In the front hal, Griff hung his scarf and jacket on a peg.
First stop: parlor.
There were voices from the kitchen, but he knew he needed to apologize to Mrs. A. first thing.
Sundays were the days she dressed for visitors, and today was no exception. She was sitting on the window seat in a light-green pantsuit that showed off her
curviness, waiting for him with a soft smile and a stern brow.
“I thought we were gonna have to make Flip file a missing person at his precinct.” She puled him into a hug; she was a foot and a half shorter than Griff, and he had to lean down to her. As he straightened up, she scrutinized him and patted his brawny chest. “You’re too damn skinny, Griffin.”
“Skinny!” He made a face.
“What the hel’s the matter with you?”
Now there was a tough one.
How to answer that?
Griff fidgeted at the affectionate scolding and thrust the red-capped vermouth at her—Carpano Antica
was her favorite and not cheap.
She sniffed her approval, but her unsmiling face held firm. “Thank you. But don’t think you can buy me off with a bottle of booze, mister.” She nodded at the
beige label and set the bottle down on the coffee table.
Muffled shouts came from the kitchen. It sounded like Mr. A. had burned himself or some part of the dinner. Then they could hear Loretta trying to keep her
patience as she calmed him down, folowed by footsteps in the hal.
“Cerelia!” Mrs. A’s husband was headed down the hal.
In some part of his grown-up mind, Griff knew her name was Cerelia, but he never caled her anything but Mrs. Anastagio or Mrs. A.
Mr. Anastagio tipped his balding head into the parlor, wiping his hands on a towel thrown over his shoulder. He was taler than his wife, but not by much, and
built like a furry barrel. He raised one square hand in cursory greeting. “Hi, Griffin.”
“Mr. A.” Griff prayed that dinner was ready and he could avoid the third degree and score points by eating a couple extra servings. Mr. Anastagio hated
having leftovers almost as much as Mrs. A loved them. Dinners were always a tug-of-war between the requirement that everyone eat more than possible and their
duty to take home huge shopping bags filed with enough food for a week.
“We’re having veal for the main. And Loretta’s doing a panna cotta for dessert. Hazelnut!” He leaned forward like a double agent passing secrets. “
Which
is gonna be runny if you ask me.”
“No it is not! Jeez, pop!” Loretta’s voice barked from the hal behind her father. Footsteps came toward the parlor.
Mr. Anastagio whispered at them and smoothed his bushy mustache. “Like soup. I’m stil putting out big spoons. And bibs, maybe.”
“Pop! Enough!” Loretta stomped up behind him wearing a smudged apron over a sexy Sunday dress. “Your asparagus is getting mushy.”
Eyes wide, Mr. A. spun and took off down the hal, grumbling good-naturedly at his daughter and the stove.
For a second, Griff thought he could get away with folowing down the hal and hovering in the kitchen to escape Mrs. A.’s probing eye.
Loretta nixed that as she headed after her father.
“Hi, Griff. Bye, Griff.” Loretta pointed at him with a wooden spoon, sternly. “Stay put until we cal you.”
Mrs. Anastagio tugged him back to the settee, sitting him down beside her. She raised a hand to her black hair, smoothing imaginary strands into place. Her
eyes were scanning his face as if she could read something there. She looked so tiny and determined in her green pantsuit.
Griff felt like an ape next to a canary. “Is Paulie coming too?”
“Nah. The little one has a footbal game and Paulie’s coaching again.” She leaned forward and plucked a stuffed olive from a shalow bowl on the table at
their knees. Popping it into her mouth, she tilted her head as if waiting for him to admit something. “Loretta says you’re pining over some girl.” Her hazel eyes searched his. “She nice?”
Griff swalowed, watching her chew.
“You coulda brought her, you know. I’d love to meet her.”
What was he supposed to say?
Uhhh. No. I think I might be gay, and I’m probably in love with your heterosexual son, who has porked half of Brooklyn, and, oh yeah, he’s doing
online porn now and wants me to join him for the next world-wide-whackfest
.
He felt the blush creeping above the colar of his shirt. His cheeks and ears roasted with embarrassment.
Mrs. Anastagio read plenty into that, naturaly. She popped another olive into her mouth and squinted at him knowingly. “What?! Is she married? Pregnant?
What did you do, Griffin?”
