Tears run down my cheeks as he lifts his head and softly kisses my eyes.
FIFTY-FIVE
The one place you don’t want to go after making love for the first time is to your own bed in your parents’ house. But it’s almost eleven and my mom is expecting me.
“Don’t leave,” Michael whispers, pressing his forehead against mine. “Can’t you say you’re staying at a friend’s?”
“I already lied about where I was going.”
He frowns and gets up without another word, grabbing his jeans as he heads to the bathroom. I watch him with an empty feeling. Is he mad? When he comes back, he’s dressed and so am I.
“I’ll take you home,” he says, nuzzling my neck.
The traffic is light as we drive down to lower Manhattan. I feel a strange combination of hyper alertness and exhaustion. I glance over at his profile and study his face. He’s back to his intense, expressionless cop face, not giving anything away. I lean over and rest my head on his shoulder. He turns and flashes me his smirky smile.
“You can let me out here,” I say when we’re a few blocks from my street.
“I hate this,” Michael says.
“What?”
“You getting out here and walking alone.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll follow you in the car.”
“Omigod, I’m totally…”
His jaw tenses. “Gia, you’re not walking home alone.”
“Okay, follow me.” It reminds me of my discussions with my dad. I start to open the car door, but he reaches out and grabs my upper arm.
“Let’s not do this again.”
It’s over? “Wha…what do you mean?”
“We have to figure something out.”
I look at him, not understanding.
“Next time, I want you to stay with me. All night.”
“I will,” I say, relieved.
I start to turn and—
“Gia!”
“What?”
“It was incredible.”
There’s a game I got as a gift when I was in third grade when we played Secret Santa in school. My gift was Tell Me! It’s a box of fifty fun questions designed to get families talking. As I’m cleaning my room I see it stuck in the back of my pajama drawer. I open the box and look at some of the questions:
Has there been someone special you could turn to when you were sad or upset?
What have you had your heart set on but didn’t get?
What is the most fun you’ve ever had?
As I read through the questions, the idea comes to me and I immediately tuck it into my bag.
Michael and I meet again the following Saturday and have dinner in a small Italian restaurant near his house. After veal piccata, spinach, and spaghetti (with sauce nearly as good as my mom’s), he turns to me.
“What do you feel like doing now?”
“Going home…I brought a game.”
He cocks his head to the side, his slow, sexy, gorgeous Michael smile spreading over his face. “What kind of game?”
“A fun one that I doubt you’ve ever played before.”
“I’m game,” he says with his snarky cop smile.
We end up back at his apartment and I take out the box.
“Tell me?” Michael says. He eyes the box suspiciously.
Will the game work with him? Because he was right, I barely know him.
I look through the cards. “It’s easy. I get to ask you one question and then you get to ask me one.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“How do you win?”
“It’s a talking game. You don’t win.”
“I guess you’re going to win then.”
“Why is that?”
“You’re a better talker.”
“Maybe you are, Michael. Let’s find out.” I pull out a card. “First question,” I say. “When did you have to muster up all of your courage in order to do something?”
He looks at me, his eyes growing more intense.
“Last week,” he says, “when I took you out.” He kisses me on the lips and grabs the cards. He looks through them and finally looks up at me. “What has been the most unlikely friendship you’ve had?”
“You, Officer Hottie.” I pull the cards back and search through them. “What is the worst thing you’ve done in a fit of anger?”
“I don’t know if I want to answer that,” he says, all the humor suddenly gone from his face.
“Answer,” I say, holding his gaze.
He looks at me intently. “You sure you want to play this game?”
I nod.
“I beat up a pusher. A guy who sold to my brother.”
“Did you…?” I hold my breath.
He shakes his head. “He survived.” He grabs the cards away. “What’s the biggest trouble you’ve ever gotten yourself into?”
“I went out to a bar one night…Uptown.”
The corners of his mouth turn up. “And?”
“When I got home, I walked in through the basement. My dad didn’t know it was me and he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me in. I was lucky he had a flashlight or he would have slammed me with the baseball bat in his hand and killed me.”
“Shit,” Michael whispers. “Why didn’t you tell me? Does he know about me?”
“That’s not one of the questions.”
