The ex-husband who now heads the Ferraro Crime Family.
My heart ices over with a new layer of fear. Is this stranger related to my best friend’s crime boss ex-husband? He pronounced my name perfectly, which is unusual for a first meet. Usually people call me Nay-ma, Nay-ima, Nah-ima, Nancy—pretty much anything but the Nigh-eema, my parents intended when they named me after the social worker who helped them when they decided to start a family after losing their eyesight to early onset macular degeneration.
The fact that this guy knows how to say my name further convinces me that though Luca Ferraro isn’t currently in the room, he’s somehow behind this visit.
“What do you want?” I was going for a demanding tone, but the words come out a shaky question. Proving I’m not nearly as brave as Amber would have been if this happened to her. Unlike me, she doesn’t take ish from anybody—or use substitute words for shit. She even fought off a gun man last year when he tried to come after one of her clients.
But I can barely talk to the scary dude on the other side of the table, and I’m not at all confident I won’t pee my pants if he actually picks up that gun. For the first time, I wish I had actually finished those self-defense classes Amber encouraged me to take. At least then, I wouldn’t feel so weak right now, so totally at this stranger’s mercy.
“What do I want?” he repeats with a cold smile. “Just a little bit of conversation.”
His words might have reassured me if his smile got anywhere near his eyes. Or if he didn’t raise one large, beefy hand and place it on the gun, before adding, “About your bestie, Amber.”
“No. No, no way!” I answer immediately. “You might as well kill me, because I’m not telling you anything!”
“Alright then,” he answers, just as immediately. “Have it your way.”
He raises the gun.
“No, don’t—” I say, suddenly not feeling so brave.
But he squeezes the trigger anyway and the gun goes off with a loud BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
I sit up in bed, breathing hard as my alarm clock blares on my nightstand. Oh God…oh God, I’m dead!
It takes several seconds before the truth sinks in…that I’ve just woken up from a dream…a traumatic memory, of something that had happened nearly a year ago. And not at all exact. I hadn’t been brave that day. With a gun in the room, I’d done exactly as Stone said. Answered all of his questions, and even called Amber, so that she could walk straight into Luca Ferrarro’s perfectly laid trap.
I’d been so naïve back then. Kept thinking that the more I co-operated the more chance Amber and I would have of getting out of this alive. But a year later, shame washes over me, remembering how easily I’d rolled over for the granite-face stranger, who turned out to be Stone Ferraro, Luca’s cousin and the Ferraro family’s most ruthless enforcer.
I’m always encouraging self-compassion to my vision-impaired clients. Be gentle with yourself, I tell them. Don’t get too hung up on all your mistakes. Learn from them and let them—blah, blah, blah. As I climb out of bed this morning even more tired than when I went to sleep, I’ve got to admit, it’s hard as heck to practice what I preach.
The spray of water, scrubbing my skin especially hard with Dove Extra Moisturizing body wash isn’t nearly enough to make me feel clean, though. And I feel even more frustrated with myself when I climb out of the shower.
When will I stop having that nightmare? I wonder, as I push aside all my usual business casual to get to a black dress at the far end of the rack. Or get over what’s happened since waking up to find Stone at my kitchen table a year ago?
I blame it on the day as I pull on the black dress I bought when my parents’ original landlord died. That had been just three months, before I inadvertently pushed my then law school student best friend straight into the arms of a boy I thought was a fellow law student, and rich, generous, and outrageously handsome to boot.
“You’re so lucky,” I remember telling Amber, and I’d secretly wished I was beautiful like her. Beautiful enough to land a guy like that. I was a few years older than her. And I’d thought I was the wise one in our friendship back then. Ha. Stupid—that was all I’d been before Stone showed up at my kitchen table. Stupid and naïve.
Amber and I had made plans before that moment. She was pregnant—I’d thought by some anonymous sperm donor. We’d decided to raise her baby together, create a new family in the townhouse I could barely afford on my own. It was the perfect solution for my own boring and stale life…a dream come true.
