Red, White & Dead

by Laura Caldwell

  Before I could finish, Theo reached out his hand and shook my father’s. “Good to meet you,” he said. He put his hands in his back pocket and kept looking at my dad. “I have to tell you your daughter is one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.”

  My dad seemed not to know what to do or say. Finally, he said, “I had nothing to do with what a wonderful person Izzy is. But thank you.”

  Just then my mother stepped up to us, too. “Theo, this is my mom and my brother, Charlie.”

  They all shook hands with him. I saw my mom send a little questioning glance at his long hair and the tattoo. Definitely not her type. But soon, as they chatted, the two of them somehow stumbled into talking about the Robie House, a Frank Lloyd Wright landmark home where my mother happened to be a docent. I had no idea Theo even knew who Frank Lloyd Wright was. And then Theo and my brother were discussing the band that was about to take the stage-Theo knew them and sometimes helped them out-and another band they both liked.

  When my mother asked, “How do you know him?” I found myself answering immediately. “He’s the guy I’m dating.”

  The band started a bouncy, happy summer song, causing the crowd in front of them to cheer and dance. Get out of your head, and into your heart, they sang.

  A guy came running up to Theo. “We blew an amp. There’s another one in the van.” He held out a set of keys. “Can you grab it?”

  Theo took them. “Sure, no problem.” He turned to me. “I’m going to help these guys out, if it’s okay with you.”

  “Of course, go.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “This might take a bit, and if we lose each other, I’ll see you soon, right?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “But I’m not going to lose you.”

  He leaned down, his long soft hair brushing my face, and he kissed me.

  When he’d walked away, I turned back to the group and saw them watching me.

  “Is he someone important to you?”my dad asked.

  My mother raised her eyebrows as if waiting, interested, for my answer. Charlie smiled a little.

  Finally I spoke. “Yeah. He is important to me.”

  I looked at the three of them. My mother was shooting glances at my dad, but she seemed to have adjusted at least momentarily to him being there. To him being alive. Charlie, despite his dinged-up face and a split lip, looked at the two of them in wonder.

  I stepped forward and took Charlie’s hand, then my mother’s, and moved them so that we stood in a little circle with my dad. “I’m not trying to be all kumbaya or anything,” I said, “but I think we need to have a moment for Aunt Elena. She’s a different person than we thought we knew, but she saved us today.”

  “What’s going to happen to her?” Charlie said.

  “I’m sure she’ll go back to Italy,” my father said. “Back to her life.”

  Just then the sound of a huge explosion came from behind us.

  Someone in the crowd screamed. My mother gasped.

  We turned toward the Loop and saw a red orb of fire rising into the sky.

  “Oh my God,” my mother said.

  My father closed his eyes shut, then opened them and looked at us again. None of us seemed to know what to do.

  Charlie squeezed my hand tighter. “Is she okay?” he asked.

  My father stared at the red sky. He nodded, whether to reassure himself or answer Charlie’s question I didn’t know. “For Elena,” my dad said, squeezing our hands.

  “For Elena,” I echoed, squeezing back.

  Another explosion sounded and people started to scream “Fire!” “It’s a bomb!” “Call the police!” There were murmurs of terrorism, word spreading fast. Soon people were running in every direction, the world’s largest block party thinning out quickly.

  I saw Charlie reach out his other hand and take my mom’s. And then the oddest thing happened. My mother lifted her free hand and took hold of my father’s.

  As the four of us stood there, I thought back to my conversation with Q and Maggie a few weeks ago. I’d said that all I wanted for my thirtieth birthday was to be around family and friends.

  I looked around at the four of us, at my…

  Finally, I allowed myself to say it in my head…at my family.

  That was true, whether or not my father stuck around. That was true whether or not the four of us would ever be together again. They were my family. And, yes, my friends. I squeezed their hands. I smiled at them all. And they smiled back.

