The Promise

by Kristen Ashley

  Benny looked decidedly unhappy when I started talking about my new job.

  But he shocked the shit out of me when he said, “It’s in the truck. I’ll go get it.”

  “Really?” I asked, my voice breathy due to the fact I was shocked as shit he gave in and did it so easily.

  He stopped looking unhappy and looked something else entirely when he said gently, “Yeah, honey.” He put the donut in his teeth again, nabbed his keys, pushed them in his pocket, came to me, then took the donut out of his mouth before he wrapped his fingers around my hip and bent to me, going deep where he touched his mouth to my neck. He lifted to look in my eyes and whispered, “Be back.”

  “Okay,” I whispered too.

  He shoved the last of the donut in his mouth, disappeared out the door, and I stood there thinking how easy that was.

  Maybe I should have asked for my phone the day before.

  Or the day before that.

  I was still thinking on this when Ben came back in with my purse. He didn’t bring it to me. He took it to the table, dumped it there, then he came to me.

  He got close, and for some reason, I didn’t brace. I didn’t pull away. I didn’t move a muscle.

  This meant that when he lifted a hand to curl it around the side of my neck and dipped his head, I was an open target.

  It also meant that when the lip touch I was expecting became something else—his mouth opened, mine opened with it, and he was able to sweep his tongue inside—I was able to taste the miraculous flavor of donut and Benny.

  My stomach dipped again.

  Almost before it began, his lips and tongue were gone. Then his fingers were digging in my neck, his were eyes looking into mine, and he whispered, “Later, baby.”

  “Later,” I whispered too.

  His eyes smiled. His fingers squeezed. Then he let me go and moved out the door.

  I stood in his kitchen, staring at the door, knowing that could be my life.

  Ben, off to the restaurant to make sure some supplier didn’t jack him around after giving my neck a squeeze, me a sweep of his tongue that left the taste of him in my mouth, and I’d watch him go out the door after a “Later, baby,” which meant I’d get him back.

  And I stood in Benny’s kitchen, staring at the door, knowing I wanted that life. Knowing I wanted it so bad, it was an ache. Knowing I’d wanted it since I was a little girl. Knowing I wanted it even more thinking I could have it with Benny.

  But the pain came when I remembered I’d never have it.

  On that thought, I heard the front door open and Mrs. Zambino shouting, “Francesca Concetti! Shake a leg! We gotta pick up Phyllis and I don’t wanna be late!”

  I took in a deep breath.

  Then I went to my purse, made sure my charger was in there because, Lord knew, after days with no charging I’d be screwed, and I did this shouting, “Coming, Mrs. Zambino!”

  * * * * *

  I sat in my chair at the alley and watched Mrs. Zambino make her approach and let her ball fly. The ball spun down the lane quickly, listing to one side, then crack! She hit the pin so hard, it slammed across the lane and she got the split.

  I jumped out of my chair, arms up, mind ignoring the not-insignificant ping of pain that hit my wound, and shouted, “Go Zambino!”

  As she and all her posse did when someone got a strike or spare, which was frequently, she turned and instantly started shaking her ass, hands lifted in front of her in jazz hands position, forearms swaying, mouth chanting, “Wowee, wowee, wowee.”

  Her posse were all doing the same dance and chant as she moved through them, giving double high fives.

  She came to me and her look of joy turned severe.

  “Francesca, sit down,” she snapped.

  “You rock,” I told her.

  “I know,” she replied. “Now sit down. I do not need the entire Bianchi family blaming me for you having a setback due to my stellar performance at the bowling alley.”

  I sat but kept my head tipped back and did it grinning at her.

  She dropped gracefully into the seat next to me as I declared, “I’m taking up bowling as soon as I’m fully recovered so I can be you when I grow up.”

  Her eyes did a scan of my head before she decreed, “You’ll need to learn to tame your hair and use blush as an accent rather than a war stripe if you wish that to become so.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m still riding the high of your split,” I told her. “Even you being mean and cranky is not going to pollute that high.”

  Her mouth twisted in an effort not to allow me to see her smile.

  “I saw that!” I declared, lifting a hand and pointing a finger at her mouth.

  She shooed my hand away and stood up, moving toward the seating area at the back of the alley, calling, “Give me my Pepsi-Cola, Loretta.”

  As any bowling minion would do, Loretta handed over the queen’s drink.

  I turned my eyes to the alley, still grinning, as my phone in my hand rang.

  I had managed to get a call in to my old boss and assure him I’d be taking care of business. I’d also managed to get a call in to my new boss to let him know I was still alive and planning on being down in Indianapolis to take the job as soon as I was able. Finally, I had managed to text a number of friends to let them know I was good.

  Then I got sucked in by the bowling.

  I lifted my phone, looked down at it, and saw a number I didn’t recognize. Since it could be something important about a work thing (old or new), I took the call and put it to my ear.

  “This is Frankie Concetti.”

  “Babe.”

  It was Benny.

  My stomach dipped again, a major whoosh, and he hadn’t even kissed me.

  “Having a good time?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Zambino just nailed the split,” I shared.