Until Stone showed up and it all fell apart.
Memories of Amber and Luca’s rekindled romance mix with ones of my unexpected romance with Stone’s identical twin, Rock. He was supposed to make up for losing Amber and the baby to the ex-husband who turned out to be its real father. He almost did.
Until that, too, fell apart.
Stone had hated me, and I guess, what they say about twins are true. Eventually Rock decided to dump me on his brother’s advice. Then he died the very next day, without telling anyone that we were no longer a thing.
I zip up the dress I haven’t worn in several years and look at myself in the mirror on the back of my door. I was born in this house, a house without any full-length mirrors, and I can still remember how guilty I’d felt when I’d gone down to Target when I was fifteen to buy this one with my birthday money. Like it was a betrayal of my parents to add something only a sighted person would need to our domicile. Even now, with both my parents and the prospect of living with Amber long gone, it remains the only item specifically made for sighted people in the house.
However, it doesn’t show me what I want. Thanks to the thirty pounds I put on, as if trying to commemorate my crossover into my thirties, the dress is now way too tight, verging on lewd. I’ll have to grab a cardigan to button over it, so that people don’t think I’m trying to flash them at my dead ex-boyfriend’s funeral. My dark curls also aren’t playing along with my somber look. I was supposed to get a long-needed trim last week after my annual physical.
But the doctor’s news at that appointment had so stunned me that I never made it in. Now, here I am with flyaway curls and a split-ends problem that makes me wish my kinky haired Haitian mother and Dominican father had never met in that support group. My curls are the kind of frizzy, dry mess that would take at least an hour with a flat iron to fix.
But Rock’s funeral is in less than that. Sighing, I return to the town house’s bathroom to consult with the patron saint of bad hair days. St. Scünchi No Slip Grip headband goes over my hair, pulling the huge mess into a puff. I rub in a cheap CC cream that evens out my smoky brown complexion, brush on some mascara, grab the cardigan and try again with the mirror.
A little better, I decide, but not putting in much effort feels strange, considering I used to spend hours getting ready for my daily mandated dates with Rock. He was my first and maybe last chance at real romance, and I wouldn’t have even dreamed of opening the door to him in anything less than full hair and make-up…all the way up until he dumped me.
But Rock’s dead now. My okayest will have to do.
My phone’s ding interrupts my second outfit check.
It’s a text message from Aunt Mari, with a suggestion for a two-bedroom apartment in Charlotte, along with another admonishment about how I know I could just stay with my cousin Yara and her three kids. She could really use the help, since her husband’s been deployed again and that oldest daughter of hers isn’t no kind of help…
But I’m out of the helping too much business for good. I decided that after Rock’s death. So, I ignore that invite to serve as my cousin’s nanny and tap on the apartment link. Holy macaroni, is that really the price of a one-bedroom? I’m paying twice that for our place in Jackson Heights—
No, not our place. My place, I remind myself. Just my place now.
I’ve got to start remembering that.
God, I don’t want to go to this funeral. But after typing a quick note thanks to Aunt
Mari, I order a Lyft anyway and even pay the extra so that I don’t have to share it.
The funeral is just as I’d expect it to be. Long and super Catholic. As the priest drones on about tragedy and lives cut short, I remember Rock’s and my first date. He’d told me stories about all the stuff he used to do to keep from falling asleep during Mass. Shouting Amen after every hymn, writing computer code by hand on the back of the offering card, and even shoplifting some smelling salts from the local Walgreens.
I laughed until tears were coming out of my eyes, and thought, so this is what a spectacular first date feels like.
But at Rock’s funeral, my eyes remain bone dry. I don’t shed a single tear. There are too many other things to think about, too many worries fretting up my mind.
“You should have sat up front with us,” Amber says, later when we’re all gathered around the gravesite at a famous Queens cemetery, known as the final resting place for many of the organized crime world’s biggest household names. And now Rock.
