Kiss Carlo

  “Cloud, Dom. Cloud,” Jo said softly.

  “Pop, I said I’d quit.” Gio looked at Mabel and back at his father. “It’s enough now. I respect you.”

  “I agree. If this subject was braciole, the meat would be paper-thin by now.” Jo glared at her husband. “If you want to reprimand, do it after we eat.”

  “In other business—” Uncle Dom began.

  “I thought we were eating dinner. A peaceful, civilized meal. Is this a business meeting?” Dominic interrupted.

  “It’s called consolidation of time and effort,” his father explained. “We have to sell Car Number Four.”

  “What will Nicky drive?” Gio asked.

  “The sedan, until we procure a new cab.”

  “Why sell it?” Dominic asked his father.

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear. We had a dead body in there. You want to ride in such a vehicle?”

  “It’s not still in the car, is it?”

  The boys laughed, and their wives joined in.

  “No,” Dom said curtly.

  “So what’s the problem, Pop? Things happen, you clean them up and move forward.”

  “In normal circumstances you can do that. This is not one of those times.”

  “Yoo-hoo,” Hortense Mooney called out from the kitchen. “I’ll leave the bag in the freezer.”

  “Mrs. Mooney, come in,” Dom hollered.

  Hortense appeared in her hat, coat, and gloves in the doorway. “I put the accounting sheet in the bank bag. Take it out before you do the night drop.”

  “How did we do last week?”

  “Excellent, Mr. Palazzini. The boys are working hard, and for whatever reason, it was a big week for telegrams.”

  “Memorial Day coming up,” Nino offered.

  “Could be. I’d like to put in for the week of July fourth for my vacation.”

  “No problem, Mrs. Mooney,” Dom agreed.

  “Where are you going this year?” Jo asked.

  “I’m going to paint my kitchen.” Hortense smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good evening.”

  Hortense left through the back door as quietly as she had arrived. Once she was outside, she looked back into the dining room window and observed the Palazzini family seated at the table inside. In her mind, it was the thing these Italians got right: not an evening went by that they didn’t share a meal together. There was something about that, something good.

  “Uncle Dom, you don’t have to sell number four,” Nicky said, then sipped his water. “I cleaned it up real nice. You’d never know what happened in the back seat.”

  “I’m not worried about you, the driver. I’m worried about the passenger that has to sit where that guy had a heart attack and then worse.”

  “What worse?” Lena asked. “What’s worse than dying?”

  “Dominic, don’t say it,” Jo warned him. “We’re eating.”

  “The girls are about to clear.”

  “I’m having another meatball,” Gio said as he stabbed the last one on the platter. “But go ahead, Pop.”

  “Haven’t we had enough business tonight? Let’s move on to a pleasant topic. Like Nicky’s wedding. October twenty-ninth is the big day.”

  The cousins ribbed Nicky. He slid down in his chair.

  “Settle down, boys,” Jo admonished her sons.

  “We can’t wait for Nicky to get married,” Gio said.

  “So he knows what true happiness is?” Mabel stabbed a pork slab and placed it on her plate.

  “Yeah honey. That’s it.” Gio rolled his eyes.

  “Mrs. DePino assigned the cookie trays. We start baking after Labor Day. The girls are wearing pink, I’m wearing yellow, and Connie DePino is wearing green.”

  “Like a Christmas tree. She’ll sparkle like one of those clowns in the Mummer’s Day Parade,” Uncle Dom promised.

  “You’re talking about Nicky’s future mother-in-law.”

  “So? They’re not blood.”

  “But she will be family to him. Watch what you say,” Aunt Jo said firmly.

  Nicky rapped a teaspoon on the table. “Uncle Dom, I need a favor.”

  “I don’t believe you’ve ever asked me for one.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Well, make it a doozy, because evidently I owe you.”

  “Can we put posters on the cabs to advertise the play at Borelli’s?”

  “What kind of play?” Gio asked.

  “Shakespeare. They do Shakespeare,” Mabel barked. “Don’t you have any culture?”

