The Girl She Used to Be

by David Cristofano

  Jonathan breaks his stare at the house and turns to me. “I honestly hope so, Melody.” He smiles a little. “More than you could ever know.”

  We wait some more but I can feel the unrest rising, the subtle need to stop looking at the water and simply take the dive.

  “This is a very confusing moment for me. Half of me wants to kill your father,” I say, “and the other half desperately wants his acceptance.”

  “Hmph.” He grins.

  “I’m sure he’s a good man, though. He raised you, after all.” I turn and look at Jonathan and put my hand on his shoulder and say, “I’m sure he would’ve done anything to protect you over the years.”

  Jonathan’s smile slowly fades.

  I add, “I’m sure he would’ve left the world of crime if he’d needed to for one of his sons, right?”

  He stares at the dashboard.

  Nothing.

  “Right?” I ask again.

  We sit in silence for a full minute while it seems Jonathan is playing another set of tapes in his mind.

  Tapes of failures.

  I’ve hit a nerve and I certainly didn’t mean to. Not here, not now.

  “My family has never been very comfortable with the notion of sacrifice.” All of a sudden, Jonathan sighs and opens his door. “Let’s do this.”

  I’m not ready; I’m still in stare mode.

  “Wait, I…” Jonathan comes around and opens my door. I grunt a little and flip the visor mirror down and check my hair and my teeth and the collar of my sweater. I flip the visor back nervously.

  And now we are taking steps, closer and closer, to a moment I am not only unprepared for, but one I could never comprehend. Three squirrels bolt in different directions as we stroll up the brick sidewalk. Jonathan takes my hand, and his is warm and firm, and I glide to his side so that we are almost one person. Bushes spill over the walkway and broken branches and dead leaves are strewn over the path, and the crunching under our feet announces our arrival. We approach the front door, an ornate oak masterpiece with a round top in need of refinishing. Jonathan grabs the handle, pushes the latch, and opens the door. He pulls me in by my hand.

  It’s home.

  The first thing I notice is the smell, the same scent that hits you when you enter a decent Italian restaurant. I close my eyes and inhale and I can tell Jonathan’s dad has a pot of marinara cooking. And by the lingering, nutty aroma in the air, it’s clear something has been recently breaded and fried, like eggplant or veal. It even smells warm.

  The house is open and airy, and there are pictures of the Bovaro boys and their parents everywhere: fireplace mantels, up the staircase, on end tables, on a baby grand piano in the living room. The floors are all wide-plank maple and have a history to them—probably more history than they ever wanted to know. And then there’s the music floating from a distant room.

  Jonathan pulls me down the hall, to the back of the house. “Tony Bennett?” I whisper. “That’s actually sort of trite, isn’t it?” My feeble attempt at trying to appear casual.

  ”It’s trite when the Olive Garden plays it. When a Sicilian family puts him on, it’s as noble as a Scotsman wearing a kilt.”

  As we approach the kitchen, voices become audible and just before we enter, I hear someone say, “So I told him, ‘Hey, relax; you still got nine fingers. That’s nine more lessons!’ ” A half dozen people break into labored laughter.

  Jonathan walks up to the brother doing the talking and smacks him on the back of the head and says, “Yeah, except what you really meant was that he had seven fingers and two thumbs left, right?”

  His brother whacks him back and they hug briefly.

  I stand directly behind Jonathan.

  Everyone stares at us and the room falls silent, except for Mr. Bennett, crooning.

  Jonathan’s father, Tony, is chatting in the corner with another older man, thumbing through the contents of a manila folder. Finally, he gets up from his chair and slowly walks over to us, tugging up on his waistband as does. He is at least 250 pounds—a good fifty heavier than when I saw him gut that guy at Vincent’s over twenty years ago—and totally gray. He looks weathered, like he’s been a beach bum for most of his adult life. I peek around Jonathan to get a better glimpse, and I immediately match his face to the man who wrecked my life years ago, the man who caused so many nightmares in my childhood that I could never forget him, the man who ordered my parents dead.

