by CD Reiss
“Papa sometimes had his friends come to dinner. Big men in big black shoes. They took up all the women’s seats in the dining room, and we had to eat in the kitchen.” I shoot him a look. “Much like that night at my zio’s.”
“Our customs make us strong.” He starts to swim across the short length of the pool. “You know that.”
I make a face at him when his back is turned. “Anyway. The men always stared at my sister. She was five years older than me. Way too young to be gawked at. One time, my papa beat a man bloody for staring too long.”
I’d do anything to have my papa back at this exact moment.
“Treasure those memories, Violetta.” The way he says my name sends a shiver down my back. “They are all we have left of our culture.”
We.
We aren’t a thing. He and I aren’t a we.
I get out of the water, ready to hide in the shaded patio where I read my books when Santino’s out during the day. The furniture here matches the house and the pool. Modular, modern, clean lines, and comfortable. No wicker, no gold leaves, no velvet or damask. I settle under an umbrella and stretch my legs into the sun and sigh as they dry off.
Santino pads over to me, dripping wet, wiping his face off with a towel, and points to my stack of summer reading.
“You like this spot?”
I miss feeling like wallpaper.
I miss him wearing clothes.
“It makes more sense out here. Matches the house. Nothing else does.”
“Ah, you noticed.”
“It’s impossible not to.” I want to talk to him, not insult him, so I shrug as if it’s not a matter of taste even when it is and say what’s on my mind. “It’s like a museum in there.”
Santino drops in a chair next to me and crosses one leg widely over the other. His long hands drape past the end of the armrests. He even reclines like a damn king.
“Inside, that is all my grandfather’s furniture. My inheritance. The only thing that bastard left me was a house full of Rococo furniture. Can you imagine?”
No, I can’t. I don’t say anything, though. Because I don’t want to get involved in his stories like he got involved in mine. We aren’t a we.
“I had it shipped here from Italy,” he continues. “Because what else was I supposed to do? Sell the only thing my grandfather left me? Keep it in storage so the rats could shit in the cushions and termites eat the wood?”
Celia appears with two bottles of water and a small tray of snacks. She’s very good at anticipating her boss’s needs, which is why she stays in the kitchen and I read medical journals.
“I won’t disrespect my grandfather,” Santino says when she’s gone. “God knows, if the devil told Giacomo DiLustro his grandson didn’t have his ass on his inheritance, he’d dig his way out of the grave.”
“That’s disgusting,” I say with a lilt of humor.
“That’s my grandfather.”
I don’t know what to say, so I sip water.
“You don’t like it?” He turns his burning gaze to me. I’m suddenly very self-conscious. “You want new furniture?”
“It doesn’t go with the house.”
“A new house then?”
“You’d move for me?” I say it sarcastically because I don’t think I can process what he just offered. “I could change the furniture and let rats shit in your grandfather’s cushions?”
He says nothing. That somehow makes me angrier.
“You’d make a pretty little prison for me, Santino? How nice of you. How accommodating. What other terrible generosity will you exhibit for my comfort?”
Getting sassy with him never works, but I can’t stop the words or the attitude from rolling off me in big, angry waves. Did he honestly find this romantic? Think this was the way to win me over?
If it wasn’t for him, I’d be at the airport right now, on my way to Santorini. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be finished with my summer reading list. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be free and happy.
None of those things are happening. Because of Santino. My family’s lives are all in danger. Because of Santino. I am a fucking prisoner in this too big house. Because of Santino.
And he offers to buy me new furniture, buy me a new house? Is he insane? Is he stupid? Could it be the rest of my family is so small-minded they think a man like this runs the world?
I’m stewing and he’s sitting there, king-like, as though what he said wasn’t offensive.
“This is also your home,” he says gently.
“Is it, though?”
His anger rises. I can feel it. Well, good. If I’m angry, let him also be angry. Let him also feel powerless against his situation. He can’t control me. He forced me into his home and into a marriage, sure, but he cannot control my heart, my mind, or my actions.
