She power walked daily and she did this in sporty athletic gear that many would say she should leave to the twentysomethings, but she worked that shit like no other.
She also played with a team of old lady bowlers in three different leagues and they took that shit seriously. If there was a senior ladies tour, she’d be the champion. Her famed ball was a marbled black with hot pink, gold, and silver veins, and she carted her ass and that twelve-pounder from alley to alley without effort and with a great deal of determination.
If she and her bowling buddies intended to keep me at Benny’s, they’d succeed.
In other words, it was time for me to act on the fly and hatch a different scheme.
So I did it.
“Does it bother you in the slightest that I don’t want to be here? That I don’t want this talk you wanna have? That I don’t wanna let Theresa have a sit-down with me? That I don’t want your dad to say his words to make amends? I just want to get on with my life after seven not-very-great years, and before that, six years with Vinnie that I realized too late weren’t real great, all of that ending with me running through the forest with a woman I did not know, and a grand finale of blood and bullets and a fair amount of gore. Which, luckily, wasn’t all mine, but watchin’ Cal blow a hole in that man’s head was not fun, even though I hate that man and I’m glad he’s rottin’ in hell.”
“Frankie—”
I shook my head. “No, Ben. I’d really like to get in your truck and for you to take me home, then leave me alone. I think I made the leavin’-me-alone part pretty clear the night I got shot because I told you that, straight up. Then I made it clear a more subtle way, hopin’ you’d get it, fakin’ sleepin’ every time you or one of your family showed at the hospital. Now you’re bein’ straight, I’ll be straight right back. I do not want what you want; I want to be left alone.”
I should have known by the look on his face that I liked way too much that what would come next would be a blow, but I stupidly didn’t brace.
So when he whispered, “But…you’re family, baby,” it was a blow.
Because it was the wrong thing to say.
It hurt. Too much.
Emotional pain was far worse than a gunshot wound and I was in the position to know.
I’d wanted that…once. I got it…once.
Then they took it away.
“Family doesn’t turn their back on family for seven years, especially doin’ that shit when one of their own loses the man in her bed.”
I saw his flinch. He tried to hide it, but I saw it.
He recovered from my hit and his voice was gentle (and, thus, beautiful) when he asked, “So you know what family does, cara?”
“Uh…yeah,” I snapped. “I know what family does.”
“Then where’s your ma?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“Where’s Enzo Senior?” he went on.
I glared at him.
“Where’s Nat, Cat, Enzo Junior? Talked to Cindy and the girls at the nurse’s station. Not a visit. Not from one of them.”
“Ma’s in Florida,” I reminded him.
“Babe, you were shot. The only excuse she can give not to be at your bedside after that kind of shit happens is she’s on the fuckin’ moon and NASA declared there’s no safe reentry without burnin’ up.”
“You know Ninette is not the bedside-vigil type of mom,” I reminded him.
“I know not one of those folks you count as blood is the bedside-vigil, takin’-care-of-their-girl type at all. That is not family, Frankie, and it proves my point. You don’t know family. You did, you’d know that shit is not right. Fuck, your dad, Nat, and Cat all still live in the city and they didn’t haul their asses to the hospital to see you.”
“Nat works nights,” I pointed out. “She has to sleep during the day.”
“She works as a cocktail waitress,” Benny returned. “She’s not an ER doc who takes the night shift and has to get her shuteye in ’cause, if she doesn’t, she could make a mistake the next day that might cost someone their life.”
He’d been annoying me.
Now he was pissing me off.
“Why are we talking about this?” I hissed.
“Because, for some fool reason, you’re denyin’ yourself somethin’ you want.” He shook his head. “No, somethin’ you need. Somethin’ I’m handin’ you and you refuse to reach out and take it.”
“What I’m tryin’ to get through that thick head of yours is I don’t want it, Benny. I definitely don’t need it. I want to move beyond it.”
“That’s a straight-up lie,” he shot back.
