by J. J. Murray
The grandchildren around us laugh.
Nonno smiles at me. “Non sapevo che il mio amico aveva un senso dell’umorismo,” he whispers.
He didn’t know Mr. Simmons had a sense of humor. I whisper, “Lo scherzo è su di loro.” The joke is on them.
Nonno nods.
I believe Mr. Simmons is going to scold, reprimand, and punish his family from the grave. I don’t care if I get anything. Their impending rebuke will be reward enough for me.
Mr. Daniels puts on his spectacles. “I will now read the typewritten list of distributions from Mr. Simmons’ estate.”
I hear major shifting in seats, see bodies leaning forward, and watch eager faces break into smiles. I shift forward to see their reactions when they hopefully don’t get what they wanted and do get what they deserve.
“‘To anyone with the last names Taylor, Swanson, Simmons, Yost, Pratt, and Rosenthal,’” Mr. Daniels says, “‘I leave absolutely … nothing.’”
I haven’t heard this much noise and commotion since the last demolition derby I attended. I also haven’t heard this much cursing in my life, and some of the youngest children are cursing the most!
Mr. Daniels’ eyebrows rise above his lenses, and he clears his throat until the noise abates. “Shall I read it again? Because of the tumult, I shall reread the last sentence. ‘To anyone with the last names—’”
“What the #*@! is going on?” Melville yells as he struggles to his feet.
“Mr. Taylor,” Mr. Daniels says, “please maintain the decorum of these solemn proceedings.”
“What?” Melville shouts.
“Do not curse,” Mr. Daniels says. “There are young people present.”
Melville pounds on his flabby chest. “But that old pile of cow fat left them nothing!”
“I am not finished,” Mr. Daniels says. “That was merely the opening phrase of that sentence. Please sit down, Mr. Taylor.”
Melville sits in a huff. “This is a joke!”
Yes, Mel-vile, and the joke’s on you.
“May I continue, Mr. Taylor?” Mr. Daniels asks.
“What for?” Melville yells, spinning in our direction. “Who’s he gonna leave it all to? The Tallies?” He thrusts a fat finger at Nonno and me. “Or them?” He waves a flabby hand in the general direction of Mr. and Mrs. Hemmingsford.
“Would you like to know, Mr. Taylor?” Mr. Daniels asks.
“You’re #*@! right I would!” Melville howls.
“Then cease speaking, and especially curtail your cursing or I will ask you to leave the premises.” Mr. Daniels nods at Roberto, who walks behind Melville’s chair.
Roberto must be the muscle. Ooh, that suit has to like being so tight around his body. I wouldn’t mind being his aftershave.
I am so hard up for a man.
“This is … this is wrong!” Melville yells.
Mr. Daniels looks back at the will. “I’ve lost my place. Oh. ‘To anyone with the last names Taylor, Swanson—’”
“You already read that,” Melville interrupts.
Mr. Daniels smiles. “So I did. Forgive me. Oh. Here is where I left off.” He clears his throat. “‘I leave absolutely nothing because you have given me nothing but trouble for most of your miserable, self-serving, ungrateful lives.’”
“Hey!” Melville tries to stand, but Roberto holds him down with only two fingers pressed into Melville’s shoulders. “That’s not fair!” Melville glares at Roberto. “How can he say that about my kids or grandkids? He never met them!”
Mr. Daniels squints. “Your grandfather seems to have foreseen your last statement, Mr. Taylor. He has written a response here. ‘For those of you who don’t think this is fair, remember who ran away from the farm to leave me as the only one to console my wife, Blanche, after Fred Junior died. Remember who tried for two years to get me to sell the farm. Remember who returned to Kingstown to try to prove I was mentally incompetent. How fair was any of that to me?’”
“We should have declared him incompetent the day he wrote this will!” Melville shouts.
It might have been too late. Somebody declared Mr. Simmons unworthy of living only a few hours later.
And the killer might be in this room.
Bobbie? Doubtful. She’s heavily medicated. I’m guessing she’s on Percocet because her skin is so yellow. Her face is so tight from facelifts she can’t close her mouth. If she didn’t use an umbrella on a rainy day, she’d drown.
