Thankfully, Stefano's grandparents seemed to enjoy punctuality as much as I did, and we only had to wait a couple of minutes before a car pulled up and the tiny, wrinkled couple emerged. Nonna leant heavily on her husband.
As Stefano leapt forward with an excited shriek to greet them, I hung back. I wasn't so much an active participant in these meet-ups as a prop and, accordingly, I tried not to get too involved.
It'd been a few months since my last good deed outing with this family and I was saddened to see that Nonna's health looked to have deteriorated significantly in that time. As she reached for her grandson and clung desperately to his waist, I clenched my hands and thought that anyone who wanted to give any sort of shock to this frail, sweet little creature had no right claiming the high moral ground.
As the reunion continued between grandmother and grandson, Nonno (as he'd insisted I call him) came over to greet me and I was able to smile genuinely as he reached up to kiss me once, then twice on both cheeks. He was a short, squat man with the kind of blunt, no bull manner I couldn't help but approve of.
Stefano's family history was one shared by a lot of first generation Australians, but no less impressive because of it. Arriving off the boat with no English and no idea what to expect, they'd gritted their teeth and got on with raising their family and working all hours of the day and night to make something of themselves.
My father worked hard, signified by the fact I'd barely seen him growing up, but I knew this work was in order to grow his pile of money into a bigger pile of money. This wealth-grabbing had obviously been to my benefit, but there was no denying that it was more inspiring to spend time with someone who had worked hard, not necessarily for the money, but because he bloody had to.
"Ack, you're too thin," were Nonno's first words to me in his thick accent. "With elbows that bony how do you think you're going to give me any pronipoti?"
Ah yes, pronipoti. My grandma would've used the word 'great-grandbabies' and received the same grimace in reply.
"If you think elbows have anything to do with it, it's been way too long for you, old man," I responded, and he laughed heartily and gave my arm a fatherly pat.
With the other two still gabbling away in Italian, Nonno and I led the way in to the restaurant, used to this routine by now. Stefano was clearly Nonna's favourite, and the two of them tended to disappear into their own little world. This isolation from my supposed boyfriend was further enhanced for me as I didn't have the faintest grasp of the language they were speaking; still, as default dinner companions went, Nonno wasn't half bad.
The meal progressed as it usually did, with a chorus of horror that my chosen meal was a salad, a lot of fussing over Stefano the golden child, and, thankfully, no sign of the EGs.
We'd just had our menus returned to us for perusal of the dessert selection when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I jerked round to see a set of painfully familiar broad shoulders making their way through the crowd.
We were tucked away in the corner, the place was packed, but I wasn't even slightly surprised when Fletch suddenly stopped dead, lifted his head and sought me out. Our eyes were venomous as they met, neither of us in the least bit happy to see, or rather sense, the other.
I was the first to look away, leaning across to ask Stefano, with perhaps more intensity than was warranted, whether he wanted to share a scoop of gelato. By the time Stefano had replied in no uncertain terms that, no, he didn't want to share a scoop of gelato, he wanted a bowl to himself, Fletch had turned his back and made his way to the counter.
Some naively hopeful part of me thought that maybe that would be the end of it for the night, but of course, it wasn't. Fletch seemed to be there to collect take-away, and apparently there was a wait. So, whilst Stefano and Nonna tutted and hummed their way over the menu, I tried not to know with every part of my being that Fletch was no more than 10 metres away.
I was a failure at this, I knew that both in myself and by the way Nonno almost immediately saw my shiftiness and, following the direction of my wary glances, turned to me to murmur, “That boy is staring at you."
Gritting my teeth I shook my head. "No."
"No?" Nonno clearly found this response suspect and I forced myself to meet his questioning gaze.
"OK, yes," I admitted. "But he's no-one important."
He seemed to give this some thought before saying decisively, "This boy, he bothers you."
"We have history," I shrugged, glad of the restaurant chatter that kept this conversation from being overheard. "But it doesn't mean anything now."