“It is not.” My voice was rising.
Suddenly, his face was in my face and all I could smell was his aftershave, all I could see were his eyes. “So you’re sayin’ I kissed you right now, you would not want that?”
I stopped breathing.
The slightly good thing about that was now I had confirmation about what Ben’s talk would be about. I had guessed, now I knew.
That was the slightly good thing.
Slightly.
“I’m your brother’s girlfriend,” I reminded him.
“You were Vinnie’s girlfriend,” he retorted immediately. “Now you’re just Frankie.”
“If you don’t think he’s always gonna be between us—the history of bad blood your family clung to for seven years and the shit they laid on my shoulders for years before that isn’t gonna be between me and them—you’re cracked.”
“I think we give this a go, we’ll both get to the point where we remember we loved Vinnie and that’ll be all there is about Vinnie. Gettin’ to that, there’ll be shit we hit that’ll be awkward and uncomfortable, but we’ll power through it and get there in the end.”
“You’re so sure?” I asked snidely.
“Yeah,” he answered firmly.
“And how are you so sure, Ben? Hunh? Tell me that.”
“’Cause if I didn’t waste seven fuckin’ years, that would be where we were now if I had finally pulled my finger outta my ass and made my move on you then. Instead of sittin’ on this bed arguin’ with you about where we should be goin’, I’d be doin’ somethin’ else to you in this bed while our kids were at Ma’s house, tearin’ it up.”
His words hit me so hard in a way that felt dangerously good, I sucked in a painful breath. But Benny was not done.
“’Cept I did it back then, we’d have to live with Vinnie knowin’ I stole his woman. Until he got whacked, that is.”
The word “What?” came out of me in a gush of breath.
“Francesca, you givin’ me a week and a half to think on all this shit, things got clear. And what got clear was that the minute Vinnie became a made man, you lost him. I lost him. My family lost him. He stopped bein’ ours and he became Sal’s. Say it didn’t end in his bein’ dead. Do you think Ma would let that kind of man sit at her table for Christmas dinner?” He shook his head again. “No fuckin’ way. Ma and Pop are stubborn. They were holdin’ on to hope. But it was slippin’ and he was cruisin’ straight to bein’ disowned, dead to them in a different way, and you know it.”
I did. Vinnie Senior and Theresa were gearing up to let him go. I knew it then. I felt it. It hurt. Vinnie felt it. It killed. There were a lot of things family forgave, looked beyond, got used to, sucked it up for, and they could shift the blame to me for a lot of shit.
But he’d been made in the Mafia. The things he was doing were going to get harder and harder to blame on me. The things he was doing were all on him. He knew it and they were figuring it out.
And once you were made in the mob, you never got out.
There was no turning back.
For him.
For me, now, that was another matter.
And Benny immediately got into that matter.
“And I know you. You would not let him plant babies in you—not go out and do the shit he did for Sal, come to you with blood on his hands after puttin’ drugs on the street or
shakin’ people down or whatever the fuck they do, and let him put a baby inside you. I know that, Frankie. He was livin’ on borrowed time in more ways than the one that got him and we both know it.”
“So you were gonna move on his woman?” I asked.
“Why do you think I was so fuckin’ pissed when you made that move on me after we put him in the ground?” he asked back. “You stole my show, babe. And you did it too fuckin’ quick. I was not ready, you were not ready, and I got pissed. Too pissed. Held a grudge. Pissed away time. Now we’re here.”
“I didn’t make a move,” I reminded him sharply. “You kissed me.”
“You made a move, Frankie,” he said with rigidity.
I did.
Fuck.
I did.
“This is insane,” I snapped, because it fucking well was!
He got even closer. “This is real and you fuckin’ know it.”
“I do not,” I bit out.