“I didn’t do anything. I swear. And I don’t want to if I can help it.”
Mrs. Anastagio shook her head at him and reached for the bowl again. “That’s too bad. After… everything, some trouble might do you good.”
Pop
. Another olive. She chewed, squinting, trying to
will
the confession out of him with fierce gypsy eyes like Dante’s.
Right then, the front door opened and more Anastagios piled into the house. Flip and his wife, Carol, were shouting back to their kids out on the street to
hurry and be careful getting the pans out of the car.
Flip barely paused in the doorway as they carried trays back to the dining room. “Hey, Ma. Hi, Griff. I gotta….” Then his lanky frame was gone, trailed by
his slender wife and their two little beanpoles. His muffled voice could be heard from the kitchen. “Pop, we brought grape leaves.”
Flip’s given name was Filippo, but he’d punched enough kids on the playground that they let him pick his own nickname. A year younger than Loretta, he’d
gotten married right out of school, and a couple skinny kids had folowed quickly.
“So… me, Loretta and her kid, and Flip and Carol and their two. Plus you and Mr. A.” Griff ticked off the names on his broad fingers. “Nine.”
“And the twins came home from school to visit.”
Through the window, Griff could see Mikey and Mona; younger by several years, the twins were the babies of the bunch and both in colege out in Jersey, at
Rutgers. They were talking to someone down on the sidewalk. Griff stood and went to look through the front windows, knowing exactly what he’d find waiting for him.
Mrs. Anastagio spoke behind him. “Dante too. He was running late.”
“Oh. Twelve.”
Sure enough, there he was: black hair, black eyes, and that hard body coiled like knotted rope under his button-down clothes. Dante had one foot up on the
stoop. He reached into the pocket of his cords and puled out cash, tucking it into Mona’s pocket, while Mikey shook his head.
Griff closed his eyes and shook what he was imagining out of his head.
Mrs. Anastagio stood as wel and moved toward the halway that led to the dining room. At the door she paused. “Griffin. Listen to me now. You’re alone
too much. You got the habit from that father of yours. But I don’t want you hiding when you have crappy days. Promise?”
“Sure.” Griff nodded, and when she didn’t look like she believed him, he nodded again more decisively, holding up his hands like an insurance salesman.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s the rule. Any crappy days, you gotta spend ’em with someone. That girl or us or the firehouse or Dante. Whoever.” Her eyes driled into his as she
crossed the carpet toward him. “Someone who gives a damn, mister. I know how you get if you start stewing on your own. Enough! Yeah?”
Griff turned away from the window, feeling like a piece of shit.
What would she say if she knew?
Down in the street behind him, he could hear Dante being funny about something, teling a story to make Mikey laugh and make Mona feel less awkward about taking money Dante couldn’t afford to give.
“You’re a good man, Griffin Muir.” She patted his forearm. Her tiny hands were stronger than they looked. “No one deserves to be punished for loving with
an open heart.”
Open heart. Yeah, right.
Griff closed his eyes like his head hurt.
One of Flip’s kids trotted to the front door as soon as the bel rang.
Ding dong
. He opened the door for his uncle.
“I’m shhhhtarving!” Dante’s voice filed the first floor like a cartoon lion. Flip’s son tagged his stomach and sprinted, giggling, back toward the kitchen.
Chase! Dante saluted his mother and Griff through the parlor archway and then stalked after his nephew.
Mrs. Anastagio stood up and Griff did the same. As always, he felt like a giant escorting a fairy princess—a duchess in a pantsuit. He patted her hand and
she squeezed his bicep.
She took his arm. “Let’s get in there before they burn down my kitchen.”
DINNER was nuts, as usual, but comfortable nuts, affectionate nuts. Classic Anastagio from antipasto to coffee after. And the hazelnut panna cotta was fine and firm despite Mr. A.’s dire predictions.
Griff had undone the button on his cords and tucked a comfortable hand into the waist. He had forgotten how much he loved being here with the whole
family. Their food and warmth and craziness always restored him, plugged the chinks in his armor so he could go out and fight dragons.
This was what dinner was supposed to be. At the end, Dante always made a plate for him to take home for his dad, who often forgot to eat and lived out of
vending machines when he remembered; secretly, Griff always hoped that a little spark of the Anastagios’ home would travel under the foil, and the warmth would worm its way into his father. He wasn’t holding his breath, but he’d stil take the plate.
