by Maria DiRico
Mia inhaled and exhaled a few times to quell her nerves. I can do this, she told herself. Still feeling insecure, she said it out loud, yelling at the parked cars surrounding her, “I can do this!”
“Go for it!” someone yelled back. Mia hadn’t noticed a deliveryman sitting in the driver’s seat of a UPS van, checking his phone. Embarrassed, she returned the thumbs-up he flashed her. Then she adjusted her skirt, pulled open one of Belle View’s heavy glass doors, and entered the grand foyer.
A massive crystal chandelier dangled over the space, which with its white walls and tiled floor, was otherwise unremarkable, even bordering on dingy. The baseboards were scuffed; a faded triptych of a wedding from decades ago decorated one wall; a gilded plaster statue of Cupid did a valiant job of hiding a water stain. Mia felt deflated. She’d pictured a more grandiose venue, like the legendary Leonard’s of Great Neck, with its ornate ballrooms and twenty-foot chandelier presiding over a two-story grand foyer. Then Mia looked past Belle View’s far less impressive foyer into a large banquet room. A wall of windows framed the view of Flushing Bay, where boats bobbed serenely at the World’s Fair Marina’s docks. Her spirits rose again. Despite the hints of shabbiness, Belle View enjoyed a lovely location, much nicer than the flashier party palaces in the area. I can work with this, she thought.
Mia was about to go look for her father when she was startled by a large rumble. Two decorative urns filled with ferns began to vibrate. Her heart raced. “What the—”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, that’s just a 737 coming in for a landing.”
Mia turned and saw Ravello Carina standing at the entry to a hallway. Ravello threw open his arms. “Bambina.”
“Dad.”
She ran to her father and disappeared into the large man’s bear hug. Ravello Carina was built like an ancient growth oak tree, majestically tall and broad of trunk. Mia knew his imposing presence was the main reason Donny Boldano anointed him head of the Boldano family’s illegal gambling enterprise; it deterred participants from welching on their debts. Still, Ravello wasn’t a fan of confrontation. He’d eagerly segued from intimidation to the challenge of running Belle View as a legit business, much to his daughter’s relief.
Ravello released Mia. “You look good. You feel good?” He said this with a Queens accent thick as a slice of hand-cut hard salami.
Mia nodded. “I like this place, Dad. It has a lot of potential.”
“I think so, too. The room you were looking at is the Marina Ballroom. The Bay Ballroom is upstairs. Place needs work but it’s got good bones. You almost forget LaGuardia’s there.” Ravello pointed west, where the 737 that had landed could be seen lumbering down the runway toward the terminal. “I’ll give you the royal tour in a little. First, coffee.”
Mia followed her father up a glass-paneled circular staircase with a steel railing. They reached the landing and Ravello threw open the doors of the Bay Ballroom, revealing a banquet table laden with breakfast treats. A banner above it read WELCOME, MIA.
“Surprise!”
The greeting was bellowed by a small group of unfamiliar faces except for one. Ravello had hired Cammie Dianopolis, a neighbor who lived around the corner from Elisabetta, to help him coordinate events, with the proviso—put in place by Cammie—that her duties would lessen once his daughter came on board. Cammie ran up to Mia and gave her a hug that rivaled Ravello’s in strength. “You’re here. I’m so happy. Now I can coast.”
“Thanks so much for helping out my dad. I’m excited about working with you.”
“But you working harder, right?”
“Right.” Mia extricated herself from the woman’s grip and subtly massaged a bruised rib while Cammie checked out her reflection in a nearby mirror, patting a few stray hairs from her fluffy frosted ’do back in place. She’d found her style in 1988 and stuck with it, to the point of ordering her favorite lavender eye shadow from a website that specialized in locating discontinued makeup.
Ravello put his arm around Mia’s shoulder. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the staff.”
He was about to do exactly that when the door to the room flung open. A slim woman with stringy black hair appeared, clad in a mini dress that looked like it was made from bright red ace bandages. She was pretty but in a hard way. She pointed a finger attached to a tattoo-sleeved arm at Ravello. “You,” she said, her tone angry and accusing.