Billie? Also doubtful. She’s looking tipsy, as if she had a champagne breakfast to celebrate the windfall that will never blow her way. She counted her chickens— No. She counted her cows before they, um, grazed.
That’s not an effective proverb.
It is possible Mr. Simmons’ daughters had something to do with his death. They could be overcompensating for grief or guilt, and they’ve had a lifetime of giving guilt trips to their father.
Melville is hot-tempered and impetuous. He already had a realtor, already had a buyer, and just happened to be down at Pine Lake the day before his grandfather died delivering a boat. He’s a likely suspect, but I don’t think he’s smart enough or man enough to pull off what might have been the perfect crime.
“I assure you, Mr. Taylor,” Mr. Daniels says. “Mr. Simmons was completely lucid and alert at the time we transcribed his will. Oh, I have lost my place again. … ‘nothing but trouble’ … ‘your miserable, self-serving, ungrateful lives’ … ‘ran away’ …” Mr. Daniels looks up.
If I ever need a lawyer, it will be this man. I love how he is punishing these people with Mr. Simmons’ words.
“Oh. Here it is. ‘To Franco and Giovanna Ferrari, I leave all six tractors currently rusting on my property.’ Yes, he wrote ‘rusting’ instead of ‘resting.’ I am sure you know what he means by that.”
I nod. Thank you, Mr. Simmons. I will make them all shine.
“‘In addition,’” Mr. Daniels continues, “‘I leave Franco and Giovanna the sum of eighteen hundred dollars for their restoration with the stipulation that they one day appear in the annual Fourth of July parade down Front Street in Kingstown.’”
I want to smile. I should smile. I squeeze Nonno’s hand instead.
“Mr. Simmons has a special note for Franco Ferrari,” Mr. Daniels says. “‘Franco, my friend, I am sorry I did not let you fix the tractors sooner. I am sure you would have. You are the most persistent person I have ever known. You also have the most integrity of anyone I have ever known. But you should have sent your granddaughter to visit me sooner. She was very convincing.’”
“Apprendere dall’esperienza,” Nonno whispers.
Live and learn.
“And here is a special note to Giovanna Ferrari.” Mr. Daniels smiles at me. “‘Giovanna, you resurrected a 1950 Farmall Cub tractor before my eyes in less than a day, a tractor that was nothing but rust and dry rot since 1969. It was my son’s tractor, and you brought it to life again. In a way, you resurrected him, and you resurrected me. Gio, I also leave you the 1941 Chevrolet pickup currently located in the barn in the hopes that you can restore it with the stipulation that you give Dodie Loney a ride up to the Motts Mountain Wayside.’”
Yes! I get the truck! But why isn’t Dodie here? Oh. She isn’t receiving anything from the estate, only a ride up the mountain. This is so cool!
“Mr. Simmons added a postscript to your note, Miss Ferrari. It reads, ‘Miss Gio, I shouldn’t have said the things I said to you. You remind me of my wife, Blanche. She was tough like you. Thank you for reminding me about her daisies. They were her favorite flowers. You brought her back to me, too. Thank you, and please forgive what I said.’”
I forgive you, Mr. Simmons.
“And finally, to Mr. and Mrs. Hemmingsford, owners of Hemmingsford Buffalo Farm …” He flips to the last page.
Oh my goodness! Mr. Simmons is going to give everything else to them!
“‘I leave my dog Jack, two mules, my cows, my Massey-Ferguson tractor, and the balance of my pro
perty from Gray Creek to Motts Mountain, a total of two thousand and forty-three acres, all outbuildings, barns, and the homestead, and my bank accounts totaling approximately $32,000 toward the building of fences on the west and east parts of the property, with the stipulation that The Simmons Farm be used for grazing by your buffalo and my cows. I have become lazy in clearing my land, so there is plenty of green grass for everyone.’ This ends the reading of the will of Frederick Rose Simmons.”
“And the rich get richer!” Melville yells.
And Gray County doesn’t get a lake. Ha! Frederick Rose Simmons was the smartest man who ever lived. I may get a bumper sticker made with “Ha!” and his face on it.
Melville rises and takes his wife’s hand. “Let’s get out here. Let’s go back to New Jersey where a thing like this wouldn’t happen.”