Their dining room was almost the width of the brownstone, half-paneled under an original tin ceiling and painted a dul salmon pink; the family had been
gathering in here for over three generations. The sideboard had come al the way from Sicily a century ago. The mismatched chairs and massive round table had
been bought at a 1960s fire sale in the Bronx when Mrs. A’s parents were first married. Seats for everyone and guests besides. Every holiday and birthday, Mr.
Anastagio made noises about buying a new matching dining room set for his wife, but the kids had al grown up with the hodgepodge, so they invariably talked him out of it.
Now dessert was winding down. Everybody was starting to push back from their plates, napkins down, belies ful. The sun had finaly set, and Loretta and
Flip would need to be getting their kids to bed soon. Mona was texting and Mrs. Anastagio was talking to Mikey about some band he’d seen at school.
Griff sat back, stuffed and happy; he’d needed this more than he’d realized. He shot a smile at his best friend and saw trouble stirring there, saw the gears of mischief turning. Dante loved to stir the pot when everyone got too comfortable… and now he was up to something.
Dante cocked his head. “Pop, tel Griff he needs to come work with me next week.”
What. The. Fuck?
Griff stared at Dante in horror. Was he actualy going to talk about his new porno career at Sunday dinner?
Loretta roled her eyes. “Griff doesn’t need another job. And he certainly doesn’t need to cover your lazy ass.”
“Language!” Flip had always been a stickler about that kind of stuff, even as a kid, and now with kids of his own he was a profanity Nazi. It didn’t matter that they were al adults and his kids had been in the parlor for ten minutes playing with their mom and Nicole. Flip and Loretta hadn’t gotten along from the day he came home from the hospital.
Halfway through taking a sip of wine, Mrs. A. shot them both a warning look. Sunday dinner was neutral ground.
Mr. Anastagio turned to Griff. “He doing something crooked?”
Dante pressed his luck. “Nah. It’s just a day thing, super easy and the money is great, but this mook feels guilty.”
“Guilty about what? Getting paid?” Mona was square in her colege cynic phase; frustration with the world creased her tan brow over her glasses.
Griff’s voice was low and controled; his face felt scorched. “I’m not guilty. Enough! Leave it.”
“Why are you blushing? Why is he blushing?” Flip looked baffled.
Mrs. Anastagio looked between them, her spoon of panna cotta in midair. “Whatsamatter, Griffin? Dante are you taking advantage—?”
“Just moving equipment out on Avenue X. Heavy equipment.” Dante shot Griff a twinkling glance and licked his lips like they were dry, which they were not.
Dante kept going. “G thinks I’m being a hothead.”
Loretta patted her brother’s arm with mock concern. “You are a hothead.”
“Jesus, Dante.” Griff dropped his fork with a clatter. He wanted to commit murder.
Instantly bored, Mona puled out her cel and stood up. “I gotta cal my roommate.” She was on the phone roling her eyes before she exited to the kitchen.
Dante wouldn’t let up. “Sweaty work, but it’s a tight space, so I need someone I can count on not to cramp my style. Customer is a Russian guy who likes to
watch every step, but it’s easy money.”
“No such thing.” Loretta squinted her suspicions at her brother, smoothing the tablecloth under her hands.
Mrs. A. squinted at the air between Griff and Dante. She knew that something else was going on, but she kept her peace.
Mikey looked peeved. “Maybe I could help you out, man. Huh? I need cash for school. I’m not a kid—”
Ack!
Griff choked and coughed, turning scarlet. He reached for his water to clear his throat. Flip pounded his back, looking confused.
Dante was quick. “Nah, squirt. I need a giant on this gig. And Griff’s the only giant in the family. I need him there or there’s no deal. C’mon, Pop. Tel him it’s okay.”
Mr. Anastagio leaned back in his chair, hands over his square bely. “That’s for you two to work out. Griff has more sense than you, so if he’s objecting, I
bet there’s a good reason.” He turned to Griff and asked point blank, “You don’t like this Russian?”
Griff couldn’t make a scene, but he knew that the longer the family spiraled around the bogus moving job, the more risks Dante would take talking about it.
At times, Dante seemed to flirt with getting caught. Maybe he loved operatic hysteria like Loretta, except he liked to watch it.