“Me what?” Ravello seemed flummoxed by the intruder.
“You know what.” The woman pulled a cell phone out of her tiny purse and held it up to him.
Mia moved closer to her father. “Dad, what’s going on?” Ravello responded with a confused shrug.
The woman waved the phone in the air. “Our date. Through Meet Your Match dot com. What’d you think, it was a freebie? Angie here doesn’t do freebies.” She pointed a long, red-lacquered nail at herself. “You owe me.”
Mia was incredulous. She knew her father had barely dated since his marriage to her mother had been annulled five years earlier. But she couldn’t imagine him resorting to a paid escort.
“Sweetie, I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Ravello said. He looked embarrassed. “I swear on a bible, I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
“Liar.” The woman spit out the word. She took a step toward Ravello, who remained frozen in place. “Either give me my fee or I’ll make big trouble. I know who you are.”
“Oh please,” Mia scoffed. “Everyone knows who he is. If that’s your biggest threat, you need better material.”
The woman, still holding the phone, waved her arms in the air dramatically. “I want my—”
A giantess wearing a chef toque stepped out of the group. “Okay, we’ve had enough of the crazy, sister.”
“That’s Guadalupe Cruz, our chef,” Cammie, who’d been watching the odd scene with fascination, whispered to Mia. “She was an army cook in Iraq.”
Guadalupe approached the interloper, then took all of a second to grab the woman and hold her under one arm like a football. She strode out of the room, her charge kicking and screaming a stream of profanities. “As you were,” the chef called to the others as she disappeared down the stairs.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Cammie pointed to the buffet. “Let’s eat before the bagels get stale.”
A murmur of agreement was followed by a rush to grab a plate. Ravello started to follow, but Mia pulled him back. “Hold up, Dad. What was that?”
The mobster gave a helpless shrug. “Mia, believe me, I have no idea. There are nut jobs all over this city. I guess one found her way to Belle View. This Belle View, not the one in Manhattan. Where she obviously belongs. Because she needs mental help.” There was a loud buzzing overhead. “Sounds like a turboprop. Must be the 9:10 from Syracuse on its final approach.”
Ravello detached himself from Mia and joined the others at the buffet. She frowned as she watched him pour a cup of coffee and chat with the others. She knew her father well. He was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know the woman. But he was also hiding something.
And it was never good when a Carina hid something.
Chapter Two
Mia tried to corner her father and press him for more information about the mysterious Angie, but Ravello avoided his daughter, segueing into a conversation with a different employee every time she approached him. She finally gave up and concentrated on meeting her new co-workers, who were a rainbow coalition of a few full-time but mostly part-time cooks, waiters, and support staff. They raved about Ravello with genuine fondness, which made her happy. Even Evans, the odd, monosyllabic sous chef, put two words together to form a compliment: “He’s cool.”
After half an hour of snacking and making small talk, Cammie pulled Mia aside. “Let’s go to your office and go over the day. I want to hand over a couple of clients to you and leave early. I booked a mani-pedi at Spa Castle in College Point.”
Mia followed Cammie down the stairs into a warren of small offic
es tucked into the less scenic side of the hall facing the west side of the parking lot. They stopped in front of a door sporting a nameplate that read MIA CARINA: ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER. Mia fought back the urge to burst into happy tears. “I have a title,” she said, her tone colored with emotion. “I have an office. I never had one before.”
“Trust me, the thrill wears off,” Cammie said. “Especially after your first pain-in-the-tushy client.”
Cammie opened the door and the women entered the office. With its ancient metal desk, battered file cabinet, and large corkboard missing chunks of cork, it had all the charm of a supply closet, which Mia assumed it once was. But it was hers, and she loved it for that. The tiny room was where she would start her new career, her new life, and put the misery of Florida behind her.
A bright spot was the large flower arrangement taking up half the desk and scenting the room with lilies. Mia pulled out the card and smiled as she read it. “Aw, it’s from my dad.”