Bobbie and Billie look numb and can barely walk. They don’t shed tears, though. It must be the medication. If Bobbie cried, would her face crack in two?
Once the extended Simmons clan leaves noisily and Mr. Daniels hands Nonno a check for eighteen hundred dollars, Mr. Hemmingsford shakes hands with Nonno. “Franco, it’s good to see you again. How are you?”
“I am fine, Augie,” Nonno says. “It is always good to see you and Mrs. Hemmingsford.”
The Hemmingsfords are the most down-home people I know. Though they’re as dressed up as they get for Sunday church, I know they’d rather be wearing jeans and cowboy hats.
Mrs. Hemmingsford touches my arm. “You look so lovely, Gio. And those earrings are adorable. Where’d you get them?”
“A friend of mine makes them,” I say. “Her name is Ayana, and she lives and works at Solitude.”
“Oh, I know Ayana.” She shakes out a wrist to show me a gorgeous ruby bracelet. “She does fantastic work, doesn’t she?”
There must be ten rubies on that bracelet. “Wow.” I can’t imagine what the bracelet is worth. “I’ll try to get those tractors and that truck off the farm tomorrow.”
“No rush,” Mr. Hemmingsford says. “It will take us some time to start moving the buffalo over to all that green grass, and we sure could use it. Nothing’s growing high enough on our end of Gray Creek, and the bugs are really bad this year.”
“Did either of you have any idea this was going to happen?” I ask.
“No,” Mr. Hemmingsford says. “This was all a complete shock. We barely knew Mr. Simmons at all. We did know Blanche well.”
“But after her passing, we hadn’t spoken a word to him,” Mrs. Hemmingsford says.
“I know why he did it, though,” Mr. Hemmingsford says.
“No lake,” I say.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s part of it,” Mr. Hemmingsford says. “And I’d be a fool if I didn’t say that his gift benefits us a great deal. Our creeks will still flow for our buffalo. I think Mr. Simmons also wanted someone to take care of his cows, donkeys, and his dog. They were more his family than the rabble that just left here. I have a lot of respect for that. We will never sell The Simmons Farm, and we will never rename it.”
“We can double the herd now, Augie,” Mrs. Hemmingsford says. “That would make us the largest buffalo farm on the entire eastern seaboard. Oh, we’ll never catch up to that Ted Turner. He has over fifty thousand head now.”
Wow.
“Of course, he has over two million acres to put them on,” Mrs. Hemmingsford says. “That’s twice the land area of Rhode Island.”
One man owns that much land?
“Good to see you again, Franco,” Mr. Hemmingsford says.
“Likewise.” Nonno turns to me. “Ready?”
I need to find Roberto first. “In a minute.”
I leave the conference room and knock on a door marked “Roberto Riva, Administrative Assistant.”
The door opens. “Yes, Miss Ferrari?”
He’s taller than I remembered. “I, um.” I sigh. “If you ever need any work done on your car, keep me in mind.”
“It is still under warranty.”
Nonno clears his throat behind me.
Not now. I’m trying to work this man. I step closer to Roberto. “Look, I don’t know what I’m doing. You are an extremely handsome, sophisticated man, and I’m really a country girl at heart, but could you see your way to—”
“Forgive me, Miss Giovanna,” Roberto interrupts, “but I am engaged.”
“Questo è così ingiusto! Desidero che avevo incontrato prima! Perché non si può guidare un vecchio BMW?”
Roberto laughs loudly. “Your Italian is very good.”
“That’s all you can say? I tell you it’s unfair, that I wish I had met you sooner, that I wish you drove an old BMW, and all you can say is—”
“Ho un fratello, Rinaldo, che so mi piacerebbe incontrarvi.”
He has a brother named Rinaldo. “Why would he want to meet me?”
“He drives a very old BMW,” Roberto says. “On its last legs. He does nothing to maintain it, and it blows blue smoke.”
“He needs a new engine,” I say. “Well, send him to me.”
Roberto smiles. “I would, but he lives in Rome.”
“Questo è così ingiusto!” I shout.
“Giovanna, he lives in Rome, New York,” Roberto says. “In Little Italy on Dominick Street if you are ever up that way.”
That’s closer, but … “That’s not very likely.” At least Rinaldo is on this continent.
