by Jolie Damman
I imagined they lived in the rooms above the restaurant too, so he probably had more family than his father - like his brother in the photographs, and a mother.
Was initiating a conversation with him the right thing to do? Probably, definitely, I thought before opening my mouth, “So… you work for your father?”
“You could say that,” he said before rounding a corner and taking another road. The Brooklyn bridge loomed in the distance.
I assumed he was going to say something else, but as the seconds went by and we neared the bridge further, I concluded otherwise.
With that consideration in mind, I decided to make him another query, “What were you doing in the park that day?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He paused. “Thanks for saving me from that bike, by the way.”
Wow.
I didn’t think he would say that, but I still couldn’t help but smile and say, “It was just the right thing to do.”
“I know. It’s good to have people who care about strangers,” he spoke before entering another road. The Brooklyn bridge was within walking distance now, and I could see more cars following us.
As we neared it, I asked, “I couldn’t help but notice you have a brother when I was in your father’s office…”
It was nothing more than a simple statement – just something I threw in the air to see how he would respond.
Angelo shrugged and said, “He’s alright.”
And He’s alright was all he dared to tell me, like he had nothing more about his brother he could share. He was a reserved man for sure, and all of a sudden, I found myself wishing I could fast forward time.
I tried initiating another friendly conversation with him, but it was clear Angelo wasn’t willing to talk about anything.
He pulled over after I said this was the road I lived in, and when I opened the door, I said, “Thanks for taking me here.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said before driving ahead and rounding the corner back to lower Manhattan.
I stood there, contemplating he was a fine-looking man with a big problem. If only he could be more friendly and not from a completely different world than mine, than I could have a chance with him.
However, as things stood, he was just beyond me.
I turned and opened the door to our little home. Luca was sitting on his couch, his fingers playing with his phone. Rita was in the kitchen, and the smell of gnocchi was unmistakable.
Luca raised his head and didn’t run to me as I was expecting him to. He coughed and put his phone down on the sofa. I sped to him, put my suitcase on the couch, and got on one knee so that my eyes were level with his.
“I’ve got the best news ever!”
His eyes lit up, though only a little. Rita said from behind me, “What kind of good news? Did you finally get a job?”
I nodded, warping up a corner of my lips. She threw the handkerchief she was using to dry her hands over her head, and it landed on her colorful curlers. “I can’t believe it!”
I bowed again, feeling a surge of warmth in my heart. Telling them the good news was better than hearing Mr. Romani telling me I had been hired.
I turned my head to Luca, whose cheeks blushed again. “That means I can finally buy a PS4!” he beamed, fisting one hand and punching the air with it.
“Not so fast, little one,” I said, ruffling his hair. “I need to buy your medicine first.”
His eyes lost some of the initial energy, and upon witnessing that, I reaffirmed, “But, I’ll buy your PS4 soon. It’s pretty cheap. Just wait a month, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am!” He said energetically, nodding once quickly.
He proceeded to sprint to the backyard, where I hoped he was going to have a good time. I stood up with a silly smirk on my face. There was nothing quite like making him feel happy.
I was going to buy him that PS4, that I swore.
Rita padded to me as she removed the handkerchief which landed on her head. “Where are you going to work at?”
“The Bello Italiano in Little Italy. It’s an Italian restaurant.”
Her handkerchief fell from her hands as her eyes went wide.
“What happened?” I was forced to ask.
Something about the name of the establishment made her have a sudden, inopportune moment of realization. She wasn’t going to ask me not to work there for whatever reason, was she?
Her voice was nothing more than a whisper when she spoke, “I’ve heard terrible things about that place...”
Did she? Was she telling the truth? The air grew thicker all of a sudden.
“What kind of things?”
“Isn’t it obvious? It’s Little Italy. It’s where the Mafia operates from. Didn’t you say the man you saved yesterday had a gun with him in fucking Central Park?”
She had no idea he also was from there and worked for his father, or had she?
Was there something else she wasn’t telling me?
“Rita, if there’s something I need to know…”
A moment of stillness as her eyes continued to study me. “No, there’s nothing,” she finally enunciated.
“Are you sure?”
She picked up the handkerchief and when she raised her head, her expression was one of gentleness. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
She padded to me and put a hand on my shoulder as she then led me to the kitchen. “It’s nothing. I was just worried about you for a second.” She paused. “Little Italy is in lower Manhattan, but it’s still a dangerous place.”
I had no idea if I should believe her or not, though the impression that she was hiding something from me remained. Or was that just me thinking too much about something as simple as Rita being concerned?
Shit. I had no idea any longer.
Better to pretend that what just happened didn’t, I opined before giving her an uncomfortable smirk. Mr. Romani seemed nice enough. If something bizarre or treacherous happened in his restaurant, then I could simply fire myself.
As I looked out the window to where Luca was playing with his phone in the backyard, I reaffirmed my goal to make sure we were going to have enough money for his medicine.
I needed that job so fucking much.