  “Impressive,” he murmured, humor in his deep and easy voice.

  God, he was killing me.

  “Supplier didn’t jack us around,” he told me. “Got what I needed to get done done, so I can come and get you.”

  “No,” I told him. “I wanna stay ’til the bitter end. Zambino’s posse is kicking ass and taking names, but they do this dance and chant every time they get a strike or spare. I wanna see how they rub it in when they beat the shit outta their opponents.”

  His voice was full of laughter this time when he said, “So the answer to my earlier question is, yeah. You’re havin’ a good time.”

  I didn’t confirm that because I didn’t want to admit to it for a variety of reasons.

  He knew one of those reasons because he muttered, “Crazy-stubborn.”

  Whatever.

  “Get your calls made?” he asked.

  “If I say yes, when I get home, are you gonna confiscate my phone again?”

  “No.”

  “Then yeah.”

  That just got me his laughter.

  I sighed and listened to it, enjoying every second.

  He quit doing it, and the minute he did, he tore me out of the uncertain world I was letting myself live in and catapulted me into the pit of hell I’d been courting since that day, weeks after Vinnie died, when Ben and I got drunk and I made a crazy, stupid, inebriated, slut move on him.

  “Made a reservation at Giuseppe’s. Seven.”

  Hearing his words, I sucked in a painful breath.

  Giuseppe’s was like Vinnie’s Pizzeria. You had to know it was there to know it was there. It was a neighborhood hangout and they liked it that way. That didn’t mean they didn’t accept whatever business came their way and the growth that came with that. They just were about doing what they did and doing it well, focusing solely on that and rewarding those who understood the meaning of word of mouth.

  It was garden level off an alley. They had no parking. They had no listing in the phonebook. You could show up and hope you got a table, or you could be lucky enough to have Giuseppe’s granddaughter, Elena, who now ran the restaurant, give you her phone
number so you could make a reservation.

  I had no idea with the prevalence of the Internet if social media cottoned on and she had a Yelp listing that had seven thousand five-star reviews. Though, their listing probably only had three thousand five hundred reviews, seeing as half the people who knew about Giuseppe’s wanted to keep it a secret, in hopes that when they went there, they could get a table. But it was so awesome the other half wouldn’t be able to keep their traps shut about it.

  This was because it was Italian dining at its finest. The restaurant was dark. The tables small. The décor mostly rich reds. The mood romantic. You went there for Valentine’s Day. You went there to ask your woman to marry you. You went there to tell your man you were carrying his child. You did not take your children there, not ever, but you passed the knowledge of that restaurant on to them like a treasured family secret, so one day, they’d ask their women to marry them there or tell their man they were having his baby there.

  It was the perfect place for a first date if the guy really liked you and didn’t mind you knowing it. It was the kind of place where a guy took you on a first date, you sat across from him, and you instantly decided to spend the rest of your life with him.

  But for me, it was a disaster.

  Vinnie had taken me to White Castle on our first date. He thought that was funny, and being young and into him, I’d thought it was the same, with the addition of goofy and sweet.

  Benny was taking me to Giuseppe’s. He was not playing games.

  “Frankie?” Ben called.

  I looked at my lap and started deep breathing.

  “Honey, you there?” Ben asked.

  “I…uh, yeah,” I pushed out. “I’m here.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “You good for Giuseppe’s?”

  No. Never. Never, ever, ever.

  “Sounds awesome,” I told him.

  He was silent before he said, “You’re not okay.”

  “When Mrs. Zambino got her split, I jumped up and had some pain. I’m still kind of recovering.”

  I felt guilt for telling him this because, even though the first part was true, the second part was a lie and that was the part that would make him worry.

  “Jesus, that must have been some split,” Benny muttered.

  “It was.” At least that was the truth.

  “Take it easy, baby. We got a big night.”

  Yes, we did.

  Because this ended tonight.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’ll let you go. You’re enjoyin’ yourself. Don’t want you to miss the action.”

  More good from Benny.

  I closed my eyes but said, “Yeah. See you later.”

  “Later, cara.”

  I listened to him disconnect, feeling the disconnection of our phone call like a physical thing, foreshadowing of things to come, and that ache in me deepened.

  I had approximately a second to feel this before I felt a hand wrap strong under my jaw and my chin was tipped up.

  I opened my eyes and looked into the dark brown ones of Mrs. Zambino.

  “You went white as a sheet,” she said quietly, the rolling of the balls and crashing of the pins sounding all around us.

  I didn’t reply.

  She held my jaw in her hand and peered deep in my eyes.

  Then she asked, “That Benito on the phone?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  She nodded once and didn’t take her hand from my jaw as she said, “You got an old woman livin’ across the street. You need wisdom, Francesca Concetti, you make your way over. I’ll give it to you.”

  Then she let me go and went to the ball return.

  I swallowed before I took in an unsteady breath.

  I needed wisdom, anyone needed wisdom.

  But no way I was walking across the street to get Mrs. Zambino’s version of it.

  Needless to say, the rest of my time with old lady Zambino and her crew was not as enjoyable as the start of it was.

