by Cat Porter
Nothing was the same anymore.
Not my Chicago, not the crowds on the streets, the familiar blare of traffic, not the refuge of my apartment, a good meal, a glass of fine red wine.
No, I was no longer the same.
55
Turo
My mother’s latest creation, Porto had finally opened.
The business had turned into a media favorite since the attack, with my mother’s survival and James’s death, my crime lord mystique. From a marketing standpoint it was sheer gold. Me as the new face of the Cavanaugh Group added all sorts of dark, intriguing luster.
Mauro was dead, three of his capos, five soldiers. Valerio was under arrest and under investigation for the murder of Little Anthony, and a meth-making biker associate of the rival Tantucci Outfit. The Tantuccis landed immediately under the telescope for their role in the mass killings of the Guardino chiefs. The two men who had survived the deli bombing hadn’t seen anyone suspicious. At the time of the shooting, these two illegal immigrants had been in the basement stocking jars of pickles and bricks of heroin. And I’d been at a funeral across town in a well-fitted black suit and new shoes, eulogizing my stepfather.
Porto’s menu was spectacular, the food beautifully presented, the staff poised. Fresh seafood flown in from Greece was the highlight, non-GMO locally grown organic produce. Authentic Greek products from beans to lentils to nuts, artisanal breads. And a Greek only wine list.
I made sure my mother’s friends and associates on the Mayor’s task force for neighborhood renewal had known that I fully supported their work by attending a meeting in Erin’s stead, assuring them the restaurant would open. Confidence and relief flared in the stodgy air in that boardroom like a whiff of fresh perfume making everyone blink and sigh.
Half the mayor’s office wanted to suck my cock, the other half had their fingers poised to dial 911 at the sight of me. I’d made many political contacts while working with Mauro. I’d also known many while working with my mother. Then there was the one committee chairman who was a steady client of one of my ladies of the night.
The neighborhood renewal project was full steam ahead. Other business owners had put their projects on hold at the first sign of trouble; on hold no more.
Emilio had chopped up the Guardino octopus. Threw a few chewy tentacles of the syndicate to the fire, others he kept for himself, marinating them carefully with his own special vinaigrette. Emilio was the new guy in town. New guard from the old country wiping slates clean, doing things his way. The brutal way.
Show them how it’s done, Aliberti. Andiamo.
“Amico?”
My insides tightened at the sound of that melodic accent, and I swiveled to my right and grinned. Alessio was a sight to behold here in Porto’s bar. Heads turned, admiring glances tossed his way by both men and women.
“Alessio.” I clapped him on the back, shaking his hand.
He lifted his chin at me. “Eh, compagno. Come va?”
“I’m good. I’m good,” I replied. “This is unexpected. What are you doing here?”
“A last minute trip. I’ve been in Miami for a photo shoot.”
“Photo shoot?”
“A shop there is going to be selling some of my jewelry. It was an opportunity to go and meet them personally, have fun in South Beach with my uncle, and do the advertising campaign. Of course, I couldn’t leave America without coming here to see Emilio. And you. It’s been over two months since you left Athens.”
“Sit with me.” I gestured at the empty chair next to mine.
He sat, stretching out his legs. “This restaurant business is for real, eh?”
“Would I lie to you?”
His chest shook with laughter.
Alessio took out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. “Can I smoke in here? I can’t keep track of the rules anymore—Italy, Greece, here, fuck.”
“No, you can’t. Drink this.” I handed him a frothy lemony ouzo cocktail from the bartender. I drank from mine.
“Hmm.” His tongue rubbed over his front teeth. “That’s…different.” He put the drink down and scanned the bar lounge where we sat. “This place is crowded.”
“We got solid reviews from all the right critics opening week. This meze bar lounge is proving to be a real hotspot for the young professionals after work. The tasting menu in the dining room is attracting a diverse clientele as well. Let me get you something to try.”
“No, no. I’m good.” He waved a hand at me. “I just had dinner with Emilio.”
“How’s he doing?”
His fingers rubbed the pack of cigarettes. “He misses home, but he loves it here. Likes being his own boss. And our father is thrilled at how everything worked out, of course.”
“Of course.”
“He’s so proud. You’d think Emilio got into Harvard and graduated in one year.” We laughed. He wiped a hand through his hair. “It rains too much here. I’ve been here three days, and rain, rain, every day rain.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Luca’s back in Naples?”
“Si. He might meet me in Mykonos the first week of September.”
“Business good there since the big party?”
“Yes. The store on the island is doing good. Very good. And you? You are the restaurant king of Chicago now?” A wide grin broke his handsome features. Facetious prick.
I leaned back in my chair. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”
“They obviously like what you’re selling. Greek food, eh?” He let out a laugh.
“Ironic, I know.”
“You put on a very nice show for them. This is a wonderful theatre that vanishes once the customer’s meal is over and they leave, isn’t it? You offer carefully orchestrated flavors and an environment to evoke certain feelings, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But we know better.” He picked up his glass, swirled the cocktail around, sniffing at it, and swiftly plonked it down on the table again. “When you’ve had the real thing, all this is only imitation, eh?”