“He probably put it together himself.”
“Really? He does that now?” Mia examined the bouquet, trying to imagine her father’s meaty fingers arranging the delicate baby’s breath, tiger lilies, and iris. “He hasn’t mentioned it.”
“You know that Bermuda cruise he went on? He took some class on napkin folding and floral display. The teacher lives in Manhattan and he still goes to her for classes. Private classes, if you know what I mean.” Cammie followed this surprising statement with a wink.
“Dad’s got a girlfriend?” Mia digested this second unexpected development.
“I don’t know if they’re up to anything, but when he talks about her, he gets all red and shy and can’t look you in the eye.”
Maggie thought of the intruder Guadalupe had carried out of the upstairs ballroom. “So that woman Angie who said he owed her for a date. She really was a scam artist.”
“Totally. Now, fire up the computer to make sure it’s working.”
“Okay.” Mia sat on the office chair and immediately toppled over. Cammie glanced down as Mia picked herself up off the floor. “Oh, that’s missing a wheel. We’ll roll in my chair.”
“Don’t you need it?”
“I thought I’d take an early lunch.”
“We just had breakfast.”
Cammie wagged a finger at Mia. “What’s my word of the day?”
“Coasting,” the women said together.
“Anyhoo,” Cammie said, “your clients should be here in ten. His bachelor party’s Saturday, they’re getting married three weeks from Saturday. They wanna lock stuff down. Their file is labeled ‘archiko gamo.’”
“What does that mean?”
“Starter marriage. Let’s get you that chair.”
Cammie and Mia wheeled out the broken office chair and wheeled in Cammie’s. “You’re all set,” Cammie said. She headed out the door. “Oh, and a little tip,” she threw over her shoulder as she left. “Always make sure the mother of the groom is happy or you’ll regret it.”
“Wait, what?”
“Bye-yee.” With that, Cammie was gone for her day of coasting.
Mia hurried to make her office somewhat presentable before her first clients. She opened a desk drawer to look for a pen and saw a small rectangular box. On top was a sticky note with a heart and her father’s signature. She opened the box—it was filled with business cards. Her very first. I have the best dad in the world, she thought fondly, despite his occasional jail stint. She placed the box on the desk, then turned on her computer, which slowly wheezed to life.
She barely had time to glance at the file for the John Grazio and Alice Paluski nuptials when a young couple appeared in her doorway. The girl cast a wary glance around the office. “Are you our new event planner?”
“Yes, hi, I’m Mia Carina. I’ll be taking over for Cammie. I’m so happy to be working with you. Come on in.”
The couple introduced themselves, stepped into Mia’s office, and stood there. She realized there was no place for them to sit. “Be right back.” She raced into Cammie’s office, grabbed two metal chairs, and dragged them into her office. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries, happy to wait for you.” John, the groom-to-be, said this with a suggestive smirk. Alice, his bride-to-be, rolled her eyes. They were in their mid-twenties, if that. He had slicked-back brown hair and the build of a weightlifter. She wore the uniform of the animal technician she was, scrubs covered with cartoons of cheerful puppies and kittens. The animals’ happy expressions contrasted with the sour one on Alice’s face.
“Okay, so let’s start with the wedding,” Mia said, adopting a tone that she hoped combined a businesslike attitude with a touch of warmth and enthusiasm. She scanned the open file on her computer. “I see all the vendors are confirmed. All we need is the final decision on the size and flavors of your wedding cake.”
“Just make it bigger and better than my sister’s,” Alice said.
“Oh,” Mia said, thrown. “I’ll have to look that up. Did she get married here?”
“Yes.” Alice’s sour expression grew more sour, if such a thing was possible.
“Lemme bring you up to speed.” John leaned in toward Mia, who instinctively leaned back. “Alice and Annamaria are twins. And they hate each other.”
“She’s always holding it over my head that she’s younger than me but got married first,” Alice grumped.
“You’re twins,” Mia said. “How much younger can she be?”
