Deal with the Devil

by Stacia Stone

  I laugh. “And the fact that all your classes are made up of guys from the football team is totally beside the point.”

  “Totally.”

  “How about you take up my exam schedule with the faculty in the School of Engineering? I’m too busy studying.”

  Lynn sighs and disappears into the closet again. “You make me sad for the future of our generation.”

  “Ditto,” I sweetly reply.

  Lynn and I have been best friends and roommates since we roomed together in the dorms during freshman year. I’ve never met anyone quite like the bouncy girl from Wisconsin. She grew up on a commercial dairy farm with five brothers and treats me like the sister she’s always wanted.

  Not that I have many friends back in Jersey to compare her to.

  “You better not be this boring when we get to Aspen,” Lynn shouts. She can’t keep the laughter out of her voice even as she threatens me. “Or I’ll push you off the ski lift.”

  Lynn’s family have been nice enough to invite me on their yearly Christmas trip to Aspen over winter break. She doesn’t know anything about my family. But she’s aware of how much I hate going back home to ask her parents if she can bring me along.

  One of my favorite things about Lynn is her ability to avoid asking uncomfortable questions. She says that’s just how people are in the Midwest.

  So I know where I’m headed after graduation.

  I’m sure she’s under the impression that I hate my family, and I don’t. But I do hate some of the things they do and I hate the person that I have to be when I go back there.

  Lynn’s never asked why I don’t keep photos of my family making cheerful poses in frames on my desk the way that she does. Or why I never hang out the window (the only way to get reception in the old dorm building) to spend hours chatting with people back home. As far as she knows, I was birthed fully formed in the campus clinic and took my first breath in a Physics class.

  It’s only halfway through junior year but every passing day brings me one step closer to full independence. I can’t afford to mess around with parties or the boys, who think they’re men, running around campus. Because if school doesn’t work out then I’m going right back to the hive of dysfunction that I call a family.

  So I have to keep a focus on my grades that definitely borders on an obsession. Because I refuse to contemplate what might happen if I don’t. That’s why I spent all those weekends handing out plates at the homeless shelter. And why I became president of five different clubs in high school and lettered in two sports. All so I could be exactly the kind of student that a school like Cornell wants. I’m not going to throw it all away now.

  I reach for the Bluetooth speaker on the desk and crank up the volume. It’s one of Lynn’s pre-gaming playlists full of dance remixes and female empowerment pop ballads. Not my favorite, but right now I just need the noise to drown out my own thoughts.

  Replace the top-40’s with mindless heavy metal and I could be back in middle school. I always used music to drown out the sound of my mom screaming at whatever deadbeat she was currently shacking up with. I’d learned early how to concentrate through outrageous amounts of noise.

  Lynn bounces out of the closet, dressed in a sparkly top and skinny jeans. She looks exactly like a carefree college student going out after finals should look — young, beautiful and carefree.

  “You could just come for one drink,” Lynn says, lowering her voice like hypnotist. “It’s just one. You know you want to.”

  “I really can’t, girl. I promise I’ll be there next time.”

  She shakes her mascara wand at me. “You really look like you could use a drink.”

  A drink sounds amazing. I plan to become well acquainted with the bottle of Jack Daniels rolling around in the top drawer of my desk as soon as Lynn leaves. I don’t need to get dressed up and be groped by random dudes to drink.

  Of course, Lynn doesn’t know that I had my first taste of alcohol while sitting on my grandfather’s knee in the VIP section of a night club when I was seven.

  Booze is one of the few things left that brings me any peace these days.

  “Stop trying to tempt me.” I turn to the next page in my textbook, pretending to be engrossed. “It’s not going to work.”

  Lynn’s reflection in the mirror pouts at me as she swipes a second coat on her lashes. “At least meet me for breakfast in the morning. A bunch of us are going to the Carriage House.”

  “Maybe, I’ll let you know.”

  She only tries to cajole me into going out for a few more minutes before accepting defeat.

  “Whatever, loser,” she shouts before the door swings shut behind her. “Don’t have too much fun here all by yourself.”

  I turn off the speaker and silence descends around me. It’s barely dusk. Through my window, the setting sun sends streaks of red and gold across the sky but the building is almost completely empty. A lot of people are already headed back home for the break and most of the one’s sticking around are going out for the night.

  Luckily, being alone has never bothered me. That might just be because I’ve had so much practice.

  The cell phone on the coffee table vibrates angrily, startling me as it rocks against the glass. I turn it over to check the caller ID and a New Jersey area code glows on the screen.

  Dread settles over me like a cold blanket. Nobody from back home ever calls me and that’s the way that I like it. My family stays out of my business and I stay the hell out of theirs.

  “Hello?”

  Interference crackles on the other end, either from their bad reception or mine. But there’s no answer.

  “Hello?!” I say again, voice terse.

  “Mara?”

  I almost set the phone down again, but resist the urge. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Mara, are you there? Can you hear me, baby?”

  With a sigh, I lever myself up and move toward the window. “I’m here, Mom. What do you need?”