Despite being blind and having her four-month-old baby on her hip, Amber managed to find me in the large crowd of her husband’s and Rock’s Italian family members. I can’t say I’m surprised. Amber’s always been amazing that way, and as I turn to face her and the baby she named Luca Jr, my chest pangs with what might have been if Stone hadn’t shown up at my kitchen table.
“Hi, Amber,” I say, glad not for the first time, that she can’t see me.
“Why didn’t you find me as soon as you got here,” she answers, staying on point like she often does. Natural born lawyer. I thought that the first time we met to set up her freshman year dorm room at Hunter’s College. And I continue to think it now as we stand beside Rock’s grave.
I glance around and end up feeling even more self-conscious. Amber is easily the most beautiful person I know in real life, and the beautiful blue-eyed baby boy sleeping contentedly on her shoulder hasn’t taken away from that sheen. As always, a lot of people are staring at her, which means they’re staring at us.
She doesn’t know that this happens everywhere she goes. Has been happening ever since I met her. I used to shove the self-conscious feelings down. Used to tell myself it didn’t matter. And then act like I really believed that.
Today is different, though. Today I mumble, “I’m not part of the family,” and drop my eyes to my feet, so that I don’t have to look at her or anyone else.
“You’re part of my family,” Amber says. “That’s true no matter what.”
No matter what. I wish that were true. Wish things were really as simple as she decided they were after she accepted Luca’s second marriage proposal.
“Nai…” she says with a sigh when I don’t answer. “I know how sensitive you are, that you’re hurting. I am, too. I mean, I was…”
A sad shadow falls over Amber’s face, reminding me that she has traumatic memories of her own. Way worse than mine. Making me feel like a pile of ish for not wanting to come here at all. For freezing her out and not returning any of her calls over the last couple of days.
“I’m sorry I didn’t sit next to you,” I say. Then, since I’m apologizing, I decide to tell her. “I know this isn’t the best place, but I wanted to tell you first that I’ve gotten a job in North Carolina. So I’m moving there…ah, next week.”
Amber didn’t use to be so great about showing emotion. She used to be closed off and a little distant. Even with those she loved.
But today, standing beside Rock’s grave with her baby, her mouth drops open and she lets out a woof of air. Like I kicked her. “What? Why are you just now telling me this?”
“I just got the offer.” Not a lie. But not the exact truth either. I only got the offer three days ago, but I applied for the job shortly after that doctor’s appointment.
“The fact that they made you the offer means that you must have applied for the job. I’m assuming this offer didn’t come out of the blue.”
Darn, Amber. Of course Amber picks up on that omission. I swear she’s like a bloodhound with the real truth and nothing but the truth. Encouraging her to apply to law school has come back to bite me.
I squirm under Amber’s interrogation, all the true answers wanting to come out. But I keep them locked behind my clamped lips. I’m not that naïve girl at the table anymore. I know better now. Telling her the truth won’t solve anything. Only make it worse.
“One of my dad’s sister lives in Charlotte. She doesn’t have any children of her own, and she’s been begging me to move down there ever since my parents left New York. A special position as an advocate for college-age foster youth just came up. And I think…I think it’ll be a perfect fit.”
Amber’s head jerks back. “So you’re just leaving?”
I waiver, wanting and wishing like I often do that things had turned out differently. That Stone had never shown up at my kitchen table and that Amber and I had raised her baby together as we planned, without his sperm donor ever finding out.
But that’s a stupid, selfish wish. Especially now.
Luckily, the priest saves me from having to answer her hurt question. He calls for our attention, and we all turn to face where he’s standing behind Rock’s now closed casket.
More sermonizing, then it’s finally time to lower Rock’s body into a ground. A terrible sound rises from the other side of the audience’s semi-circle as soon as the gleaming black and gold casket starts its descent.
It’s Rock’s mother. Her entire body shakes as she weeps into her hands, and I suspect she would fall to her knees if not for Luca holding her up with a strong arm around her shoulders.
