Chapter 5 #3
“Why is a Conti in our office?” I ask, keeping my voice level because otherwise it might do something else. “Why are you talking to a Conti in Nonna’s office in Nonna’s restaurant?”
Mama flinches. I can’t help it if my words are harsh.
Her jaw works once. “Because he’s owed an answer.”
My mouth goes dry. “We owe the Contis money?” I say it too fast. “Is that it? We owe them?”
“Bianca—”
“Mama.” The word lands sharp. “Do we?”
She presses two fingers to the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes. “Yes.”
It feels like someone dropped a pot lid in my chest. “How much?”
“I’m not talking numbers with you tonight.”
“Why not?” I spread my hands. “Because you were going to hide it? Pretend he was selling us a vacuum?”
“I’m not hiding it,” she says, heat clipping the words. “But you were never supposed to know.”
My breath shoots out in one painful huff at those words. “I was never supposed to know? You were never going to tell me? How could you keep something like that from me?”
Her gaze snaps up. “Don’t be dramatic.”
My eyes widen. “Dramatic?” I can’t help the edge in my voice as it rises higher and higher. “I’m being dramatic? It’s dramatic to be upset that my mother would keep something like this from me? Me—the person who now owns this restaurant and all the debts that may come with it?
“And how about Mr. Caruso?” My voice is closing in on shrill now. “He said the house is clear, the restaurant has the bank credit line. No mortgage. No debt.”
“There isn’t,” she says. “On the books.”
I laugh once, no humor in it. “So he wasn’t lying, he was just… not talking about this kind of debt.”
“He doesn’t know,” she says.
“Nonna has known him for decades. How could she keep something like that from him? He could’ve help—”
“She didn’t know,” Mama snapped. “And keep your voice down, Bianca. No one else knows either.”
My head jerks like someone pulled a string. “Nonna didn’t know?”
“No.” Her eyes shine, and she blinks hard. “If you take nothing else, take that. I won’t have you think poorly of her because of me. My mistakes.”
“Okay,” I say, even though everything in me is braced for the rest.
“After she stepped back and I took over,” she says, watching a point on the desk instead of me, “everything started falling apart. We had a bad winter. The oven died twice in two months. The city dug up the street, and our lunch business dropped to half for three months because nobody could park. The grease trap needed replacing, and the landlord said it was ours to handle. Insurance went up. We were bleeding. I paid payroll and the tax man and the fish guy and put off everything else I could put off.”
“What about the credit with the bank?” I ask, my voice small. The guilt of being away through all of this eats at me the more she says.
“I needed more than a ‘modest line of credit,’ Bibi. I went to the bank, and they smiled while telling me no. Three times. I went to another. No. I came here and stood in the dining room and looked at your grandmother, and I couldn’t ask her to sign her name to more worry.
I couldn’t tell her the restaurant was failing.
So I went where people go when the banks say no. ”
“The Contis,” I say.
She nods once.
“How long?”
“A while.” She swallows. “Since the year of the hurricane… the week the tourist season got cut in half and the walk-in died. I thought I could float it. We had a good summer after. Then we lost two cooks. Then the sewer backed up, and you can’t serve zuppa di pesce when the city’s digging a trench outside your door, and the smell of sewage is mixing with the aroma of food.
I borrowed again. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. ”
“How is it like this?” I ask. “Terms?”
Her mouth tightens. “Enough. Manageable at first. Weekly.”
“Interest?”
She hesitates just enough. “Yes.”
My skin prickles. “And you kept this from Nonna.”
“I did.” Her chin tips up—defiant and guilty at once.
“She would’ve sold the chairs. She would’ve given them the wedding china.
She would’ve given them the house, the restaurant.
It would’ve killed her. Her heart was already working too hard.
I wasn’t going to put this on her chest. She deserved to retire in peace. ”
“And you kept it from me.”
“You were in Florence,” she says. “You were making something of yourself. What was I going to do, call and say, ‘Come home and drown with me?’ You would have.”
“I would have come home,” I say, throat tight. “I should have come home.”