“You so fuckin’ do,” he returned. “I get where you are. I was there for seven years. Denyin’ where I was at and where I wanted you to be. Holdin’ guilt about all a’ that. How I felt and what I wanted before he died. How I felt and the same thing I wanted after he was gone. You see the woman you want bleedin’ from a gunshot wound on a forest floor, she survives that shit and gives you a week and a half, Frankie, that’s plenty of time to pull your head outta your ass. I did it on my own. Now you’re gonna do it, and if you don’t, I’m right here and I’m gonna do it for you.”
“You are not!” My voice was beginning to rise as my heartbeat was beginning to escalate. “Primarily because there’s nothing to pull my head outta my ass about.”
“You need me to kiss you?”
“No!” I shouted, my voice now loud and my breathing now harsh.
“Shakespeare,” he clipped, and my head jerked.
“What?” I rapped out.
“What’d he say about protesting?”
I felt my eyes go squinty again.
“You got it all figured out, don’t you, Benny?” I asked sarcastically.
“Bet you five hundred dollars I kiss you, in about five seconds you’d have it figured out too.”
No way in hell I was taking that bet.
“Gambling is a sin,” I hissed.
“Yeah, so you go to Vegas every year to catch the shows?”
My eyes got squintier.
“Five hundred bucks, Frankie.”
“I’m recovering from a major bodily trauma, Ben.”
“Read your doctor’s notes, babe. Said nothin’ about you not kissin’. Told you to refrain from intercourse, so we’ll save that for later.”
I clenched my teeth, even as I felt my nipples tingle.
God, I wanted to slap him.
I also wanted him to kiss me.
And I couldn’t even think of intercourse with Benny, not with him that close. Hell, not ever.
“Not gonna take the bet?” he taunted, moving an inch closer.
“Fuck off, Ben.”
He grinned.
Then he repeated, “Shakespeare.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, pressing back into the pillows and sliding my eyes away.
“My win,” he said softly. “You’re off your game. Figure you’ll get yours in when you get stronger so I gotta get in as many as I can now.”
I slid my eyes back and informed him, “You’re taking advantage of an injured woman.”
“Yep,” he replied easily.
I glared.
We heard the doorbell ring.
Ben pushed up from the bed, sauntered to the door, and ordered, “Ass downstairs, babe. Time for pie.”
I did not get my ass downstairs.
I stared at the door and I did it for a long time after he disappeared. I did it wondering if what just happened actually happened. After that, I did it trying to figure out if I could pretend that what just happened didn’t happen. Eventually, I figured out I couldn’t.
Then I realized there was a pizza pie downstairs created by Ben.
Not to mention Benny himself was downstairs.
And as much as it sucked (and it sucked huge), I couldn’t stop myself from swinging my legs over the side of the bed, making my way to the door, and doing it more excited than was healthy, all in order to taste Benny’s pie.
And do it with Ben.
* * * * *
I woke enough to feel Benny slide my hair off my neck and then slide his finger along my jaw.
I also felt how nice that was.
Behind my closed eyes, the dim light penetrating went out.
Finally, I felt his presence leave the room.
He didn’t close the door.
I opened my eyes to the dark.
Score one for Benny before dinner. Score one for me during and after. This was because I managed to hold on to the silent treatment throughout both (mostly).
The silent treatment was not a weapon in my female arsenal. My mother came from German, Polish, and French stock, probably with a few more things thrown in.
But my father was half Italian, and considering how he was, I was, and all the other fruit of his loins were, Italian blood was clearly dominant.
This meant I was hotheaded, low on patience, and had a flair for drama.
So managing the silent treatment, going so far as not even moaning when I took my first bite of Benny’s deep-dish pie (it had been a long time so maybe I was wrong, but in that moment, I would swear it was better than Vinnie’s), was a feat.
A Bianchi pie, I’d been told by Vinnie Bianchi Senior himself in better times, had no single secret ingredient. It wasn’t the dough. It wasn’t the sauce. It wasn’t the cheese.
It was all of that.