  “Not presently,” Gio retorted. “A cream from Rexall’s cleared it right up.”

  “Twelfth Night. That’s the play we’re doing now,” Nicky explained.

  “I don’t see why not. But no signs on number four. That car is going back as soon as I can make the arrangements.”

  “What’s so terrible you’re returning the car?”

  “It’s not important, Dominic.”

  “Ma, we’re all veterans,” Dominic said, and looked at his brothers. “We’ve seen the worst.”

  “Tell ’em, Nicky.” Uncle Dom removed the napkin he had tucked in his collar from his shirt. It was sprayed with polka dots of red sauce where he’d dripped gravy from the cavatelli. “Go on, tell everybody what happened in the cab.”

  “I’d rather not.” Nicky motioned to Nonna, asleep in her chair.

  “She’s out like a sack of chestnuts,” Uncle Dom promised.

  “It’s unsavory,” Gio said, picking his teeth.

  “You know?” Mabel looked at her husband. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I don’t like to burden you.”

  “You don’t mind cleaning out my savings account when you want to gamble, but a stupid car story you keep secret?”

  “It’s not like that,” Gio countered.

  “See what you started, Dominic? Get the jelly roll, please,” Jo instructed Elsa.

  “Here’s what happened, since my nephew is too schkeeved to impart the story. The fare gets in the cab—where were you?”

  “Ambler.”

  “That’s a good fare to the airport,” Gio confirmed.

  “The fare gets in the car. The wife is in the car. The man collapses. In a flash, Nicky drives him to the nearest hospital. The wife is unglued.”

  “Her husband is sick, Pop, of course she’s upset,” Mabel said, looking around the table for support.

  “They get to the hospital, but before they can load him on a gurney, the man has a massive heart attack in number four.”

  “Oh, Nicky,” Lena said, her hand on her heart.

  “And he died,” Nicky said softly.

  The family murmured their regrets. Mabel made the sign of the cross.

  “But they brought him back inside the hospital with the paddles. But it didn’t take. He died anyway.” Dom hit his chest with his fist.

  “I went to his funeral.”

  “To collect the tip?” Nino joked.

  Everyone laughed except Nicky.

  “To pay my respects.”

  “You hardly knew the guy,” Nino said softly.

  “True.” Nicky nodded.

  “People come through your life and you don’t know why, they have an effect on you,” Aunt Jo said reassuringly.

  “He happened to have an effect on me too. He ruined my cab,” Dom added.

  “I slept for twelve years in the bed Nonno died in, and you didn’t get me a new one. Why do you have to trade in a perfectly good car?” Nino wanted to know.

  “Because the man died in my car, in my fleet, and I don’t want that story rolling around South Philly connected to my cab company. Okay? We’re a class operation, and that’s the kind of story that kills business. Pronto gets wind of this, they’ll embellish the story and steal our business and print money on our misfortune. I worked too hard to throw everything away on a fluke accident on an airport run. Now, I’ve made my final decision. Nicky, you’re driving the sedan until I can get up to my buddy Lou Caruso on Staten
Island and trade in number four.”

  “Are you going to tell your car dealer what happened?” Jo asked. “Why should he get saddled with a death car?”

  “Now you choose to speak?” Dom looked at his wife. “There’s nothing wrong with the engine. The car is three years old, hardly a clunker.”

  “It’s like pawning a wedding ring when the marriage doesn’t work out. It’s bad luck,” Lena reasoned.

  “Or it’s good luck for the person who buys a stone on the cheap and is ignorant of the origins of it and gets it reset and lives happily ever after with a big, hulking diamond on her hand,” Dom chided his daughter-in-law.

  “I just think you need to tell your dealer that something unfortunate happened in the car, so it’s all out in the open up front,” Jo offered.

  “Okay, now you’re forcing me to say the worst.”

  “That’s not necessary, Dom,” Jo fired back.

  “What could be worse than dying?” Gio pondered.

  “When the fare had the massive heart attack in my car . . .”

