What. The. Fuck. Am. I. Doing?
I stop, and sip my beer just so I don’t have to look at Levi staring at me. I gaze at the sea instead, at the stars glittering on the water, at the moonlight. Anything not to look at what I am sure is Levi’s stare of outright disbelief.
But when I finally look at him, he’s smirking. “Didn’t we just say a fake wife, mio amico? You sound smitten.”
“Fuck you, Levi,” I say sharply. “Smitten? I’m a fucking don, in case you forgot. Or I will be soon enough.”
“No, Angelo,” Levi counters seriously. “You were once a cold-blooded killer. Now, I think you have become something else.”
“Let’s just drop it,” I grumble.
“But she’s the prime candidate, you think? Soon we will be able to put our plan in place?”
“Fake-marry this woman, convince Father, prove to him I can lead, take over the business. Yes, Levi, we’re ready.”
He takes a long drag from his cigarette and gestures with his beer. We clink them together and go on drinking in silence for a time.
“How is your mother?” I ask after around ten minutes, our beers almost empty.
“Fine,” Levi says quickly. “You know her, hates any fuss. I convinced her to walk with a cane, which she’s been putting off for a long time.”
“That’s good,” I say. “That’s progress.”
Another silence, and then Levi says, “You remember when you got that little girl’s balloon from the tree?”
I roll my eyes, groaning. “Why won’t you ever let that shit go?”
He’s grinning like a madman, enjoying my discomfort. “Here he is, the baddest motherfucker in the whole high school, Angelo motherfuckin’ De Maggio, and we’re walking home and talking shit and smoking cigarettes—”
“Please stop.”
Levi finishes the last of the bottle and follows me back toward the warehouse, but he doesn’t stop with his story. “… And what do we see? A little girl crying underneath a tree, bawling her goddamn eyes out. Who was it that started making fun of her, the bastard you smacked up?”
“I don’t remember his name.”
“Well, he started taunting her—”
“You do know I was there, brother?”
“You knocked his goddamn lights out, and then climbed the tree and got the girl’s balloon back. You were her hero. They shoulda put your face on Local News at five.”
I let out a growling sigh, pressing my knuckles into my opposite palm. My body still feels sore from the crash, and Levi is walking with a limp, but otherwise, Felice took the brunt of the impact. I think with a stab of guilt about him laid up in the hospital. It’s the same guilt I felt when I walked by that little girl and her balloon.
“You’ve got that story wrong,” I tell him, but I don’t turn to look at him. “You remember how that tree was outside her house and her parents were arguing? You always forget that part.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah …”
“They were arguing because she thought he’d pawned her diamond ring. Do you remember that?”
“No, Angelo. Not in that much detail.”
I finally turn to him. “I was the one who stole that diamond ring. I snuck in when you were out in the countryside on your fishing trip with your uncle. I was bored. So I started breaking into houses. I took her ring and pawned it for half of what it was worth. I don’t even remember how I spent the money. And then fate played a trick on me. We walked by their house and saw that fucking scene. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
Levi gives me a sour look. “I don’t like that version of the story.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Then I don’t like that version of the truth.”
We are about to go inside to get more beer when a car pulls up outside the warehouse. It’s one of our sleek town cars, the windows tinted. When the window rolls down a couple of inches and I see the young man’s eyes in the old man’s face, I wave a greeting, though I have to suppress a growl.
“Of course he’d come to check up on us,” I mutter to Levi, in an aside.
“Play nice,” Levi chuckles. “Today is a good day.”
“Not for Felice, it’s not,” I grumble, nodding to Levi and approaching the car.
But I can’t stop the smile from spreading across my face when I see that Father has his sketchbook open in his lap. He’s idly moving his hand, but for Father even idly moving his hand produces exceptional work. He always said that he never so much as lifted a pencil before he met Mom. But after they got married, she started giving him lessons. He hated it at first, but then he fell in love with art. Funny how marriage can change a man.
I walk around the car and climb in next to him. “What’re you drawing?” I ask.
He glances up, smiling vaguely. “Your mother,” he says as the car pulls away. He has wedged an old Polaroid of Mother in the storage section, so that it sticks out. She’s gardening, of all things, with dirt caked up to her elbows and a weary glint in her eyes, like she’s scowling at the cameraman.
“Why not draw her in a photo she was ready to be in?” I ask pointedly.
Father tuts. “That would be missing the point,” he says.
“And what is the point? Dimmi.”
We exchange a silent smile at the informal dimmi—‘tell me’—as though acknowledging that we are not in our usually formal back-and-forth. Or perhaps I’m hoping for a connection that isn’t there. The thing is, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Father this sentimental.
“The point is to love her no matter how she looks.” He closes the notebook and turns to me, regarding me for a few moments. I feel exposed. I feel like I want to be anywhere but here. I love and resent this man in equal measure, and I’m not used to feeling such conflicted emotions.
At least, not until Dani.
I hold his gaze, willing this maelstrom of uncertainty to go the hell away. Eventually, he sighs and changes tact. “So business is going well … with the King Kong.”
I flinch, but then nod, trying to mask it. “So you’ve heard about it.”
“You seem surprised,” he says. “Were you trying to hide it from me?”
I feign a laugh. “Never, Father. The last time a man tried to hide something from you, he ended up in three separate pieces. One to the piranhas, one to the pigs, and one to the—let me think—ah, yes, the wood-chipper.”
He scowls at me. “You sound proud.”
I chuckle. “How could I not be? It certainly sent a message.”
Suddenly, Father leans forward. “Do you think I took any pleasure in that? That man was an asset, and if I could’ve punished him in a less severe way, I would have. But then other men would think they could get away with hiding a portion of my profits from me. Then what? So I had to punish him, mio figlio. It was a calculated financial decision. It wasn’t revenge. It wasn’t anger.”
“Why do I get the feeling that a lecture is coming?” I turn back to the night with a heavy sigh.
He shrugs and opens his notebook, returning to his sketching. I just keep staring out at the night as the car drifts through the city. But I can feel Father simmering next to me. I know that I haven’t avoided the lecture, only put it off. After about half an hour, he finally speaks.