"He bothers you," he repeated, leaving me with just enough time to insist,
"It doesn't matter," as the waiter thankfully reappeared and I thought the matter dropped.
I was wrong, as it transpired, but I didn't realise it until only the last few smears of gelato were left in the bowls and we were all sipping on creamy coffees. At the same time Nonno announced he was going to the toilet, I glanced over to see that Fletch was finally receiving his pizzas. I was stupid enough to relax, thinking the risk of him exposing the situation between Stefano and I as a sham had passed, but tensed again as I saw that, far from heading towards the bathroom, Nonno had made his way out the door after Fletch.
Not good.
Making a hurried excuse to my remaining table companions, I bolted after them, weaving my way through the tables and bursting through the restaurant door just in time to see Nonno pin Fletch back against the alley wall. Leaning close, he started speaking to a stunned Fletcher in low, swift tones.
I must have made some sort of involuntary noise as Fletch looked over and the immediate slump of his shoulders said 'of course'.
"I take it the tiny Italian man is something to do with you?" He enquired over Nonno's head, adding an exasperated "ow" as he was given another shove back against the stone wall of the alley.
I ignored him, reaching out instead towards the older gentleman. "Nonno, what are you doing?" I asked, tugging at the arm that pushed hard against Fletch's chest. "I said it was nothing."
"I don't think nothing," Nonno responded fiercely, maintaining his grip with a strength that belied his advanced years. "I think something."
"You sound like my sister," Fletch muttered, and I experienced a short, sharp shock at the realisation that the sexual tension crap Saskia had been going on about hadn't been unique to me. Well that…grated.
"Really, I don't give a damn about this guy," I insisted grimly, starting to get a bit sick of having to repeat this. First Stefano, then Merry, then Saskia, and now Stefano's family were getting in on the act? "It's Stefano I care about."
Fletch's eyebrows rose at this announcement, but he kept his mouth shut for once, which was a relief.
Nonno, however, let out a rude noise, similar to a raspberry. "It's not about one boy or another," he said crossly. "This boy shouldn't make you uncomfortable."
It was a beautifully simplistic response, one that I genuinely appreciated, but Fletch ruined it by saying, "If it makes you feel any better, she makes me uncomfortable too." He twisted slightly in the older man's grip and I realised then that, actually, Fletch could've pulled free at any stage during the confrontation, but that he'd been almost courteous enough not to. He seemed to be reaching the end of his tether, however, as he added with a bit more of a bite to his tone, "Now, my food's getting cold, so if you wouldn't mind..."
"Please let him go, Nonno," I said, swallowing back my horror at finding myself in agreement with Fletch about something. "It's really nothing."
Maybe 'please' really was the magic word as, with one last little shove, Fletch was released. Nonno took a couple of steps back towards the restaurant, but then stopped and said over his shoulder, "You leave her alone."
"Trust me," Fletch let out a humourless laugh, "I'm trying."
Nonno scoffed, slamming the restaurant door behind him, and then it was just Fletch and me and an incredibly awkward silence.
"Well, that was fun," Fle
tch broke it, wincing as he rolled the shoulder that seemed to have taken most of the impact of the wall. "I'd ask you what it was about, but I know you'd just say-"
He pointed to me and I took my cue, saying curtly, "It's none of your business."
"And there it is," he sighed, sounding just as tired of the whole thing as I was. "Enjoy the rest of your night, Lara." He went to walk away, but was forced to stop as he saw that three people were blocking up the entrance to the alley.
I had almost laughed at his completely insincere platitude and so there was still a dour little smile hovering at the corners of my mouth when I looked up and saw what, or rather who, had stopped him.
Oh well, that was just great. The newcomers were a small contingent of the dreaded EGs.
Although pissed that they'd turned up at all, a second after seeing them I found I was at least glad that I'd caught them at a goodly distance from Stefano and his family. If I had anything to do with it, they weren't getting an inch closer.