Chapter 3
Properly Meeting Alide
Angelo
Anger was rising within my heart. I couldn’t believe my father had hired her. Of all the people he could have chosen as our next waitress, why her? Was he playing some kind of sick game with me? She was lovely, angelic, and sweet. She wasn’t a woman for the kind of world we lived in, and the more I kept it hidden that I was aware of who she was, the worst things seemed to become to me.
I ran my hand over my face. “Father, I’m not going to marry her.”
“There is a vow!” He shouted, banging the desk with his hand.
“And what of it? I don’t owe anything to her father.”
He trotted to me and gripped the collar of my shirt, his eyes burning with an intense hatred as they locked with mine. “You will respect the vow, and the marriage is going to happen.”
He ungripped my shirt, and I didn’t unwrinkle it.
“Her father was a good friend of mine. The best! I’m not going to allow his memory to become nothing. You will marry her, and you will be a good spouse.”
A moment of pause, and then, he prolonged, “If not for you, then do it for me.”
I sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to change his mind right now. There was no way a marriage with Alide was ever going to work. She was so different, so much not like me. We wouldn’t last a month.
Why did she have to arise all of a sudden in my life again?
There was another woman who I’d rather marry. I hadn’t met her often these last few years, but she knew who I was. She understood me.
She was no novice to the Mafia world. Her father had been trying to convince mine to let us marry each other, but it appeared it hadn’t led to anything.
“About Vinicio…” I said, ch
anging the subject. And God, did I need to talk about something different right now.
“You squandered it again,” father said, waving his hand as if to tell me he didn’t care. It was a lie. He cared.
“Maybe you should know that Alide was involved.”
He snapped his head to me. “Involved? How?”
“I had him, in the park. Then, out of nowhere, she pushed me because apparently a cyclist was going to hit me or something.” He raised an eyebrow. “At least, that’s what she told me.”
I paced in front of him. “By the time I got up, my men and Prudenzio were already gone. He said Vinicio disappeared before he could chase him. We’ll have to wait until he shows up again.”
He shook his head, maybe telling me he didn’t believe any of what I’d said. Maybe he was thinking I had come up with that excuse to make him hate Alide and push away the blame from me.
Whatever he was thinking about, I didn’t care. I told him the truth.
“Fine, my son.” He sat purposefully on his chair. “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again, and I’m going to tighten up security at our checkpoints. Vinicio can’t escape.”
I walked out of his office and proceeded to my bedroom, where I then collapsed on the bed. I closed my eyes and began to think. If I were to marry Alide for sure, I wasn’t going to be able to give my father a nephew or niece.
I didn’t want to think this, but I did so anyway. Good thing he’s old and dying.
Alide
I arrived at the restaurant and was introduced to the ins and outs of my job in it by the same waiter who’d welcomed me when I first set foot in here. He was friendly and very welcoming. I couldn’t stop smiling as he explained to me what to do whenever a customer got angry, needed something we didn’t have, broke a glass, or thought the bill was too high.
He explained everything while cracking jokes and smiling as well. He was a good man, and I found myself presuming this could be the right job for me.
And most of all, I needed to make sure the boss was going to be happy with me here. I needed the money for Luca’s medicine, and then, once I had saved up enough, I was thinking of taking him to a shrink or something like that.
He didn’t seem normal, and he was making me think he had depression or something just as bad.
Time passed, and I took Fantino’s advice to heart. They helped me quite a bit. The customers of the Bello Italiano could be quite temperamental, depending on the thing that bothered them. By the time I was done serving them on my first day, I was exhausted and sweating with damp armpits.
Fantino stopped in front of me, his eyebrows narrowing. “Do you think you can tidy up Mr. Angelo’s room? The maid they hired for that wasn’t able to come today. I know your job isn’t to do that sort of thing, but I have to go now. Otherwise, I’d do it.” He paused, breathing in. “It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes.”
“Ahhh, sure thing, I guess. I’ll do it.”
He gave me a gentle smirk. “Great. Knew I could count on you.”
Fantino padded me on the shoulder a couple of times, grabbed his stuff and walked out of the establishment after taking off his work attire to put on his everyday clothes.
I looked upstairs, thinking my day could be ending a lot better right now if I didn’t have to do any room cleaning. I sighed, went to the tiny room, took the cleaning equipment with me, and then walked to the last floor of the building, where Angelo’s room was supposed to be.
I felt like I was invading his privacy, but if he were to find me here, he would probably not feel bothered.
There was nothing to worry about, but still, I couldn’t stop fantasizing about him. I drooled over Angelo. He looked self-assured, walked with the posture of a man who knew what he wanted and, as far as I knew, he also didn’t have a girlfriend.
I wished though, more than anything right now, that the other waiters and waitresses hadn’t gone back home yet.
I began to sweep the room with a large broom, and there wasn’t much to do here. It was all well organized, for the most part.
There was a thick sheet of dust all over the furniture and the floor, though, which suggested that the room wasn’t used often. I wondered what he did most of his days.