  “Dom, I’m warning you.” Jo meant it.

  “He soiled himself.”

  “He what?” The meatball in Nino’s stomach flipped like a softball. He put down his fork.

  “You heard him.” Mabel made a face. “I have a very weak stomach.”

  “I didn’t. But I do now,” Lena grumbled.

  “Now you’ve upset the entire family!” Jo raised her voice to her husband.

  “Jo, they need to know. As for Car Number Four: I’m going to do what I do the way I do what I do. Period. The facts: The customer had a pain, he had a heart attack, he died, and he shat. The car goes back. End of story.”

  Elsa entered from the kitchen, placing the dessert plates on the table.

  “I’m going to break it off with Peachy,” Nicky said softly.

  Dominic turned to his cousin. “You like living in the basement that much?”

  “What happened?” Lena asked.

  “What did you do?” Mabel wanted to know.

  “Nothing.” Nicky leaned back in his chair.

  “Are you all right, Nick?” Elsa asked gently.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “See what you’ve done?” Aunt Jo glared at her husband.

  “What do I have to do with this?”

  “Selling his car out from under him. Upsetting the order of things around here. You caused Nicky to vacillate! This was a man who was certain of his decision, and now he’s confused.” Aunt Jo faced Nicky. “You can’t break the engagement.”

  “Why can’t he?” Dom interjected. “Cancel the cookie trays. Return the swatches to Connie DePino. She can wear her green sequins and her big hat to the Knights of Columbus Weenie Roast.”

  Elsa went into the kitchen.

  “I don’t care about the clothes,” Aunt Jo told him. “I don’t care about the desserts. I care about Nicky. He loves Peachy—he’s loved her for seven years. That’s not for nothing. You don’t just throw all that away. That’s something. He’s at a time in his life when he should be married.”

  “I agree with you, Aunt Jo. But I’m having thoughts.”

  “What kind of thoughts?”

  “Doubts.”

  “I had one this morning when I was shaving. You’re going to have those,” Uncle Dom said with authority. “I get doubts all the time. They tumble over one another inside me like Chinese acrobats. I get so worked up, I think I’m having a series of mini-strokes.”

  Elsa returned with the jelly roll. She placed it on the table and began slicing it, placing the pieces on the dessert plates and passing them around the table. Mabel reached for the wooden nut bowl on the server. She placed it in the center of the table. The men began to reach for handfuls of nuts in their shells as Mabel handed out the nutcrackers.

  “Maybe it’s that strange funeral you attended. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone,” Lena suggested. “It sent you careening down a path.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t do anything rash.” Mabel reached across the table, stabbed the last bite of Gio’s meatball off his plate, and ate it. “Sleep on it.” Mabel cleared the last of the dinner dishes.

  “I will.” Nicky had stayed with Peachy for a reason, one greater than love. He believed that she was the right girl for him. But with all that had changed in his life, was she still the right girl? He wasn’t so sure.

  “Promise me you won’t be hasty,” Aunt Jo implored.

  “Ma doesn’t want you to break it off with Peachy because she already got the dishes from the bank,” Dominic said, cracking a filbert with the silver nutcracker before popping the meat of it into his mouth.

  “What dishes?” Nicky was confused.

  “They’re a surprise,” Aunt Jo confirmed.

  “How can they be a surprise when you get them for everybody?” Nino asked her.

  “Those dishes from the bank are free.” Gio poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “They were?” Mabel was surprised.

  “You and your big mouth,” Jo chided her middle son. “Okay, Elsa, Mabel, and you too, Lena—I gave you each a set of dishes when you got married. I save up and get them at the bank.”

  “With stamps,” Nino added.

  “They’re good dishes.” Lena cared about all wedding rituals, including this display of gifts in the bride’s family home after the ceremony. “They were the hit of my bridal shower.”

  “I thought so too. Of course, I got a set for Nicky and Peachy. They’re in the basement. They’re white with a daisy chain on the border.”

