“So, do you go to Adelphi too, Vinny?” Dad asked, sipping his Coke.
“Yeah, we have our business 101 class together.” I explained for him.
“Are you in the mob?” Grandma asked.
Vinny glanced over at me.
“No he is not in the mob, Grandma.” I said, suddenly wishing they bandaged her whole head including her mouth.
“I thought all Italians are in the mob by acquaintance. I was married to an Italian, so I like to say I’m in the mob.”
Vinny smirked. “That’s nice.”
“When are you kids heading back to Long Island?” Dad interrupted.
I looked over at Vinny. “I think today.”
“Like I said, if you want to stay a few days, I can come back and get you when you’re ready.” Vinny said.
I shook my head. “No, I couldn’t ask you to do that…Lindy can pick me up or something.”
“How about I drive you back?” Dad suggested. “We can have some father daughter time.”
I didn’t like that idea either. “I dunno Dad, it’s a long drive.”
Vinny’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he looked at it. “I gotta take this call. I’ll be back.”
“Kay,” I said, watching him leave the room. Once he was gone, I turned back to my parents who were both staring at me with smirks.
“What?” I asked as a burst of heat flooded my face.
“Boy is he a looker, Auti. Don’t you think so Lori?” Grandma said.
“Yeah, he is.” Mom nodded. “But I think Autumn should be focusing on school.”
“I’m focusing on school.” I said, looking toward the door were Vinny left.
“Are you going out with him?” Dad asked casually before pouring some coke in his mouth.
“No…” I tucked my hands in my back pockets. “We are friends but not friends okay?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Dad pursued.
“It means maybe we have something but it’s too early to tell. I don’t know Dad.” I sighed in irritation.
“So what you are saying is that you aren’t sure if he is your boyfriend, but you are sleeping with him?”
I scoffed and glared at him, my face burning up. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Dad.”
I glanced over at my mother who pinched the bridge of her nose. “I need to get some air. ” She set her tea aside and made her way to the door.
After Mom was out of the room, I glared over at my father. “Please don’t ever do that again.”
“Do what?” Dad smiled in amusement.
“You know what, Dad.”
“I can’t help it that she still treats you like you’re twelve. I wasn’t born yesterday, Auti.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to go find Vinny.”
“No hanky-panky at the hospital!” Grandma called after me.
I shut the door with a forced pull and made my way downstairs. I found Vinny standing outside, talking on his phone. He looked up when he saw me step through the automatic sliding glass doors.
“Yep. I’ll be home by seven. Okay, bye.” He hung up and shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Mom needs me to work tonight.”
I frowned. “Oh, you better get going then.”
“Yeah,” he said with a soft sigh. “I’m bummed I won’t have you to keep me company on the ride home.”
“Me too. I miss you already,” I took his hand in mine.
“I’ll miss you too. I’ll call you as soon as I can,” he said and leaned in, kissing me softly on the lips. I kissed him back and reached up to run my fingers through his hair, my whole body succumbing to the warm need to have him close.
He pulled away and rested his forehead against mine, the tips of our noses rubbing.
“Drive safe.” I whispered.
“I will.” he gave my lips one last quick kiss before he turned walked away. I watched him cross the parking lot, remove his keys from his pocket, and yank open his car door. He drove past me and waved before he disappeared from sight.
Watching him drive away left a dull ache in my heart. I already missed him and I wondered if I would ever be able to do anything without wishing he was a part of it. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice my mother standing beside me until our elbows met. I glanced over at her and blinked. “Jesus Mom, you scared me.”
“That goodbye looked to be more than friendly if you ask me.”
I felt my cheeks burn. “Yeah.”
“Honey, I’m happy for you. I know how much you like Vinny, but I want you to be careful. Didn’t you say he is still hung up on his ex?”
“He’s not really. There are other reasons he has to keep her around. I can’t explain it right now, but it’s not because he still wants her.”
She gave me a concerned look. “Are you two sleeping together?”
I blushed and looked away. “Mom…”
“I just want you to be careful.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not a little girl.”
She pulled me into her arms and squeezed me. “I know you’re not, but I want you to be safe. Don’t end up like Dad and I…first semester of college and ten months later you were there.”
“That won’t happen, we use protect—”
Mom and I looked over as Dad and Mindy stepped through the sliding doors. She wore a puffy black jacket with a fo-fur hood like Lindys. Her bleached blond hair was pinned up in a messy bun on her head and her thick eyeliner made her look like she had two black eyes. She quickly pocketed the cigarette in her hand and forced a smile at my mother and me.
“Hi,” she said, flashing her perfectly veneered smile.
“Hi Mindy,” Mom said, keeping her arm around me. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Sorry about your mother.”
“She’s doing better, but thank you.”
Mom and Dad made eye contact and he gently put his arm around Mindy. “Hey, why don’t you go get your phone charger from the car, while I talk to these two for a second.”