  Book Club Questions

  Izzy has a strong connection to Rome, Italy. Do you have a connection like that to any city or any country?

  What do you think of Theo? In particular, how do you feel about Izzy dating someone younger (Izzy is 30, Theo 22)? Would their eight year gap be as big a difference at ages 40 and 32? Or 50 and 42?

  Did you know about the Camorra or the other factions of the Italian mafia other than the Cosa Nostra (which had made famous by the Godfather movies)? (For those interested in the Camorra, a book was written about the topic called Gomorrah (by Roberto Saviano) and is also a film by the same name).

  What did you think of Elena, Izzy’s aunt? As she disclosed to Izzy her part in the history of their family, could you understand why she had made certain choices?

  What do you envision happening in the future with Theo and Izzy? What about Izzy and Sam?

  What do you think Izzy should do with her professional career?

  How do you think Izzy’s mother and brother will react to the events that transpired in the book?

  Deleted Scenes

  This scene was originally in the manuscript after the scene in which Izzy, Maggie, Bernard and Theo get chased out of the hotel in Naples. But then I realized it would be giving away the dad’s existence earlier than I wanted.

  An unraveling-of a riddle, a situation, a life-can be terrifying and yet also a beautiful thrill. In his life, he’d experienced all kinds of unraveling, and he knew now what he was feeling-sadness for what was about to be no longer, the thrill of potential, the potential of being discovered. The unraveling felt, in fact, like a wound, a clean one that was open, exposed.

  There was a word in Italian-sbrogliare-that meant to disentangle, to sort things out. To him, that made it sound too simple, as if the thing that was tangled definitely needed to be undone. He didn’t believe that in all cases-didn’t believe it in this case, his case. The open wound was exposed, yes, and clean right now, that was true, but it had options other than to heal. It could become black and infected; it could lead to other worse injuries.

  He walked slowly down a darkened street. Many people, he knew, were afraid to walk such a street by themselves. Napoli was not as dangerous as it once had been, but it was just as unpredictable. And yet he had learned many things over the years, and one of the best lessons was not to fear what wasn’t yet in existence.

  And so he didn’t fear the thug who might jump from the shadows to attack him. In fact, he rarely feared for himself at all.

  But for her, he feared.

  Gone. She was gone. Where to, he had no idea. She was with her friend, and now, apparently, two men. One of the guys he knew of-Theo, the long-haired one, the guy who looked like he was in a rock band. He checked him out, and Theo was who he said he was. Everything about him was true-he started a company after leaving college early; it was one of the most successful software companies of its kind in North America. But the other guy? The large guy who appeared to be, from what he could tell, Filipino. Who in the hell was he? What did he mean to everything that was going on? Would he bring safety, or more danger?

  He turned one corner, then another. So many corners in Naples, so many angles and wrong turns. All the establishments were closed, their front windows and doors boarded tight for the night.

  A car door opened suddenly, and he immediately flattened himself against a wall. But it was only a family, home from a visit or a dinner. The couple removed their tw
o young children from the car, opened a street side door and disappeared inside, not even looking at him.

  He was used to being invisible. Over the course of years, he’d actually grown to enjoy it in a queer way. So he kept walking, and he was not afraid of those streets, whether he was seen or not.

  But it made him sick, literally and physically sick, see how far the game had gone. It was never supposed to be like this. None of this was supposed to be happen. But then, nothing in life was ever happened like it was “supposed to happen”. And so he would have to change and adapt. Now that he’d lost her, he couldn’t protect her. And so, in the meantime, he would do the only thing he could-he would pray for her.

  This partial scene was originally contained within the scene when Izzy sits outside eating soon after arriving in Italy.

