Pam stopped talking but Keira, Melissa, Violet and Kate didn’t stop staring at Cal.
“Did you really say that?” Melissa asked.
“Yep,” Cal answered.
Tears filled her eyes, she drew in breath through her nose, swallowed and, after this struggle, finally whispered, “Somewhere, Sam and Tim are both smiling.”
Kate, Cal noted, was smiling too. Keira, Cal saw, was now staring at her shoes. Vi was still staring at him.
Then she surprised him by saying, “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d have done if Mom –”
While she was talking, he lifted an arm and draped it along the back of her chair, dipped his chin, got close to her face and cut her off.
“Shut up, buddy.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
The girls were there, her friends, her parents and he didn’t give a fuck. He dipped in closer and kissed her lightly on the lips. When he pulled away, those lips had parted and her eyes had grown wide.
Because she looked cute as hell, as well as totally lost, his arm curled from her chair to her shoulder and he pulled her into his body. Then he did the same to Kate on the other side. Kate curled into him and wrapped an arm around his stomach, resting her head on his shoulder.
Something had broken for Kate the day she found out about her uncle, it was clear. She’d lost two men in her life that meant everything to her. She was holding on with all she had to anyone who was left. Even Cal.
Vi looked at her daughter then she looked across Cal to Pam.
“Like him, girl,” Pam whispered then winked at Vi, “keeper.”
Vi straightened and looked at the casket.
Cal grinned and felt Barry’s eyes on him so he turned his head.
Barry was looking at Kate then he looked at Cal then he sighed and gave Cal a nod.
Score another one for Cal and Kate, a big score, the dead husband’s partner and his wife, huge.
The minister took the podium and Cal turned to face front.
* * * * *
I stared out the window as Chicago slid by.
Cal had said we were going to dinner before hitting the road and I didn’t argue. Sam’s memorial (so not Sam and so very my mother) and his burial (ditto with it not being Sam, who wanted to be cremated but was buried because of my fucking mother) had taken it out of me. They were long, they were wordy and the pastor who spoke at both knew not one thing about Sam (nor did Mom arrange it so anyone else could say a freaking word). And I hadn’t had anything but a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast. I was angry, hungry and exhausted and I hoped, after I ate, that I’d sleep all the way home.
I didn’t know what Cal was up to and I didn’t care, not now. I’d care tomorrow or the next day but I was hoping his lunacy would be spent by then, he’d be on another trip, off on his job as Security to the Stars and I wouldn’t have to bother.
He slid into a parking spot in the street that had two clear signs that read NO PARKING then he cut the ignition.
I stared at the signs then looked beyond them and around me, seeing that we were deep in the city. I hadn’t been paying attention. Why Cal took us so far into the city, God only knew.
Then I looked back at the girls who were both leaned to peer out the side window.
Then I looked at Cal.
“Cal, you can’t park here,” I told him.
He ignored me and ordered, “Change your shoes, buddy.”
Here we go again.
“I can’t wear this outfit with flip-flops in public,” I informed him.
He again ignored me and repeated, “Buddy, change your shoes.”
I briefly considered how long it would take to explain to Joe Callahan why I could not wear flip-flops with a seven hundred and fifty dollar suit, knowing that even Tim would not get this concept, hell, even Mike wouldn’t get it and Mike seemed totally clued into these kinds of things considering how materialistic his ex had been. Therefore Cal definitely wouldn’t and I decided it would be an impossible task, we’d end it in a verbal tussle and I was tired and hungry.
So I declared, “I’m not fighting about this and I am not changing my shoes.”
His blue eyes locked with mine and I held his glare.
“Fuck,” he muttered, giving in which was more lunacy. Cal didn’t give in and now he’d done it twice.
“Language in front of the girls,” I snapped.
“Baby, they hear it all the time,” he returned and I felt my eyes get wide in motherly affront.
Cal looked at my face then over the seat to the girls and asked, “You gonna say fuck because I say fuck?”
“No,” Kate answered immediately.
“No, ‘cause Mom doesn’t like it,” Keira replied waspishly.