All of it was homemade except the cheese, which was not grated and dashed around. It was sliced off a ball of buffalo mozzarella and laid on to melt its mild, smooth, milky goodness into tangy red sauce that leaned a bit to the spicy side, and pan-style or hand-tossed crust that made you know there was a God and He was Italian.
I could do a hand-tossed pie and be happy.
But I was from Chicago.
It was all about the pan.
And no one did better pan pizza than Vinnie’s Pizzeria. Sure, there were some who could extol the virtues of Uno’s and Due’s.
They were wrong.
Vinnie’s was the best.
Now Benny’s was the best.
I didn’t share with him my overwhelming approval of his culinary skills with a Chicago-style pan pizza pie.
I just ate it and kept my mouth shut.
After Benny was done eating, but I wasn’t, he left the table and went out to his garage. He came back with my phone.
He set it on the table beside me and said, “Phone a friend.”
I glared at him. He grinned at me. I snatched up my phone and he sat down to watch me call my friend Asheeka.
Asheeka was a woman I worked with who I’d met after the Vinnie debacle. We became friends and she became acquainted with my story.
With experience, I found it was better with those who learned after the fact that I could have been on a reality show of Chicago’s mob wives and girlfriends. This was because I could attempt to convince them I was beyond it and on my way to becoming a better person who made smarter choices. Seeing as I made no choices outside of what I’d wear that day, living my life quiet, without a man, this turned true.
Asheeka had come to visit me twice in the hospital and she was all over coming in the morning to be around when I showered. She was a little concerned about the staying-at-Benny’s part of that scenario, but she got from the tone of my voice that I couldn’t talk about it at that moment and she let it go.
This was one of the reasons I’d called Asheeka. She was very sweet, very generous, very funny, and she could take a hint like no girlfriend I’d ever had. She could read an eye gesture or a hair flip at twenty paces. She was the master and, therefore, didn’t press about me being at Benny’s because she kn
ew I needed her to leave it alone.
She also knew I’d give it all to her in the morning.
After the call, Benny confiscated my phone.
I let him, sat at the table and watched him do the dishes, wishing I wasn’t watching Benny do the dishes because I didn’t need to know he could be gentle, he could take direction, he could make amazing pizza, and he could do the dishes. He was like a man out of a dream except for the fact that I could get up, wrap my arms around him, kiss his neck and then kiss other parts of him, and men you made up in your dreams obviously didn’t afford those opportunities.
As I thought this while watching him do the dishes, close to him finishing up, he decreed, “You get a pass tonight ’cause you had a big day. Tomorrow, your ass is at my side helpin’.”
The idea of doing dishes with Benny was bizarrely alluring.
So I quit thinking about it.
Benny finished the dishes and ordered me upstairs. I went because I was exhausted and that was the only place he’d let me lie down. I didn’t need another altercation with him. I wasn’t doing too good with those. I needed a chance to regroup.
He came upstairs with my bag, dumped it on the floor by the door to the bathroom, and kept issuing orders.
“Get ready for bed, cara.”
He then left.
I went to my bag with more hope than realism and, upon perusal, found my hopes dashed.
The nightgowns and robe Gina got me were there. The panties and the toiletries my friend Jamie went to my apartment to get were there. My purse, with my wallet and phone, wasn’t.
I got ready for bed, then I got in the bed, pulling the covers up to my neck.
Ben joined me ten minutes later.
He produced the remote and asked what I wanted to watch. Committed to the silent treatment and satisfied with my performance thus far, I said nothing.
Ben asked again.
I still said nothing.
He found a game.
I continued to say nothing, just lay there, eyes to the TV, mind wondering how drama found me even when I lived quiet.
It was at that point I remembered I’d heard that Daniel Hart was on a rampage with Cal in his sights.
Joe Callahan, known to all but his woman as Cal (his woman called him Joe), was Benny’s cousin. He was an awesome guy, a good (albeit distant) friend of mine who had been tight with Vinnie Junior and the entire Bianchi family, mostly because they were family but for a lot of other reasons besides.