He refuses my feminine wiles? Fine. Then he can deal with my attitude.
“You have moods like a child.”
This is the only time I am grateful for King Assface being an assface. Our conversation was becoming much too intimate. I overshared about my childhood, and he told me about his grandfather. Like we’re friends. Like we’re lovers.
We are neither of those things. We are strangers. We are jailer and prisoner.
I only told him silly stories, meaningless overall, but it was still too much. I didn’t want us to bond over Napoli. I don’t want us to forge any sort of connection. He already owns too much of me.
I should have never come out to this pool. I should have remained wallpaper. I should have never opened my mouth. I should have never agreed to come down here. Never agreed to put on this disgusting bathing suit. Keeping my distance is the only way to stay safe.
Then again, he opened up for the first time ever. We carried on an actual conversation, didn’t we? It only took a week.
If I continue offering up silly, insignificant stories about my childhood, he may continue to open up and I may find a weakness, but it’s just as likely I’ll be the weakened one. Then there’s no way out.
“I don’t mean you are a child,” he backpedals when there’s too much gap in the conversation. “I would never marry a child.”
“Please stop talking.”
“Have you hit your limit of me for the day?”
He’s not being defensive. He’s actually being vulnerable and self-effacing.
He’s trying to play me. I can’t deny I enjoyed sharing stories with him. Feeling connected to someone else who understood this ridiculous and beautiful way of life. I’ll admit I didn’t feel so lonely when we did.
But damn. I thought I was getting one over on him and all the while, he was charming the shit right out of me.
Or maybe this is who he is? How many people know why Re Santino keeps archaic furniture in his house? He could tell anyone it was an inheritance, but the deep-rooted reasons? The desire to be close to his grandfather?
I was being let in on a secret. I was being trusted. He trusts me.
Like a pathetic mouse clinging to a crumb, I cling to that thought.
Maybe there is hope for me after all. If he trusts me, I can get out of here.
“You haven’t hit your limit yet,” I say.
“You will eat dinner with me.”
“Is that a prediction?” I dig a black olive out of a little bowl Celia left.
“It’s a fact.”
“What if I’m busy?” I eat the olive.
“I’ll make you unbusy.” He raises an eyebrow with both humor and threat. I have a nice retort to tease out the humor, but Fat Lip appears at the back door. I’ve seen him around since the wedding day. He says hello with a certain level of respect, as if he knows I could punch him again.
“Santino,” he says.
“Stay,” Santino commands and joins Fat Lip at the door.
“I’m not a dog,” I mutter.
Behind me, there are terse whispers. Serious voices. I try to listen in, but it’s all in Italian and too quiet and rapid for me to follow. I wish
these guys would just speak in English. It would make snooping so much easier.
I try to act nonchalant, carefully eating olives and chewing slowly. Is he in trouble? Is someone here to rescue me?
Never in my life have I wanted something more than to be rescued. Maybe my zio and zia organized the family and are marching on the house. Maybe they found enough money to cover the debt?
So many maybes, so much hope, and yet, I’d be just a little disappointed I couldn’t see this through.
“Violetta.” Santino’s voice is rolling thunder. “Bring your books. Go upstairs to your room. Now. Lock the door. Armando will be right outside.”
Goosebumps explode over my skin. Could it truly be someone coming to save me?
The piercing look on his face doesn’t tell me anything.
“Go. You will be safe.”
“You’re keeping someone out? Not keeping me in?”
“Just go.”
I take my books and go upstairs. It’s not until Armando closes the door behind me that I realize I did what Santino told me to because I trust him.
11
SANTINO
Emilio Moretti called me Impavido. Fearless. A compliment more to my acting than my heart. I fear plenty. Death mostly. Going into the eternal quiet of nothing while the noise of things undone stays behind, crying for you to come back and finish.