  We had planned to honeymoon in Spain, but Italy had been widely debated. We’d finally decided on the Costa del Sol in part because neither of us had been there. We wanted someplace new at the beginning of our new marriage. But there were so many things in Italy I would love to share with Sam now. As a lover of food and wine, he would be deliriously happy here, and I think of him every time I ask at a counter for a slice of soft goat cheese and I watch as they unwrap it from a cocoon of chestnut leaves. Sam would love the veal meatballs steeped in lemon and the paper thin slices of pink salmon rolled around a dainty puff of mozzarella foam.

  Of course, it’s not just food that makes me think of Sam, The thoughts of him keep coming, I think, because I am experiencing a new emotion, one I’ve never felt before in my whole life.

  I am jealous. And even worse, I am lonely.

  It took me a while to figure out what this thing was-this hollowness in my chest, this ache in my belly, the tears that spring when nothing is sad, when usually, in fact, it is just the opposite. I got lost one day and turned the corner to see the sun hitting the dome of St. Peters in a silvery-green stream of light. I stopped right where I was standing, and I cried. Those tears streamed down my cheeks because the sight was so stunning and also in part because there was no one there to see it with me. This has never bothered me before. I don’t need another person to validate some experience I’m having. I don’t need a man or a friend to tell me, Yes, you have witnessed beauty.

  When I get back to my room that day, I call Sam. I do the math, and I figure out with the time change it is eight in the morning Chicago time. Sam will be getting ready for work. He will be reading the Wall Street Journal on line and eating a protein bar, a cup of coffee next to the keyboard. He will have one more cup while he puts on his jacket, packs his bag that he slings cross-wise over his body until he gets off the el near his building, when he will take it off and carry it by the handle into his office.

  The phone rings.

  This scene was written in the first draft of Red White and Dead. At that point, I envisioned that Maggie’s mafia clients might help bring about Izzy’s downfall, getting asked by Dez Romano to find out where they were. Later, the book was changed so that Dez had men at the Centrale station in Naples looking for them when they arrived.

  Maggie looked at her phone. She scrolled through it. “My secretary called five times while we were on the plane. I better call her back.”

  We kept staring out the window while Maggie waited for her secretary to answer. “Rita,” she said, “what’s the fire?” She listened for a minute. “Ah, damn it. Again?” She put her hand over the phone, said to me, “I’ve got a dumbass client with two priors and two pendings. Arrested again.” She took her hand off the phone. “What’s the charge? Hmm, that’s new for him. Well, get Tom to go see him at 26th Street.” She listened some more. “No, I’m not back until Sunday, and I’m certainly not coming back for him.” She held the phone away from her head, and I heard her secretary’s raised voice rattling on. Maggie brought the phone back to her ear. “Fine, tell him he can call me.” She hung up.

  “What’s going on?” I asked her.

  “The kid’s family is freaking. The uncle is insisting they talk to me. Won’t let any other attorney see the kid or talk to him, and he’s got to appear today.”

  The cab driver turned onto a broad cobbled avenue. “The bay of Naples,” he said proudly. On one side of the avenue, the water sparkled blue and sailboats bobbed. The other side was lined with stately hotels, most of them with balconies looking onto the bay.

  Maggie’s phone rang. She looked at the display then answered it. “Hello, Tony.” She listened. “Yes, I heard. Well, I’m in Italy so I can’t do much right now. I’m sorry about that, but Tom from my office can handle the bond hearing.” They spoke for a minute, Maggie reassuring the client that she would personally speak with the associate from her office and that she would be on the case as soon as she got back.

  “Grand Vesuvius,” the driver said, “and we are here.”

  Maggie finished up her conversation with her client as the driver parked.

  This scene was originally in the Ischia section of the book where Izzy finds Elena. Initially, she was to meet Maurizio.

  His blue cap hid his hair but not the coarse but attractive features of his face.

  “This is Maurizio,” she said, gesturing at him. She spoke a few words in Italian that ended with “Isabel. My niece.”

  “Ciao, ciao,” Maurizio said congenially. He stood and shook hands with Theo and me. He switched into English. “You have been enjoying Italia.”

  “Very much,” I said, an automatic response. I didn’t mention getting chased by men with guns.

  He and Theo started chatting. Theo, apparently, knew something about European soccer and soon, Maurizio was explaining about the different levels of soccer teams in Italy -Serie A, Serie B.

  The next two scenes were at the end of the first draft of Red, White & Dead, when I was going to have Lucy be a more instrumental part of bringing down Dez Romano.

  I thought of Lucy, and the phone call she made to me from her sister’s cell phone while I was in Italy. “From what you know and what you’ve seen, are you sure that Michael DeSanto is laundering money for Dez Romano or that he’s involved in some way with him.”

  “Yes,” my father answered without hesitation.

  “And from what you’ve seen, will jail time cure him of that?”

  He put a finger on his chin and scratched it. “From what I’ve learned, guys like Michael DeSanto get into the System because they think it’s dangerous and cool. My guess is he’ll do his time, get out, and then get right back into it.”

  “Does your cell phone work here?”

  He nodded.

  “Can I make a phone call without it being traced?”

  My father handed it to me.

  I called the number for Lucy’s sister. She answered with a soft, “Hello,” that sounded a lot like Lucy.

  “Hi, this is a friend of Lucy’s. Izzy McNeil.”

  “Oh, Izzy! She’s been worried about you. Hold on…”

  In the background I heard the sister calling Lucy!, and then the footfalls of children.

  Then Lucy was on the phone. “Izzy?” Wait just a second, I’m taking the phone outside. I heard a door opening and closing, then a few soft footfalls. “Okay, sorry about that. I don’t like to talk in the house anymore in case Michael…you know. Anyway, where are you?”

  For a second, I wondered if I should answer her question. Lucy had said that Michael must have been taping her phone conversations or bugging the house, but if Lucy was truly back with Michael (and wanting so badly to make her marriage work) maybe she was the one who told Michael and Dez that we would be at the Nature Museum. It was Lucy, after all, who had begged me to meet her there that day.

  “Izzy? Are you there?” Lucy said.

  The sound of Lucy’s sweet voice made me realize how much I adored this girl and at the same time how much I hated how suspicious I’d grown over the last year. I trusted Lucy. I always trusted Lucy. And I wouldn’t go through life mistrusting everyone. I glanced at my dad, wondering if ma
ybe that was how he had lived his life.

  “I’m back in town,” I said. “I’m all right. How are you?”

  She sighed. “I’ve been better. I’m just so glad to know you’re okay.”

  “How are things with Michael?”

  Another sigh. “I’ve almost hit my limit if you want to know the truth. He keeps saying he’s not working with Dez, or with anyone like that, but Izzy, he still has money. I mean, he lost the bank job and he’s getting sued by them, but he’s still paying our mortgage and he’s still buying new clothes and going out for big dinners.”

  “You don’t know where he gets the money?”

  “No. I’ve never handled the finances, and when I ask, he tells me not to worry about it. When I push he tells me he came into family money, but Izzy, I know his family. They don’t have this kind of cash.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m so confused. I still want our marriage to work. Or at least logically I want that.”

  “Have you been talking to Mayburn?”

  “No.” Her voice was so low I almost couldn’t hear her. “And it’s killing me.”

  “Lucy, I’m just going to cut to the chase here. I need your help.”

  “Of course. What kind of help?”

  “Basically, I need some dirt on Dez Romano.”

  “Oh, Izzy, I told you. He is a bad, bad guy. Just stay away from him.”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Does this have to do with Mayburn? I told him that I need to make these decisions on my own.” Her voice was louder now, bordering on irritation. “He thinks that-”

  “Luce, this has nothing to do with Mayburn. It has to do with my brother.”

  “I didn’t even know you had a brother.”

  For some reason, that made me choke up. “Charlie. And Dez kidnapped him.” I told her the situation.

  “Oh my God.” Lucy sounded shocked. “Oh my God,” she said again.