CHAPTER ONE
TWO YEARS LATER
“That’s what I call a classy lady.”
Nikki Sinatra looked at the waitress standing at her table. “Excuse me?”
“That black lady up front.” The waitress was motioning toward the entrance.
When Nikki looked and saw that she meant Roz, who was Nikki’s stepmother-in-law, she smiled.
“That’s what I call classy,” the waitress said again.
“Every time she come up in here she be all decked-down like she got it going on like that. Every single time. She make us black folks proud. We be talking about her all down in the kitchen and shit. We be just gossiping about that lady,” she added with a grin.
“But between you and me and the dirt outside, there’s a reason for it.
From what I heard, she’s fooling around with THE Mick Sinatra. ”
Fooling around with him? Didn’t this child know that Roz was married to him? Nikki decided to play with it. “Mick Sinartra? Who’s that?”
The waitress looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“You never heard of Mick the Tick?” Then the waitress lowered her voice.
“Between you and me and the dirt outside, he claims he’s a businessman.
But don’t nobody in Philly believe that.
They say he’s a big-time mob boss. The biggest they get.
Like John Gotti and shit. The boss of all bosses is what they call it. ”
“Oh I see.” Nikki was amazed that that noisy waitress knew so much about that life but had no idea that Mick was not only her father-in-law, but she was the underboss of his entire syndicate. The first black woman ever in that role. And Teddy, Nikki’s husband, was the boss!
But the waitress kept gabbing. “And know what else I heard?”
Nikki wanted the full tea. “What else girl?”
“Every stitch of clothing that lady wears, he has it shipped in from Paris. Every single stitch. He wants his woman to represent him right. Although I also heard she’s not his only woman. But that’s another story.”
A sadness came over Nikki. Because that was Mick’s reputation too. Although she wasn’t at all sure if she believed it. “I see,” she said.
“I ain’t mad at her though,” the waitress kept talking.
“I say if you gonna go for a white boy, get you a rich one. Nobody don’t wanna see no high-class sister like her with no trailer park trash or no Bucky the Beaver.
Nobody wanna see that! Get yo’ ass the richest one they got, is what I say.
And I hear her man is good looking too?”
Nikki leaned back. “Good looking? Really?”
“Oh yes ma’am! He’s got this sleepy eye that just make a woman wanna do whatever she got to do to get next to him.
He ain’t no ordinary mobster. He’s gorgeous for real real.
When somebody showed me his picture online, I had to snap my fingers for that sister.
I said you go girl. That’s how you do that shit. ”
Nikki couldn’t help it. She laughed. “That’s how you do it, hun?”
“That’s how you do that shit,” the waitress said again with a grin. “But anywho, my manager’s giving me the side eye so I better get back on track. Are you ready to place your food order, ma’am?”
“Ah, give me a few minutes, will you? My friend just walked in.”
“Sure thing,” the waitress said without putting two and two together, closed her pad, and left the table.
And Nikki, still amused, looked at Roz as she waited in the short line at the entrance for the ma?tre d to seat her.
And that waitress was spot on. Because Roz did stand out as pure elegance in her designer clothes that always highlighted her great figure and enhanced her beautiful, high-cheek-boned face.
But from the day Nikki met her, that was always Roz. She was always well put together.
And she was always late. That was Roz too.
Nikki glanced at her watch again. But she knew not to complain because she knew Roz was a busy woman.
Not only did she own a successful talent agency, but she still acted in a few Broadway productions herself.
She’d always been known to be tardy for the party.
But it was highly unusual for Roz to be this tardy.
Nikki, who was considered a very patient person by Sinatra standards, almost left that restaurant nearly half an hour ago.
And she was quick to let Roz know it too. “Ma, you are so late. I almost walked right on out that door,” Nikki said with a grin as Roz walked up to her table.
“I was here,” Roz said as she hugged Nikki’s neck and then sat down. “I wasn’t late. I was stuck in my car talking with a producer who wants to fire one of my clients.”
“What happened?”
“She’s always getting into it with the music director as if she knows more than he does.”