"I hope the fact that you're out here means that Stefano's in there being true to who he is and coming out to his grandparents." Clearly not planning to suffer under any false pretences, the guy with the curly dark hair in the middle of the trio sneered his way through an introductory speech, making my hackles go up sky-high.
"Oh yeah, definitely" I drawled sardonically. "But when he started waving a rainbow flag and singing Born this Way, I left him to it."
I moved forward as I talked, drawing alongside Fletch and taking advantage of his wide shoulders to hopefully shield the situation somewhat from the windows of the restaurant.
I could see the offence taken by the EGs at my comment as their postures straightened and their lips thinned, but I couldn't say that it caused me any particular concern.
"This is all about you being a do-gooder, right?" Curly-hair crossed his arms and lifted his pointy little nose self-importantly. "Well, don't you think you'd be doing more good encouraging Stefano to completely accept his homosexuality rather than helping him to propagate the myth that it's OK to be gay only when it suits you?"
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of people start to come down the alley, before obviously smacking into the wall of animosity crackling around us and thinking better of it.
"And don't you think you'd be doing more good by supporting people who actually want your help," I snapped, refocusing, "rather than cramming your sanctimonious crap down the throats of people who are quite happily living their own lives?"
"They can't be happy if they're living a lie," came the pious response and I almost choked at his audacity.
"Well, thank goodness you're around to make that decision for them," my words fairly dripped with sarcasm, but the thing with zealots is that such things usually go right over their heads. He probably thought I was agreeing with him.
"Someone has to make a stand!" One of curly-hair's back-up boys suddenly piped up, his comment seeming to fire the other two up as they nodded as one, and made as if to push past me towards Papa Joe's.
"Yeah, not going to happen."
That had been my thought, but I wasn't the one who had spoken, nor had it been my arm that had suddenly shot out, barring the EG's way forward. Silent and still throughout my verbal volley with Curly-hair, Fletch had suddenly joined the party, his expression forbidding.
My dad had always said I was an attention-grabber, and that appeared to be borne out as the EGs didn't seem to have noticed Fletch looming beside me until he'd spoken. Their response when they did see him was very interesting, with Curly-hair, in particular, looking quite taken-aback.
"Oh," he said, his tone that of someone trying very hard to be cool while secretly soiling himself, "it's you."
"You still pulling this shit, Eric?" Fletch's voice lowered to a growl and I felt it fair rumble through my chest. "I thought we'd agreed you were done?"
When I turned my head to look at Fletch in surprise, he answered my unspoken question, his eyes still fixed on Curly-hair. "Eric here thought it'd be a great idea to send my friend Jai's parents a letter outing his sister last semester."
"Jesus," I breathed.
"Yeah," Fletch continued grimly, "you probably see Padma around, Jai lives in your building and she crashes with him a fair bit now she's been kicked out of home."
"If she was proud of who she was as a person-" Eric started to say, but Fletch took a step forward, snarling,
"Stop talking, right now."
And he did.
Fletch waited a moment and then continued. "We turned this lot into the Dean, but because Padma wasn't a student here, they said there wasn't much they could do beyond a warning." He flicked a glance my way, "But your friend goes to Bay, right?"
I nodded with some degree of satisfaction as I said firmly, "Yes, he does."
"So I guess that code of conduct they're always going on about will apply, then."
I didn't get time to add that, if they did anything to Stefano, disciplinary action from the uni was the last thing they needed to worry about, as I heard the door of the restaurant open and Stefano ask, "Lara?"
I flinched and span around, incredibly relieved to see that there was no nonni peering over his shoulder wondering what was going on.
"Oh, shizcakes," Stefano had obviously caught sight of who I was talking to, and a look of genuine panic eclipsed his usually sunny expression.
For a moment I was torn, knowing it was suspicious for me to not be back in the restaurant finishing out the evening with Stefano's grandparents, but reluctant to leave the EGs in such close proximity. Fletch solved this for me, muttering, "You go, I got this."