“Gia, tell me,” he insists.
“No.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want you to.”
“I…I don’t know. He won’t understand.”
“You have to tell him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like secrets.” He drops the cards on the table and closes the distance between us.
I grab the cards and slide away. “What adult did you have the most fun with growing up? Why?”
He looks at me and doesn’t answer.
“Your dad?” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me.”
“We would go out and play baseball,” he says, looking down. “He loved baseball and so did I, so he took me to games all the time.” He shakes his head.
“What?”
“I didn’t know,” he said, staring off, lost in thought.
“Know what?”
“That he got the tickets, the box seats, as part of his pay package,” he says icily.
“From…”
“Yes,” he says. “From them. But that was a long time ago. A long time ago.”
“Do you miss him?”
“That’s not one of the questions,” he says, his jaw tightening.
“Do you, Michael?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why don’t you get in touch?”
“It’s over.”
“You should try.”
“Maybe some day, I don’t know.”
He grabs the cards away from me. “This is getting too heavy, Gia.” He searches through them. “What everyday person has inspired you? How?”
“My dad,” I whisper.
Michael narrows his eyes. “How?”
“He’s strong. He’s not afraid to show his love for us. He’s done bad things, I know it…I can’t pretend anymore, but he couldn’t have been a better father.”
He nods.
I take the cards back from him. “What is the most physical pain you’ve ever had to endure?”
He stares at me.
“Answer, Michael.”
“Looking at your pictures. The ones from Vogue. And trying to pretend that I didn’t want to see you.”
I swallow. “Do you still blame me?”
He shakes his head back and forth and exhales. “No.”
FIFTY-SIX
When I get home from school on Monday, I sit down at the computer. I don’t try to write my English essay or do my math homework or go over the chapters for the art history quiz.
&
nbsp; I try to write a letter to my dad.
I’ve written him before. I write at least once a week, especially when I have fun things to tell him about Herbie, because Herbie’s always doing things that make us laugh, like lifting up his ears and tilting his head toward the TV if he hears a barking dog or something strange on Animal Planet. Or stealing dirty socks out of the laundry and hiding them in his bed.
But this letter is different. Michael wants me to tell him that I’m seeing him. I start the letter ten different times, each one of them different.
Remember the time Ro and I were stupid enough to take Dante’s car and cut school and drink beer and then a cop pulled us over, well…
Of course he remembers it because Super Mario probably charged him twenty grand for all the hours he put in bailing us out.
Dear Daddy, you always ask me stuff about my friends, so here’s something that I know you never expected to hear: The cop who picked us up on the Henry Hudson ended up being my boyfriend…
Dear Daddy, this is crazy, I know, but there’s something I have to tell you. I’m now dating a cop. And not only a cop, but small world, the son of someone who used to take payoffs…
I try to write it in different ways, goofing on myself, then getting serious, but no matter what I say, it all sounds wrong.
Then I realize why.
This is not something my dad has to know. He’s not home anymore. He’s locked up now, halfway across the country for committing horrible crimes. And as hurt and conflicted as I will always be about the man who was the most loving father I could imagine, I also see him now for who he is. I’m less than a year away from going to college now and whether he approves doesn’t matter any more.
My dad isn’t the feared mob boss now. Someone else has taken over. The police don’t come to our house anymore. Our family isn’t on the TV or in the newspapers now, at least not on the front page. The running is over. There’s a calm to our lives that I have never felt before.
For the first time in seventeen years, I can date whomever I want. I don’t need his approval. I’m not living in his shadow anymore.
Our lives are totally different since he left. We live in a small apartment now. Anthony and I sleep in single beds in a room we share with a screen between us. The fancy cars are gone and so is the jewelry. We don’t eat out anymore unless someone else pays. I take the subway to school.
My brother is different too. He works for a company selling Italian suits. He has an honest job, I think, at least for now. He seems calmer these days, more resigned to things. We lost so much, but along the way I gained something no one can take away from me: a separate identity.
I’m not the don’s daughter or Mafia Girl anymore. I’m Gia now. Just Gia.
And that feels good.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Deborah Blumenthal
Cover design by Jenna Stempel
Cover image © Iambada/Vetta/Getty Images
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