  “Very cheery for everyday. Ours are blue with cornflowers on the edge. If we ever get our own place,” Lena said wistfully.

  “So give the daisy dishes to somebody else,” Uncle Dom said impatiently. “Or save them for when Nicky does get married to another girl he likes. Why are we going round and round about a box of free dishes from the bank?”

  “I don’t care about the dishes,” Aunt Jo said. She spaced her silverware next to her plate evenly. “I care about Peachy. The DePinos have been through enough. Some of the family on his side were sent to New Mexico and put in an internment camp during the war. They rounded up the Italians in New Haven without an explanation. That’s how the DePinos ended up here in the first place.”

  “I didn’t know they were seeking asylum.” Mabel cracked a walnut.

  “Not exactly. Al got a job here shortly before the war.”

  “Any Italian with a boat was suspect. The DePinos had a skiff,” Dom confirmed. “What they did to our people.”

  “Pop, not for nothing, but Italy was on the wrong side of the war.” Mabel poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “That didn’t give them the right to round us up in America.”

  “This is another slap in the face to that family. Another disappointment. First they’re estranged from their family because of the war, and now they lose Nicky. What did they do to deserve all this agita? They’re good people.”

  Elsa took the baby from her mother-in-law and returned to the kitchen.

  “Ma. Watch it, would you?” Dominic followed his wife out.

  “Must I never mention the war ever again in this house?” Jo threw her hands in the air.

  “No,” Gio and Nino said in unison.

  “I’m sorry. Nicky, I wish you’d reconsider. You’re not thinking straight. I don’t think you’re well. You’re pale. Maybe you have anemia. Your iron could be low. You’re tired,” Jo reasoned.

  “Maybe he’s tired of Peachy.” Dom sampled the jelly roll.

  “It’s not that, Uncle Dom.”

  “Then why would you break it off?” Gio asked.

  “Seven years—that’s about the limit,” Uncle Dom said with authority.

  “What does that mean, Pop?” Mabel said defensively.

  “It means what it means.” Dom banged the table.

  “It’s not as if it was a true seven-year period,” Aunt Jo argued. “Nicky wasn’t here for half of it. Pea
chy went to business college in Albany for some of it—he went into the army. When you add it all up, they’re practically a new couple, right?”

  “He shouldn’t marry Peachy if he isn’t one hundred percent sure he wants to—he’ll be miserable and that will make her unhappy and it will be a disaster.” Lena stood up and put her hands on Nicky’s shoulders. “I’m with you, Nicky. Do the right thing and the right thing will hold you in good stead. We need more cream for the coffee.” She went into the kitchen.

  “Peachy will kill herself,” Mabel said as she picked at the jelly roll. “I have no personal interest in this because I am not in the wedding party. As an expectant mother-to-be, I’m in a pew with the general guests. I won’t be asked to bring up the gifts at Offertory. Nothing. I’ll be a face in the crowd with the rest of the onlookers until you see me at the reception parked behind a potted plant getting everybody’s John Hancock in the guest book before they go into the hall. But I know a little bit about the DePinos, and they’ve been saving crates of champagne since the Spanish Civil War for this wedding reception, and they will show up over here with bayonets when Nicky breaks it off.”

  “Mabel. Don’t pile on,” Gio said softly.

  “Who’s piling? It’s the truth. You can’t yank a girl along for seven years and then cut the rope and leave her drifting out to sea like an old dinghy. Pirates do that, and if they’re caught they have to walk the plank. Time is valuable. It has worth. Therefore when you squander someone’s time, particularly a woman’s, it’s stealing. You steal her youth, you might as well steal her car.”

  “You’re just making Nicky feel worse,” Gio said tersely.

  “He’s doing the severing!” Mabel raised her voice.

  “He doesn’t love her!” Gio yelled.

  “He doesn’t know what he wants!” Mabel yelled louder.

  “He doesn’t want her!” Gio stood.

  “He needs to grow up!” Mabel stood and leaned across the dining room table.

  “He is a grown-up!” Gio stood, banged the table, and sat down.