Cal looked back at me and raised his brows.
I gave in this time, throwing my door open, getting out and pulling the seat up so Keira and Kate could get out safely on the street side.
Cal slammed his door, rounded the hood and walked to us, waiting as the girls got out. As Kate alighted and closed the door, I looked around Cal and saw a dark haired man in a nice, semi-shiny, dark blue polo-necked shirt and dark gray pants stalking toward Cal.
Getting close, the man shouted, “Yo! Can’t park there.”
Cal turned, the man skidded to a halt and stared up at him in wonder, as if he was seeing a ghost.
“Shit, fuck me, Cal?” the man whispered.
“Hey, Manny,” Cal returned.
“Cal!” the man, apparently named Manny and apparently someone Cal knew, was now yelling.
I stared as he leaped forward and threw his arms around Cal, pounding him on the back in a way that sounded painful then he pulled back and looked at him.
“Holy fuck, man, Pop’s gonna be frickin’ beside himself, Ma too. They’re both here. Holy fuck!”
“Manny,” Cal said, moving toward me and pulling me to his side with an arm around my shoulders, “Vi gets pissy when you say fuck in front of her girls.”
But Manny wasn’t listening and I wasn’t moving out of Cal’s arm mainly because I was worried that Manny was having a heart attack and I’d have to jump in and attempt CPR (something I’d never done). His eyes had bugged out and he appeared to be fighting for breath as he looked at me, Kate and Keira.
Then he whispered, “Fuck me.”
“Seriously, Man, the language,” Cal warned, his voice going low.
Manny’s body jolted then his face split into a huge smile and he jumped forward, arm extended to me. “Yo, hey, I’m Manny.”
“Hi,” I said back, taking his hand and he gripped mine hard, not shaking it, just holding on tight. “I’m Violet.”
He nodded. “Violet, nice.” Then he let me go and turned to Kate, hand to her. “Hey, pretty lady.”
“Um… hi,” Kate replied shyly, taking his hand. “Um… I’m Kate.”
“Katy, like it,” Manny told her, let her go and turned to Keira. “And you are, sweetheart?”
“Keira,” she took his hand too, staring up at him, openly fascinated probably because, I belatedly noticed, he was a very good-looking, well-built Italian-American.
“Keira, pretty name. Excellent,” Manny finished his round robin approval of our names then he let Keira go, moved quickly toward the door of the restaurant and announced, “Let’s get you in, get your asses in a booth, I’ll get Ma and Pop then we’ll get you some Chianti and a big pie, yeah?”
Without much choice, we followed him; Cal’s hand in the small of Kate’s back, guiding her in front of us. I guided Keira with a hand at her waist. Cal’s arm was still around my shoulders.
I looked up at the green neon sign over the door that said in slanting script “Vinnie’s Pizzeria.”
Seeing it, it startled me as I’d heard of this place. Tim and I had always meant to find it and eat there. Rumor had it that it was a hidden gem, one of the best unknown restaurants in Chicago especially for pizza or pasta which, if that was true, was saying something, it being i
n Chicago. But it wasn’t easy to find, we knew it was in Little Italy but Tim had looked and they didn’t even have a phone listing. He’d always meant to use his cop resources to find the address but he never got around to it and, in the end, time ran out.
Manny went in first, holding the door and we all piled through. There were benches on either side of the door filled with people, more people standing around obviously waiting for a table and there was a bar, totally packed, again with people waiting for a table. They might not have a phone, evidenced by the fact that these people obviously didn’t have a reservation, but they were far from unpopular.
Once we were in, Manny shoved by us and pushed through the people to the hostess station.
“Yo, Bella, next booth that’s open, Cal and his girls sit there,” Manny ordered a young girl who had to be no more than eighteen and the minute he issued his order her face went straight to attitude and not the good kind.
“Man, you nuts? I got…” her head tilted down and she (and I) looked at the sheet of paper that had scribbles on it, some at the top with a red mark through them, a whole load at the bottom that was just a very long list, her head jerked up and she finished, “about a trillion freakin’ people waitin’.”
