“I’m glad you could make it, Gloria,” Roz said. “I was worried about you when Teddy said your flight was canceled. How did you get here?”
“A different flight,” said Gloria as she glanced at Mick. She wanted to give as little information about Oz as she possibly could. Maybe her father knew of him and his reputation with women, too, and would not approve even her personal life, let alone her professional decisions.
“They had a different flight that would bring you to Philly at the same time as your previous flight?”
“No, it wasn’t that,” said Gloria.
“Then what was it?” asked Roz. “Stop beating around the bush with me.”
“I caught a ride with somebody I knew.”
“Somebody with their own plane?” asked Nikki with a smile. “Must be nice.”
But Mick would have none of it. “Have you quit your job?” he asked her.
And just like that, the lighthearted fare was over. And everybody knew it. Gloria didn’t realize it, but she actually sat her body up straighter. “I haven’t officially quit, but yes, I intend to submit my resignation.”
“No need,” said Mick. “You’re fired.”
“Mick!” Roz said disapprovingly.
“Don’t you Mick me!” Mick shot back. “I gave her every break she’s ever had and what does she do? My guys find out that she went and bought some shitty-ass diner and don’t bother to mention it to me. I think my daughter’s on vacation, and I find out she’s moved to Florida! To Florida. And you think I’m going to support that shit?”
“I don’t give a fuck what you support,” Gloria said before she realized the words had come out of her mouth.
There were audible gasps in the room, as everybody looked at her, and then, more importantly, looked nervously at Mick. He’d kill that child; didn’t she realize that???
Mick was staring at her with that stare of his that could melt steel. But Gloria did not back down. “You never support me, anyway,” she said. “You act as if I didn’t work my butt off for you for all of those years. Hard as I worked for you, getting demoted and humiliated time and time again, and you fire me because I decided I wanted to live my own life on my own terms? Fuck you!”
When Gloria said those two words, everybody jumped up. Even Joey tried to jump up. But Mick was too fast and too big and strong for all of them. He was over to that sofa in record time, and slapped the shit out of Gloria before she could even stand to her feet.
“Pop, no!” Teddy said, pulling his father back.
“Don’t, Mick.” Roz was keeping him away from Gloria too.
“Don’t do it, Dad!” even Joey was yelling too.
Nikki wasn’t saying a word. She was in shock. She knew why they called him Mick the Tick. His temper was like a ticking time bomb. She understood that. But to see it in action was still, to this day, a sight to behold.
Gloria was holding the side of her face that still stung from his slap. Her father had slapped her before. He’d beat her ass before. But there was something about this time that pricked her to her heart. Because, for the first time, she wondered if he loved her at all. This man, her father, the one person that she loved and tried to please more than any other person alive, might not even care for her at all. And that was breaking her heart. She stared at him. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him.
Mick stood there, staring at her, too. His hair had fallen across his forehead, making him look like a young man, and his chest was breathing in and out at a rapid pace. He saw the disappointment in his daughter’s eyes. He saw the hurt and the pain. His anger was in the fact that he knew that all of her problems, including those that led her to run away from her life in Philly, was all his doing. His sadistic father had messed him up until everybody feared him even more than they respected him. He had messed up his children too.
“Everybody out,” he said to the room.
“Pop, you can’t,” Teddy was saying.
“Everybody out!” Mick yelled like a thunder clap.
Roz, knowing her husband more than anybody else, and certain he would not hurt Gloria any more than the slap she deserved for speaking to him so disrespectfully, grabbed Teddy by the arm. “Come on, let’s give them some space.”
But Teddy was still resistant. He wasn’t leaving his kid sister with that animal.
“He’s not going to hurt her, Teddy,” said Roz. “Let’s go.”
Teddy continued to stare at his father, and then at Gloria, but he knew how much his father loved Glo. He wouldn’t hurt her. At least not anymore. He agreed with Roz.
He and Roz, along with Nikki and Joey, made their way out of the family room. Mick and Gloria were left alone. Mick, tired, pulled up a side chair, and sat down in front of his daughter. He leaned back and folded his legs, staring at her the entire time. Gloria was still upset to say a word.
But it was Mick who spoke first. And, as usual, he came from out of left field. “Your hair is a mess,” he said.
Gloria was about to smooth it down, to please him once again, but she stopped herself. Those days of kowtowing to him were over. “Yes, I know,” she said.
“Take it out of that damn ponytail,” Mick ordered.
Gloria started to say that Roz wore her hair back sometimes, too, but she caught herself. Because she knew him. You aren’t Roz, would be his comeback line. But she already knew that to be a fact. She wasn’t Roz because he loved Roz. Right then, Gloria was convinced he didn’t love her. She wondered if he hated her.
She removed the scrunchie from the back of her hair and let it careen down in a cascade of curly bounciness.
Mick watched her, and seemed pleased. “That’s better,” he said.
Then he unfolded his legs and leaned forward, both of his expensive Italian shoes pointed directly at her, and made himself clear. “You are going to sell that diner,” he said to her, “and return to Philadelphia. You’ll continue to work for me, or not, that’s your choice, but you will remain a present part of this family.”
“A family under your total control?” Gloria asked him.
Mick almost looked as if he wanted to slap the shit out of her again. But he settled back down. “What do you want me to say, Gloria? That I don’t control my own family? What kind of man doesn’t control his family? Certainly not a man like me,” he said with a look so chilling to Gloria that she almost looked away.
“And I’m not any man,” Mick continued. “I’m Mick Sinatra, whether you like it or not. Because you’re my daughter,” Mick continued, “there are certain precautions I have to take to protect you. To protect all of you. And having one of you living in fucking Florida is not going to happen.”
Mick waited and composed himself again. “That’s why all of you will remain under me. In Philadelphia. Under my protection. Until I’m dead. Then, maybe, at least I hope and pray, you’ll be free.”
A pain pierced through Gloria’s heart at the thought of anything bad happening to her father. She wasn’t sure about his feelings for her, but she was absolutely certain about her feelings for him. She loved her father. She admired and respected him, and was proud to be his daughter. But he was right: she feared him too. And it was that fear, she felt, that was crippling her. He was toxic to her. He was toxic to all of them. She had to make her own way!