  My mother never calls me at school. I get the impression that she sort of forgets that I exist when I’m not around. All the times that she’d stay out all night and I’d have to walk down the street to one of my friends’ houses if I wanted to eat dinner is proof of how little of her attention she saves for me.

  “ —it’s just so awful.”

  “I didn’t hear you. What’s awful?”

  “I just can’t believe that it happened so quickly. One minute everything is fine and the next he’s just gone—"

  The feeling of dread never really left but now it’s in my throat and trying to choke the life from me. “Mom, stop. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “Don’t you hear me? Papa is dead!”

  Icy fingers wrap around my heart. “You’re lying.”

  “How dare you talk to me like that. I’m your goddamn mother.”

  I won’t give her the satisfaction of hearing me breakdown. “What happened?”

  “Your Uncle Mickey says that he passed out at the club and they had to take him to the hospital. He was in and out for a few hours but then he stopped breathing and they couldn’t get him back. Doctors say it was a heart attack.”

  Heart attack. The words hit me like a shot to my own chest. It takes a moment for the meaning of what she’s saying to sink in.

  “Wait, you were with him at the hospital for hours?” I can feel the edge of anger penetrating the numbness that has settled over me. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

  “Oh, don’t start on this with me right now. My father is dead, Amaranth. And all you can do is think of stuff to criticize me about.”

  Amaranth. The stupid name my mother gave me that she knows I hate. She only uses it when she wants to piss me off.

  My mother has always been a selfish bitch. I can’t expect that to change just because of a world-shattering tragedy. Of course it wouldn’t occur to her that I’d want to know if my grandfather was on his deathbed. She’d never consider that maybe I would have wanted the chance
to say goodbye to the only person who’s ever really been there for me.

  Her sobs crackle over the line, harsh and plaintive.

  “Yeah okay, Mom. I’m sorry.”

  The evil voice inside my head tells me that I shouldn’t be apologizing. I should be detailing all of the ways she’s spent the entire twenty-one years of my life letting me down.

  “You have to come home for the funeral. It’s tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow! Mom, I have a final tomorrow.”

  “It’s your grandfather’s funeral. Your professors will understand.”

  Right. Because emailing my professor at nine o’clock at night with the excuse that my grandfather’s funeral is the next day won’t seem at all suspicious.

  “It’s just that you could have told me earlier, like when you first made the arrangements. Can’t you reschedule it for the weekend.”

  “I can’t believe this is even a discussion. Papa would be so disappointed in how you’re acting.”

  “I doubt he’d want me to fail my classes for his funeral.”

  “You’re always so cold. I can barely stand it.”

  Cold. Logical. Unemotional. I’ve been hearing those words my entire life, especially when I don’t act exactly the way she wants me to. That’s why I like engineering so much. Nobody ever asks how I’m feeling about anything.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll figure something out.”

  I hang up without waiting for her to reply.

  The bottle of liquor in my desk beckons me, making me yearn for the sharp burn and warm surrender into oblivion.

  Tonight, I’ll drink myself to sleep. Because tomorrow I’m going home.

  My grandpa and I have a complicated relationship.

  Had a relationship, I guess. The thought sends spikes of cold through my heart. I wait for the tears to slide down my cheeks because I can feel them burning behind my eyes. But those eyes remain dry, just like they’ve been since I got the news.

  He’s the one who paid my tuition at Cornell, all four years in full. Mostly as a way to get me away from my mother, I think. I’ve always wanted to go to school out-of-state. Not that the six-hour train ride from Newark to Ithaca is much. But it keeps my mother from sniffing after me looking for a place to crash or score.

  I’ve spent more than my fair share of nights dragging her off the kitchen floor. Or making sure she stayed rolled on her side, so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit as she slept.

  Papa was something else entirely. He was a giant of a man with a personality to match. He wore gold rings on the fingers of both hands and smoked long cigars like it was going out of style. I could ask him for anything — clothes, a new computer, a car for my sixteenth birthday — and he’d give it to me.

  I just had to ignore the fact that he made his money in organized crime.

  The man I call Papa is also Don Vito Matarazzo, head of the Matarazzo Crime Family. He probably owned half of New Jersey and you didn’t get to the top by playing nice. I know his reputation, even if he kept me away from the worst of it.

  He thought I didn’t know what he did for the longest time. Like the internet wasn’t a thing we I had access to, or something. I would have to be an idiot not to notice that nobody else’s grandpa drove around with a personal driver in a Cadillac with blacked out windows. Or kept a roll of hundred dollar bills in the pocket of his suit jacket that he used instead of a credit card or check. Or was always surrounded by shady guys in black suits with obvious bulges under their jackets in the shape of a gun. As if a run-of-the-mill family man would own a string of nightclubs and topless bars.

  I’m a lot of things, but not an idiot.

  He treated his capos like adopted sons, or my “uncles” as he liked to call them. That's probably to make up for the disappointment that is his only legitimate offspring.

  My grandfather is the only reason my childhood wasn’t truly tragic. He made sure my mom got me to school often enough to avoid any visits from social services. And his house was where I went whenever she would go on one of her more impressive benders.

