“I’m sorry. So sorry, sweet child.” She sits forward and puts a hand on my jumping knee. “Rain was never going to share you, Ailee. He may have let you go free, but you are his wife. He was trying to do right by you. I don’t know what happened on your wedding night or the morning after, but he took you home because he was afraid of what he would do to you. Rainieri is a good man, as good as they get in his line of work.”
“Gina, he just murdered my boyfriend in front of me for the second time. I fail to see the good in him. Even if I did, I don’t want to.”
For a few moments I did see good in him, but I don’t want to admit it to her or myself.
“Take the day off, Ailee. Get yourself together. I don’t think he will be letting you walk out of his life again, so you need to get your head right.”
Her tone is snippy and a little condescending, in fact it makes me want to slap her. “I can’t leave, he said he would fetch me after work.”
“I will call him to come get you when he can, and in the meantime you can wait in the staffroom. Let’s fix your neck.” Gina stands to go get her oversized makeup bag from the drawer in her desk, but I’m already halfway to the door.
I don’t care that there are fingermarks bruised into my flesh. Trent put them there and as long as I see them I can understand the man I loved wasn’t who he seemed to be at all.
“Don’t bother, Gina,” I say as I pull the door open.
Everyone in the salon looks up at me, questions and concerns on their faces. I don’t know if I am ready to face this, so I turn and go directly to the small staffroom, clear a chair and sit down.
Closing my eyes for a minute I can hear the dyers blowing and the sound of timers buzzing. The music from the radio floats in and out through the walls.
The phone rings and I can smell the unmistakable burning in my nostrils of perm solution being mixed. Probably for my client that has had to be shuffled around and forced upon one of my colleagues, probably Norma from the apartments at the end of the street. I think she’s lived there since they built them eighty years ago. She smells like mothballs and wears cat fur like it’s mink, but never comes in without a smile.
I just listen with my eyes closed and try not to see Trent’s face, but it’s right there in front of me. Not like I want to remember it, instead I see that depraved smile I saw in the kitchen as he manipulated my husband with his confusing sexuality.
Flashes of the way he bent my own mind against me on Saturday night, and his vicious words this morning, force me to open my eyes and shake myself out if it.
Standing in the doorway, with her arms folded across her chest and a scowl on her face, is Chelsey, her foot tapping on the tiled floor. When I look at her she raises an eyebrow and steps into the room. In the last three years we have never gone this long without contact and I know she is worried.
“I called the police! I even tried to find your father. Ailee. What’s going on? Who was that guy?” She sits beside me. “Romi says he’s some mobster or mafioso. I thought that’s all just stories we hear.”
A tear rolls down my cheek and I know I’m going to have to tell them all the truth. I have kept it hidden and now everything’s going to come out. I sniff and wipe my nose on the back of my hand, looking at her, wondering if she will still want to be my friend, as she chose me, I never chose her. I don’t want to lose her; I love her and all her craziness.
“He’s my husband. He is a mafioso and so am I, Chels.”
“You went on a bender and eloped, LeeLee!” she gasps out, holding her chest like she might have a cardiac episode. “What happened to Trent? You were all in love and forever with him on Saturday, and now you come here married to someone else!”
“I didn’t elope. I’ve been married to Rain for more than five years.”
She looks confused. “But you’re not even twenty-one for another three months.” I see her trying to do the math, which isn’t her strong suit. “You can’t tell me you got married at fifteen! Is that even legal?”
“It is if your parents sign consent. It’s complicated, Chels. My family and his family are old school Italian … Mafia.” I don’t know how to explain this to a somewhat normal person. Our families don’t exactly share their traditions or welcome outsiders. “It’s hard to explain. You won’t understand.”
“Try me,” she challenges, crossing her arms, leaning back in the chair. I can see the gears and cogs turning inside her head. “Because nothing can be as wild as the movie playing in my head right now.”
I want to laugh at her comment, she’s trying to make me feel better, but I just can’t.
“The short version, because I am not ready to talk about it all.” She nods her head and looks around to make sure we are in fact alone. “I was married to Rainieri when I was fifteen, and after a traumatic wedding night and a morning after from the deepest pits of hell, he dropped me at home and disappeared. Left me alone to live life, aside from a credit card I never used and an anniversary gift each year, I never saw him or heard from him. In his defense, I stopped living in that world. I dropped out of school, studied hairdressing and moved here. I was in denial, pretending it never happened, and lived my life. Then Trent happened and I fell in love, and wanted more than a Saturday night bang. I kept saying he was too good to be true, but I fell in love like a stupid idiot. My husband – who is quite a stalker, I’ll add – didn’t approve of me loving someone.” I take a breath, trying to make it sound less like I should be wearing a white jacket in a padded room somewhere. “Chels, I’m afraid. Trent was not who I thought he was, but Rain frightens me and I know there is no way in hell I’m going back to having a nice normal life. I am his wife, and he’s pissed.”
“So he just came along and picked you up, like all caveman style?” She looks confused. “You didn’t try to run, call a friend, anything?” People don’t understand what the mafia is anymore, they don’t see what lurks in the shadows of everyday life. “There are cops, he can’t just kidnap you!”
