18. Keith
KEITH
GETTING TO KNOW THE IN-LAWS. ALL OF THE IN-LAWS
I checked my phone for what had to be the twelfth time after I parked in front of Olivia’s house. Sure enough, the special delivery I’d arranged was still coming on time, and I hadn’t received any last-minute emails or texts declaring some sort of disaster.
Practically speaking, I knew chances of that happening were slim, but my anxiety wouldn’t let me relax.
Although life had become truly a bit insane since I proposed, I had made sure to carve away some time every weeknight to make sure I had a gift that would really show how eager I was to become a part of the Rizoli family.
I hadn’t told Olivia what I was planning. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but because it was fun to have a harmless little secret, and I didn’t want to carve myself into a corner if something went wrong.
Thankfully, despite some hiccups with trying to book a photographer, the whole gift-making process went smoothly.
“Hellohiyou’rethebighumanmanright?”
I let out a rather unmasculine yelp and nearly burst through the roof of my car at the rush of words beside me. However, when my heart returned to a normal rate, I looked out my window to see one of Olivia’s younger cousins standing there.
Wait, no, there was more than one. They were standing a few feet back with a soccer ball between them. Had my arrival interrupted their game? I hoped not.
“That’s me,” I said, cracking my door so the kid knew I wanted to open it. Sure enough, he took a step back, his eyes going wide as his head had to tilt up, up, and up one more time as I stood to my full height. “I’m Keith. What’s your name?”
“I’m Gunner.”
Gunner? That was the most American name I’d heard so far.
“His name is actually Giuseppe!” another girl called from the yard, and judging by how she looked like a smaller version of the boy with added bows, I figured that had to be his little sister. “He keeps trying to get everyone to call him Gunner. He’s named after our great-uncle!”
“Shut up, Lucia!” the boy snapped before shooting me a guilty look. “What kind of kid is named Giuseppe?” he muttered, gaze going to the ground. I couldn’t stand seeing the little guy so bummed.
“There are lots of people with that name. It’s a cool name; there’s nothing wrong with it.” I got out of the car and crouched in front of him. “But if you wanna be called Gunner because you like that better, I don’t mind using that. But I figured you should know that Giuseppe is a cool name.”
“I… I like Gunner,” he said after a small delay. “Giuseppe feels too grown up right now. Like a teacher.”
“Fair enough.” I offered him my hand to shake. “Nice to meet you, Gunner.”
“I’m gonna tell Mom!” Lucia called.
Although Olivia’s family showed me all the joys of having so many people to rely on, it also showed me that there were some things I hadn’t missed by not having siblings.
“Hey now, there’s no need to tattle for someone finding a nickname. As long as you’re not using a no-no word, part of the fun of being a kid is being called whatever you want outside of official stuff, like the doctor’s office and sometimes school.”
“Pfft, we’re not babies,” another said with a surprising amount of disdain for someone under four feet tall. “Who uses the phrase no-no word?”
I stood up again, giving the child the blithest shrug I could manage. “I do. Why, got a problem with it?”
“N-no!”
“Good to know. Nice to meet you, Gunner, Lucia, and the rest of you. I’m sorry if I interrupted your game. I’m gonna head in, unless any of you need anything?”
Was it weird that I was talking to a bunch of little kids on my lonesome? Ugh, not the best thought to have for my anxiety and I quickly hurried to the door.
I should have known better than to think I’d actually be able to get inside unnoticed, because when I was still a couple of feet away, the door swung open and I was greeted by shouts.
“Ay!”
“Oi! Look who it is!”
“It’s the hu—guy!”
“Keith, hey, glad to see you here!”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’d walked into a frat party as Riccardo and a trio of young men greeted me in perfect unison.
Music was playing in the background and while it wasn’t the latest rap or rock hit that would have played back when I was in the dorms, it was still thumping along in a way where it could be felt more than heard.
“Hi, guys!” I said, returning their enthusiasm even if I had no idea what I had done to earn it.
I guessed the lunch had gone well after all?
Olivia had assured me it had, and we’d gone to dinner with her parents, brother, and Serafina since, but that was largely it.
Despite the fact that I was marrying into the family, I felt more of a stranger than not. “Am I late?”
“No, no, no, we’re setting things up! You are early, grande umano. Come, help us!”
“Well, I’d like to check with Olivia first—”
I ended up helping them.
