Sucks to Be Me

by Painter, Kristen

  Joe Jr. glanced toward the downstairs. “Aunt Cammie told us to come up here. She’s getting rid of everyone.”

  “Should I even ask how?”

  Christina smiled. “She announced she’d be leading everyone in a half hour of the Holy Rosary, followed by another half hour of Our Fathers. The place is clearing out like Edison’s is giving away free cannolis.”

  Donna laughed. “I couldn’t love her more if I tried.”

  Joe Jr. stepped into the room. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Just thinking about how much I have to do.” She was not going to tell them about the deal she’d made with Big Tony. At least not until it was done and over with. And even then maybe not. “You know I’m probably going to sell the house. Eventually.”

  Christina shrugged and put Lucky down. He went straight for the bed. “It’s a lot of house for one person.”

  Joe Jr. nodded. “Yeah. It’s too much. Plus…there’s a lot of Dad here.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” These kids were so smart. So capable. She got weepy then, not because of Joe, but because of how wonderful the kids were. “I love you two so much.”

  Christina sniffled, and they ended up in a group hug.

  Donna hesitated, wondering if maybe she should tell them about Big Tony’s promise of freedom, but then Cammie walked in.

  “Everyone’s gone except for the caterers, who are finishing the cleanup. They’ve been cleaning as they go, so they should be gone in twenty minutes or less.”

  Donna wiped away an errant tear and smiled. “You’re a miracle worker.”

  Cammie put her hands together and glanced upward. “I’m just a conduit for miracles.”

  The kids laughed, and the tearfulness was forgotten.

  Donna flexed her toes against the thick rug. The ache was finally leaving her arches. “What do you kids want to do tonight, seeing as how you both have to leave in the morning? Go out to eat somewhere?”

  Cammie put her hands on her hips. “Do you know how much food is downstairs?”

  Christina shook her head. “But none of it is Tressler’s ice cream.”

  “No, it is not,” Joe Jr. added. “And I could maul some rocky road.”

  “Tressler’s it is.” Donna would have to go for an extra-long run in the morning to burn off all those delicious carbs, but it would be worth it to spend this quality time with her kids. She was well aware of how rare an evening out with her two children was getting to be. “Cammie, you in?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  If Joe were alive, she would have had to ask if it was all right that they go to Tressler’s. Now, she could go anywhere and do anything she liked. No permission needed. An odd lightness filled Donna’s spirit. Was this what freedom felt like? It had been so long, she couldn’t be sure. But it was a feeling she could very easily get used to.

  All that was keeping her from it was one little package delivery.

  Chapter Three

  The package wasn’t that little, but it wasn’t that big either. It was a medium-sized duffel bag. Black with black straps. Nothing special. From the weight of the bag and the angles that showed through the nylon sides, she guessed drugs or money. Whichever it was, it was most likely wrapped in smaller bundles.

  That was as far as her interest in the package went. This was a means to an end. A very worthwhile end. Freedom.

  She’d left the bag by the door to the garage, put it out of her mind, and went for her run to work off the pistachio fudge ice cream from last night.

  Upon her return, she noticed that Vinnie’s cologne, which he apparently bought and applied in ample quantities, still lingered in the air.

  He had arrived about five minutes after the kids and Cammie had gone. Almost like he’d been watching the house, waiting for them to leave.

  Donna tried not to dwell on that possibility.

  He’d handed her the duffel, given her the address of the drop-off and told her at least three times that she wasn’t supposed to look inside. “We’ll know if that lock has been tampered with,” he’d said, pointing at the small brass padlock holding the zippers together.

  She’d just nodded and assured him she wasn’t about to touch anything. That finally seemed enough to satisfy Vinnie, and he’d left.

  That cologne, though. Whuff.

  She’d grabbed a bottle of water and gone up to take a well-earned hot shower. Lucky was still asleep on the bed where she’d left him, curled up like a house tiger.

  After her shower, however, she wasn’t left with much to do. The kitchen had already been cleaned after the breakfast she’d made for Cammie and the kids. There wasn’t much laundry to speak of either. Sheets, maybe.

  But that wasn’t going to fill her day.

  She supposed she could call her therapist, but her regular appointment wasn’t today, and La was pretty busy. The only way Donna was likely to get in earlier was if La had a cancellation.

  Which was unlikely. So that was out.

  And the drop-off wasn’t until nine tonight. What was she going to do until then? Not that she wanted to work out after her run, but she couldn’t exactly go to the gym or show up at the yoga studio, since she was supposed to be the grieving widow. Same with getting her hair or nails done, neither of which she needed anyway. Going out would just invite questions and more condolences, and she didn’t want to deal with more of that after yesterday.

  If one more person asked her how she was doing or gave her that sad smile…she shook her head. She was doing great. Truth was, Joe’s death was the best thing that had happened to her since her kids were born.

  But she couldn’t say that.

  She stood in the living room, staring out the big windows that overlooked the expanse of front yard. Being in the house alone was odd now that the reason for being alone was her newly acquired widowhood.

  The alone part wasn’t new. She’d been alone in the house for a few hours almost every day since she and Joe had gotten married. Joe went out a lot.