“It’s not kidnapping if you’re married. And he had Trent, and a gun. So no, I didn’t run or do anything stupid.”
I can tell her questions will be never ending and I don’t have answers for her, because maybe I should have run away or called the police. But I know that neither of those would have had a happy ending for me. I am not going to be happy this way, but I’m alive.
“I am so fucking confused. You never thought to mention to me you were married? Like ever?” She looks a little mad now. “I’m your best fucking friend. If your crazy husband was going to kidnap you I should have known about it.” Huffing and puffing now. “How in the hell are you going to explain this to everyone else? God, just tell them you eloped. I’m scared they’ll want to have you locked up or put into witness protection. And let’s be real, I can’t live without you, this weekend was enough.”
Someone clears their throat from the doorway, and through teary eyes I look up to see Romi standing there.
“Was that Rainieri Calligaris with you this morning, Ailee? Do you know who he is? What he does?” He speaks softly, like if he says it too loud someone will jump out and attack him.
“She’s well aware of who he is, Romi.” Chelsey answers for me and I dig in my bag for a tissue. “How do you know who he is?” She turns his question on him.
“It doesn’t matter, I know who he is. I came from that side of town once.” He sounds like he definitely doesn’t want to talk about it, and neither do I, so it’s fine.
Romi comes into the room and sits across from us, crossing his legs and flicking his hair off his face.
“How do you know the prince of darkness, Ailee?” he asks me, looking at me like he may know the answers and I suspect he’s already figured out who I really am.
I shoot him a look and glance to Chelsey. I really don’t want to tell her more. Making a steeple with his fingers and contemplating me, he looks like the cat that got the cream.
“He’s my husband,” I state matter-of-factl
y. “I eloped this weekend.” Not sure if it will end the Spanish inquisition, I just stare at him.
“Are you kidding?” he says with one eyebrow up and his hair falling back into his face.
Chelsey is looking at me now, like she’s trying to make sense of this. There is no sense to be made at all. Before we can say anything else Alistair fills the doorway with his flaming personality, and the brightest outfit Monday has ever seen.
“Ailee, the bearded man in the leather jacket that brought you to work is waiting to take you home.” He says it more as a who the fuck is he question than a statement.
I stand and grab my handbag. I know by the end of the day everyone in the salon will know I am married. Thank fuck no one has asked where Trent is besides Gina, because I don’t know if I can answer without having a breakdown. Chelsey jumps up with me, like a mother hen protecting her chick.
“It’s fine, Chelsey, Gina called him to come get me. I’m not feeling well. I just need the day off. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
She hugs me, and the invasion of my personal space makes me squirm. “Answer your fucking phone, please, I need to know you’re alive,” she says as I pull away.
* * *
Rain is standing at the front desk glaring at everyone, and they’re all staring back at him.
Trent had become one of us, something I know my husband will never be. He isn’t like them, normal, he’s like me. I worked damn hard to be normal, to have nothing to do with that life.
He embraces it, he is the next man in charge, and I am his wife and I will have to embrace it too. Looking around I wonder if I’ll even be allowed to come back, or if this is a silent goodbye.
Gina gives me a nod from her office door; her face looks like it aged another twenty years just today.
“Come on, I still have to work today,” Rain says to me, holding the front door open.
The neon ‘Blow’ buzzes above my head as I step outside, and the doorbell jingles when it shuts us out from the one place that truly felt like a home to me.
Twenty
Gel
RAINIERI
Contrary to internet advice and public perception, cleaning up and disposing of a dead body is harder than one would think. It also usually requires more than one person to pull it off successfully. Lucky for me in my family business it’s a problem we have from time to time, and I know who to call for help.
Gina called me to go fetch my wife, along with a string of old lady cuss words and threats about hurting her. I thought that I just proved to her that I wouldn’t hurt her, that I’d protect her from anyone who did.
I stopped him from hurting her, put an end to it, because Trent was not what he seemed. He was a threat, to her, and even more so to my sanity.
My asshole still hurts and the tenderness reminds me of what I did. I look around like the men wrapping his body in plastic can tell what we did, like they’ll find out.
I can’t lie to myself, I liked what he did to me, but I only let him do it so he wouldn’t hurt her. I wanted it to work out, for the three of us to be together. He stirred something in me. In the end it just turned out to be a molotov cocktail.
My mother taught me to honor and respect women. You never hurt a woman. Never.
Added to Gina I’ve had my father on the phone, there is actual work to be done, and while he is happy that I have finally, what were his words ‘grown some balls’ and brought my wife home, he needs me.
There are no off days when you control all the cocaine, guns, and whore houses in the city. Money has to be laundered and dry cleaned; the mafia is an organization. A business and most importantly an interconnected family, where there is a hierarchy that can’t be disturbed. My father is glad my wife finally came home because that means we have an unbreakable bond between the two strongest families.
“She’s fucking angry at me,” I say, pointing out a spot on the wall they have missed. “Even more so now. But I couldn’t have her thinking she could have a boyfriend, Papa. I don’t think it’s made any difference other than that she is here in my house. She’s not going to love me like you loved Mama.”
