Fools Paradise

by Stevenson, Jennifer

  “I’m just learning the job, Mom,” she said in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. “It’s okay. Every day I learn something new. And I was in full body harness with my safety snapped on at all times, so I didn’t get hurt.”

  Mom put her coffeecup down with a snap. “What happened.”

  Goomba raised his eyebrows at Daisy. Oh sure, she would tell her version first and then he’d shoot it down. She cleared her throat.

  “I slipped a little getting into my truss spot cage. It was okay. I was safetied on, and I climbed right back up inside and ran the show.” She glared at Goomba. “I’m good at it. I hit my man every time.”

  “How high in the air was this?” Mom said. Daisy hated the anxiety in her voice.

  “I dunno.” Daisy hunched a shoulder.

  “Forty feet,” Goomba said, but he was looking at Daisy a little differently. “You did very well.” He swallowed. “I’m proud of you, angelina.”

  Ambushed again, Daisy felt her eyes fill with tears. “Really?”

  He put his hand over hers. “Really. And then your young man defended your honor. Very noble, I thought.”

  She eyed him nervously.

  “You may as well tell me,” Mom said. “Badger will tell me if you don’t.”

  Goomba looked at her with deceptively mild eyes. “Badger’s scared of you, Fran.”

  “And you’re not?” Mom’s voice went flat. “What happened.” She looked from Daisy to Goomba.

  Daisy cracked first. “He—Bobbyjay thought maybe his cousin Bobbert—wanted me to slip. So he, uh, hit him.”

  “And afterward he took a punch in the face from his own father,” Goomba said, nodding approvingly. “Such a chivalrous young man. Yet he’s still trying to keep in with that putz Bobby Morton Junior.” Goomba shook his head. “Divided loyalties. Must be hard on the boy.”

  Daisy felt heat rising into her throat, up her ears, into her scalp. “You mean I’m making his life miserable.”

  “You?” Goomba raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t hit him.”

  “Well, I didn’t roadcase his stupid cousin Bobbert either. Did you tell Tony to do that? Or did he think it up on his own?” she snapped, and gasped at her own rudeness.

  Mom looked shrewdly from Daisy to Goomba. “You’ve been feuding again.”

  Goomba folded his hands. “On the contrary, I’ve been a very good boy. It’s those Mortons who don’t seem very happy about Daisy’s betrothal.”

  “Oh, that is such bull!” Daisy said. “You needled Bobby Senior all through the fish fry and then you decided to run against him for the Executive Board—”

  “Again?” Mom said, sighing.

  “And you know just how to stick the knife in, so don’t pretend you’re not provoking them,” Daisy stormed. “You set them off with that smug sarcastic stuff. You know you can, Goomba.”

  “Can I help it Bobby Junior is such a hot-head? What a trial he must be to his father,” Goomba said, shaking his head.

  “You big faker,” Daisy hissed.

  “Marty,” Mom said, and her tone was very serious. “I thought we had this sorted out.” She sounded like an office manager talking to a senior partner who’d been pinching his rival’s secretary.

  Goomba had the grace to look into his coffeecup and blush. “More coffee, angelina?” he said.

  Her spine stiffened to mutiny, Daisy said, “You’re just trying to get rid of me so you can try and fake Mom out.”

  Mom snapped, “My daughter doesn’t have to wait on you. Go get it yourself. After you’ve explained this to me.”

  The cup clattered in the saucer. The whites of Goomba’s eyes showed. “Ladies, please! No bloodshed!”

  Footsteps came up the basement stairs.

  “Antonio!” Goomba called in his boss voice. “Bring me some coffee.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. Mom covered her mouth with her hand. Tony came into the dining room with the pot, grumbling, “Where the hell is Daisy?” and stopped short when he saw the women sitting at the table.

  “Please.” Goomba gestured at his cup. “Coffee.”

  “Me too, thanks,” Daisy said, shoving her cup forward. Mom did the same.

  Tony looked from one face to the next to the next, looked at the pot in his hand, and then, shaking his head and turning red, poured for them all. “Nobody wants a foot massage? Sure you don’t want me to do the dishes, too?” he said with heavy sarcasm.

  “Actually, we’re heading for bed in about fifteen minutes,” Mom said. “Thank you, Tony, you’re a good boy for volunteering. Now your grandfather won’t have to wash those dishes.”

