Chapter 13
ENZO
Dear Dancing Queen,
I’m sorry for your loss. Now that I know the story behind your dance, I feel even more privileged to have witnessed it.
As for the anger you’ve been feeling, I understand completely.
Maybe we should normalize being angry during the holidays. We can suggest a new activity to the mayor: beating an unsuspecting pine tree with a baseball bat, or smashing old ornaments.
One of the things I struggle with most at this time of year is the pressure to be happy—as if you’re failing everyone if you don’t constantly have a smile on your face.
Sometimes, walking down the crowded streets or passing one of the events organized for the holidays, I half expect someone to scream, “Are you not entertained???” But it’s only a week into December, and I’m afraid we have at least two weeks left of forced merriment.
That is not to say I don’t value merriment or smiles, whatever prompts them, for their own sake. But I will always prefer a smile that comes from the heart.
Know that I smile that way whenever I receive a note from you. And if you should ever wish to watch The Golden Girls, you can count on your friend down the hall to watch it with you.
—Your friend, Lobster Stalker
P.S. I got a little drunk last night and did exactly what you advised. I sent the whole brief to my former boss’s boss, letting him know exactly why I left the company. Screw it. Why not? You’re right. It’s worth it if he doesn’t fire those people.
Giovanni would be merciless if he knew I was offering to hang out with the neighbor he’d written off as a middle-aged woman with a cabbage obsession. But there’s something special about the friendship we’re forming. It’s changing me in ways I didn’t expect.
When I sent that brief to Martin, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I was defending myself, but it was more than that. I was trying to salvage something that had been broken.
Honestly, my correspondence with Dancing Queen is one of the only parts of this holiday season that’s made me feel festive, the other being my game with Lucy.
After propping the note against my neighbor’s door—written into a Golden Girls card I’d purchased for the occasion—I head into Hidden Italy.
The walk is cold and brisk, but it feels good. Morning is my favorite time in Hideaway Harbor. So I’m in a good mood when I arrive, but the first thing Giovanni says to me is, “Thank God you’re here. Nonna Francesca is in a state.”
He doesn’t seem annoyed or aggravated. He sounds almost…scared. Like my kid brother who used to ask me when our mother was coming home—and then if he could sleep beside me because he didn’t want to be alone.
“Where is she?” I ask, nodding hello to Nico behind the deli counter. Mornings are slow, so there’s no one else around to help out. No need.
Giovanni leads me back to the office and cracks the door open.
Our nonna is sitting in one of the chairs with her head cradled in her hands, murmuring to herself softly in a mixture of Italian and English.
My grandmother has always had a fiery temper—her anger is as hot as her love, my grandfather used to say—and I’m used to seeing her angry. This, I’m not used to.
Giovanni, who looks like he was up late and isn’t emotionally prepared to do anything but drink coffee, steers me back into the hallway and says in an undertone, “She’s been like that for fifteen minutes. Something your girl said to her.”
“Lucy?” I ask in disbelief.
He shrugs. “Is there another woman you’re obsessed with?”
I sigh, clap him on the back, and head into the office. After entering the room, I shut the door behind me.
“That girl from next door came to see me,” Nonna says after a moment. “She made a mess on our bottom steps. Cookies everywhere. But she said she’d take that awful flyer of you down.”
“She threw cookies at the door?” I ask, confused but not disbelieving. It’s not a huge leap from the behavior we’ve both been engaging in all week.
“She tripped on the icy steps.”
I clench my jaw. “Is she okay?”
My grandmother gives me the kind of look that knifes through flesh and bone. “You seem very concerned about this girl who sent Rachelle away.”
“You hated Rachelle.”
“I would have liked the pleasure of being the one who sent her away. Do you like Eileen’s girl?”
“I’d rather not say. You taught me to be a gentleman,” I hedge.
“We both know you only listen when it suits you.”
“It suits me now.” I crouch beside her chair. “What’s wrong, Nonna?”
“You don’t want to stay,” she says, looking down at her gnarled hands clutched in her lap.
She used to wear lots of silver rings, but she had to take them off several years ago because of arthritis.
The change in her hands hits me hard. She’s getting older, Giovanni told me a few months ago.
You see it more clearly when you’re here and have a front-row seat.
He was right; I’ve seen evidence of it every day.
“You’re leaving me again, just like your father.
