6. Georgia
6
GEORGIA
“ H ey, did you finish those alterations over the weekend?” Eddie was my manager at the dressmaking shop I worked at, and a sweetheart.
I nodded and pointed to the pile at the end of my desk.
He blew out a long breath. “Thank God. There’s some actress demanding that we got her dates wrong, and she needs it today.”
“It’s done. I hope she doesn’t need anything further, though, and that I got it right,” I worried.
Eddie patted my shoulder. “You always nail it, don’t worry.”
He answered his furiously ringing cell and wandered away. I sat back and stretched this way and that, feeling my spine decompress. God, I felt old lately. I knew I wasn’t old, not really, but I felt it.
I reached for the moisturizer I kept on my desk. My hands were sore, my knuckles swollen from hours and hours of careful needlework. I’d have arthritis in them before I hit thirty-five, I was sure of it. Maybe I already had it. I wouldn’t know. Me and health insurance had parted ways many years ago.
I looked up at the small slit of a window that ran along the top of one side of the dressmaking studio. Upstairs was a luxurious showroom, offering high-end tailoring of the most expensive designer clothes money could buy. That’s where we did the fittings. The work part, grueling hours spent hunched over a desk, was down in the basement. Don’t get me wrong, it was clean and safe, and brightly lit. There were far worse places to work, and I was well aware of that… but it would be nice to see the sun now and again.
“Georgia!” Eddie called, hurrying back over to me. “Update on the dress for the actress. We need to take it to her. You want to go? I could call a courier or…”
I couldn’t have shot up faster. “Or I could go for a walk and get some fresh air on the clock?”
Eddie smiled. “Enjoy it. Take your lunch while you’re over there. She’s at some hotel charity benefit, and there’s always free food up for grabs. Just make sure to get the dress taken up to her suite for her later. I’ll send her assistant’s number to you in case you have trouble.”
Impulsively, I leaned toward Eddie and hugged him. “Thanks.”
He chuckled and waved me off. “Have fun.”
I left the building and spilled out into the early afternoon daylight with relief. The air was as fresh as LA ever got, and best of all, I had a little time to myself while I ran my errand. There was something I had to do.
As soon as I was away from the building, I pulled out the calling card I’d bought this morning, and painstakingly typed in the information, before calling Italy. The phone rang briefly, and then someone answered. I spoke haltingly, aware that this was my first time speaking proper Italian out loud in a while. Since Tommaso died…
She put me on hold, and before I knew it, a deep, male voice greeted me.
“Mrs. Conti, thank you for returning my call.”
“No problem. You had information about my father?” I perched on the edge of a stone fountain outside the office building.
“Yes, I’m not sure if you know, but he has been arrested.”
“What?” The shock radiated through me. “What for?”
“The charges are pending, but the initial warrant cited bribery and corruption. The new director in charge at the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia is very insistent in rooting out the criminal infrastructure that has allowed the Mafia to run unchecked in Southern Italy.”
The lawyer’s tone didn’t make it clear whether he approved of the DIA’s actions or not.
“My father doesn’t work for the Mafia,” I said.
The lawyer was silent for a while. “The investigation will reveal more information.”
“He doesn’t! Salvatore De Sanctis was his childhood friend, that’s all… The police are just confusing?—”
“Mrs. Conti. I am not a jury; you don’t need to convince me of anything. Your father wanted you to be informed, and I am doing so. I also believe you should know that your father might choose to cooperate with the law in the prosecution of some of the people he allegedly worked with. That could pose a significant threat to your family.”
“My family? I’m the only other Bellisario…” I pointed out.
“Exactly. I suggest you think on that and take the necessary precautions. I will call you again to update you with any progress in his case.”
“Wait, what am I supposed to?—”
The call cut off, and an electronic voice informed me that I had used all my credits.
After the call ended, I sat as long as I could afford to, trying to get my head around my new reality. My dad had been arrested. The self-proclaimed moral compass of Castel Amaro, arrested for bribes and corruption. I felt sick. Sure, I knew my father had his faults, but I’d never thought of him in the same category as the De Sanctis family.
Had I been wrong?
When I couldn’t afford to linger any longer, I got up and made my way onto the bus, slinging the dress over my shoulder. I rode downtown with the masses, pressed tight in the midday rush. I loved to people-watch on the bus. I loved to look at the ladies who wore beautiful heels and bright dresses. Gorgeous colors and patterns, innovative and fresh fashion. It was still my passion, but unfortunately, not my reality. I couldn’t help catching my reflection in the glass doors and reminding myself how far I was from a chic existence. I wore comfy mom jeans and sneakers, layers of old T-shirts, and a light sweater on top to adjust to whatever temperature the sewing room would be on any given day. My hair was always braided or kept in a ponytail. Sensible and practical. I had no jewelry, and my hands were calloused, dry, and painful.
The time in my life to think about pretty fabrics and luxury garments for myself was long behind me.