On the other side of her stands Stone and a much older version of the man in the mugshot on the Wikipedia page for Stanley Ferraro. Stone and Rock’s father, on temporary release from his double lifetime sentence for several counts of pretty much everything a mafioso can be sent to prison for. Stanley had originally been slated to become the Ferraro’s Family’s next head, but that Don title ended up going to Luca’s father when his brother caught a lifetime and then some prison sentence.
If things had worked out differently, Stone would be the current head of the Ferraro family. But they didn’t and now he’s the one standing by as his father does absolutely nothing to console his grieving wife.
That might be because he’s in handcuffs chained directly to his waist. But I don’t think so. His expression is a total mirror of his granite-faced son’s. He’s a craggier Stone with a full head of grey hair. Hard, emotionless, and apparently incapable of providing even a measure of comfort to the woman barely standing beside them.
Looking at the two expressionless men, I try to find a pang of sympathy anywhere in my soul. Try to forgive. Try not to hate Stone, like I’ve hated him since I found him at my kitchen table. But watching him watch his brother get lowered into the ground with the same cold, uncaring expression he wore when he told me to sit down, I can’t. I just can’t.
I throw my dirt and go. Just go. No stopping to give my condolences to Rock’s mother, who I doubt I could look in the eye anyway.
The air is less cold on the other side of the cemetery’s entrance. And as I order another Lyft, I breathe heavily, feeling like I’ve narrowly escaped something. Joe, a Latino-looking guy in a black Prius is my savior and he’s on his way. All I have to do is meet him at the curb.
But then…
“Hey, Naima.”
I freeze at the sound of Stone’s voice. It sends shivers down my back now just as it did back then. And I no longer have to worry about catching my breath. It disappears as he comes to stand in front of me, somehow looming larger than Rock ever did, even though they are—were—identical twins.
He blocks my access to the road. “I don’t know how they do it at your kind of Catholic funerals, but at ours, you usually say something to the mother of the deceased. Especially when the deceased is your dead boyfriend.”
A thousand defenses come to mind, none of which I dare to say out loud. Not to this man.<
br />
“I’ll send a card,” I lie. Then, as long as I’m racking up the sins, I add, “I have some place to be. An important appointment.”
A beat, as his eyes flicker up and down my body. Not the way Rock’s did when we first met, but like a man, who couldn’t be more disgusted. “You’re lying,” he says. “But go, run.”
Again, I could defend myself. Again, I don’t. Instead I happily take the invitation and start to push past him. But before I can get all the way around, he grabs a hold of my arm, his meaty hand vicing around my shoulder. “Hear you’re moving.”
My heart pounds with fear at his words. Is he tracing my emails and calls, like Luca used to do Amber? If so, how much does he know about the real reason I’m moving—
“Amber’s all upset about it,” he says, cutting off my panicked thoughts.
Oh…Amber. A pang of guilt hits me along with another useless wish that things had turned out differently.
“Dick move, Almonte,” Stone says, as if giving voice to my thoughts. “Better ways to deal with your bullshit crush.”
“I’m not leaving because of Amber,” I say, my lips tightening.
Now that’s the truth, but Stone shakes his head at me like he’s caught me telling another bold-faced lie.
I’m once again struck by the anger that made me knee him in the crotch the last time we talked. And though that wasn’t me, has never been me, I find myself wanting to do it again.
I hate this, hate the way he makes me feel like someone I’m not. Someone spiteful and fighty. Someone so infuriated, she has to resort to knee punches instead of words.
“Just let me by, okay?” I say, trying to hang on to the kind and sensitive person I used to be. “I don’t…I don’t want to do this. Not today.”
Stone’s hand tightens on my shoulder, the direct opposite of what I asked. Ugh! I’m about to lose the battle to stay Nice Naima, but then I see the look on his face and stop.
Mainly because there actually is a look on his face. Not a cold and neutral expression, but a furrowed brow above eyes that are…well, not soft, but not as hard as they were when they lowered his brother into the ground.
Keane: Her Ruthless Ex: 50 Loving States, Massachusetts Page 23