Nikki pointed her finger to the dark side of her hand to confirm the race of the actress in question.
“You know it, girl,” Roz said with a nod.
“We always got to have more lip and more attitude than anybody in the production. That sister is a good actress, don’t get me wrong.
She’s got great upside. But her ass only been in one hit Broadway musical and already she’s acting like she’s the expert?
I told her Marvin has directed fifty Broadway shows.
Fifty. But let her tell it he don’t know what he’s doing.
It’s a headache running that agency. A head-ache! ”
“What did the producer say?”
“She’s out. I’ve known Harvey for twenty years. One of the best producers around. And he’s cut me plenty slack, believe that. But even I couldn’t change his mind. She’s out.”
“If she gets a reputation as a problem, she’s in trouble.”
“Don’t I know it,” Roz said with as a waiter came to their table and asked what he could get for Roz to drink. Nikki already had her drink. “Just a diet Pepsi for me, thanks,” Roz said to the waiter. He left to go get her order.
But Nikki was surprised. “Diet? You?”
“Don’t trip! I put on a few pounds.”
“I don’t see it.”
“But I do.”
“Mick complaining?”
“Hell no. He wouldn’t mind if I was your size.”
Although Roz was a curvaceous woman in her own right, Nikki was a full-figured gal in every way. She was curvaceous-plus. “I’m thinking about taking that Wegovy pill myself,” Nikki said. “Men may like these big asses and big hips, but I’m the one who has to carry them around with her.”
Roz looked at her. “Wegovy? For real?”
“Oh yeah. I been thinking long and hard about it. I don’t wanna do the shots though, but I’m thinking about taking that pill.”
“How does Teddy feel about it?”
“He’s against it. He claims to like me just the way I am.”
“Mick loves you just the way you are too,” Roz said, and she and Nikki glanced at each other.
It was no secret in the family that Mick favored Nikki above most everybody else and viewed her as uniquely capable.
That was how he allowed her to become the first female and only black underboss in his syndicate’s long history.
But some in the family believed Mick’s interest in Nikki held a sexual component as well.
But Nikki and Roz both knew better than that.
“Are you going?” Nikki asked her. “You still haven’t given me a definitive answer.”
“That’s because I haven’t had a chance to talk to Mick yet. He’s been out of town.”
“But I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon, Roz.
I wanna spend a full week in New Orleans for the Essence Festival.
Not just a few days like I usually do. But the full week.
And I’m driving all those nineteen hours too?
Girl you’re missing out. I’m gonna have the Corvette with the top down too? You’re missing out.”
“Teddy know you’re going to be putting all those miles on his ‘Vet?”
“Child, Teddy don’t care about that corvette like he used to.
He be driving that old Hellcat all the time.
Besides, he’s got too much going on to be worrying about mileage.
And our baby girl is still in Florida with Gloria and will be for a few more weeks as well?
I’ll drive to Essence, spend a week there, and then drive back before either one of them misses me. ”
“What’s he working on that’s got him so busy?” Roz asked.
“Container issues girl. It’s dysfunction on top of dysfunction. It’s so much craziness going on in some of our port of calls that Teddy had to take it over from me.”
Roz shook his head. “I’m surprised Mick didn’t take it from Teddy. But at least he’s giving Teddy room to be the boss he is.”
“He’s trying anyway,” Nikki said with a smile. “But back to Essence.”
“Don’t worry,” Roz said as the waiter returned with her Pepsi, and then left. “I’ll talk to Mick tonight. He’s due back in town tonight. I’ll let you know my decision right after I talk to him.”
“Sounds good. But whether you go or not, I’m going,” Nikki said with a grin. “I’m looking forward to a nice, cross-country drive. It’s been a minute since I’ve been able to go somewhere on my own. It’s going to feel so good.”
Roz knew it too. She needed that kind of freedom break herself! But convincing Mick she could travel without him or his goons close behind was another conversation altogether.
“Cheers,” Nikk said as she lifted up her glass of wine, “to our girls’ trip.”
Roz lifted up her Pepsi too, even though, given Mick’s possessiveness, there was little guarantee that she’d be on that trip at all.