  I suck in a harsh breath as I realize that I’m already thinking of him in the past tense. It doesn’t feel real to me, as if the scenery passing by the train window is part of a dream. Maybe I’ll finally believe it when I see him laid out in the casket, cold and dead.

  This might be the last time that I ever make this trip. With Papa gone, I don’t see any reason to ever go back. I could never really abandon my mother, but the more space I put between us, the better off I’ll be.

  I wonder if the death of her father is enough to get her clean for a while. She does that every so often — goes to rehab and resolves to be a different, better person. It never lasts long, but I always fool myself into thinking that maybe this will be the time that everything changes.

  Nothing ever really changes, except for the worst.

  She is going to freak out at the funeral. I’m already mentally preparing myself for it. Cecile Matarazzo never met an event that she couldn’t turn into a showcase for her own emotions. Maybe that’s why I always seemed so overly rational and dispassionate. It was all just a learned defense mechanism against her nonsense.

  I just want to get it all over with and get back to my life.

  Lynn was completely understanding when I told her that I would have to delay joining her in Aspen. Even if she didn’t quite understand why I only found out about my grandfather’s funeral the day before it’s happening.

  Taking the first train of the day leaves me almost exactly enough time to make it to the church before the service starts. So I have to wear mourning dress on the train. I feel like something out of a Gothic novel — young woman dressed in black riding alone on a train through the countryside. All I need is a Victorian castle and a tall cliff overlooking the sea to fling myself off of to complete the image.

  Those books never end happily, so maybe the comparison is more accurate than I’m giving it credit for.

  Chapter Three

  Leo

  All my suits are black, which makes getting dressed for a funeral pretty simple. A good thing, because I’m in no shape to be making decisions about anything right now.

  I can’t believe that the boss is dead. It’s been almost a week and I’m still walking around like a piece of me is missing. It doesn’t help that I haven’t worked a job since the last one, which always puts me on edge.

  Considering how many people I’ve killed over the years, I haven’t been to that many funerals. I barely remember the one for my parents and then there’s been a couple for guys from the family.

  And now this. It doesn’t take much to know that I don’t fucking like it.

  The day of the funeral dawns bright and sunny. With the cool chill that lets you know winter is right around the corner. It seems stupid to wish for rain, but I can’t help but think it’s wrong to bury a guy on a day this nice.

  I still remember the first day I met Don Vito, like it happened last week. It was the day that I tried to rob him.

  I was fifteen years old and starving. I’d just been kicked out my seventh foster home. The state stuck me in one of those group homes for boys that could have doubled as a prison if the food was better. I spent one night there and bolted right after. A week on the streets had been enough to make me desperate.

  Vito had been walking down the street, holding hands with a little girl who couldn’t have been older than six or seven. They seemed like an easy mark and I was desperate.

  I held up the rusty box cutter that I found in a dumpster and demanded his wallet.

  He looked at me like the worthless maggot that I was and didn’t even do me the courtesy of refusing. He just laughed and kept walking, pulling the wide-eyed little girl behind him.

  I jumped in front of him, brandishing the box cutter. “I’m not kidding, mister. I’ll fucking gut you.”

  His smile widened, amusement shining from his eyes. He pushed back one side of his suit jacket to reveal the gun strapped to his s
ide. “That’s not a weapon, son. This is.”

  “Fuck you,” I said, turning to run.

  “Wait,” he said. Maybe he saw something in my eyes, the dead cold of somebody with nothing to lose. “I won’t give you shit, but I’ll let you earn it. You want a job.”

  And that was when my life truly began. Fourteen years later and I’m still his man. It’s impossible to imagine what I’ll be without him.

  The family already has a new boss. Carmine Lugati is one of the most senior capos and the obvious choice to take over. He’s a good captain and loyal, but it won’t be the same.

  The whole thing just makes me feel tired. I never thought Vito would go out like this, quiet and unassuming like he was just a regular old guy. He had been like a god to me. Facing the truth of his mortality makes me too aware of my own.

  I chase the thoughts away as I get out of the towncar and head up the stairs of the church. The funeral is supposed to begin in about five minutes. Even I wouldn’t be disrespectful enough to show up after it’s already started.

  A slim figure blocks the closed the doors. I slow, waiting for whoever it is to get the fuck out of the way. The solemn cut of her black dress and the dark hair caught at the nape of her neck in a simple knot make it clear that she’s here for the funeral. But she seems frozen in place. Her hand rests on the metal handle of the ornately carved wooden doors, unmoving.

  “Hey,” I snap. “You’re blocking the door.”

  She turns and I meet what might just be the most beautiful face that I’ve ever seen. This girl — and she is a girl, I have to remind myself — is fucking beautiful. Big eyes that are dark and deep like still water in shadows and full lips that pull down into a slight frown. She reeks of the kind of innocence that’s just asking to be defiled.

  “Sorry,” she says, not really sounding it. “Go ahead if you’re in that big a hurry.”

  I hesitate beside her, intrigued and a little shocked at her smart tone. I know how I look — big, imposing and mean as hell. People, especially women, don’t usually talk to me like I’m some jack-off.