“Okay,” she said giving me a smile before walking off towards the parking lot. I wasn’t sure what I hated more about her, the fact that she was old enough to be my sister or how perfect she looked in everything she wore.
“Is she still modeling?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’s going to Boston for a week next month to do a runway fashion show for Neiman Marcus.”
I watched one of her twig legs bend, clad in skinny white jeans, as she leaned into the passenger seat of Dad’s old navy blue Chevy Silverado.
“She’s not coming when you drive me home, right?”
“No, there would be enough tension to kill us,” he said tugging at the sides of his open jacket. “When are you thinking of heading back, Auti?”
“Today.” As soon as possible.
“Why don’t you and Dad have dinner and he can drive you back after?” Mom suggested.
I looked between the two of them and frowned. “I was hoping to go like…soon.”
“Oh come on, we won’t see you until Thanksgiving. You can spend the day with us and have dinner here one more time. Vinny will be waiting for you when you get back.”
“It’s not that. I have a research paper due that I haven’t even started on.” I sighed.
Smelling cigarette smoke, I glanced over to see Mindy leaning on the hood of my father’s truck, puffing on a cigarette while looking down at her phone.
“She’s not coming to dinner either, right?”
He drew a deep breath and exhaled. “Not if you don’t want her to.”
“She doesn’t eat anyway.”
I stepped between my parents and headed back into the hospital.
Dad drove Mindy home then came back to the hospital, and my brother showed up a short time later. We all sat with Grandma, keeping her company between her bouts of sleep, and alerting the nurse when her machines made beeping noises.
Being at the hospital put my parents in to reminisce mode, and I had to listen
to the story of my birth where my mother’s water broke six weeks early while she was cooking dinner and Dad had to rush home from work and drive her to the hospital.
Then they had to point out that I had the cutest tuft of orange hair on my head that they used to comb straight up and call me their little treasure troll. Once they brought me home, they fattened me up and Dad said I looked like the marshmallow man with red hair. My parents were all about building my self-esteem.
Before long, my mother’s boyfriend Greg showed up to visit. He was still wearing his work clothes that were stained with dirt and random smudges. He owned his own excavation and landscaping company where he liked to claim all his building materials were eco-friendly. He met my mother when he came over to give us an estimate on removing a tree from our back yard and then somehow they decided to go on a date. He was the one who turned Mom into a vegetarian so that was the first strike against him, and he always needed a shower, but at least he wasn’t as bad as Mindy.
Dad never seemed bothered by Greg, and when I asked him if he felt weird seeing Mom with another man, he said, “Yeah kind of, but I’m glad she is happy.” So, I decided to take on his perspective about Greg, but I’d never accept Mindy.
Greg asked Mom to go out to dinner, so after they left Dad, Josh, and I went to dinner at the Village Inn. It served up home cooked meals, mostly pot roasts, and anything else you could smother in gravy. Dad got a hot roast beef dip, Josh ordered fish and chips, and I had the chicken potpie. We sat at our favorite table near the open fireplace where we enjoyed the old colonial atmosphere and caught up on each other’s lives. Josh didn’t have much to add to the conversation, but I learned that Dad was getting an in-ground pool put in. That would give me a reason to visit him more often.
After dinner, Dad drove Josh home and then it was just the two of us. The sun was just beginning to set as we pulled onto the highway, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had spent time alone with my father. I glanced over at him as he drove with one hand perched on top of the wheel, his opposite elbow resting on the doorframe.
He reached over and turned the radio onto the classic rock station I grew up on. “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison came on and he immediately turned it up. We smiled at one another because we both knew it was a song that he always sang to my mother when I was little. After it was over, he turned down the volume and looked over at me.
“So Mom told me you are living with Lindy. That must be a dream come true for you girls.”
“Yeah,” I replied, trying my best to look amused.
“What is she studying again?”
“Nursing.”
“That’s right. Her mother is a nurse.”
I nodded.
“Does Lindy have a sort-of boyfriend too?”
No, she had a permanently annoying one.
“No, she’s dating someone though.”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “So, are you really serious about this Vinny guy? He strikes me as the type that messes around on girls.”
I looked over at him and frowned. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I know guys.”
“Well, you don’t know him. He isn’t like that.”
“Why do you think he can’t decide if he wants to be with you or not? Sounds fishy. Don’t you think if he didn’t mess around he’d commit to being only with you?”
“He is only with me!”
He smirked at me. “Then why don’t you call him your boyfriend?”
“Because it’s complicated. He is in the middle of a business deal with his ex and if she knows about me, it might fall through, so we are keeping it on the down low until it’s over.”
“The down low huh?” he laughed.
“You know what I mean, Dad.”
“What kind of business deal is he working out with her?”
“It has to do with the restaurant his family owns, the one I work at, Mazzolas. He’s going to be taking it over in the next year.”
“A business man huh? Those are never any fun. He did strike me as the boring all business type. Don’t you want someone that is fun, like me?”
“Dad…” I said, glaring over at him. “You spent most of the eighties drunk and high at rock concerts.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s not wrong with that?”