Four chambers in a heart. Four rooms to fill with love or sadness. I fill two of mine with the fear of death.
The other two, with Violetta. One chamber filled the day I saw her as an unready, unripe fruit. Her eyes, dark as blood. Her hair, a coiled frame around the face of a lioness. The feeling wasn’t in my cock, but where I kept the things that are mine. My responsibility. My duties and burdens, but also my people. My commune.
She stepped into the last chamber with her laughable attempt to manipulate me by sucking my dick. I already wanted to fuck her. She already pumped my blood full with fire. But her clumsy humanity caught me unaware, breaking the lock and ramming the door.
Death in two rooms. Violetta in the others. The inside walls rattle as if the two are trying to make love through the lean, red meat between them.
Café Mille Luci rises out of the sidewalk like a slab of cake. The bulk of my operations run out of the corner store of white-painted red brick, and it does exactly what a slice of cake promises. It looks rich but it’s empty—a pretty front with easy calories meant to top off a full meal of plans made elsewhere.
We don’t do much business. We confuse the Americans moving into town. We’ve got cakes, finger sandwiches, thick coffee that used to be a special thing but isn’t anymore, and a full bar even though the place closes at five. It’s a normal selection and the right hours where we’re from, but in the American religion, closing a bar before dinner is a mortal sin. I worship an older God. The college kids from the other side of the river can build their own church.
Today, traffic cones threaten to undo the already chipped frosting around the outside. More roadwork. More jackhammers. It rattles the windows and the stack of short glasses behind the bar, then it stops as if someone pulled the plug just as my cousin Gia walks in.
The guy with the jackhammer puckers his lips behind her back, while another whistles. There’s a comment ending in the word “bambina,” mocking her ethnicity while inviting her into his filthy mind.
“Hey, Cugino Santino!” She waves to me, bouncing to the back room with her ponytail swinging.
I wonder which of the crew’s throats I should cut first.
“I can go handle it, boss.” Frankie wipes down the glasses behind the bar. I wave him off. He’s loyal but not bright. He was the first one to point out the way the crew working on the street whistles at Gia when she comes into work. As if I don’t notice how he looks at her.
He thinks he can go handle it and make a show for her. He must think I’m stupid.
“No,” I say. “I’ll handle it when I have time to slit his throat. Not before.”
You don’t stay in business as long as we have by acting in anger. When Roman interrupted Violetta and me by the pool, to warn me that Damiano Orolio requested a meeting, I wanted to rage at the messenger or the message, but I knew neither would get me far, so I accepted the meeting and went to Mille Luci for it.
An SUV six inches short of a bus pulls into one of the few vacant spaces out front, pushing against one of the cones to fit.
Damiano Orolio has to drop a foot and a half to get out of that piece of shit. He waves to the construction guy who rights the orange cone. It’s not an apology. It’s a dare.
Damiano and I used to be built about the same, but no more. He worked his upper body up to the size of a sofa, while the rest tapered down to the ground, spindling under him like the legs of a card table. The scar on the side of his mouth makes him look like he’s half smiling, and in the summer—when he’s tanned—you can see the white slash a block away.
The bell rings when he enters. He doesn’t have to be asked to raise his arms so Roman can pat him down. He’s in this position when Gia comes out from the back, tying an apron around her waist. He catches sight of her like a hawk spotting a mouse in a parking lot.
“Who’s this?” he asks lasciviously as Roman works his ankles.
“Gia,” I say, “I need you to do inventory on the linens.”
“That’s next week,” she says, as if I don’t know what day of the month it is. She glances at Damiano not as a potential partner or a threat, but a potential tipping customer.
Roman nods and Damiano lowers his arms.
“Tu vai.” I don’t want to snap at her but it’s my duty to protect her and that means inventory in the back room. “Subito.”
“That’s Gia?” he asks when she slams through the swinging doors. “Little Gia?”