  But since the kids had gone off to live their own lives, those spans of time were always punctuated by Joe’s return. Or preparing for Joe’s return. Or something that had to do with him. There were always meals to fix for him, functions to get ready for because of who he was, events she was required to show her face. And then there was her personal schedule of appointments necessary to maintain herself at the level Joe expected.

  None of that existed anymore. The family no longer influenced her day-to-day activities.

  If she wanted to stop working out and watching what she ate and coloring her hair and having her eyebrows done and getting things waxed and injected and do nothing but sit in front of the television in sweatpants and eating cheese puffs out of a Costco-sized vat, she could.

  If she wanted to get a tattoo and streak her hair pink and go out dancing every night, she could do that too.

  She could join the convent and keep Cammie company. Would they let her keep Lucky, though?

  Didn’t matter. The convent was not for her. Point was, nothing was off-limits.

  What an odd feeling. It was heady, having charge of her own life after twenty-seven years, but it also made her feel a little at sea. The urge to go off the deep end and do something crazy was there, for sure.

  She wouldn’t, of course. That wasn’t her nature. Sticking to the plan was what worked for her. But if she wanted to veer from that, she could. Her life was her own.

  Okay, except for the drop-off. That wasn’t something she could veer from. But that was one evening. It would take her forty-five minutes to drive out to the old industrial park where she was supposed to leave the duffel, which would take all of five minutes, then forty-five minutes to drive home. Two hours, tops, and she was done with this business.

  All that remained was to figure out the appropriate timing of her plan for the rest of her life. How soon could she resume some of her usual routine? How soon could she put the house up for sale? Get rid of Joe’s stuf
f? Go to Florida to condo-shop?

  And when would the insurance check arrive?

  Actually, she knew that one. About thirty days after she sent them the certificate of death, which she’d put in the mail this morning, the insurance company should pay out.

  Thirty days. She could do that standing on her head. Well, not literally. She hadn’t quite mastered that move in yoga. But figuratively? She’d done twenty-seven years with Joe. For a month, she would wear dark clothes and lie low and be every inch the woman in mourning. She would catch up on her reading, get the house ready for sale, and daydream about her new life.

  A month was cake.

  She glanced toward the kitchen. Speaking of cake, there was half of a cannoli cake from Edison’s Bakery on the counter. She’d tried to get the kids to take food with them, but they hadn’t wanted to, saying it didn’t travel well. Donna understood. It was funeral food. A reminder that their father was gone.

  At least Cammie had taken two boxes of Italian cookies back to the convent with her. The sisters would enjoy those.

  But that cake.

  Donna wandered toward the kitchen. Her morning run had taken care of last night’s ice cream but eating this cake would mean another run tomorrow.

  She opened the cake box and stared at the seven layers of golden vanilla sponge filled with cannoli buttercream, the whole thing drenched in chocolate ganache.

  Would it really mean another run? Or could she just this once say screw it and eat what she wanted without immediately scheduling herself for the workout that would erase the calories she’d consumed?

  She smiled. She could. This was her life now. Plus, she was grieving. And a lot of people ate their way through grief. Why should she be any different?

  She took a fork from the utensil drawer, but her phone rang before she could get a plate.

  The screen showed the call was from Martin’s Cleaners. There was no Martin’s Cleaners. That was the name she’d typed into the contacts for Rico Medina. She let the call go to voicemail. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to the FBI right now. Even if Rico was awfully pretty and she was newly single.

  Nope, nope, nope. She had to stop thinking like that. Rico wasn’t going to happen. Not even in a one-night stand, how-Belladonna-got-her-groove-back kind of way. It would be fun. But she was pretty sure the FBI had rules about their agents getting horizontal with their mob-connected informants.

  She lifted the cake out of the box and set it on the counter. Was that what she was? An informant? She hadn’t actually informed the FBI about anything yet. Just told them she would. She stuck the fork into the cake and came away with a nice chunk.

  As soon as the cake was in her mouth, she wanted a tall glass of cold milk. Not something she usually drank, but Joe always had, and she had some in the house because Joe Jr. liked it too.

  She poured a glass, then went back to the cake, which apparently, she was not going to slice and put on a plate.

  Her phone rang again. Martin’s Cleaners.

  Hmm. Rico really wanted to talk to her. That could be good or bad. Obviously. She ate another bite of cake. But she was afraid if she talked to him, she’d let slip about the drop-off. That couldn’t happen. She couldn’t have FBI agents swarm the place and ruin her perfect out.

  Turning informant would get her free, too, but finishing this last job for Big Tony was cleaner and faster. And didn’t require her to disappear into WITSEC for her own protection.

  Once the house was sold and she had her place in Florida, she could still give Rico enough information to make Big Tony’s life miserable. But Big Tony didn’t need to know it was coming from her.

  She downed another forkful of cannoli cake, expanding the growing crater on the side of it. She did need to talk to Rico and tell him that things had changed. Although she suspected he already knew, and that’s why he was calling.

  Rico wasn’t stupid. With Joe’s death, Rico understood she had all kinds of options now. And when the insurance came, the money to do whatever she liked.