“A whole friggin’ minute. Which she never lets me forget. She always does better than me. She even got the prettier name. Who’s named Alice anymore? All I want is for my wedding to be better than hers. A bigger cake, a bigger band, a bigger horse-drawn carriage. I want it bigger and better in every. Single. Way.”
Mia’s skin began to tingle. It was the tingle she got when a customer with a black platinum card walked into Korri Designs. The tingle of a potential up-sell. She made a show of scanning the couple’s file. “I’ll look up your sister’s wedding and confirm that every one of your choices is ‘bigger and better.’ But I can tell you right now that you won’t be able to get a bigger horse-drawn carriage than the one you ordered. What do you think about arriving by boat?”
“By boat?” A gleam appeared in Alice’s eyes.
“Think about it.” Mia gave her voice a hypnotic edge as she painted a picture for the future bride she had hooked on a line. “Roaring up to Belle View on a powerboat. One of those beautiful vintage wooden models. Your veil floating behind you in the breeze as every guest stares at you in wonder, awed and inspired by your majestic arrival.”
A sly smile replaced the sour look on Alice’s face. “I love that. Go for it.”
“Great.” Mia shelved the seduction and returned to business. “I’ll price out some options and get back to you with them. Now, John, do you want to talk about your bachelor party?” She framed the question in a way that gave Alice the option of leaving, which she didn’t take. Mia got the impression she kept her fiancé on a short leash—with a choke collar.
“I can’t believe it’s only two days away,” the groom-to-be enthused. “Did you get the oysters? I want all sexy food like oysters.”
“They’ve been ordered.” Mia checked the file. “We haven’t received your party favors yet.”
“Condoms with the party date on them,” John said with pride. “It was my idea.” This engendered another eye roll from Alice. His brow creased with worry. “They’re gonna get here on time, right?”
“They’ll be here. If worse comes to worst, I’ll make the company overnight them and pay for shipping.”
“That’s a girl. And the cake, that’s all set? The one the stripper jumps out of?”
Mia perused the computer screen. “All set. There’s a note here to confirm the . . . entertainment.”
“As long as someone hot jumps out. I don’t care who it is. Hey, if she can’t make it, feel free to jump out yourself.”
John laughed, then let out a ye
lp of pain as Alice elbowed him and said, “That’s sexual harassment, idiot.”
“No it ain’t. It’s flirting. What, is that against the law now? What kind of world do we live in where a guy can’t say something nice to a girl?”
It was John’s turn to look sour. Alice once again rolled her eyes. She was doing this so much Mia feared she’d detach her retina. “Everything is in great shape,” Mia said, trying to defuse the tension and bring the awkward appointment to an end. “If you have any questions or concerns, call me anytime day or night.” She extricated two of her new business cards, then stood up and handed the “happy” couple each a card. “Get ready for the most exciting night of your lives.”
John pumped a fist in the air. “Saturday night, baby.”
This earned him another elbow in the ribs from Alice. “She’s talking about the wedding, not your stupid bachelor party.”
“I’m sure both events will be unforgettable,” Mia said in as neutral a tone as she could muster up.
The betrothed couple departed, arguing their way out the door. Spent, Mia closed her eyes and fell into her office chair, which rolled backward a few feet. Jamie’s right, she thought. The biggest events in people’s lives can be the most stressful—on me. She opened her eyes and inhaled the rejuvenating scent of Ravello’s flowers. This led to an idea. Could her father have dipped a toe in the dating waters prior to falling for his floral arrangement teacher?
She left her office and went in search of Ravello’s, which she found at the end of the hallway. It was lunchtime, which could only mean one thing—Ravello was having the pasta of the day at Roberto’s Trattoria. It was the one aspect of the mobster’s life where he was obsessive-compulsive. As predicted, his office was empty. Mia stepped behind his desk and opened the Internet browser connection on his computer. Knowing her somewhat-Luddite of a father, she assumed he never cleared his search history, which proved to be true. She scrolled down until she finally saw it: a search for Meet Your Match, which Ravello’s poor typing skills had misspelled as Meeet Your Match. “Oh boy,” she muttered.