reaction is the correct prize for my generic words.
“She married Santino DiLustro,” a woman says, and by the M shape of her hairline, I can see she’s the engaged girl’s mother. “You’ll be lucky to go to a Motel Six on what Lorenzo brings home.”
Lucia sticks out her tongue and everyone laughs.
They think my marriage is perfect. They think I’m lucky.
What can I say? I was kidnapped and forced to marry? I didn’t get to choose my bouquet or dress?
They either know already or they don’t, and if they know and don’t mention it, I shouldn’t.
Across the kitchen, a little girl no more than six drops a heavy can of olive oil. Everything comes to a screeching halt. We all run to help mop it up, which saves me from having to defend my sham wedding.
“It’s all right, sweet.” A gentlenonnakneels beside the girl, limbs creaking, and wipes away her tears. “It’s too many acts in a comedy in here.”
I smile.