  There is a small paring knife on the kitchen counter, and for a moment I consider snatching it and jabbing Tony’s neck with it a few times, even though the odds of my survival would be zero. But weirdly, I’m not consumed by that stress; I want to make this work. I want to see it through as Jonathan has planned, potentially to live in peace with him forever.

  “Who’s this?” Tony asks.

  Jonathan steps to the side and suddenly I can see everyone and their micro-images; the snippets that Jonathan gave me in the car all come clear: Peter, drop-dead gorgeous, just as described, stands to the left and is the brother Jonathan just hugged; Jimmy is presumably the overweight one with his untucked shirt and the meatball sub in his hand; Gino is sitting down with his elbows on his knees and is the only one smiling at me; the wives are here too, both size-sixteens and casting a disapproving eye my way; a few other men linger.

  “This,” Jonathan responds, “is my new girlfriend.”

  Jimmy nudges Peter in the side and says, “That’s fifty bucks. I told you he wasn’t gay.” He goes in for another bite and takes a third of the sandwich in his mouth.

  “Yeah, but those friggin’ glasses he wears. I had to go with the odds.”

  Everyone laughs and Peter steps forward and smiles. “You’re way too pretty to be with this clown,” he says, offering his hand. “Peter Bovaro.”

  I swallow and shake his hand limply. “Melody McCartney,” I say.

  Jonathan looks at me like I just farted; apparently, Jonathan was going to ease his family into the reality of my presence.

  After a hushed moment, everyone bursts into laughter—everyone except Tony and the older guy standing in the corner. Tony squints a little, opens the manila folder, and reviews the contents again, then slowly closes it and places it on the kitchen counter.

  Peter walks up to his brother and shoves him a little. “You dick! You thought you’d pull one over on us like that?”

  “Good one, Johnny!” yells Gino.

  I laugh a little too, like I’m such a clever actress. Jonathan wipes his forehead. I try to act natural, but I can feel a set of eyes locked in on me the way a tiger looks at a deer; Tony is fixed on me.

  “What’s your name, dear?” Tony says, very quietly and clearly.

  The room falls silent again.

  I glance at Jonathan and he smiles at me, sadly, like I need to do the right thing and turn myself in.

  “My name is, uh…” I say.

  I’ve had so many. I could whip any of them out and pick up right where I’d left off. Sandra Clarke, May Adams, Linda Simms. But what would be the point? I left WITSEC so I could finally be myself.

  The running is over.

  Forever.

  “My name is Melody Grace McCartney.” I pause and take in the slack-jawed images before me. “I’m exactly who you think I am.”

  Now Tony laughs. He is the only one.

  Jonathan takes a step closer to his father and says, “Yeah, this is Melody McCartney.” He looks around the room with purpose. “She’s not six years old anymore. Surprised she managed to live this long?”

  “That’s enough, Johnny,” says Tony. He rubs his eyes and leans against the counter. It shimmies. “Have you lost your friggin’ mind? I can only imagine how much she knows.”

  Peter peels his eyes from me and scowls at Jonathan. “Holy hell, John. What have you done?”

  “I’ve done nothing,” Jonathan says. “I’ve fallen for a wonderful woman.”

  “A hundred million women in this country and you pick a federal witness,
one who has every reason to take this entire family down?”

  This is not the warm welcome I had hoped for.

  I remember Jonathan’s comment about just wanting respect and try to turn the tables; I look at Tony and say, childishly, “All I know is that I adore your son, Mr. Bovaro.”

  He looks at me, then looks down, then looks at me again and smiles—that same sad smile that Jonathan had a few moments ago. I now know where he gets it from.

  “You’re a good liar, young lady,” Tony says.

  I stiffen my posture but am careful with my tone. “I’m not lying.”

  Jonathan stands by my side, puts an arm around me, and says, “She’s telling the truth, Pop. She just wants a chance at a normal life. With me.”

  Everyone in the room is still, only their eyes darting around to whomever is speaking.