Yes, I’d had the real thing. The pure thing.
I licked my lips and the ouzo flared on my tongue once more, diffused between sugar, lemon, and rum. Something pinched and twisted in my chest at the memory of me and Adri, that first lunch in Andros, celebrating our escape, our self imposed exile with meze and ouzo on the rocks with a dash of water on the sea, sun pouring over our skin.
“This is how it should be enjoyed. You should keep all this in your heart right this very second so that every time you take a sip of ouzo wherever else you may be, you will enjoy it the right way.”
Sliding the ouzo cocktail away, Alessio caught the bartender’s attention and ordered a whisky,
I took in a tight breath and raised my glass. “Yiá mas, Lovely,” I murmured to myself and drained what was left of the suddenly absurd drink, my eyes closed.
“Keep all this in your heart,” she whispered.
She was in my heart. She was. And this tarted up ouzo was bullshit compared to crisp, bright, pure ouzo with Adri on those beaches, on that island, our hands touching, our lips. Souls.
I texted her.
I’m drinking ouzo & it’s crap without you
We texted once in a while. It was immediate gratification, light check-ins, masking yearning, need. I was here, she was way the fuck over there. And that sucked, in plain English.
I checked my watch. It was four in the morning in London, so, no, she wouldn’t see my message and text me back right now. Unless she was out clubbing with friends. On a date with a man. Fucking somebody. My fingers tightened around my glass, knuckles whitening.
Alessio’s whisky arrived and he quickly took a swallow. “Grazie Dio.” He wiped at the edge of his mouth. “Don’t you miss it, Turo?”
“What’s that?”
“What you tasted in Greece.”
My eyes shot to his. A slight grin curved his lips. “Tell me you didn’t fall in love.”
I rubbed
my cool, slick glass, my teeth scraping my lip. Yes, I fell in love. With Greece. With her.
Yes, yes, yes.
I cleared my throat. “She’s in London, getting her brother settled at school, working at her father’s office.”
“I know,” Alessio said, his mouth twisting. “She’s determined to start over, if you call that starting over. She said it was time to be sensible.”
“Sensible?”
He let out a dry laugh and swallowed more liquor.
Adri was trying to buckle down. For the family business. For her brother. I could imagine her buttoned up in a suit, those long legs in sleek boots or tights with heels underneath a desk. Hurrying through London’s damp streets in the coming fall. Bundling up against the chilly air, thick scarf around that glorious neck.
Fuck no.
Adri’s coppery brightness belonged in the sun, that broad smile brightening her face, warming me.
Me.
She was my sun.
My mouth dried. “Alessio, is she with someone? Is she—”
“No.” His face grew serious as if it were an impossibility beyond reason. He put down his glass, shaking his head. “When I first met Adri, she was a—how do you say—un fantasma.
“A ghost?”
“Si, a beautiful ghost. Nothing touched her. She would not let it. Wasn’t eating very much. I tried to make her laugh, and I did, but it only worked so far. She wanted me to cocoon her, I did.”
“Shut the fuck up now.”
“Listen to me, Turo—” his tone was sharp, firm. “She was doing okay for a while, floating. But that shooting in Athens—enter Turo DeMarco and everything changed. With you she began to live again. To feel things. She stood up for herself, finally faced that father of hers. I have seen una trasformazione.”
Transformation.
“Come back to Europe, my friend,” said Alessio.
“And do what? Be her bodyguard?”
“Ah.” His head spun back, and he sent a stream of Italian curses flying to the ceiling.
“What now?”
“Her money is a problem for you, eh?” he asked. “It is for most men.”
“No, her money doesn’t bother me. I grew up with plenty, and I’m very familiar with the lifestyle. Not on her level, of course, but I have my own trust fund, and I’m very, very comfortable.”
“Then what are you doing here? Go, be with her. Fuck like bunnies, be happy.”
“A part of me feels it’s better to let her go. It would be easier now that we’re apart, so far away. She’s young. She has so many choices she could make, and I don’t want to hold her back or limit that.”
“You think too much. She’s like that too. You’ve got a new future now, asshole. Make it with her. She’s yours, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
“Does she still want me? Could it even work?”
Alessio studied me, waving his glass in my direction. “You are afraid.”
“Not afraid. Apprehensive.” I swallowed cold water to drown the dregs of that cocktail from my mouth.
“Why? You go there, grab her, and you—”
“I don’t want to fuck it up,” I gritted out. “It was damn perfect, but it was this dream-like sliver we had cut out of time together. Maybe it was just a Greek island vacation high and the drama of running off on our own.”
“Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Alessio waved his fingers in a mocking flick.
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t throw away the chance to find out, Turo. Don’t. It is easier for you to risk your life over and over for assholes, than it is to be with the girl of your dreams? Adriana is not a dream. And your time together was not a dream. All of it—real.”
I eyed him, crunching the ice from my empty water glass.
“Hmm.” He slanted his head. “You see, I am glad I came. You need me.”
“I need you?”
