“Yes, I know the story,” Frankie said. “My Dad read to me a lot, too. He also recited poetry.” Lenny found this similarity between Lenny and Vi curious but also sad.
“Oh, Mommy recited poetry, too.” Ina took Frankie’s hand as they walked down the shadowy aisle towards the front of the store where light came from the deli display case, the corner streetlight, and the strobe of passing cars.
“What are those things hanging from the ceiling?” Ina asked, pressing herself against Frankie.
“Customers who didn’t pay their bills on time,” Frankie whispered. But as he felt Ina’s hand tighten he told her that he was kidding. “They’re just cheeses and lunchmeats. You want to taste some?”
“Sure,” Ina said, but she kept close to Frankie. He feared that he might trip over her feet as he took several hams and salamis from the cooler. She jumped and let out a little gasp when he turned on the slicing machine.
“Do you like thin slices?”
“I don’t know,” Ina said above the buzz of the spinning blade.
“We’ll make them kind of thin since you just had supper, plus they taste better that way. At least the ham does. I’ll slice the salami a little thicker.”
“Good. That’s the way I like it.”
Headlights blinked through rain dappled windows like a game of hide and seek, and Ina stood on her toes and stretched her neck to get a clear view as slices of prosciutto, capicola, sopressata, and Sicilian and Genoa salamis fell from the spinning blade onto a sheet of wax paper forming a patchwork of cold cuts.
“They smell good,” Ina said.
“Here, taste the prosciutto first.
Ina took a bite. “Mmm.”
Next she tasted the capicola and rubbed her tummy.
“Delicious!” she said and sucked the tips of her fingers. “But I think I’ll save the rest for later. I ate a lot of pasta. How come you call pasta macaroni?”
“I don’t know. We just do. Like sometimes we call sauce gravy. Maybe it depends if it has meat in it or not, but I’m not sure if that’s the reason.”
Frankie dropped a few boxes of torrone and some chocolates into a small paper bag and handed them to Ina. “Save these for later, too,” he said. For some reason, being with Ina reminded him that Lenny had been his age when Vincenzo died, and Lenny had to leave school, help Filomena raise small children, plus help run the store. Frankie wondered if it would have been worse to lose Lenny instead of Gennaro. He didn’t have an answer, but shuddered at the thought of losing Lenny.
“Thank you,” Ina said. She folded the sheet of wax paper around the few remaining slices of cold cuts. “I’ll save this for Mommy ... I don’t mind if you call her Mommy too.”
Frankie ignored her comment and asked her if she had ever held a snail.
“Eew ... that’s disgusting.”
“Nah ... it’s cool,” he said.
They walked out from behind the deli counter. She seemed less fearful and followed him across the front of the store to the barrels of olives, baskets and burlap sacks of dried beans, and the lone basket of snails. Several had crawled out of the basket. Frankie picked one up. It retracted into its shell until he flattened out the palm of his hand. Gradually the snail emerged. First, its soft muscular foot, next its head, and finally its curious tentacles stretched out, making it resemble a miniature extraterrestrial. Another headlight flashed. Ina’s eyes widened when the snail slithered ever so slowly towards Frankie’s wrist.
“Why do you sell snails?” she asked.
“People cook them in sauce or with olive oil and garlic.”
This time Ina let out a much more unequivocal, “Eewww.”
Frankie laughed, retrieved all the escaped snails, and returned them to the basket. “Come on, one last place to see. I’ll show you the warehouse. That was my favorite hideout when I was your age.”
Again, Ina took Frankie’s hand as they walked to the darker end of the store. In her other hand she held the folded sheet of wax paper and the bag of candy. Lenny unlatched the door to the warehouse and switched on the bright fluorescents. Like magic, cardboard mountains appeared, stenciled with names like Ronzoni, Contadina, and Progresso — some cases reached up into the rafters and touched the 15-foot ceiling.