  But she liked Rico. He was a good man. The kind of guy she should have married. He was full of heroic ideals. A protector. A righter of wrongs. And he’d given her hope and a way out when she’d had neither.

  For all of that, she owed him the truth. One last bite of cake, and back into the box it went. She tossed the fork into the sink. Tomorrow morning, first thing, she’d go to his office and tell him everything.

  But tonight, she had to take care of her own business. This wasn’t just about her. It was about safety for her family. It was about freedom for all of them. And no one was going to get in the way of that.

  She downed the last of the milk, put the glass in the sink too, then groaned and patted her stomach. That had been a lot of carbs for the middle of the day. She smiled. It was fun doing whatever she wanted. It might end up costing her a whole new wardrobe one size bigger, but it was fun.

  There were hours left to kill. Maybe she should try to be productive. But where to start?

  Her mind went to the one room of the house that had always been off-limits to her.

  Joe’s office.

  She went down the hall and stood in the doorway, reaching around to flip the light switch. The room reeked of his cigars and aftershave. Spotlights on the walnut bookshelves behind his desk lit up all kinds of signed sports memorabilia. Baseballs, footballs, a couple helmets, a bat, a hockey puck, a basketball, and some very rare baseball cards in their own glass cases.

  There were books, too, but those were just for looks. Joe had been more caveman than scholar, but then that was part of what had made him so adept at his chosen profession. Thugs and criminals didn’t need to be well read, just willing to do what others weren’t.

  Joe certainly had been willing.

  She stepped into the office. No expense had been spared in this room. It was even soundproof, something Joe had personally overseen during the building of the house. That had made eavesdropping on his meetings impossible.

  Her fingers coasted across the top of his desk. Much of his time at home had been spent in this space. There was a large television mounted on the wall opposite the desk. He’d usually have a game on while he was in here.

  She walked around the desk and sat in his leather chair. She’d never done that before, and for some reason, it was both empowering and a little sad.

  Joe, for all his crimes and misdemeanors, had started out a decent man. She’d thought so, anyway. And even after any pretense of decency was gone, he’d made sure none of them wanted for a single thing. She’d had a new car every year. The children went to excellent schools. His parents, now deceased, had spent their golden years with the best care money could buy.

  He’d been a generous man in that way.

  A lying, cheating, corrupt, vicious, generous man.

  She flattened her hands on the desk. Maybe his generosity was his way of trying to balance all the bad he did. Or maybe he was just showing the world how well he was doing. Making his position in the family clear. He was an earner. Big Tony had often said that about Joe with a kind of sly smile that made other members of the crew jealous.

  And now Joe was gone. Fat lot of good his status and money had done him. She took a deep breath, struggling with a sudden wave of sadness. How odd.

  She would not cry for that man. Not after everything he’d done. Not after how coldly he’d treated her after she once dared to hint that maybe he should go straight. Why did she care at all that he was dead? She’d wanted out. Wanted to be free of him and this life and these criminal people who flaunted their illicit lifestyle like it was something to be proud of. As if it was enviable.

  Fools. All of them.

  She had spent more than half her life with the man. They’d had some good times in the early days. Made two beautiful children.

  She’d never thought of herself as sentimental, but maybe she was a little. Maybe being a widow did that to a person. It was easy to romanticize a person when they were gone. She needed
to be careful about that. To remember who Joe really was.

  On a lark, she opened the top desk drawer.

  All the usual stuff was in there. Pens, a pair of scissors, a roll of stamps, tape, a couple legal pads, some paper clips and rubber bands. Odds and ends accumulated over the years.

  Plus two small silver keys on a simple wire loop.

  Chapter Four

  The keys looked like the kind that might go to a safe-deposit box. Or maybe a safe.

  They had a safe. It was no secret. It was upstairs in Joe’s walk-in closet. It held the handgun Joe had bought her for home protection, a couple thousand dollars for emergencies, some important paperwork, a good strand of pearls inherited from her grandmother that were going to Christina at graduation, and some pictures.

  She knew how to open it. Her birthday, then Christina’s, then Joe Jr.’s. That was the combination.

  It didn’t take keys.

  That meant there was another safe somewhere, or a safe-deposit box. She doubted it was the second one. Joe, like most of the family, including Big Tony, had no love for banks. Accounts could be frozen all too easily. Records subpoenaed.

  She stood up, staring at the four walls around her with new eyes, trying to find something she’d missed.

  Joe had personally supervised the construction of this room, but maybe soundproofing wasn’t the only extra he’d added.

  She started with the wall across from the desk. There wasn’t much to it, just the big-screen television mounted at eye level. She peeked behind it. Nothing but the mount and cables going through the wall. A closet on the other side stored a lot of the home’s electronics. That space was accessible from the hall.

  The walls on either side of the desk couldn’t really hide anything either. One held the door from the hall into the office, and the other joined up to the kitchen. Some framed sports jerseys adorned those walls.

  In the center of the wall shared with the kitchen was a bar cart. She opened the doors. Liquor. Glasses. A cocktail shaker.