“This is family,” Manny explained.
“Everyone’s family,” Bella shot back.
Manny got serious, I knew it by looking at him and listening to him and, if Cal’s arm wasn’t still heavy on my shoulders, I would have stepped back.
“Woman, shut down the attitude, this is my cousin Cal. Get him and his girls in a fuckin’ booth.”
His cousin?
Oh shit, this was Vinnie’s Pizzeria as in dead cousin Vinnie, murdered, like my brother and husband, by Daniel Hart.
I felt my body grow stiff but Bella’s mouth had dropped open, she’d shut down the attitude and she was staring at Cal.
“You’re Cal?” she breathed.
“Yep,” Cal answered.
“The Cal?” she asked.
“Yep,” Cal repeated.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“Language, Bells, Jesus, there’s fuckin’ kids here,” Manny admonished and Kate and Keira giggled.
Actually giggled. On the day of their uncle’s funeral.
If I wasn’t freaked out, exhausted, hungry, dealing with Cal’s lunacy, an unexpected visit to his family and it wasn’t the day of my brother’s funeral, I would have kissed Cal.
Cal heard the giggles, I knew this because his arm flexed on my shoulders, a reflexive action but one that spoke to me.
Then again, I thought a lot of the shit Cal had done spoke to me and I’d been really, really wrong.
“What, we holdin’ a conference? Why’s everyone standin’…” an annoyed female’s voice came at us, Manny stepped out of the way, the voice stopped and I saw a very round but also very attractive older Italian-American woman standing three feet away, still as a statue, staring at Cal.
Then she started chanting, doing that thing with her fingers to her forehead and shoulders. “Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus.”
Then she rushed forward, lifted her hands and grabbed Cal on both sides of his head, yanking it down to her face.
Cal’s arm fell from my shoulders and he muttered, “Hey Aunt Theresa.” She pulled him closer and gave him a loud, smacking kiss on one cheek then the other then back to the other, jerking his head around while she did this and while I stared on in rapt shock that anyone would jerk Cal around this way.
Then she shoved his head away like she was pissed as hell, she lifted a finger in his face and shouted, “You never visit! What? We smell? The bed too lumpy last time you stayed? It’s been two years!”
“Aunt Theresa.”
She wagged her finger in his face. “No, none of that ‘Aunt Theresa’ business. Chicago isn’t on the moon, Anthony Joseph Callahan, it’s four hours away!”
Cal’s arm went back around my shoulders, he pulled me to his side and he said, “Shut up so you can meet Vi.”
She went statue still again then only her eyeballs came to me.
I didn’t think she’d like Cal telling her to shut up, she seemed tightly wound, so I decided not to pull away from him or make any quick movements. She was already looking at me with her eyeballs, I didn’t want too much of her attention.
“And these are Vi’s girls, Ma, Katy and Keirry,” Manny added, shoving Kate and Keira close in front of Cal and me, way too close to crazy Aunt Theresa and Aunt Theresa’s eyeballs moved between all of us, fast.
I wrapped my arm around Keira’s belly and pulled her to the left side of my front, not a good enough distance from the frozen, but unpredictable, Aunt Theresa, but at least she wasn’t standing right in front of her anymore. Cal wrapped an arm around Kate’s chest and pulled her to his front right.
When Cal did that to Kate, Aunt Theresa started moving again, doing that hand to the forehead and shoulders thing, calling loudly, “Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God, Sweet Mary, Mother of God!”
“Jesus, Ma, you’re freakin’ them out,” Manny muttered, she stopped calling out to Mary, turned and whacked him one, hand open, up the side of his head.
Good Lord, the woman was every Italian-American stereotype in the book.
“What in the fuck’s goin’ on?” a loud, booming man’s voice shouted from behind Aunt Theresa, she whirled and there stood a man, a good-looking one, older, a bit of a pot belly, definitely related to Manny (thus Cal).
“Vinnie!” Aunt Theresa yelled. “Cal’s here, with Vi and her daughters Katy and Keirry.”
But Vinnie’s face, like his son’s, had split into a huge grin. He took us all in, giving us that grin and he walked by Aunt Theresa toward Cal, his arms wide.