While explaining to Ina that he used to climb on these cases and pretended that he was a pirate on a ship or a knight in a fortresses, he recalled the many times that Gennaro and he nestled against each other in this cardboard sanctuary and read comics or spoke in hushed tones of their hopes, complaints, and fears, or teased each other, which inevitably turned into wrestling, and several lighter boxes of dry goods would tumble onto them. He remembered Gennaro’s solidness, their limbs entwined, and the scent of boys more interested in playing than bathing. But then he felt a slight jostling of his hand and looked down to find Ina staring up at him.
“You have Mommy’s eyes,” she said. “Not just the color. Sometimes her eyes look sad too.” The warehouse air was biting and a puff of steam followed Ina’s words. “I wish my eyes were green. Mommy said that mine are hazel, but I don’t like them.”
Hazel, Frankie thought. Like Gennaro’s.
Ina’s voice quivered, probably from the cold.
“We better go back in the house,” Frankie said.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, I’m not mad at you. It’s just cold in here.”
“Okay, but next time I visit you, we’ll make our own fortress like you and Gennaro did.”
“What did you say?”
“A fortress. You said that you and Gennaro used to ...”
Frankie turned off the light and led Ina out of the warehouse, back into the store, up the steps into the breezeway and office while Ina spoke of things about Gennaro that Frankie had no recollection of mentioning, as if memories had spilled from his lips without him knowing.
In the office, surrounded by the old photographs, next to the safe that once concealed the cartoline postale, and the computer where Lenny typed his emails to Vi, Ina asked Frankie who Gennaro was. Frankie’s hand froze on the doorknob to the dining room. He hadn’t expected this to happen so soon, that someone who had never known and would never know Gennaro would ask him to explain. Call him on my cell, Frankie thought, and ask him to come down to my house, tell him that there’s someone I want him to meet, tell Ina that he’ll be right over, and she could see for herself who Gennaro is. Or was. But of course, Frankie couldn’t do that. And even if he was unwilling or unable to wrap his head or heart around that fact, it was a fact nonetheless, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
“Gennaro was ...” Frankie began, and by linking those two words, Gennaro became as remote as the boys in the cartoline postale. So what if he had died only a few weeks ago. Frankie could no sooner embrace him than he could embrace Filomena or the great-grandfathers. Death isn’t gradual, it’s abrupt and final, he thought. One moment someone is here, the next moment they’re not. Whether someone has been dead five minutes or five years or fifty years, it’s all the same.
“Gennaro was my friend,” he finally said, and the words felt like broken glass in his throat. If at that moment he were to spit, his saliva would have been streaked with blood, as red as the blood that had spilled from Gennaro’s quivering body.
“Did something happen to him?” Ina asked.
Frankie bent down, facing Ina. “Yes, he died.” And Ina hugged him. He dismissed the slight ache where her small hands clasped over the place where a bullet had pierced his neck, another sign of time passing and healing — at least physically.
“What’s that?” Ina said.
“Just a scar. Nothing important.”
Her hair fell soft against Frankie’s cheek, and her torso pressed against his heart. He returned her embrace, but instead of yielding to his own grief he felt protective of Ina. Please, no more questions, he thought, it’s all too sad for you to hear about. Ina clung to Frankie, and he managed to lift her up despite the pain. From the dining room, they hea
rd Lenny and Vi’s voices.
“They’re talking about me,” Ina whispered.
“Must mean you’re pretty special.”
Ina and Frankie stood under the archway between the dining room and kitchen. “What a great store! Kind of spooky though,” Ina said. She was quite animated. “There are all kinds of pasta piled all the way to the ceiling and cheese and meat as big as me hanging from hooks and more kinds of olives than I’ve ever seen. Even snails! But I didn’t hold one.”
She climbed onto Vi’s lap, making Frankie think of Filomena holding his little cousins.
“Frankie gave me the most delicious food I’ve ever tasted.” Ina held out a ball of crushed wax paper. “It’s called prosciutto. Then we went in the warehouse and when I come back to visit again, Frankie and I are going to make a fortress there. It will be a fun place to play. Have you ever been in the warehouse, Mommy?”
Lenny glanced at the floor.
“Yes, I think so,” Vi said.