I blinked, my automatic reaction to snap that there was no chance in hell that I was going to afford him any sort of responsibility tempered by the vibe Fletch was exuding that suggested it would take an army of 100 to shift him. Seeing as how the 'army' he was actually facing was made up of three scrawny boys who were clearly terrified of him, there didn't seem much danger in leaving him to sort it, no matter how much it went against my instincts.
"Fine," I said ungraciously. "I'll give you five minutes; make sure they're gone by then."
With that, I shot the EGs one last glare and then stalked away, putting an extra hard stamp into my walk so my heels clearly clicked my discontent out against the pavers.
I was annoyed that I lived in a society that seemed to think it had any right to judge who someone had a fun old, consensual, romp around with. I was also annoyed at the people who tried to impose their reaction to this judgement on someone else. Most of all, however, I was annoyed to find that, just this once, Fletch's existence didn't seem to be completely useless.
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He could tell what type of walk Lara was using for her exit by the noise her shoes made on the concrete. It was the one that made her arse twitch in the most pronounced way so it took everything in him to keep his eyes front and centre on the three tossers before him.
This focus was made even more difficult as he clearly heard Stefano ask, "Is that your boy going all white knight out there?"
Lara's response was swallowed up as she closed the restaurant door with a bang, but it didn't take too much imagination to figure out that it would've been short and sharp.
"OK, you heard the woman," he said firmly, once he was sure it was just the four of them left in the alley. "But you're not worth five minutes of my time, so do us all a favour and just rack off."
There was confusion in the ranks, the two Fletch didn't know shifted uneasily, looking ready to bolt, but Eric, the apparent leader, crossed his arms, trying to appear unruffled.
"You just do as she says, do you?" He asked in the niggly tone of a 7 year old trying to tease a classmate for sitting next to a girl at little lunch. Fletch cocked an eyebrow.
"It's one option," he replied, with a calm he didn't feel. "The other is to call Jai and tell him that I've got three of the arseholes who destroyed his sister's life with me, and that there's a dark street just a block over.
If I were you I'd prefer to leave here without my head getting kicked in, but maybe that's just me."
It was a bluff, he wasn't going to call Jai; the last thing his mate needed was a reminder of that first night when Padma had turned up, her whole body shaking so hard she'd barely been able to knock. They didn't know that, though, and yet they still hesitated.
"Right," he released a heavy sigh, "I'm going to lay this out for you. I know who you are and I'm going to report you, that's level one. On level two, I bloody hate what you do and my pizza's congealing. I'm holding myself to level one pretty bloody hard here, but any minute now we're going to hit level two and you're not going to like it."
The two no-names wisely started to back away, but Eric didn't move fast enough for Fletch's liking so he took a step forward and barked, "Go."
And, finally, he did, although not without shouting a whole bunch of propaganda about pride and truth over his shoulder as he went.
Fletch followed him out to the mouth of the alley and stood there for a moment, making sure the three of them really were gone. Once it seemed the way was well and truly clear for Stefano and his family, he flicked a quick look back towards the restaurant and met Lara's eyes as she checked up on his progress through the window.
He gave a short nod to show that it was all good and, in his peripheral vision as he turned away, he could've sworn she'd inclined her head slightly in response.
There was really nothing like a common enemy to make for a truce in other battles; but he wasn't stupid enough to think it would last.
Chapter 9 – Missing and Found
To be honest, it didn't really come as any great surprise to me when, after the relative success of my first week shepherding Saskia towards a more fulfilling life path, things took a turn for the worse. Namely, she disappeared.
The Monday arvo I spent waiting for her at her school only for her to never materialise got my back up, but I allowed that one absenteeism was to be expected. By the look of things, she'd been left to her own devices for a fair while, she was hardly going to give up her 'I can do what I want and you can't stop me' drama after only a week.
The Do-Gooder Page 10