Was Rita right about him being a member of the Mafia?
I hope not, was my thought when I looked around and concluded there were few things left to do here. I checked the time on my phone and found out that not even twenty minutes had passed since I’d entered his room.
That was terrific. It meant I was undoubtedly not going to miss my bus back home.
The way his room was decorated – if one could even say that about it – told me that not only Angelo was a man with excessive self-esteem, but that he also didn’t care much about what was expensive and what was cheap. His TV was large, but the bed was quite simple, despite being king-sized. The wallpaper was a faded shade of blue. His laptop computer was old. It basically could do all he needed, and that was that.
He probably didn’t use it to play games or watch movies in 4k. He was a very technical, efficient and… dare I say boring kind of man.
The only thing that kept making me drool over him, despite its irrationality, was his looks (and his excessive self-esteem, though they kind of went together, so it wasn’t like I could separate them).
I was wiping the top of his dresser with a handkerchief when my elbow hit a small, gold-decorated box. It fell on the floor, much to my shock and fright.
I assumed I had broken it before realizing it was made of cardboard. Phew, I thought before going on my knees to pick it up.
That’s when I noticed a weird, alarming photo. Angelo was in it, and he wasn’t alone. His father and who I assumed to be his brother – the same guy I saw surrounded by him and his men in Central Park before – were with him.
They were in a dark basement, and their facial features were almost indiscernible, but I was still sure it was them.
There was another man in the middle of the room, and he had been beaten up almost to a pulp. His head was lolled to one side, there was a huge lump where his left eye should be, his whole body was covered with bruises and cuts, and there was also a line of blood coming from a corner of his mouth.
And perhaps, the most shocking thing was that they were all smiling at the camera.
All of them, except for the younger brother, who looked disgusted and frightened by the whole scene. I turned the photo around and found some writings on it.
December 25th, 2010, in our tiny and adorable basement.
And it continued with the names of Angelo, Nicodemo and Vinicio, which had to be the name of Angelo’s sibling.
The man was also sitting on a chair, and his legs and arms were tied with thick lengths of rope to it. He wore a dark suit with a special pin attached to it. I couldn’t make out what kind of pin it was, though, but if Rita was right about them, then this photo confirmed her suspicions.
They were no common Italian-Americans who ran a restaurant for a living; they were, in reality, members of the Italian mafia.
And now, I worked for them.
I didn’t gasp and I was thankful for that. I then put the photo back inside the small box. Just underneath it was another picture, and this one brought a wave of warmth to my heart. It was almost as if someone was trying to show me both sides of his life.
The photo depicted Angelo and his younger brother. They were standing in front of a soccer field, and Angelo’s arm was around his brother’s shoulders.
They were smiling so broadly and so truthfully their eyes had narrowed to slits. Both of their cheeks were blushing, and sweat was visible on their skin.
They were having fun back then. I flipped the photo again and my eyes read another line of writing.
March 10th, 2004, playing Calcio with dad.
Calcio or soccer, it doesn’t really matter, I presumed. They call it what they want. It’s still the same sport.
Gazing at Angelo in the photograph, who coul
dn’t have been more than fifteen back then, I couldn’t help but envision what he would have been like today if his father hadn’t become the don of a Mafia family.
He had had a bright future ahead of him – one where he didn’t have to torture people. But now, things were different, and I wondered if that same kid could ever be brought back?
As I put the photos and all the things that came out of the box back inside it, I wondered if he ever thought about what his life was like when he didn’t have to kill and rob people.
Well, it’s not my concern, I concluded as I put the box back on top of his dresser. I’m nothing more than a waitress here, after all.
I had just grabbed my broom and was going to leave when, unexpectedly, the door opened. In stepped none other than Angelo, whose eyes broadened when they landed on me.
I could almost read his mind asking what the fuck I was doing here before he realized why. In a blink, they went back to their cold, unnerving light as he approached me.
I cleared my throat and, as uncomfortableness tainted my tongue, I spoke, “I’m here to clean up your room, sir. Fantino asked me to do it.”
His eyes cleared up some more. “Ah, no problem. I guess it required some tidying up.” An unsettling moment of silence. “Thanks.”
I nodded and walked out of there as quickly as possible without making so obvious for him. The last thing I had wanted was to have him walk into the room while I was still tidying it up.
But of course, it had to happen, and all things considered, I was lucky my presence there hadn’t bothered him.
He closed the door, and I padded down to the ground floor. The stars were shining faintly in the sky, like they were ashamed of themselves. I then changed to my everyday clothes and grabbed my purse to head back home.
A lot transpired today, and I learned so much about him.
And Rita needed to know about it all.
Chapter 4
A Warning
Alide
She paced in front of me, her hand reaching for her cigarette pack. She drew one out and kindled it using the stove’s flame. Her eyes were a painting of concern as she blurted, “You shouldn’t continue to work there. It’s not safe. I told you about those people. I knew they were Mafia.”