“Oh yes.” His eyes narrowed at me. “Are you running anything for my brother or are you out?” he asked.
“I don’t run anything for anybody else anymore. That’s over. Never again.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I’m Emilio’s silent consultant with local issues, the characters involved. He sold me my business, I get his protection, and I’m going to expand once I’m not working at my mother’s company full-time anymore.”
“When will that be?”
“Another month, probably. She’s doing very well, in fact.”
“Good. This other business of yours is successful?”
“Very. For years now. It’s a well-lubed machine, but I want to take it to another level.”
“You like it?”
“I do. I turned it into something much, much better than it was originally. And I want to see it grow in a new way.”
“You know, I worked for my father for a few years. Gambling, garbage, drug dealing—” Alessio drained his whisky, a slight wince lining his features. “—Not my thing. The world of pleasure and beauty, that is my thing. And I believe you have a very fine appreciation for it as well.”
“I do.”
His voice lowered. “I’ve been living in my father and brothers’ shadows all my life. I love them and they love me. We are family and that never changes, but I’m not interested in what they do. Stepping away was not easy. It was unusual, awkward, insulting to them. I’ve had to prove myself to them with my success.” He shrugged. “Mostly, I think my father was worried I was gay.”
“You’re definitely not gay.”
Rich laughter erupted from him, and I grinned at the sound.
“Ah, Turo. I want more. More of my own creations. It makes me happy that my work gives others so much pleasure, and I like making my own money. Why not continue to create more and different things? Mykonos was fantastic for me. Now this Miami thing may turn into something. I want to do more of this.”
Alessio’s family seemed to be tight, supportive, and I was glad for him. But both he and I had a need to step out of the shadows into our own sun.
“I know how you feel, Alessio,” I said.
“I can sense this in you. I know these things,” he said. “You must come back to Europe.” He slammed a hand on the bar. “I’m going to be in Greece in August. Come with me. Remember the Greek singer Elektra from my party?”
“Sure.”
“She will be singing at the same club. An end of summer party, and Adri insists I go.”
“Good for the brand.”
“Yes. Close out the season on Mykonos with a bang, get some press. Adri had me design a special necklace for Elektra for the concert.”
“Nice. Adri is going too?” I asked.
“She’ll be there.” He held my gaze. “She and Marko are meeting their parents at their house on Mykonos for a quick holiday before Marko starts school in London. It will be her birthday then too.”
“Her birthday?”
“Hmm. I invited her to this private island thing, but she wasn’t interested. Just wants to be with her family.”
“What private island thing?”
“Ah—this new friend of mine who I met in Mykonos at my party in May, his family owns their own private island in Greece.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” His eyes lit up. “He is the son of a Sheik from the Gulf who bought himself a small Greek island, more like a big rock, a few years ago. They’ve built a house there, only accessible by boat of course. He’s having a small party there and then we’ll all go to Mykonos together on his daddy’s yacht.”
“You know the right people, Alessio.”
“I do.” He grinned. The cat had nabbed the mouse and mightily enjoyed the tasty treat. “Get us another drink. Your bartenders are way too busy. This drink was shit and you know it,” he said to me, gesturing at our ouzo cocktails.
With an unhappy look on my face, I signaled a waitress and she immediately charged over. Alessio ordered two single malt whiskies, and she took aw
ay our glasses. Our drinks arrived and he raised his glass.
“Are we drinking to anything in particular?” I asked him, holding up my whisky.
He clinked my glass with his. “La trasformazione.”
56
Turo
“This feels good, and I’m not ashamed to say it.” My mother spread her hands out over her desk and heaved a sigh. Satisfaction, exuberance. The Queen was back on her throne.
“No shame for workaholics like us,” I said.
Six weeks had gone by since Porto had opened. My mother was finally allowed to come back to work, for a few hours a day for the time being. Her face beamed at me, rivaling the beauty of the flower arrangement on her desk next to her. I crossed my arms at my chest and admired her, enjoying her pleasure.
“I have something for you,” she said, laying a thick envelope on the desk.
“What’s this?” I picked it up. Travel agency. I pulled out the papers. An itinerary for a one way first class flight to Athens.
“Erin?”
“I know I haven’t been a good role model to you in the relationship department.” She came around her desk and stood before me. “I could have been fairer about your father to you, instead of spouting my form of vitriol at every opportunity, instead of pushing you away.”
“You did that to keep me safe.”
“You were just a boy. A boy without a daddy and not much of a mommy.” She smoothed a piece of my hair at the side of my face. “I should have bit my tongue more often.”
“Don’t apologize for him.”
“I’m apologizing for me. It’s very late, I realize. You’re a grown man now.”
“Mom?”
“You’re passionate about your work, just like me. And that’s a good thing. But you can’t mistake that passion for love in your life. A good love. It’s not the same. By that I mean a true one, one that pulls all your loose pieces together and makes them fit. One that’s a beacon for you, physically and emotionally.” Her hands rested on my shoulders. “I want that for you. You deserve to experience it and to hold on to it. If Adri could be the one, you need to be together.”