“No.” Her voice sharpens. “You should have done exactly what you did. You left and did it right. I didn’t want you to waste your young years in a kitchen that’s falling apart around you. I wanted you to work in your dream kitchen. The one in Italy under a chef with a reputation. You deserved that.”
“I could have helped.”
“You help when you’re here. Then you leave again because that’s where you belong. That was the deal.”
“The deal where you don’t tell me when you sign us to a mob loan?”
Her eyes flash. “Watch your mouth.”
“Mine? He just walked out of here,” I say, jabbing a finger toward the hall. “You want me to pretend I didn’t hear the words ‘debt’ and ‘restaurant’ come out of his mouth like we’re talking about a late credit card payment? He’s not the bank, Ma. He’s not going to report you to the credit bureau.”
She takes the hit, breathes in slow like she’s counting. When she lets it out, it shakes. “You inherited a restaurant, not this,” she says. “This is mine.”
“It’s attached,” I say. “If it’s the restaurant, it’s mine now. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“I’m telling you I’m paying it,” she says. “I’ve been paying it. Every week. I will keep paying it until it’s gone.”
“With what?” I ask. “We don’t have a tree that grows cash.”
“With my hands,” she says. “With the food. With the room. With the tips I don’t take. With the bonus your grandmother left me. With every extra party I said yes to when I wanted to sleep.” She leans forward. “Don’t you dare look at me like I don’t know what this costs.”
“So, now what? You’re going to give them all the money that Nonna left you? Is that it? Will that cover it?”
Her eyes go wet all at once. She covers them with a hand. “Don’t say it like that.”
“It’s not, is it? How much, Ma?” I whisper, because if I don’t lower my voice, I might shout.
She doesn’t answer.
“What do they want?” I ask finally. “Tonight. Why now?”
“I don’t know yet,” she says, voice back to flat. “He wants to talk. We set it up for tomorrow morning.”
“At 8:00,” I say absentmindedly.
“Yes, at 8:00,” she says. “I just want it done.”
“You think he’ll—what? Be kind because Nonna passed?” My laugh is short. “They’re not exactly what I’d call kind people.”
“He’s been…” She searches for a word and comes up with one I hate: “Fair.”
“Fair,” I repeat, disbelieving. “What does fair mean, Mama? It means he hasn’t broken a bone or lit the restaurant on fire?”
“It means I offered terms, he set terms, we stuck to terms,” she says. “He has not humiliated me. He has never put on a show in my restaurant. He came tonight through the back like a person who knows how it works.”
“Because he owns half the city,” I snap.
“Because he understands food,” she shoots back roughly. “Don’t look at me like I’m praising a saint. I’m stating facts. He eats here. His men eat here. He made sure I could keep feeding them. That’s the trade.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, try to push my headache back into my skull. “How much is left?”
She shakes her head. “Not now.”
“If I own this, I need to know.”
“You own it on paper. I’m the one in here every day,” she says, and the line lands in my heart like a knife.
“I didn’t ask for that,” I say, small.
“I didn’t either,” she says, smaller. The words sit there, stupid and true.
We stare at each other. My mother looks like she did when I broke the blue plate at thirteen and lied about it.
My stomach turns. “Is that why you wanted the restaurant to be yours? In the will?”
She looks away. “I wanted it clean for you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I didn’t want you to have to sit across from a Conti at 8:00 a.m.,” she says, voice flat again. “I didn’t want you to have to be brave here.”
I grip the arms of the chair. “You thought if you got the restaurant, you could keep this from me. Keep paying until it's gone. Then one day you’d say, ‘Surprise, I saved you.’”
“Yes.”
“Do you hear how that sounds?” I ask. “Do you hear how that makes me feel? Like a child. Like you don’t think I can stand in a room with adults.”
She flinches again, softer this time. “I didn’t say you couldn’t stand. I said you shouldn’t have to.”
“But I do,” I say. “Because of a key I didn’t ask for and a letter that told me to take a chance.”
Her eyes shine again. “What did you want me to do, Bianca? Sit your nonna down at the table and say, ‘Mama, I failed at being you?’”
“You didn’t fail,” I snap. “You kept a roof on and a stove lit.”