During dessert, Vi and Ina spoke about their life in Los Angeles. Ina said that she wanted to be a ballerina or a spy when she grew up, which made every one chuckle. Frankie spoke about the colleges he had applied to. Lenny mostly listened or encouraged others to speak about themselves with comments like: “Interesting ... tell me more ... Wow, that’s something.” He cracked a few jokes, but was mostly quiet. The tone of the evening went full circle, and by the time the four of them stood at the front door saying goodbye, awkwardness returned.
Frankie gave Vi a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. All that had been left unsaid loomed until Ina broke the tension. “I always wanted a sister, but I’m glad you’re my brother.” Her simple acknowledgment brought levity to their goodbyes.
Frankie smiled and gave her a hug and kiss.
When Lenny hugged Ina, she whispered, but loud enough for everyone to hear her: “I wish you were my daddy too.”
Until now, Frankie hadn’t considered the fact that Ina had also grown up without one of her parents — something else that they shared.
Lenny’s eyes filled with tears.
Vi took Lenny’s hand. Neither of them spoke until Lenny finally said: “I’ll give the three of you a few moments,” as if he were a polite outsider and didn’t want to intrude, but Frankie had nothing more to say. Ina filled the silence, and then Frankie stood at the top of the stoop, watched them get into Vi’s rental car, and waved goodbye as they pulled away.
31
Their flight back to Los Angeles left early the next morning, and Frankie spent much of the day thinking of Ina. When he sliced cold cuts or scooped snails to be weighed or brought stock out from the warehouse, he felt Ina’s small hand press into his or felt the knot of her grasp against the nape of his neck or her heart beating against his, and it amazed him how much he cared and that he thought of someone other than Gennaro.
That evening, after they closed the store, Frankie was the one who initiated a conversation with Lenny about Vi and Ina, and, throughout the week, they discussed Vi and Ina’s visit in small bites as if they were slowly digesting what had taken place. Frankie also discussed the visit with Tootsie, mentioning that he wasn’t sure about Vi, but that Ina was a great kid, and it was strange but kind of fun to suddenly have a little sister. The more he thought and talked about them, especially Ina, the less he longed for Gennaro, but there were also moments when thoughts of the three of them merged. After all, it was Gennaro who had sent Lenny’s email to Vi. If not for the classic DiCico meddling in other people’s lives, Frankie may never have met Ina, at least not now — as if Frankie reuniting with Vi and meeting Ina was a farewell gift that Gennaro had set into motion.
He shared with Tootsie this idea of an unforeseen fate or destiny behind Gennaro’s press of a button, and she not only agreed, but also added her own anecdotes to support his belief about destiny, including their first meeting. “Honey, I know meeting you that time lighting those candles was no accident,” Tootsie said.
Frankie remembered how holding pink-finger-nailed Tyrone made him feel peaceful and for the first time he had believed that his feelings for Gennaro weren’t sinful. They just were. Although he again suffered feelings of guilt and God’s retribution, given that moments after Gennaro kissed him at the altar he lay bleeding in Frankie’s arms.
“When people pay attention, honey, they know that things happen for a reason,” Tootsie said.
Tootsie’s comment didn’t help. “But what reason could there have been for Gennaro to die?” he asked.
“I don’t know, honey. I didn’t say I knew the reasons. If I did, people would be praying to me, and you know what’s gonna freeze over before there’s a Saint Tootsie.”
Late nights were the hardest times, and trying to distract himself with thoughts of having a new little sister went only so far. Sleep didn’t come easily. Frankie stared at reruns of old television shows on his computer until 1, 2, sometimes 3 in the morning.
Lenny would have already put in several hours of work before Frankie stumbled into the store, but Lenny always smiled and asked how Frankie slept as Frankie yawned, mumbled something incoherent, and downed a quart of orange juice or milk. On weekdays, Doug Turner joined them for lunch and Frankie ate quietly while Lenny and Doug salted their lunch with talk of politics. Lenny would try to draw Frankie into the conversation, but Frankie mostly responded with a shrug and another bite of his sandwich.
Customers gossiped about seeing Big Vinny’s sons in the neighborhood, trying to no avail to get Lenny to divulge what he might know about why Michael and Jimmy were suddenly released on bail or information about the pending trials. Some neighbors spoke of Big Vinny leaving his house daily with Scungilli. Yellow tape across the front door of Big Vinny’s club was a constant reminder that prison was still a very real threat for the DiCico men.