Cal let me and Kate go and suffered another back pounding hug while Vinnie muttered a bunch of stuff in Italian. Vinnie ended the hug with his hands tight on Cal’s neck.
“Cal,” he whispered.
“Uncle Vinnie,” Cal replied.
“Good to see you, fuck, son, good to see you.”
I stared at him seeing he meant this, it came from somewhere deep. In fact, he was nearly overwhelmed with emotion. If he burst into tears, I wouldn’t have been surprised. He missed Cal and it was obviously good to see him.
Vinnie let Cal go and his eyes moved through us all. “Who do we have here? Honored guests? Why aren’t their asses in a booth?”
“Table five’s gettin’ bussed, Vinnie,” Bella put in.
“Well, help ‘em bus it girl, family don’t stand around at the freakin’ hostess station,” Vinnie replied.
“Right,” Bella muttered then took off as it was clear Vinnie’s word was law, as it would be at Vinnie’s Pizzeria, and Vinnie turned to me.
“Vi?” he asked, hand out.
“Yes, Vi, Violet,” I answered, taking his hand.
“Vi,” he said firmly, his squeeze of my hand just as firm, his happy grin still in place.
“These are my daughters, Kate,” I reached out and touched Kate’s arm. “And Keira,” I indicated Keira with my head, she was still in the curve of my other arm.
Vinnie shook Kate’s hand then Keira’s then looked at Cal.
“All beauties, Cal, you got an eye.”
I looked up at Cal to see his response was to tip up his chin.
“We’ll get you seated, soon’s we can,” Vinnie said, his eyes swept through us again, stopping at Cal, giving him a top to toe and then locking eyes with him. “What’s with the getups?”
“Funeral,” Cal murmured, “Vi’s brother, Sam.”
Vinnie’s face froze, Aunt Theresa sucked in breath and I felt Manny’s eyes on us.
“Cara,” Vinnie whispered.
I swallowed, Keira pressed into my body, Kate shoved under Cal’s arm so he slid it around her shoulders.
“Vi hasn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, Uncle Vinnie, she needs some food,” Cal ended the silence but he did it quietly.
Vinnie?
??s body jerked then he clapped. “Right, table five. Food. A big pie. Specialty of the house. I’m makin’ it myself.”
He turned and we followed him through the heaving restaurant, every table and booth with people at it. The tables were covered with red and white checked tablecloths and the floors were wood, dark with age and use but still shining. On the tables there were wicker-wrapped wine bottles with candles at the top and wax dripping down. The food on the tables I passed looked fantastic and seeing it I realized I wasn’t hungry, I was starving.
Then my eyes caught on the walls. They were painted a warm, buttery yellow and covered in pictures, some small, some large, some medium-sized, looking thrown up randomly but I knew it was random like my terracotta pots on my deck were random. They’d been hung with care.
All were black and white. And, on closer inspection, they all had the same group of people in them. Some pictures of just one person, others one or two, others whole crowds. Most were candids, a very few were posed.
But they were all of family, I knew this just by looking at them.
They’d been taken over years. There were babies, toddlers, kids, young adults, a family growing up, its history covering the walls of Vinnie’s Pizzeria.
I could see Theresa in them, Vinnie, Manny.
And I could see Cal, from little boy to full grown man.
Vinnie led us to the only empty booth in the place and ordered, “Pile in, we’ll get you drinks.”
He ordered it and Vinnie was the kind of man you listened to but the photos had captured me, especially Cal in them, and I didn’t move. I was staring at the eight by ten black and white picture that was hanging on the wall over the booth.
They were in the restaurant, standing by the hostess station. Two young boys, maybe thirteen, fourteen, around Keira’s age, dark-haired, tall, already showing the promise of the handsomeness that would soon be theirs. They were standing side by side. One, his eyes lighter gray in the black and white photo, was staring straight into the camera, grinning huge but wicked. He had his arm slung around the shoulders of the other boy, who was partly bent forward and turned, his face in profile and the camera caught him laughing.