Page 71 of Mafia King
He gets out of the car. A man with a thick moustache walks onto the porch, and Santino waves to him. I open my own door before my husband has a chance to, and get out into the beautiful, blazing sun.
“Come.” Santino grabs my hand and takes me up the front steps. He’s like a kid who’s too old to be excited by his birthday, but young enough to be delighted with the presents. The mustachioed man on the porch wears a light gray suit that’s too small around the belly and a red tie that’s just a little wider than fashionable. The breeze has zero impact on his dark brown combover, and there’s something vaguely familiar about him. “Bosco, this is my wife, Violetta.”
The man takes one of my hands in both of his. “Such a pleasure.”
“Bosco is a real estate agent.”
“Ah!” The sound escapes my lips when I realize why I recognize him. “From the ads on the bus benches.”
There’s no FOR SALE sign on the lawn. That’s my excuse for standing there thinking we’re having lunch with the guy or something.
“Guilty!” Bosco opens his arms and quotes the ads. “Number Onepaesanoin ourpaese!”
I can’t help but laugh at his pride in the silly slogan.
“I admit,” he says with some humility, “River Heights isn’t my area, but I have it on good authority that this is aprimoneighborhood. Safest you can find. The tiptop! Come!”
He steps backward, waving us through the door. Whatever fog of clueless ignorance I was floating around inside dissipates, and I look at my husband, who’s beaming like a guy who just swallowed the sun.
The space is bare, leaving the hardwood floors and white walls completely exposed.
“The security system? Just updated to ‘smart security,’ they call it. Open plan in the living room to the kitchen and this dining room, right here, so you can talk to guests while you prepare dinner. I warn you, there’s no kitchen in the basement, but if your husband wants to put one in for you, there’s room next to the wine cellar.”
“Santi?” I say, peering up a staircase that sweeps at a graceful curve.
“They just put in brand new appliances.” Bosco opens the huge refrigerator, showing off the pristine interior like a woman turning letters on a game show. “Also ‘smart,’ they say.”
“Che?” Santino replies as if he has no idea what I’d be asking about right now.
He knows. He has to know. Why else am I here?
“Six-burner stove!” Bosco delights. “Maybe only one kitchen? Be like a real American housewife. June Cleaver. No?”
He looks between us. I have no idea who Bosco is talking about, and I stopped paying close attention after Santi acted as if I knew what’s going on.
But Bosco continues like a soldier someone wound up all the way. “I think I’m showing my age. But here’s for the man of the house to cook… a brick barbecue in the backyard.” He unlocks the sliding door to the back, which is completely paved except for a patch of manicured grass.
No. I don’t want to go there yet. I put my hand on the graceful curl of staircase banister.
“Violetta?” Santino asks, tugging me, but I tug back. I want to see upstairs.
“Oh!” Bosco cries, jumping in our direction. “Let me show you the master suite!”
He hustles up the stairs ahead of us.
“What are you doing?” I ask Santino softly.
“I didn’t want to spring it on you on your birthday.”
“I see.” What I see is a man who’s sprung one too many things on me and very much wants me to think of him as changed.
“If you don’t like it,” he says, “we can look at another one.”
“No, I…” I hadn’t even thought about liking it or not liking it. “It’s beautiful.”
“Good.”
Santino pulls me up the steps and I run past him, giggling, to a wide hall bathed in sunlight. Bosco waits in the wide doorway to what has to be the master suite, but I know it’ll be gorgeous. I head for the bedroom next door.
