by Anise Storm
Arielle was sitting on the couch, curled up to Niles as she showed her something on her camera. Rachaela was across the room, pacing back and forth as she talked to someone on her phone. It was certainly starting to feel like Thursday. Olivia and Kimara set the containers down onto a table, so Lania went into the kitchen to get some plates and silverware. When she returned, the lids had already been lifted from the food, and the women were inhaling the scents of the lasagna, chicken parmesan, and veal osso bucco.
“That smells divine,” Rachaela said as she set her phone down and sniffed the steam rising from one of the containers. “And sorry about that, girls. I’ve been called in to help on a child abuse case and had to take that call. It was from the courts.”
“It’s fine,” Lania said as she passed out a plate and forks to everyone. “I hope the child is okay.”
Rachaela flopped down on the couch beside Niles. “She’s much better now that she’s out of that house. It’s sad to think that some people can be so cruel to a toddler. Little Josie will be much better off in protective custody.” The woman then reached over and scooped some veal onto her plate. “Enough about my work. How has everyone’s week been?”
“Finals, finals and guess what,” Olivia said before dramatically adding, “More finals. I think this semester is going to be the death of me.”
The others wriggled their noses up at the mention of school. Lania did not miss seven a.m. classes and thesis reports at all. She was much happier at Basilico. “You have one semester left, right?” she asked Olivia.
“Yes, thank God. So enough about me. How was everyone else’s week?” the blonde responded.
Niles shrugged before answering, “Just another day, another dollar.”
“Nothing here,” Arielle said. “My life is boring.”
“It is not,” Kimara said, playfully swatting the redhead’s arm. “Nothing too exciting here, either. Just the same old hospital stuff. What about you, Lania? You’re very quiet over there.”
Lania knew the roundtable would eventually stop on her, so she shouldn’t have been so embarrassed, yet she still blushed when she thought about Mario. “De Palmas opened last weekend.”
She didn’t elaborate right away, waiting on one of the girls to drag the sordid details out. Before any of them could, they heard the sound of the doorbell. Jade was here. Kimara jumped up to answer the door, so Lania waited. When their other friend finally got inside, she decided to continue.
“I found out that my father helped him open his damn restaurant in some way.” The other girls looked as shocked as she did when she found out the news. “So, I went over there in the middle of the grand opening and might have caused a scene.”
Olivia giggled, having already known about the spanking part. The other girls didn’t know, however, and looked expectantly at her. She dragged out the story a few seconds longer as she took a large swallow of her bottled water.
“I tossed a drink on him,” she said, and the entire room burst into fits of laughter.
“You didn’t, Lania! What did Mario do?” Jade asked.
“He spanked her,” Olivia said.
Lania felt her cheeks flush as red as the tomato sauce on the lasagna. Maybe telling them everything wasn’t such a good idea at all.
“What happened after that?” Arielle questioned. The redhead popped a bite of chicken in her mouth and once she swallowed it, she continued. “Out with it all, Barone. I can tell you’re holding back on us.”
Lania stuck her tongue out but knew Arielle was right. “Later that night, he stopped by my condo and we…” She paused and then quickly added in almost a whisper, “We had sex.”
Niles snickered. “Was he better, the same, or worse than that time in Italy?”
They were all ears, wanting to know every last detail. She’d tell them about him and maybe the act but never about the fact that she begged him for sex. She’d hold onto that last shred of pride. “Better, I suppose.”
“You suppose?” Rachaela asked incredulously. “Either he was or he wasn’t.”
Flipping her friend off, Lania then sighed deeply. “He was, and to this day, the two best sexual experiences I’ve ever had have been with him.”
The truth was finally out there, and she felt her stomach coil at the realization. It was just her luck that her best lover would be the one person she loved and hated at the same time. She’d lied to herself by pretending that the time in Italy only seemed so great because of her childhood crush on him. She didn’t have those same feelings for him and yet the sex was even better.
“I don’t know what to do about him, to be honest. I’ve been dodging his calls all week.”
“You could always take Blanche’s advice on this,” Niles said with a smirk. “Don’t you remember when she told her niece? ‘If you’ve got a stallion eating oats out of your hand, best close the gate before you give him the sugar.’”
Lania brought her palms to her face. “He isn’t eating anything out of my hands. Unfortunately, it’s probably the other way around. How do you do it, Niles? How do you have men hanging on your every word?”
“It’s either the boob job I got when I was nineteen or the fact that I like to make the rules,” she replied.
“You didn’t have a boob job,” Jade told Niles, and the group laughed.
“I’m serious, though. I am a complete bitch to him, but he always manages to turn it around on me. I think I’m just doomed where Mario De Palma is concerned,” she lamented. That man had some sort of hold over her, and she hated it.
“You should take notes from Niles because she is a complete bitch to everyone and has men eating out of her hands,” Rachaela pointed out, and the blonde flipped her off.
“I need to do something. If not, this is going to be a long summer. Can you believe that it is already June?” Lania said, hoping the change of subject would work.
“I’ve heard from some clients that a storm is coming,” Jade.
“You know, I’ve heard that too. At the nurse’s station, they were talking about some tropical depression off the coast of Africa. Evidently, the conditions are favorable for development and many forecasters are projecting Southeastern Florida to take a direct hit,” Kimara added.
“Great,” Rachaela and Olivia said at once. Lania concurred and sighed. Tropical advisories were bad for tourism, which meant it was bad for her business too.
“Maybe it will veer off and go north or something,” