Mick Sinatra: Breaking My Heart

by Mallory Monroe

  MICK SINATRA 7:

  BREAKING MY HEART

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2017 Mallory Monroe

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  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  She screamed.

  Little Mick Sinatra removed the cover from over his face and opened his big, green eyes. When she screamed again, he threw the covers off and jumped out of bed. Wearing only his polka dot pajamas, he ran out of his bedroom and onto the second-floor landing. His eleven-year-old big brother Charles Sinatra, and his fifteen-year-old big sister Jacqueline, were running out of their bedrooms, too, and tying their robes. But Mick was already running downstairs.

  “Mick, wait!” Charles yelled.

  “Get your droopy-eye ass back up here!” yelled Jacqueline.

  But Mick wasn’t listening. He heard his mother scream. He’d know her voice anywhere. And she was still screaming. He flew down those stairs.

  Charles and Jacqueline ran down those stairs as if their lives depended on it, too.

  “You think it’s Dad?” Jacqueline asked as they ran.

  “Who the hell else?” Charles responded, running even faster.

  By the time they made it downstairs, and ran across their living room and through their kitchen to the basement door, the screams were blood curling. All they could think about was their father. Their crazy father, they believed, was beating on their mother again. Mick even grabbed his baseball bat that he left against the living room wall earlier that day, just in case.

  But when Charles moved Mick aside and flung open the basement door, and all three siblings ran down the stairs certain that they were coming to their mother’s rescue, with Charles leading the way, they quickly realized that it wasn’t at all what they had assumed. It wasn’t their father. He wasn’t even there. Their mother was there, laid out on the bed, with Maxine DeCoppola, a midwife and their mother’s half-sister, standing at the foot of the bed. Their mother was having the baby.

  The baby slid out just as they made it downstairs, and when they laid eyes on the newest member of their family for the first time, all three siblings stopped in their tracks. It was a girl. Even Little Mick could tell that. But they all could tell that that wasn’t all she was. Mick, stunned, dropped his baseball bat.

  Their mother looked at the midwife when she realized the baby was now out and the excruciating pain had abated. She lifted up on her bony elbows. “Is she white?” she asked the baby’s deliverer with terrified anticipation in her voice.

  Maxine looked her pink, pinch face at their mother as if she was looking at trash. “No, ma’am, she is not,” she said forcefully. “Not even a little bit.”

  Their mother’s small body collapsed back onto the bed in the basement. The same bed, two years later, that would become her grave when their father would catch her with yet another man. One man too many.

  The midwife slapped the little black baby on her black bottom and the baby began crying. Mick tried to run to his aunt, to slap her back for hitting a defenseless baby, but Charles held him back. Mick might have been too young to understand the significance of their mother having a black baby; a baby that was supposed to belong to their white father, but Charles and Jacqueline understood. Their mother, they knew, was as good as dead if their father found out.

  Their mother knew it too. That was why, as soon as her defeated body collapsed onto the bed, she rose back up as if she had a spring in her. She was in full panic now. “You’ve got to get rid of it, Maxine,” she cried with terror in her voice. “You’ve got to say it died. He’ll kill me if you don’t say it died. You’ve got to get it away from here and tell him it died!”

  Maxine wrapped the baby in a small blanket that had been purchased for her arrival. Even Mick could tell how inwardly enraged the woman was with their mother. “Don’t you want to see her?” she asked. “Don’t you wanna see your black baby?”

  It was a her. That cut hard for their mother. She always wanted to have two boys and two girls. That was supposed to be her dream family. But that was before she married her nightmare of a husband. That was before she sought solace from that husband in the arms of a big, beautiful black man from Memphis. A traveling salesman who rarely traveled that far north, and was gone the next day. She didn’t even know his real name, or if he was even from Memphis.

  “Don’t you want to see your own child?” Maxine asked her again, as she rocked the crying baby in her arms.

  But their mother laid back down, and shook her head. What use was there in seeing her? She could never keep her, not in a million years. “Just get rid of it,” she said. “It died. I don’t wanna see no dead baby.”

  Mick looked at Charles. What was their mother talking about? That baby wasn’t dead!

  Maxine looked at the child. “She need a name,” she said.

  “I’m not naming her!” their mother cried.

  “Then I will. It’s unlucky to have a baby riding out with no name.”

  Their mother shook her head. She didn’t expect the baby to be fair like her, with blonde hair and blue eyes, but at least they would look like Charles and Mick, with black hair and green eyes at least. Luke, she felt, would never know the difference. But that baby looked just like her father. She looked just like the stranger that produced her. She never expected that. And Maxine wanted her to name her? Was she out of her mind?