“I failed at being her,” she says, and the quiet words kill me. “She didn’t need anybody. Ever. She made men cry with a look. I barely had the restaurant for a year, and I needed help. I went to the place where help always comes with a warning label.”
I push my fingers into my hair and pull once, just to feel something sharp that isn’t words. “So now what?”
“Now I meet him at 8:00,” she says. “We talk about a plan. I keep paying. You go back to Florence and run your menu and live your life and let me finish what I started.”
The last sentence hits me harder than the rest. “You still think I’m leaving.”
“You told me you were,” she says. “You told her,” she adds, tipping her chin to the ceiling like Nonna’s upstairs somewhere. “You said it at the church with your eyes. You’re here for the funeral. Then you go.”
The key in my pocket feels like a rock. “I said I was here for the funeral because I thought that was all there was. Then Angelo read a will.” I swallow. “This is not a weekend job, Mama.”
“I know,” she says. “That’s why the will is stupid.”
“Don’t,” I say.
She looks ashamed immediately. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean… I know why she did it. She wanted you to have a choice. I wanted to take the bad part off the table.” She scrubs a hand over her face. “Look at me. I’m getting emotional because I’m tired and you’re pushing.”
“I’m pushing,” I echo, bitter. “Because a Conti just climbed our stairs.”
“He’s climbed them before,” she says, and then catches herself. “Not often,” she adds, softer. “He doesn’t like to be seen. He’s quiet.”
“He’s… nothing like I expected,” I say before I can stop it.
Her eyes flick to me, sharp. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Louder.” It sounds stupid when I hear it. I’m not about to say the other part out loud—the part where my body noticed him before my mind did. “He was respectful,” I add.
“He always has been,” she says, and the words make something uneasy turn in my stomach.
“I hate this,” I say, because I need to plant one true thing. “I hate all of it.”
“I know,” she says. “Me too.”
“I’m coming tomorrow morning,” I say.
“No,” she says, immediately. “You’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“This is mine.”
“It’s ours,” I counter. “On paper, in practice, in blood. You don’t get to cut me out.”
“You don’t need to sit across from that man.”
“I already sat across from him,” I say. “Well, through a door. That’s not the same, but it’s close enough to know I won’t faint.”
She shakes her head. “You’ll make it worse.”
“How?”
“You’ll ask questions he doesn’t want to answer. You’ll push. You’ll light a match.”
“Or I’ll hear what I need to hear,” I say.
“I am not a child,” she snaps.
“Neither am I,” I snap back.
“It’s not numbers I’m worried about,” she says. “It’s men like him who like to test people.”
“You said he was fair,” I say.
“So far,” she counters.
“Tomorrow, I will be here. I will sit in that chair and listen. I won’t play lawyer. I’ll keep my mouth shut unless you want it open.”
She looks at me like that’s the funniest promise I’ve ever made. “Bibi, you don’t know how to keep your mouth shut.”
“I do when it counts.”
“Name one time.”
“Tomorrow,” I say.
She rubs her forehead again, buys time. “He might not say yes to you being in the room.”
“My name is on the restaurant now,” I say. “He doesn’t have a choice.”
“What if he says something you don’t want to hear?” she asks.
“I’ve already heard things I don’t want to hear,” I say. “They didn’t kill me.”
“What if he looks at you like—”
“Like I don’t belong?” I shrug. “He can look. I’ll still be there.”
She huffs, a tired, almost-laugh. “You got that from your grandmother.”
“Probably,” I say.
She studies me for a long beat, then nods once, like it hurts. “8:00,” she says. “You sit. You don’t speak unless I ask you to.”
“Okay.”
She unlocks the door, and we step into the hall. The sound from downstairs rushes up—laughter, the printer, a pan hitting metal. At the top of the stairs, she squeezes my wrist, quickly. “Eat something,” she says, because she doesn’t know what else to give me tonight.
“I will.”
We go down. The heat and noise meet us. The kitchen door swings into my hip. Zia catches my eye, reads my face, and points me to a chair. My mother slides back to the pass, tastes the red, sets the spoon in the groove, and calls, “Two bolognese, one cacio—fire.”