In the evenings, Lenny and Frankie took turns eating supper alone in the kitchen while the other worked the store, and except for Sundays they closed the store every night around 9 pm, and Lenny fell asleep while reading the newspaper or watching television, and Frankie closed himself in his bedroom, turned on his computer, and watched videos of Gennaro, or spread out the cartoline postale like tarot cards across his bed, and according to their arrangement, he concocted elaborate fantasies, conflating his relationship with Gennaro with the great-grandfathers’ relationship. But he also responded to friends’ messages and texts, and watched YouTube or searched random sites on his computer. He even began to read books again, though after a few pages, his concentration drifted and it was back to reruns of old television shows on his computer until he was able to fall asleep.
Since meeting Ina, Frankie felt a gentle but persistent tug, as if he were being lifted up from a very deep well, but it would be a long, arduous ascent. Given the way Lenny had looked at Vi across the dinner table, Frankie knew that letting go and moving on did not come easily for Lasantes.
Close to a month passed since Vi and Ina had returned to California when Frankie received a card from Ina. He often thought to write to her or send her an email through Vi’s address, but each time he began he felt foolish. He couldn’t write of his relationship with Gennaro or of how Gennaro died, or tell Ina that she was a gift in an otherwise grief-stricken time. That was a lot to put on a young child. The envelope was addressed in large bold printing. Inside was a birthday card with a picture of a boy playing baseball and the words Brother scripted across the top, reminding Frankie of how patient Gennaro had been when he taught him how to throw and catch or hit a ball with a bat. Inside the card was a clichéd jingle about brothers, but Ina had also printed her own thoughts:
Dear Frankie,
I miss you. Mommy said that we have to give you time.
She said that you went through a lot. She said that maybe you are mad at her because of what she did. But I didn’t do anything. Please don’t be mad at me too. I asked Mommy if you could come visit us. She said that you could. Here is a picture of Mommy and me at the beach. I love you.
&nb
sp; Your Sister,
Ina
OXOXOXOXOX
The photograph reminded Frankie of the one he had given to Lenny years ago in the Mother’s Day frame he had once made in school, and the floor creaked under his feet as he walked to Lenny’s room and then placed the two photographs side by side. In one, Frankie was straddling Lenny’s shoulders, looking out on the Atlantic. In the other, Ina embraced Vi with the Pacific as their background. Frankie stuffed Ina’s card and photograph in his back pocket, raked the back of his hand across his tears, and headed to the store where he found Lenny talking to Doug — a newspaper lay open on the counter between them. They looked up from the paper while Lenny wore a weak, thin-lipped smile.
“I’ll see you later, Lenny,” Doug said and left the store. What now? Frankie thought as he neared the counter where Lenny stood over the newspaper. The headline read “Distraught Son Confesses.” Lenny explained that the cabdriver’s son had been in the cab the day of Big Vinny’s block party, and he saw Gennaro staring at the cab’s license plate number and write something on his arm. Frankie skimmed the article. After the police had found a gun with the boy’s fingerprints in a dumpster not far from Most Precious Blood, he confessed, and given that he was a juvenile and under severe duress from his father’s murder, his attorney was able to plea bargain for a reduced sentence. The newsprint blurred. Gunshots rang out, and Frankie felt Gennaro’s weight press against him.
“Are you okay?” Lenny pushed a stool next to Frankie and helped him to lean against it.
“There’s one small consolation in his confessing,” Lenny said. “No trial. No need for anyone to testify.”
“He’s not the only one,” Frankie said.
“What do you mean?”
“Not the only one to see Gennaro write something on his arm. I also saw him do that.” Frankie covered his face with his hands and sobbed. “But I didn’t know they were going to kill that poor cabdriver. He didn’t do anything to them. Why would they kill him?”
Lenny ran to the front door, locked it, turned over the sign to read CLOSED, and grabbed Frankie, almost dragging him away from the front of the store.
Most Precious Blood Page 21