“Hey, if I wasn’t so crazy back then, your Mom never would have fallen in love with me and you’d never be here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah…”
He chuckled and reached over, draping his arm around my shoulders. “I’m just giving you a hard time because you’re my little girl. I’ll tell you what…I’m going to give this Vinny guy a chance, but if he hurts you, I get to be the first one in line to set him straight. Deal?”
“Deal.” I agreed, reluctantly.
Dad smiled and kissed the top of my head. I turned my attention back on the road, hoping that he wasn’t going to be right.
I decided to send him a text. I wrote:
I MISS YOU
and only a moment later he returned:
MISS YOU TOO AUTI
Afterwards, I texted Lindy to warn her about my Dad dropping me off and to make sure Tyler wasn’t there. She replied that he wouldn’t be home because he was with the Alpha Tau guys.
Once the sun finally set, I closed my eyes and leaned my head on my father’s shoulder, dozing off to the soft crooning of the Eagles singing “Hotel California”.
When I woke up again, Dad had just turned off the highway, and needed directions to the apartment. Once we arrived, he parked and turned off the ignition.
“Should I come up?”
“No, Lindy is asleep. She’s not feeling well.”
“Alright, well, , there’s something I want to talk to you about before you go.”
I sighed, dreading another conversation about Vinny. “What?”
“Your mom and I were talking this morning before you got there and…we are thinking about buying you your own car.”
I stared at him, speechless. “But…Mom doesn’t have any money.”
“I’ll be buying it. I got a raise so I have a little extra spending money. You’ve earned it Autumn, I know you were supposed to be here at Adelphi two years ago, but you didn’t want to leave your Mom hanging and God knows you need your own transportation.”
I smiled. “So I’m getting a car?”
“That’s the plan. I figure when you come home for Thanksgiving, we can buy you one and you can drive it back.”
I squealed and bounced on the seat before leaning over and throwing my arms around his neck. “I love you, Daddy.”
He laughed squeezing me tight. “I hope you still love me even if I wasn’t getting you a car.”
“I do. I love you for both reasons.”
“Good,” he said pulling away. “Did you need me to walk you to the door?”
“No, I’ll be fine. Thanks for the ride, Dad.” I reached for the door handle.
“Anytime, Pumpkin. I’ve really missed you. We need to see each other more often. This summer when you come home on break we need to have some father-daughter time.”
I nodded. “I know, we will. I love you. See you at Thanksgiving.”
“Love you too. Call me sometime would ya?” he shouted as I slid out of the truck.
“I will!” I called back, closing the heavy door and heading for the apartment.
I stepped into a dark living room to find Lindy sleeping on the sofa. She was curled up with a blanket in front of the TV. I touched her shoulder to alert her that I was home. She sat straight up, looking shocked.
“Oh my God, you scared the crap out of me. How is your Gram?”
“She is good. Back to her crazy old self, she just needs more recovery time.”
“What about Vinny?”
“What about Vinny?” Heat immediately rushed to my face, and I was glad she couldn’t tell since it was dark.
“You’re hid
ing something. I can see it on your face.”
So much for hiding it.
She yanked me down next to her. “Spill.”
I flopped down onto the sofa next to her. “We had fun.”
“What kind of fun?”
I smiled and laughed. “What do you mean?”
She grabbed my arm. “Oh my god. What did you do?”
“Calm down!” I said, laughing more.
“Tell me! Did you two hook up?”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
She gasped. “Did you have sex?”
“Maybe.”
She screamed and shook me by my shoulders.
I yelled out and laughed. “Lindy, my ears! Geez!”
“You had sex! Oh my God! Why didn’t you call me?”
“I don’t know! It’s personal! I wasn’t sure if I should.”
“Personal? Fuck that!” She looked offended for a second then immediately looked happy again. She squealed and clapped her hands. “I can’t believe this. I want every detail of every second.” She leaned in and stared at me with intense blue eyes.
“I’ll give you details but you can’t say anything, especially not to Tyler.”
“I won’t. I promise,” she said, crossing her heart.
I took a deep breath and my heart pounded hard as I told her ever detail I could remember. I started from the beginning, telling her about the dorm room experience and then all the drama at the party that she missed. After that, I jumped to the talk Vinny and I had at Malones, and finally the hot pool table sex and the morning quickie. By the time I was done, I was flushed from head to toe and smiling like an idiot. She was thoroughly enthralled, barely blinking with a devious smile on her face.
She hugged me. “I’m so happy for you! I wish I could just call Vinny right now and thank him.”
“Thank him?” I asked and laughed. “For what?”
“For making you so happy. I don’t think you have been this happy since you found out you got accepted to Adelphi.”
“Don’t say anything to anyone about this Lindy, like I said, I don’t want to screw anything up.”
“I won’t say anything, I promise. But I really am happy for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, leaning back against the sofa. “I’m happy for me too. My father also said that he is buying me a car over the Thanksgiving break.”
Down to Business (Business Series) Page 21