  But Maxine was staring at the beautiful little innocent in her arms. “Her name,” she proclaimed, “is Amelia. Just like Amelia Earhart.” She looked at her half-sister with bitterness in her voice. “Because, thanks to your whoring around, she’s lost in this world, too.”

  But then, just outside the basement windows, befor
e anybody could react, they all heard the truck pull up. Their father, their tormenter, was home.

  Their mother sat up again, as if she had just heard the hoofbeats of her own horrid fate. “Quiet her,” she said in panic, as she hurried got out of bed. “You’ve got to quiet that baby! He’ll kill me if he sees that child. You know he’ll kill me. Stop her, Maxine, stop her!”

  And their mother, to her children’s shock, snatched the crying baby from Maxine’s arms and laid her on the bed. She began to stifle her cries with suffocation. But Mick and Charles, horrified, sprang into action. Charles grabbed their mother, pulling her drained body away from the child she’d just delivered, and Mick grabbed the baby and started running up the stairs. Maxine ran behind him. “Give me that baby,” she was saying as she ran after him. “You want your mother to die? It’s either that baby or your mother. Choose, Mick. Choose!”

  Mick stopped running and looked back at Maxine. They were on the top of the stairs. But before either one of them could make another move, or say another word, the door to the basement opened, and Salvatore Luciano Sinatra, better known as Luke, stood before them.

  He frowned. “What’s going on down there?” he asked. He had been out drinking, as usual. But when he realized a baby was crying, he smiled. “It came? The baby’s here?”

  He walked down two stairs to where his youngest child held the family’s newest addition. Ready to boast as the proud father, he moved to take the baby, covered in that blanket, out of Mick’s arms. But Maxine, understanding the risk quickly took the baby from Mick herself. “She’s not ready for viewing yet, Luke,” she said. “I’ve got to clean her up.”

  But Luke smiled. “It’s a girl?” he asked. “I got myself another little girl?” He forcefully took the baby from Maxine’s arms. She gave it up. She was no match for him.

  And Luke was ready to dote. “I don’t care how messy she is,” he said, as he began unfurling the blanket. “I want to see my precious little--”

  His entire face changed when he saw the beautiful baby in his arms. She was beautiful. Even he saw that. But she wasn’t white. He saw that too.

  And he was furious. “What is this?” he asked. “Where’s my baby? What’s going on here?”

  “That’s the baby, Daddy,” Little Mick said. “That’s our little sister.”

  Luke looked at Mick as if he’d lost his mind. “Your sister?” he asked. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” He back-slapped Mick so hard that Mick fell down the stairs.

  Charles, seeing his brother in danger, left his mother’s side, grabbed Mick’s baseball bat, and ran up the stairs. Jacqueline and her mother both collapsed in agony. They knew what was coming next.

  Charles helped his brother up when he made it to the stairs. Mick was bruised by the fall, and the back-handed slap, but he was okay. Besides, he knew he wasn’t the one in danger. That baby was. That was why both brothers looked up at their father, ready to do whatever they had to do to make sure that baby got out of this crazy-ass family alive.

  Luke despised Mick and his temper, and the way he was always defying him and standing up for his mother. Mick even tried to fight him a time or two. But he loved and respected Charles. Charles, he inwardly knew, was the man he always wanted to be, but never was.

  He looked at Charles as if their roles were reversed. “Where’s my child?” he asked him. “This ain’t no baby of mine. How could my baby be black? How could she be--.” And he realized how. His drunken brain suddenly realized how his white wife could have had a black child.

  And his anger was unleashed. “No,” he said, shaking his head. Both Charles and Mick began running up those stairs. “No!” He lifted that baby above his head as if he was going to toss her too. But Charles appealed to the little decency he had left.

  “It wasn’t the baby’s fault,” he said to his father as he and Mick made their way up those stairs. “That baby is innocent, Daddy. Give the baby to Auntie. She’ll take care of it. Give Auntie that baby.”

  But Luke wasn’t going along. “Give it to Maxine?” he asked. “And let this whole town know what kind of whore I married? Let the whole town know what kind of fool I’ve been?”

  Luke lifted the baby over his head and was about to throw it, but Charles and Mick tackled their father while Maxine grabbed the baby and ran on up the stairs, and out of the basement.

  But Luke didn’t run after Maxine. His rage wasn’t reserved for that baby alone. He was more enraged with his wife. And as soon as he could knock his young sons away from him, he ran down those stairs after her. Charles and Mick ran after him, but they were no match for him.