There was a crawling sensation on my neck that had me glancing around. Paranoia crept over me. I was the last Bellisario… and my father had crossed the wrong people. Would I really be a target?
I got off the bus hurriedly, still feeling those silent eyes on me. Was I being followed? I kept twisting around to look, but everyone was minding their own business, talking to friends or keeping their eyes glued to their phones.
After endless minutes of walking, I arrived at the hotel where I was to drop the dress off. My stomach growled as I made my way into the foyer and over to the wall of elevators. The assistant had already given me the room number. I had to leave the gown with the actress’s glam team, and then I could go and see if there was any food left over from the function.
I made the handoff on the penthouse floor, enjoying the luxury of the hotel.
It had been a very long time since there had been any kind of luxury in my life. On the way out, I grabbed a few soggy sandwiches and stepped back out onto the busy sidewalk.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I was surprised to see the lawyer’s number flash across the screen.
“Hello?” I answered around a mouthful of chicken salad.
“Mrs. Conti, further to our previous conversation, I’m afraid I forgot to pass on an important piece of information. Your father has sent something to you. Have you received it?”
“What? No! Where did he send it?” I immediately worried.
The lawyer read out my old address. I hadn’t lived there in years. I’d stopped being able to afford it long ago.
Shit.
“Did you get it?”
“No, not yet. I’ll see if I can get it,” I said.
The lawyer was quiet a beat, then spoke. “It’s a very important package. I’d recommend retrieving it as soon as possible.”
“Right, I know,” I muttered, distracted as I put my phone on speaker and started trying to look up post offices around my old zip code.
“No, I don’t think you do. It is very important, Mrs. Conti. It could be the difference between life or death for a man like your father.”
I paused, something about the lawyer’s careful wording catching my attention.
“A man like my father?” I repeated.
“A man with many enemies,” the lawyer clarified. “Please call me when you have it. I need to pass on that it is safe.”
He hung up, and I looked up a bus that would take me to my old neighborhood. Great, my father had sent me something so important, I needed to waste my lunch hour tracking it down. I guessed it wasn’t his fault that I had moved and not given him my new address, but still, it was annoying.
I worked steadily through the afternoon and into the early evening. I always took on a lot of commissions and extra jobs. It helped pay off Howel and his never-ending payment plan. I supposed I should be glad he didn’t just kill me, but then again, what good would that do? You couldn’t get money from a corpse, and there was no one to go to after me. The real danger was that he’d hurt me to teach me a lesson and scare me into paying faster.
It’s only a matter of time.
The thought should have scared me more than it did. But the truth was that I was pretty numb. I moved through my days in a haze, shell-shocked in the aftermath of my life. What should have been the happiest time had turned out to be the most painful.
What was there to look forward to?
I wasn’t sure what the answer to that was, but it wasn’t in my nature to give up.
I was a stubborn bitch until the bitter end. I wasn’t built to tap out.
I’d go down swinging, every time.
I commuted home in a dream, and only realized I’d been on autopilot for nearly the entire journey when I found myself walking down my street. It wasn’t too late in the evening, and traffic was still moving sluggishly down the main road. People were out and about, going to dinner or meeting friends. A family with a baby in a carrier were just getting out of a car. I watched them as they walked up to a much nicer building than mine. Good. I wouldn’t wish my building on anyone, especially not a new family with a little baby to take care of.
I was looking for my keys when I was struck again by the strange sensation that someone was watching me. An itch between my shoulder blades. I glanced along the street. Shadows were gathering in the corners.
I couldn’t see anyone, but the feeling persisted.
I headed upstairs and fought with the door for a few seconds prior to entering my apartment.
I let my heavy bags down with a sigh of relief and glugged some water from the bottle in the fridge. Damn, I was low on groceries.
I only had noodles. Tommaso had abhorred them and scoffed at the thought that such a freeze-dried concoction could be related in any way to real pasta. I’d eaten them more in the year since he’d passed than in all the years that had come before.
Just the thought of my late husband sent my mind spiraling back to Castel Amaro, and I remembered the package that I’d tried to pick up from the post office. Apparently, since no one had been at my old address to receive the package my father sent, it had been taken to a sorting center. The hours were insanely inconvenient, so I hadn’t managed to pick it up today. I’d have to go again.
I turned to the sink and ran water to boil for noodles. God bless the person who’d invented instant ramen. As an Italian, it was a very specific kind of betrayal to my heritage to live on dehydrated noodles, but there was nothing I could do about that right now. Maybe one day.
“Beneath the frozen river, currents still run.”
Even in my memory, his deep voice had me shivering when I remembered how it had stroked across the words.
Absentmindedly, I grabbed the pot handle, forgetting it was hot, and gasped. I dropped it. Scalding water spilled out and hit me in droplets of fire.
I jumped back, letting out a yelp. I stared at the mess of the kitchen, pot sideways on the floor, water everywhere, and started to laugh.
Maybe I was an eternal optimist, and I really did believe that deep down, one day, things would change…
Or maybe I was just losing my mind.