  Daisy’s jaw fell.

  Tony looked at Goomba.

  Goomba shrugged. “Women’s lib,” he said in a hushed voice. “It’s a new order, Antonio.” He sent a sly look at Mom. “Get used to it.”

  Daisy could barely breathe. Tony to do the dishes? Would they get away with it?

  Mom eyed Goomba like she was coming to a boil.

  Tony left, stopping in the kitchen to put the coffeepot back on the warmer and grab a beer, and Goomba drank his coffee in one gulp.

  “Well, I think I’ll turn in, too,” he said, standing up and stretching.

  “Marty.”

  Mom looked at him and he looked at her. Daisy remembered Bobbyjay saying that it was their moms who had created the truce eighteen years ago. Suddenly that seemed a lot more likely.

  Goomba stood at the dining room door, looking like a tired little old man. “Yes, Fran?”

  Can Mom actually stop him? Could work become just work, instead of a battleground?

  “We’re all going up to Lake Geneva to the cottage next week,” Mom said.

  “I might take a pass this time,” Goomba said. “Until the summer rush is over.”

  Mom dropped her bomb. “Then you won’t mind if Bobbyjay comes up with me and Daisy and Wesley. I think the youngsters need some time alone together, away from all the antler-crashing.”

  Goomba choked. “B-Bub!”

  “My daughter isn’t going to make the mistake I made when I married your son.”

  Goomba turned purple. “Mist-k.”

  Mom sat up very straight. “He was lousy in bed,” she pronounced. Daisy choked this time, and Mom patted her hand. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, darling, but it had to be said. Bobbyjay’s bound to be better. And if he isn’t,” she said, inclining her head at a gracious angle toward Goomba, “I’ll reconsider my position on this engagement.”

  Daisy’s eyes popped.

  Goomba’s hands shook. His head bowed in defeat.

  Mom added, “Regardless, of course, you boys will all behave yourselves around the Mortons while we’re out of town.”

  Looking crushed, Goomba tottered toward the back of the house.

  “My God, Mom!” Daisy said in awe.

  Mom was trembling with indignation. “The nerve of that sneaky old man. He’s probably been picking at Bobby Morton every way he could.”

  “Well,” Daisy began.

  Mom put up a hand like a traffic cop. “I know what he is,” she said between her teeth. Daisy half expected to see steam puffing out of her nostrils.

  Was this all it would take? Get Mom mad enough and she’d do a Wonder Woman on Goomba? Daisy felt like she’d been trying to push a car uphill when the key had been in the ignition the whole time.

  Mom sighed. “Thank goodness he’s gone.” She got up and brought the whisky bottle from the living room and poured a slug into her coffee. Daisy watched, stunned. Mom tipped some whisky into Daisy’s cup, too. “Now you can tell me. I’ve been dying to ask. Is Bobbyjay any good in bed?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Marty Ditorelli spent the morning waxing his Targa. With the upholstery removed, it looked like a wreck. He didn’t have to sniff hard to detect a fishy odor. That’s right. Remember how we got here. The child was out of control. Borrowed his car, got it wrecked, got engaged to a Morton! And the dominoes just kept falling.

&
nbsp; Now she was working the street, with evil Mortons laying for her. Would she blame her Goomba for somehow not protecting her on that truss? Mortons had been there that night, and no Ditorellis, and his angelina alone among the enemy. Christ, how could he keep her safe? A cold hand clutched his heart every time he remembered her face on the train ride home from the Opera House cafeteria. Sober and closed. Because she’d noticed him watching instead of helping when she needed him.

  When he realized that Bobbyjay Morton could make it worse by telling her how cold-bloodedly he had left her in danger, it made him crazy.

  He would have to handle this very, very carefully.

  At least she hadn’t crumpled like last time. Oh, Dio mio, my angelina, I put off teaching you how to be tough and now it’s too late. She faced the strumenti in the Local alone. With luck, she was blaming her fiancé that she got harassed, just as she blamed her Goomba in the cafeteria.

  Marty rubbed so hard that the Turtle Wax dried and brightened under his chamois.

  Of course if Bobbyjay managed to keep her happy, Marty Dit stood a good chance of losing his cook and housekeeper.