I don’t answer. She is mine but not the way he’s implying.
“Something for you?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He slides onto a stool, leaning over the bar to Frankie with one huge elbow. “Gimme a caffé coretto.”
Frankie looks to me for confirmation and I nod so he can make it.
“Look at this place.” Damiano waves his hand over the room, then knocks on the wood as if it’s the hood of a used car. “It ain’t changed since 1978 when Sal opened it.”
“You weren’t even born in 1978.”
“I know what 1978 looks like.”
Damiano watches Frankie carefully as he brews up the drink. We don’t talk. I know why he’s here and if he thinks I’m going to give him what he wants, he’s dumber than I ever imagined.
“It’s fine the way it is,” I say.
“If you’re a seventy-year-old hitter with a fat wife and an ulcer.”
“You have an ulcer?” Frankie delivers Damiano’s espresso and places a bottle of Sambuca next to it.
“No ulcer yet. A little agita when I heard you got married and didn’t invite me.” He gives a theatrical shrug. “But otherwise...”
“You brought me a wedding gift?”
“Can we cut the shit, Santi?”
I sip my espresso without the flinch he’s hoping for. We’ve known each other too long and he should know better. No one calls me Santi anymore. No one.
Damiano and I grew up together. We were partners for most of our childhood. Damiano was better at everything—school, sports, generosity. He helped me learn English. When my parents needed money, he brought me in to meet Emilio Moretti—swearing on his mother I was hardworking, reliable, and quiet when it counted.
Emilio hired me on my friend’s word. I was Santi. He was Dami. We were a team.
Until that day on the shore. Winter. The point of it is the beach is empty while waves and wind cover what you’re saying. Emilio and his guy, Jacopo, were negotiating a delivery. Dami and I were point. Jac had two of his own guys behind him. Routine shit, but you can’t take a routine for granted, so my eyes were all over the place. There’s a lady about a hundred feet off, throwing a stick for her dog to f
etch. A man smoking on a bench in the freezing fucking cold. A couple necking over that way.
“You think he’s gonna get some?” Dami says, indicating the couple.
“If he can get past her body armor,” I reply. Dami concurs with a chuckle. Her black down coat zips up from the floor to just under her chin. “I don’t like that guy.” I nudge my chin to the smoking man as Emilio and Jacopo argue over drop-off points. “That’s his third smoke in fifteen minutes.”
“His wife probably don’t let him. Hey—” He slaps my chest with the back of his hand. “Did you get a load of Rosalie? That dress?”
The woman kneels to retrieve the stick from the dog, but there’s something off in her movements. Before, she leaned forward to grab the stick, but this time, she kneeled between me and it, taking it from the side.
And when she stood—stick in hand—she pivoted to face us.
“Down!” I yelled, pushing Emilio away with one hand and drawing with the other.
The stick was a thin rifle, pointed at Jacopo. I aimed and squeezed the trigger just as a hot pfft came from my left shoulder. The woman went down, and the dog barked.
That was when—for saving a business partner—Emilio took me under his wing, Dami started resenting me, and I learned to never underestimate a woman.
He’s not Dami anymore, and I’m sure as shit not Santi.
“Drink up,” I say as he rubs lemon peel on the rim of his cup at the Mille Luci. “Then we can cut the shit.”
“You wouldn’t poison me in your own place.” Damiano pours Sambuca into the coffee.
“I wouldn’t poison you, period.”
“Yeah.” Damiano pounds it back, pinkie raised, and clicks the cup back into the saucer. “You ain’t that bright.”
“Obviously.” Poor Damiano never got over the day he stopped being better at everything.
“You got to the Moretti girl,” he says. “I know you pulled her outta her aunt and uncle’s place and took her to St. Paul’s. You’re counting down the days to her birthday, same as everyone else.”
I coil tighter than a serpent, limbs ready to spring. My sister used to say I was like a duck: frantic on the inside, smooth as glass on the outside.