Just like Aria. Just like your grandfather. ”
“I won’t be leaving in a body bag unless you put me in one, Nonna. And I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re all in a good place. You know how important the family is to me.”
She looks up at me, tears streaking down her cheeks, and a bolt of pure fear strikes me. I’ve only seen her cry once, at my grandfather’s funeral. It’s like seeing a statue weep—it should be impossible.
“Nonna, what is it?”
“The books weren’t unbalanced because of my eyesight. I’m losing myself, Lorenzo, and I don’t know how to make it stop. My memory comes and goes. Things that happened twenty years ago feel more real than today.”
I run my hand over her hair gently, feeling its texture, so soft and fine, almost like dandelion fluff that might float away on the wind.
I’m not ready for her to leave me. I’m not ready to be the pillar of strength in this family.
For so long it’s been the two of us, working together.
Keeping everyone else happy. Carrying the weight of it.
Even when I was in New York, I’d infused money into the store. I’d helped smooth things over when our father decided to sell his house in Hideaway Harbor rather than rent it to Giovanni, who’d been looking for a new place to live.
Another tear trails down her cheek, and I wipe it away, as if I could extinguish it from existence. “Nonna. We’ll find a doctor to help you.”
She laughed. “No doctor can save me from getting old.”
“We’ll never know if we don’t try. You’re going to live forever, Nonna. Think of all the people you won’t be able to spite if you don’t.”
She smiles. “Thank you, Enzo. Thank you for coming home. Eileen’s girl—”
“Lucy,” I say.
Something knowing gleams in her eyes. “Lucy. She knows about your mother. It brought me back to that day, caro, when you came to me in tears. You were so little but such a man already. So good to your brothers and sister. I know it’s not easy, but this is where you belong. This is where you are needed.”
Anger pulses through me. If there’s one rule the people in this town do follow when it comes to gossip, it’s to never, ever mention my mother to Nonna Francesca.
It always upsets her. Puts her in a state.
Lucy mustn’t have known that. Whoever had filled her in on the town gossip about those poor Cafiero children whose mother abandoned them obviously hadn’t thought to mention it.
The fact that they’re still gossiping about the past chafes.
My grandmother shouldn’t have to be subjected to that shit, and it makes me want to pack up for all of us—Nonna, Giovanni, Nico, and me—and leave this place.
Abandon it without a backward glance, like a hermit crab that’s found a better shell.
But my grandmother doesn’t need my anger.
I smile and smooth her hair again. “Yes, Nonna. You’re right, as always. Let me bring you home for the day. Giovanni and Nico have it covered here.”
She agrees, which is evidence that something really is wrong.
I’ll call her doctor. Make an appointment.
But in my heart, I know she’s right about her health.
She’s slowed down, and at a certain point, a person no longer has the ability to speed back up.
It would take a Christmas miracle to change that.
On the walk to her house, she talks nearly the whole way, telling me more about her interaction with Lucy. How Lucy had said she’d take the flyer down. How the broken cookies were a peace offering, and they did smell good.
When we get to her house, I kiss her forehead and make the impossible promise that everything will be all right.
My heart is raw in my chest by the time I get back to the shop, and when I see that the flyer with my face on it is still taped up by the door of Love at First Sip, I pause beside it. There are a few fresh blemishes drawn onto my face.
Did she do this after telling my grandmother she would take it down?
Doesn’t matter. It’s just a game. I’ll be gone soon.
But I’m no longer sure that’s true. How could I leave Nonna like this? Or my brothers?
I’ve been trying to find some genius solution to save Hidden Italy, but despite that nugget of an idea I had the other day, nothing has come to me other than the obvious—spend less on materials, charge more if the demand will hold, advertise better.
I go inside the shop and take off my coat. Try to sit down and think of a solution. But my mind keeps skipping back to Lucy.
Did she hurt herself when she fell down the steps?
Did she say anything else to my grandmother?
I don’t like that she knows about my mother. I’d prefer it if no one knew. But I can’t take the knowledge back from her.
Still, almost as if I’m in a dream, I find myself getting up and heading for the door. It’s madness. I don’t even know if she’s working today—she can’t possibly work every day—but she was over here earlier, and it’s possible she’s at the Sip now.
Besides, I’m being practical. I need to tell her not to talk to my grandmother about my mother.