  He didn’t believe this fake engagement for a minute. That Bobbyjay Morton had the hots for his niece, that he believed. That she loved that big dumb lummox, no. No, he’d pushed them into this and he would have to be very careful how he pushed them out of it. Gently. Cleverly.

  He was good at clever.

  He leaned in the Targa’s open window and beeped the horn.

  Wesley came running out. “Grandpa?”

  “Call me Goomba. You’re one quarter Italian, for chrissake, kid, talk like it. Come over here.”

  “Hey, did you know Tony is doing dishes in there?” Wesley was beside himself with mystified glee. “He tried to dump the job on me ’cause he’s a journeyman and I’m not even an apprentice yet. I told him it’d be a grievance to the Board if I laid a hand on ’em. Not being even an apprentice yet,” the kid said, hinting.

  “Never mind that. I need to talk to you.”

  Wesley felt properly about Daisy. It wouldn’t take much convincing to get him organized.

  “We have a problem,” Daisy said hollowly when she got into Bobbyjay’s Jeep. “And thanks for driving me. I don’t feel like driving yet.” She still had bruises all over her yin-yang from falling in her body harness.

  “What’s the problem?” Bobbyjay said.

  “Mom wants you to come to the cottage in Lake Geneva with us next week.”

  Bobbyjay put the Jeep in gear and roared away from the curb. “Okay.”

  He was way too calm. How annoying. “She expects us to have sex.”

  “What!?” Bobbyjay hit the brake, tossing Daisy against her seat belt with a jerk that woke up all her bruises. “She wants what?”

  She noticed he was wearing a torn tee shirt that let the muscles peek out.

  “Mom wants us,” she enunciated, “to have sex. Right there at the cottage. So she can find out from me afterward if you’re any good,” Daisy added maliciously, enjoying the fuschia blush on his face and neck.

  “Guk.” His eyeballs swiveled toward her.

  “Yup. Oh, and Mom told Goomba she’d skin him alive if he started anything with your family. I felt like a total idiot. She had him around her finger in twelve seconds flat. I guess you were right about how the feud got stopped the first time,” she said, depressed. “I mean, thank goodness she can do that. I just feel like—there was a time when Goomba used to listen to me. Not because he was scared of me but because he loved me.” Those days are over, she thought glumly. A new order.

  Then it occurred to her. Did Mom’s intervention mean she didn’t have to stay engaged to Bobbyjay? She was surprised at how unpleasant she found that thought.

  “Wait, go back to the part where we have sex,” Bobbyjay said, and almost ran a stop light.

  Daisy hid a smile. “She probably won’t ask you. She’ll ask me. Although, I don’t know. She shocked the pasta out of me last night.”

  “But,” he said. Daisy waited, but no more words came out of her cherry-pink chauffeur.

  “She did tell me about a million sex tricks to try on you. We’d, uh, been drinking a little. God, I had no idea my Mom was such a slut. Did you know she used to date Badger, after she divorced my Dad? I suppose that’s why—” Daisy stopped, realizing that it wouldn’t be politic to refer to her childhood crush on Badger and Badger’s tiresome insistence on preserving her virtue.

  Bobbyjay’s color was darkening. He pulled into their usual Burger King and ordered pancakes for her, coffee for himself.

  “It won’t come to anything. I’ll just lie,” she finished, suddenly ashamed of teasing him.

  “Couldn’t you have lied before?”

  “Relax.” She patted him on the knee.

  He sputtered, “How can I relax? Your grandfather’s going to expect me to take your cherry under his roof while he’s there, and then your Mom will give director’s notes afterward! He’ll kill me!”

  “Nonsense. He won’t be there. Besides, Mom’s put her foot down. You should have seen him, he looked utterly crushed.”

  “Are you telling me he thinks you’re not a virgin?” Bobbyjay bellowed, and the guy in BMW in the next lane turned his head.

  “Keep it down, will ya? And what makes you so sure I’m a virgin?”

  “C’mon, Daze.” He looked down at her with a patronizing expression and she wanted to jab a plastic fork in his thigh. “He knows.”

  “How do you know? Badger Kenack lived with us for two years.”

  “When you were a kid,” Bobbyjay said dismissively. “Plus, he’s still alive. Marty Dit would of killed him.”

  “There are other males in the world besides Badger.”