It wasn’t difficult work, just setting out some folding tables and smaller wooden tables that weren’t too heavy but were too long and awkwardly shaped for one person to carry. However, with what turned out to be six other men, we got it done in less than twenty minutes.
“See? What did I tell ya? He fits right in here,” Riccardo said, laughing and clapping me on the back. This time, it wasn’t nearly as hard as before.
That was encouraging.
“Yeah, he does what the women tell him just as well as we do,” one of the younger men said before he started laughing.
“Olivia gives great instructions,” I agreed.
He gave me an odd look, but no one else pressed it, and I was finally released to go find my love. I felt much more confident about my position in things. Surely being asked to do a physical task to set up for a celebration had to indicate some sort of familiarity, yes?
However, I wasn’t exactly surprised when my search for Olivia was derailed by Nonna Rizoli trundling up to me with a surprising amount of speed for a ninety-year-old and gently looping her arm through mine.
“If it isn’t the grande umano,” she said in a way that wasn’t unkind but also wasn’t particularly ingratiating either.
I figured that phrase was now my nickname if the matriarch was using it.
It wasn’t the worst thing, so I didn’t mind, but I really needed to go and look up what that last word was, because I was sure they were calling me the big white guy.
Not that I would be insulted to be called such a thing, because I was a big white guy, but it would be nice to know.
“Nice to see you again Mrs. Rizoli.”
“Mrs. Rizoli?” she repeated like I was the one speaking in a different language a majority of the time. “No, you call me Nonna Rizoli like everyone else. After all, you are going to be pa—”
“Keith! Nonna!” Rolando’s voice cut off his grandmother before he popped out from behind a corner, wearing the same harried expression that I’d come to know as his default.
Considering how chill he was when we hung out, I got the impression that his family was stressing him out.
To which I said: fair enough. He’d played a large part in making sure Olivia got the privacy she needed to explore dating outside the expectations of her family, so as far as I was concerned, I owed him forever.
Actually, maybe even beyond forever, because it truly felt like Olivia had saved my life.
“Hey there, Rolando,” I said with a grin. “We were on our way to cause unmitigated chaos, preferably in the form of arson.”
“Arson? What is this that he’s saying?” Nonna asked, and I glowed a bit with pride. I hadn’t expected her to accept me so easily, but her already given approval was really doing things for my ego. Maybe I wasn’t as awkward or as socially inept as I had always told myself!
Rolando quickly replied to her in Italian, translating my joke I assumed, and I had to have been right because a moment later Nonna let out a very sharp bark of laughter and slapped my chest with a surprising amount of force for someone who was nearly a century old.
Man, the Rizolis had some great genetics.
“Set fires! I like you. Reminds me of when i miei amici e io used to blow up Nazi camps and uh… Rolando. How you say ferroviarie?”
“Rail lines. You blew up trains too, Nonna.”
“Si, I did.” She sighed dreamily, the slight natural cloudiness to her eyes growing hazier. “Ah, to be young.”
“To be fair, Nonna Rizoli, I don’t know if the world could handle you being young again with all the knowledge you’ve gained now. Pretty sure you’d be way too overpowered.”
Another slap to my chest, and while it didn’t hurt, I had to find out what vitamin regimen she was on and get my mother on it.
Oh my god! My mother!
“One moment,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
I’d wanted to pick my mother up, but she knew that I would want to get here right on time and she wanted to be able to leave whenever she could, so she decided to take an Uber instead and meet me here.
“I need to check if my mother has left yet.”
“Left what yet? Is she dead?” Nonna asked. I didn’t dignify that with a response.
My mother had texted ten minutes earlier to let me know that she had finished getting dressed and had her purse all packed to go so all she had to do was use the restroom and then order her Uber.
As much as I would very much prefer to be her driver, I understood that my mother enjoyed her independence and her choosing to use a rideshare was a perfectly convenient option.
Especially since I still hadn’t found Olivia.
I sent her a quick text, asking her to update me when she was in the Uber with an ETA, before switching to Olivia’s contacts and telling her that I had arrived and was possibly kidnapped, depending on how intensely one squinted at the definition of the word.
With that done, I decided to keep my phone in my hand so I could feel it buzz, because with the music, the chatter, and engaging stories about my future grandmother-in-law blowing up wartime supply lines, I certainly wasn’t going to hear the buzz.