  Tony sighs and says, “I believe the part about her wanting a normal life, but not about it being with you. She has every reason to want us to pay for what we did to her, and she’s played you in getting sweet revenge.” Tony turns to me and adds, “And I’ll tell you, kid, you’re tough—for coming into my house and thinking you could pull this off.”

  “Pull what off?” Jonathan and I say in unison.

  “Pop,” Jonathan says, “look, I don’t need you to teach me a lesson here, okay? I know what I’m doing. I—”

  “This isn’t about teaching a lesson, Johnny; it’s about serving life in prison. I’m an old man. I’m not ending my life that way. And you got to think about your family, your brothers and their wives and their children.”

  “Melody’s not going to—”

  “Melody’s not going to what, Johnny? Huh?” He grabs the remote and angrily points it in the direction of the stereo, as if firing a bullet into Tony Bennett’s temple. “Why don’t you ask the love of your life what she did yesterday.”

  Jonathan raises his voice. “I know what she did. She spent the day in the spa at the Renaissance Hotel in Baltimore. I’ve got five women who’ll testify to that.”

  “Yeah? I got something better than your five women.” Tony turns around, snaps his fingers, and Older Guy—the only person yet to smile—slides that manila folder across the counter. Tony snatches it up and removes a handful of photos and presses them against Jonathan’s chest.

  Jonathan and his father stare at each other and no one says a word. Jonathan slowly looks down and begins to view the pictures. I slide over so I can see them too. They are light and grainy but I can tell the one on top is a vague image of me in the arms of Sean, my head pressed against his chest.

  Older Guy moves next to Tony and says, “Your girlfriend spent the day cooking up a serious deal with the feds. They took her to some operations center and apparently offered her the deal of her life. Any town, any job, any money. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

  My mouth opens but I cannot find any air. I feel weak, and my initial response is to grab Jonathan’s hand, which I do, and begin pleading, but he pulls away and stares more intently at the pictures.

  Peter closes his eyes and says, “Geez, Jonathan, please tell me you did not discuss what this family does. Did she ask you about our family? Did she ask you to talk about our personal business?”

  All those incessant, probing questions I’d asked him about his life! This is like the diametric opposite of serendipity.

  I try to grab his hand again but his fingers are hopelessly locked around the photos. He flips through them with increasing speed.

  “Souvenir,” he whispers. “That was how you knew what a souvenir was.”

  I finally find oxygen and my pathetic response piddles out. “Oh, God, Jonathan, no! No. I didn’t make any deal! I—”

  “How did you pull this off? I thought you were at the spa.” His eyes become red and wet. “I thought you were waiting for me.”

  “I was. I was. They came and found me and took me to some place called SafeSite and they wanted me to play you, they did, but I told them I wouldn’t do it!”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  I stare at him, blank. The truth is I have no idea why I never told him. What can I say? I was afraid you might not believe me? We were too busy chatting about other things? I didn’t want to ruin our nice evening?

  My answer comes out weak and self-destructive. “I don’t know.”

  Tony turns to his sons and associates and laughs. “She doesn’t know! She’s quick, this one.”

  The brothers smile nervously.

  “What you mean to say,” Tony continues, “is that you tricked my son into thinking you were at a spa all day, managed to sneak out with some federal agents for a while, then slip back in before he ever knew you were gone. And this didn’t seem, I don’t know, shifty to you?”

  My gaze glides across every face in the room and my eyes fill with tears, and by the time my journey ends at Jonathan he is nothing but a blur. “I just… I-I don’t know why I didn’t say anything, Jonathan. We were living minute to minute and I didn’t…”

  Jonathan looks away and drops the pictures on the floor. Peter scoops them up and starts flipping through them, verifying that the person in the images is standing before him. He passes them along to his brothers, one at a time, each carefully examining them, like jury members viewing crime photos.

