Chapter 3 #2
“You make it sound like something dirty,” he snarls at me.
“It’s a business deal. That’s all marriage is anyway.
It’s a contract. And I am a man who honors his contracts.
I thought I brought all of you up to do the same.
Well, the joke’s on me because despite everything I ever taught you kids, I got one in the grave and the other on the street like a common whore. ”
My eyes sting suddenly like he just slapped me. “I am not a whore.”
“Yeah? Tell that to half the city of Fortune. Every time I turn around, I hear these stories about you and all these men.” He scowls at me with utter disgust in his eyes. “You’re giving it away like candy out there.”
“Yeah, well, if that’s what I am, then maybe it’s got something to do with the dirtbag mobster who raised me!”
“Oh, I had nothing to do with the slut you’ve become. I got one good daughter left and I’m making sure that she gets on the right track.” He gets in my face. “You are not going to corrupt the only good thing I’ve got left.”
It’s taking everything within me not to burst into tears. “You’re a monster,” I hiss.
“Yeah?” he says. “Well, at least I’m not the city’s mattress.”
I hear the door open behind me a second before I spit in his face. He flinches and wipes the glob of spit out of his eyes before glaring at me, icy fury reflecting imminent danger my way.
He takes a step toward me and before I know it, Annie’s in front of me, her hands up in a defensive posture. “Stop,” she says. “Dad, please!”
He’s pacing, glaring at us both. “She spits in my face?”
“She didn’t mean it,” Annie says, “Dad, she’s just upset. She didn’t understand what was happening.”
“Move out of the way, Annie.”
“No,” she says. She still has her hands up and they’re shaking. He turns his icy rage to her and she says, “If you hurt her, and I mean lay one hand on her, I won’t do it. I swear, I’ll leave and I’ll never come back.”
And just like that, the anger in his eyes dies replaced with what I can only describe as apologetic. Or something close to it. “Analisa,” he says. “You understand I’m not doing this to hurt you. This is for all of us. For the family. An alliance with the Mechnikovs is a matter of survival.”
“I know. I know, Dad. I’ll do it, okay? Just leave Izzy alone. Please.”
He looks at me with warning, then back to Annie. “You got it, sweetheart. Now, can we all go back downstairs, please?”
We do, and I imagine in my father’s mind, this issue has been resolved. It’s not for me or for my sister, though. I don’t know what comes next. All I know is that this is fucked.
So, it’s over. Everybody’s leaving and Dad’s talking to the caterers. Annie’s already gone home and I’m still here, feeling like hollowed-out driftwood.
I wander upstairs again. I think that maybe this is the worst day on earth.
I’m sure everybody says that when you bury dead relatives, but I’m pretty sure that most people don’t almost get raped in an alley, then learn your father just sold your sister to the Russians, all while getting called a whore by your father at the same time.
Before long, I find myself in my mother’s room. My parents had separate rooms for most of their marriage. Probably all of their marriage, actually. I don’t have any memories of them sleeping in the same bed. Maybe Annie does.
When Mom died, Dad closed off her room and forbade us from going into it. He usually kept it locked, but I figured out how to pick it years ago.
Mom’s room sits on the far side of the main hall, across from Dad’s and next to Damon’s. I stop at Mom’s door and glance over at Damon’s, wondering if Dad will even bother to lock his door. Probably not.
I try Mom’s door. It’s locked, as expected. Good thing I brought my wallet with me. I pull out a credit card and slip it between the wall and the lock, waiting for the click. It comes easily and I enter my mother’s room.
She’s been gone ten years now. I was thirteen when she died.
I was the one who found her, floating face down in our pool, the bloody red water swirling all around her body.
Dad said that it was an accident. That she fell.
I never did know how true that was. All I knew is that after that day, everything changed.
What hasn’t changed is this room. Her queen-sized bed with the cushiony headboard is still made.
The white comforter looks just as clean as if it had just come out of the wash.
Her vanity is the same, untouched right down to the dozens of bottles of perfume arranged around her lipsticks and makeup bottles.
I walk over to those bottles and her familiar smell comes back to me as I sit down and look into the dusty mirror. Softly, I say, “I miss you.”
I talk to her all the time when I’m here.
It always starts with my saying that I miss her.
I sigh as I pick up one of her lipsticks and turn it over in my hand.
“Hope you and Damon are doing okay. Man, you’ve gotta be pissed to see him up there right about now.
I know you wanted better for him. For all of us. ”
I sigh as I set the lipstick down on the vanity.
“At least I kept my promise to you. I’m still a virgin, despite what everybody’s saying about me.
” I shrug. “I guess that’s my fault, though.
I’ve been hanging out a lot since you died.
I’m sure there’s some psychiatric excuse for my behavior. Who knows?”
I think about everything that’s happened today and my mind goes back to the waiter. He’s probably in the hospital now. I didn’t hear anybody talk about calling an ambulance or anything, not that I was paying attention. Fuck that guy, honestly.
“You’ll never believe who preserved my virtue today, though. Not in a million years,” I say aloud. “One of the Russians. Mechnikov’s son, Alexei. It’s a trip, right? If he’d been a couple of seconds later…”
I sigh. I’m twenty-three now. It was easy to keep my legs closed when I was just a little catholic school girl. Now it’s like everybody’s expecting me to be fucking. I don’t even know if I’ll ever give it up, actually. If I’m being honest, nobody’s felt worthy enough.
“You don’t have to worry, though,” I tell my mother. “He’s not exactly a knight in shing armor. Alexei… he’s an animal. You should have seen how he beat the guy who tried it with me. It was scary. I mean, I get it. Sometimes, the best weapon against an animal is a worse one.”
I think about my sister. God, I’m so scared for her. That beast is about to be her husband.
“What are we gonna do, Mom?” I say softly. “I wish you were here to tell me it’s going to be all right.”
And I do. I really, really do.