  Their mother started screaming as soon as their father headed toward her. He grabbed her by the hair and flung her out of bed.

  “Dad, stop!” Charles yelled as he grabbed his father by the waist.

  But his father was too powerful. He knocked Charles aside and began stomping on their mother, calling her every derogatory name he could think to call her. Charles did all he could, even to the point of putting his own body between his mother’s. But it was no use. Their mother was screaming, Luke was beating her down, and Jacqueline, their oldest child everybody called Sprig, was sitting on the floor, her head slumped with her hands covering her ears, rocking back and forth. She could never handle upheaval.

  It was Mick, the youngest of the three siblings, who knew he was going to have to put a stop to this. He grabbed his bat, went to his father, and began beating on him as if he was beating on the devil himself. He beat the shit out of his own father. He continued to beat him even when he was already down and bleeding. He was beating him and beating him as if he wanted to kill that bastard.

  Charles, his big brother, had to grab the bat from Mick and stop him. Even at five years old Mick’s rage was unlike any rage he’d ever seen, and even he sometimes was afraid of it. Charles knew they all had a right to despise their father. But Mick’s hate was unlike any hate he’d even seen.

  Their father eventually left their home that day, and didn’t return until weeks later. Their mother recovered eventually too, but returned to her whoring ways.

  They never heard from or spoke the name of Amelia ever again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  PRESENT DAY

  Rosalind Graham-Sinatra hurried out of the shower and grabbed her ringing cellphone that set high atop the bathroom vanity. When she looked at the Caller ID, she answered quickly.

  “Jace, hey.” She removed her shower cap. “How did it go?”

  “Not good, Roz. Not good at all.”

  Roz, surprised, grabbed a towel off of the rack and held it against her body. “What happened?”

  “They blew it,” Jace said. “That’s the only way I can put it. They took that audition for granted, and blew it.”

  “All of them?”

  “All but three. You may as well say all! It was unbelievable how unprepared they were.”

  Roz, feeling a cool draft, began drying off. “Examples?” she asked.

  “They forgot lines. And I mean to a stupefying degree. One actress couldn’t remember one single line. Not one line, Roz! And those that did remember their lines had no idea what the prior scene involved or any character motivation whatsoever. One lady came on stage grinning even though the character she was portraying was supposed to have been grieving in the prior scene. It was awful. Actors from off the street, who had no formal training at all, did better than your students.”

  Roz continued drying off, but her mind was racing. Jace, a Broadway casting director and an old friend, had given a group of students from Roz’s new acting studio a mass try-out for one of his upcoming Broadway shows. Roz was honored and her teachers were supposed to have prepared the students well. But they dropped the ball this badly? “Go on,” she said.

  “There were a few that were ready,” Jace admitted, “as I said. And I gladly signed them. But the rest? Nowhere near it, Roz. I don’t know what happened. When I asked the Graham Agency to bring over talent, I expected
them to hit it out of the park. I mean, they’re your people. They’re from your acting studio. And you’re one of the best acting teachers I’ve ever known. I know you don’t play when it comes to the craft. But something went sideways, Roz. Something went really wrong. But I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “You’d better believe I will. They’re due back in the studio tomorrow. I’ll find out what happened.”

  “For all it’s worth,” Jace said, “I think they got the big head, pure and simple. I think they figured because they came from the Graham Agency, that was all we needed to know. They phoned that shit in, Roz. They acted as if they were above it all, and their auditions proved their lack of seriousness. When they began muffing lines and showing just how unprepared they really were, even they couldn’t believe it. When I told them they were not going to be needed for the production, they looked at me as if they knew I was lying. They looked at me as if they expected to be hired despite their bad showing. It was amazing.”

  “Okay, Jace. I’m really sorry they wasted your time like that. I’ll handle them. But thanks again for giving them a shot.”

  Jace exhaled. “I’m sorry they blew it too,” he said, “But I’m going to need a lot of chorus actors. So, if you want me to give them another tryout, I will. But only for you, Roz.”

  But Roz was shaking her head. “No way. They blew their chance. You go on and cast your show with actors who take this shit seriously. I’ll deal with my crew.”

  Jace laughed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I can always count on you to do the right thing, Roz. Never any handouts. Thanks.”

  Roz continued drying off. She knew casting directors gave her people chances based on her reputation in the industry. She wasn’t about to let some egotistical students change that. “Thanks for calling, Jace. We’ll talk later.”

  “Sure thing, Roz. Oh, I almost forgot! Congrats, Lady. I heard about the offer. I said about damn time. Gonna take it?”

  Roz hesitated again. “Don’t know yet.”

  “Thinking about it?”