“He sometimes visits Calhoun when his BMW cooperates.” Roberto shrugs. “It does not always cooperate, but when it does, I will send him to your shop.”
It’s my senior prom all over again. This is the second time in my life that I have dressed up for an invisible man, the second time I have dressed to impress someone who isn’t here. I may as well get some information from Roberto about his brother.
“What’s Rinaldo like?” I ask.
“Like me only younger,” Roberto says. “He is a chef at the Rome Savoy Restaurant.”
A chef! I already like him. “What will you tell him about me?”
“I had not planned to …”
I sigh loudly.
“Okay, I will tell him you are beautiful, fiery, and very dark,” Roberto says.
“I’m not that dark.”
“Rinaldo likes dark women.”
“I’m very dark then.” I smile. “And I will get darker. Make sure you tell him that. We haven’t even started summer officially yet. When might Rinaldo visit?”
“He is very busy,” Roberto says, “but I will invite him for Christmas.”
“That’s over six months away,” I say. “Make it … the Fourth of July.”
“Perhaps Thanksgiving. That is usually a slow time for him at the restaurant.”
“Make it Labor Day,” I say.
Roberto laughs.
“Wait,” I say. “When are you getting married?”
“September tenth.”
“Then he’ll be here September ninth. I’ll clear my calendar.”
Roberto sighs. “But I am getting married in Florence.”
Oh no! “Please say Florence, Kentucky.”
“Florence, Italy.”
Shoot. “Well, send me an invitation with a round-trip ticket in it.”
Roberto smiles and pats my shoulder. “I will see what I can do.”
I’m sure Florence, Kentucky, is just as nice in September as Florence, Italy, is. “When might you speak to Rinaldo?”
“I can call him right now. He does not work until two.” Roberto presses in the number.
“I didn’t mean right now!”
“Rinaldo? Roberto. I want you to speak to a friend of mine. Her name is Giovanna Ferrari … I don’t know.” Roberto looks down at me. “Are you Sicilian?”
“And African American. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“She is Sicilian and African American … Rinaldo, I cannot ask that.” He sighs. “Giovanna, how old are you?”
The nerve! “I’m forty-two.”
; “You heard,” Roberto said. “No, you ask her … All right, all right. Giovanna, do you have any children?”
I can’t believe this! “No!”
“Again you heard,” Roberto says. “Normally she is calm and quiet, Rinaldo, but today she is not.” Roberto laughs. “I will not ask her that.”
“Ask me what?”
“He wants to know what is wrong with you.”
I rip the phone from Roberto’s hand. “You got a lot of nerve, Rinaldo, thinking there must be something wrong with me because I’m forty-two and unmarried.”
“It was only a question,” Rinaldo says. “You did not have to answer.”
Rinaldo has a sexy voice, but he was rude. “There is nothing wrong with me. I have not had many opportunities where I live to meet the right man, and from your questions, I don’t think you’re—”
“I have not met the right woman either, Giovanna,” Rinaldo interrupts. “Perhaps she is you.”
Okay, that’s better. Keep talking.
“Roberto never calls me about women,” Rinaldo says. “You must have impressed him. I would love to meet you.”
“On the Fourth of July.”
“Oh, I am very busy that weekend. I can visit Roberto and you … in November.”
“Will your BMW last that long?” I ask.
“I have had nothing but trouble with it,” Rinaldo says.
“What year and model?”
“1982 Three-twenty-I.”
What a wimpy car! It has a 1.8-liter engine and one hundred horsepower at best. “It’s boxy, noisy, has no acceleration, burns oil, blows blue smoke, has a rotten interior, and the front end shimmies.”
“You have seen my car?”
“I can fix it, but we have to get rid of that little four-cylinder engine,” I say. “We have to get you at least a two-point-three-liter six-cylinder.”
“You can do this?”
“The sooner you get it here, the sooner we can do it.” Wrong choice of words. “The sooner you get it here, the sooner we can fix it.”
“Let me check my calendar.”
I hear pages rustling. “I don’t mean to rush you, Rinaldo, but that engine’s clock is ticking.”
“It ticks all the time.”
Like a time bomb. “Roberto tells me you’re a chef. What is your specialty?”