“You need to show her, show her that she can love you Rain. All she’s seen is a monster. I’d be angry too.” He talks softly, without the usual hardness in his voice.
“I’m not exactly the lovable type. I don’t know how to show her. She’s so young and stubborn, and full of shit.”
He laughs at me, the sound bubbles from him. “Sounds like someone I knew about fifteen years ago. You are not exactly easy, Rain. Do something special for her. Try. Be soft. Stop shooting people she likes.”
His advice is good, and comes from a happy place. I am not used to him sounding this way. My father is a hard man to please.
“I’m not going to shoot anyone else. Fuck, you make it sound like I’ve killed her puppy.”
“She was fifteen and you shot her boyfriend in front of her. You scarred her for life, son.”
“He wasn’t her boyfriend and he deserved it, the little cunt.”
I get angry just thinking about it. I know I acted irrationally. But, the situation was charged with feelings neither of us were able to deal with. We were strangers thrust together and I had expectations, so did she, and nothing could prepare us for the reality. I have walked a path of denial for five years, now it’s time to try and get to know her.
“Listen to yourself. Rainieri, you have to have a soft touch with a woman. You have two sisters, you should know this.”
My mother has been gone for years now, but I think about it; my father was always gentle with her. I fear Ailee might be a lost cause. She’s afraid of me, I’d bet money on it. She hates me.
“I don’t know. I don’t think flowers, or even a puppy will fix this.”
My father laughs at me. “I didn’t think they would. We can talk later, hurry up and get finished, we have things to do. The Russians want to discuss their shipments, and your cousin and uncle have a meeting with us this afternoon.”
“I’m just going to fetch her. Gina called me, saying she’s a basket case and can’t be at work. But I’ll be there as soon as I’m done.” I step out of the way to allow for a pressure cleaner to be wheeled past me. “Bye, Papa. I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
“Bye Rain.” He hangs up on me.
* * *
The flamboyant guy at the reception desk goes to call from the back, and Gina eyes me from the door of her office.
Her work mates are all looking at me in their mirrors, like it’s not staring if they don’t look directly at me. Nothing like five reflections giving you the evil eye to make you feel uncomfortable.
She comes out from the back with her friend right behind her, and the friend is giving me the ‘I’ll murder you’ look. She hugs Ailee and we leave, the door slamming closed behind us.
She hesitates and looks back at the building for a moment. “Come on. I still have to go to work.”
The wind blows her hair, which is an absolute mess today. Her skin is pale and the rosy color of her cheeks is whitewashed with the burden of this morning. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought her here at all.
Opening the door for her like a gentleman, I help her climb into my truck. Glancing over to where she has moved as far from me as she can get, her hands tremble and I wonder if she will ever not be afraid of me.
Last night when we spoke in bed, she seemed different, but now she’s like a little mouse and I’m the cat trying to eat it.
“I have to go to work. Do you want to go home, or come with me?” I ask, not sure what exactly I should do with her.
This is new and complicated, and I thought she’d have Trent to help her with this part.
“I’ll come with you. I don’t want to be at the house alone, after…” She looks at me, those brown eyes glassy and distant. “I just can’t right now. Can I come with you?”
“Sure, I have some meetings, but my sister is normally around if you want company.” She just nods quietly.
<
br /> I hope Viviana is there today. She’s like the wind, you never know when she’ll blow in or out. I want to text her, but my phone is in my pocket and I’m driving.
I keep looking over at Ailee. She is lost in her own world, looking out the window, ignoring me like I’m not even here.
Maybe I’ve done the wrong thing. Maybe I should have just left her alone? But, there is no going back now, the family has expectations now that we went to Sunday lunch together.
Rubbing my hand over my beard, there is a heavy feeling in my chest like I inhaled lead. I relive this morning over and over as we drive across town, trying to think of ways I could have reacted differently, but when I think about him I feel ill.
Instead of him fucking her all I can see is us bent over the kitchen island. I can still feel him inside me and my butt clenches like a reflex. My dick is hard in my pants, and I hope she can’t see it.
I didn’t stop him, I didn’t fight him off because I wanted it, but I know, now I know that it wasn’t him I wanted, it was always her. I had to give in and let it happen, to know the attraction wasn’t to him, but to them and most of all to her.
Even now, looking tired and afraid, she’s beautiful. Her face has changed since our wedding day. It’s not that chubby teenager looking back at me, but a woman. High cheekbones, and pouty lips that beg me to kiss them every time I look at her.
Shifting in my seat I try to think of something else, anything besides her and Trent. I shouldn’t be aroused right now, I should be groveling at her feet begging her to forgive me.
My mother taught me that you treat woman like they are made of glass, you never do anything to break them. I always thought that meant you didn’t hurt them physically, now I wonder if I haven’t broken her without touching her at all.
I’m good at being alone, I always have been. People are hard for me to understand.
* * *
Our offices are upstairs from a fruit and vegetable shop. The smell of overripe fruit hangs around the place. The old man who owns it is older than my Nonna. Joel has been around since before I was born and I’m pretty sure he’s immortal, because he’s not aged a day in all the years I’ve been coming in and out.
Cut & Blow: Book 1 Page 17