  “Not for you,” he said, and Daisy suffered another shock at Bobbyjay’s always-amazing shrewdness.

  He’s in love with me and he knows I’ve cared about Badger all my life. He knows I’m a virgin. He gets me work and he gives and takes punches for me and he sticks up for me to Pete Packard.

  And he didn’t, she realized, he didn’t hesitate for a moment about coming to Lake Geneva.

  She eyed him. Complicated guy, Bobbyjay.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Bobbyjay had no idea what to expect of a summer place owned by Marty Ditorelli. The “cottage” turned out to have eight bedrooms, a three-car garage with a jet-ski and a dinghy in the third bay, a TV the size of a small Porsche, and a dock directly on the lake infested by a year’s supply of mosquitos.

  To Bobbyjay’s dismay, Mom Ditorelli (“please call me Fran”) took him upstairs to a guest room and prodded the king-size bed.

  “You’re so tall,” she kept saying. “I hope this will be comfortable.” For a woman dying to break her daughter’s cherry on a stagehand, she had a pretty worried look.

  “Mom Dit—uh, Fran,” Bobbyjay said, interrupting her, “are you sure you want this? I mean, me and Daisy sharing a room? Like, it would be okay with me if you wanted us to, uh,” he swallowed, “wait for the wedding. Night.” He cleared his throat, thinking of Daisy’s low riders and crop top. “Wedding night.”

  “Why do you ask?” Fran said. “Is Daisy a screamer? I always screamed for oral sex. Back in the day,” she added sadly.

  “A-hum!” He choked.

  “Never mind. TMI, isn’t that what you kids say? I won’t tell you about her father, that really would be too much information, but I will say that nothing worries me so much as the thought she might be taken in by some smooth talker who’s too selfish to make her happy.” Fran lowered her voice. “That’s a big reason why I’m so glad it’s you she’s chosen. I know you, Bobbyjay. You were a good kid and you’ll be a good husband.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. He just had no clue whether he would get to be Daisy’s good husband.

  “I’ll, uh, try to take good care of her.” The thought of being a good husband to Daisy had crossed his mind a few times lately. It made his lungs inflate like hot
air balloons and the top of his head flap in the breeze. How to pull it off, he had not the remotest guess.

  What worried him was her working in the Local. He pictured what could happen to her on some job when he wasn’t available to bat cleanup, and the hair rose on the back of his neck. He still woke up at night watching her slip through the truss spot cage and fall to a yanking stop at the end of her safety, her face screwed into a mask of pain. How can I take care of her, he thought, if this is what she wants to do with her life?

  “I don’t want to make you self-conscious,” Mom Ditorelli said now, “but I’ll be checking with her later. To make sure she’s really happy.”

  “Um, Fran, I’m, uh, okay with talking about this with you,” he lied. “I mean you’re cool, you’re a cool Mom. But maybe we shouldn’t talk about it in front of Marty Dit? You know, her grandfather,” he said, making one-handed see-saw gestures, “probably dandled her on his knee and gave her baths and all that, maybe he’s not really ready to, uh, think that far ahead into her future.”

  Fran looked at him with approval. “That’s very sensitive of you, Bobbyjay. What a thoughtful suggestion.”

  Bobbyjay managed a smile. “Yeah.”

  All in all, he was relieved when they went downstairs for hamburgers.

  Fran went after the kid Wesley next. “What do you hear from your parents?”

  Wesley glowered over the mustard.

  Daisy handed Bobbyjay the picalilli jar. “Open this please? Mom, lay off. You ask that every time. You know Wesley’s folks don’t call.”

  “They called on my birthday,” Wesley muttered.

  “They’re touring in Europe,” Fran told Bobbyjay, who was twisting the top off the picalilli. “His mother’s orchestra is very well thought of there.”

  “And his dad is their roadie,” Daisy finished. “Just like mine.”

  “Only probably without venereal disease,” Fran said, and bit savagely into her hamburger.

  Bobbyjay choked on his pickle.

  “Mom’s still bitter,” Daisy said.

  “Here we go, two more rare burgers, two medium, and a pile of sissyburgers,” Marty Dit said. His joviality was scary. He wore a big white puffy chef’s hat and an apron that said Kiss the Cook. All his teeth showed under his paisano mustache. “Did Daisy set you up in a room?” he said to Bobbyjay.