  I feel a cold distance emerge between Jonathan and me and I am suddenly guardianless in a room full of killers. But, oddly, the fear I have is not of death; an ending to all of this is sort of welcome. The fear I do have is losing Jonathan, that he has been tricked by a handful of bad coincidences, that an end has come to the only true moments of freedom and fulfillment I have ever experienced.

  And so my pleading begins. “Jonathan, please—I love you. I do. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. I don’t want to get you into trouble, or anyone in your family. I just want to be happy, for us to be happy.”

  My crying turns to a mess of tears and mucus and spit, and all of my emotion comes gushing. I turn to Tony and Jonathan’s brothers and yell, “Please forgive me for making a mistake, okay? I didn’t tell Jonathan about meeting with the feds and I am sorry. I don’t want to hurt any of you! Please, just forgive me!” I drop to my knees. “I forgive you for having my parents murdered, for ruining my entire life, for making me the wreck you see before you! Can’t you please, please give me one chance? I just want one chance! I just want one…”

  I fall forward and rest my head on the floor.

  No one says a word. Jonathan does not come to my rescue. I am alone. Again.

  Forever.

  I sob uncontrollably. Finally, I hear Peter say, “That sounds like the plea of a woman facing certain death.”

  I sit up and wipe my face. Peter is not joking.

  I look at Tony and he walks over to his pot of marinara, stirs it a few times, and says, “Take care of her.”

  If I hadn’t thrown up an hour ago, I’d be doing so now; Tony said “Take care of her,” but I know he meant “Getrid of her,” careful of his words as though I might’ve been stupid enough to wear a wire in his house.

  I slide over to Jonathan and grab his leg like I’m holding on to a tree in a hurricane. “I love you, Jonathan. Please know how much I love you!”

  Tony puts the lid back on his sauce and says, “Take care of it, Johnny, okay? Enough is enough. We’ve let you play this game for years.” He steps up to his son and finishes with this: “No more.”

  Jonathan stares at his father for a few seconds, wipes his eyes, then looks down at me and gives me the same look he gave Dirty Guy in the alley in Baltimore. He reaches down and pulls my hand from his leg, grabs my arm and twists it, and yanks me up on my feet, nearly lifts me off the ground.

  He gets two inches from my face and breathes down on me, betrayal fueling an anger I’d never envisaged would be turned my way. He twists my arm some more and it really hurts, makes my whole body ache. Jonathan slams me up against the wall, then shoves me in the corner and I fall to my knees again.
>
  “Come here,” he says, and grunts as he reaches down and picks me up by the other arm and drags me to the door. I cannot fight back.

  His family just watches and, judging by their inaction, approves.

  Jonathan opens the front door and manhandles me to the Audi, where he opens the passenger side and shoves me in. By the time I regain some composure, he is already on the driver’s side, has started the car and locked the doors.

  “Geez, Melody,” he says, “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  He speeds away from the Tudor.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says. “Are you all right?”

  I look at him and shake my head, nervously wiping my face free of moisture. “I’m okay, I… think. Wait, you’re… you’re not mad?”

  He waves me off. “Here’s the situation: I know my family and they’re gonna send someone after me, to make sure I close the deal.”

  “To kill me?”

  “Yes. I don’t have the greatest track record, if you recall.”

  I swallow. “But you’re not going to kill me?”

  He pulls back on the accelerator. “Oh, Melody, I love you. I promised I would never hurt you—never. Remember? I promised you that when we first met.”

  “Yeah,” I say and smile. “But that was only, like, three days ago.”

  “I don’t know how or why you met with the feds or how you managed to get to their operations center, but I know in my heart that you love me.” He bites his lip. “Right?”

  I reach over and touch his knee and say, “Yes, completely.” I pull my hand back and rub my arm where it hurts.

  Jonathan looks in his rearview mirror and shakes his head. “Predictable.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Peter.”

  Jonathan hits the gas and we’re flying down the city streets at a speed that will surely grab attention.

  “I’m never gonna be able to outrun him with that monster engine he’s got.” He thinks for a second, then adds, “Though we do have one advantage.”