  When it was over, she dropped Phyllis first and then pointed her Caddy toward home. She had chatted with Phyllis, but when we were alone, the car was deathly quiet as it glided through the streets of Chicago in the neighborhood I called home growing up.

  Which brought to mind that Benny bought a house in our ’hood.

  Family man, staying close, relishing history.

  God didn’t hate me. He despised me.

  She stopped outside Benny’s house, the car idling, and I turned to her. “Thanks for lookin’ out for me, Mrs. Zambino.”

  She stared intently in my eyes and nodded.

  I turned to the door, put my hand on the handle, and mumbled, “See you later.”

  I didn’t get the door open.

  I turned back when Mrs. Zambino wrapped her silver-tipped, taloned fingers around my knee.

  I caught her eyes and she launched right in, speaking softly.

  “My Alonzo, rest his soul…” She did the sign of the holy cross with her free hand and kept speaking, “God tested him, givin’ him three girls. A house with him and four women. Then all his girls had nothin’ but girls. House full a’ women, my babies were around. Did his head in.”

  She stopped talking and I said nothing because I didn’t know where this was going.

  “He loved every minute of it,” she whispered.

  The forlorn tone of her voice made my breath catch and reminded me that Al Zambino died only two years ago.

  She kept going.

  “My Al used to say that if he was a younger man, he’d make Enzo Concetti see sense—all the beauty he created, all that beauty he neglected.”

  And that made my breath turn harsh.

  “‘Nothin’ more precious,’ Al would say, ‘than your baby girl.’”

  “Mrs. Zambino,” I whispered.

  “Broke his heart knowin’ you and your sisters looked in the mirror and saw what your father taught you to see. Not what’s there. What a good man who was a good father would teach you to see.”

  My breath still harsh, my heart started pumping fast.

  “I—”

  I stopped talking when, suddenly, her hand darted out and she grasped hold of my jaw again, jerking it her way, firm but gentle.

  “You’re a good girl, Frankie Concetti,” she declared.

  I felt tears sting my eyes.

  “Good girls earn good things.” She let my jaw go, her eyes going beyond me toward Benny’s house, then coming back to me. “Let yourself have good things.”

  “It’s not right,” I told her quietly.

  “Know one thing on God’s beautiful earth, and that is” —she leaned into me— “love is never wrong.”

  I shook my head.

  She held my gaze. “You find yourself open to accepting wisdom, Francesca, got an old lady across the street who’ll give you some.”

  I pressed my lips together.

  Her eyes again went beyond me before they came back. “Benny’s waitin’.”

  I turned my head and looked up to Benny’s house to see him standing on his stoop, arms crossed on his chest, uniform of tee and jeans on, but this time his tee was navy.

  I looked back to Mrs. Zambino. “Thanks for today.”

  “More league play tomorrow, you feel like another day of bein’ dazzled.”

  I grinned at her.

  She stared pointedly at my door.

  I got out and barely had the door closed when her Caddy started cruising down the street on its way for her to park it in her garage off the alley.

  Benny watched me make my way to him and didn’t move until I was one step away.

  But he only dropped his arms to plant his hands on his hips as I joined him at the top of his stoop.

  “What was that about?” he asked, his eyes flicking to the road before coming back to me.

  I stared up at him. He was tall. He was beautiful. He was a good son. A good brother. A good guy. He’d be a good husband and an amazing fa
ther.

  I wanted a shot at that.

  I couldn’t have it.

  “We need to talk,” I announced.

  His eyes narrowed on my face and I watched them take in what was there and process it. I knew it when his entire face gentled.

  Oh yes. I wanted a shot at that.

  “Baby—” he started.

  “Now,” I cut him off.

  He studied me for long seconds before he nodded, moved to the door, and threw it open for me.

  I walked in, went directly to the living room, and tossed my purse on the couch.

  As I was doing that, I heard the door closing, and when I looked that way, Ben was in the room with me.

  I had to do this now. I had to get this out.

  Then I had to get gone.

  “I loved your brother,” I declared, and his body jerked to a halt, his eyes leveling on me, his sudden intensity filling the room.

  “I know that,” he said slowly.

  “No, Ben, I loved your brother,” I stressed.

  “I know that, Frankie,” he replied.

  “When I was with him, I did not think of you this way,” I shared, lifting a hand and waving it between him and me. “Not ever.”

  “Okay,” he said as a prompt when I quit talking.

  “When he died, it broke me.”

  He closed his eyes on a wince, opened them, and focused on me again.

  “I know, baby,” he said quietly.

  “It broke me because I loved him. It broke me because I missed him. It broke me because I wasn’t the kind of woman who was strong enough to stop him from throwing his life away.”

  Ben’s voice was still quiet but firm when he stated, “You are not responsible for Vinnie’s death.”

  “No?” I asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “You sure you don’t think that?” I pushed.

  Understanding flowed through his face. He took a step toward me but stopped and said, “I deserved that.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not punishing you, Ben, honestly. I believe you when you say you don’t think that anymore. But, just to say, I still do.”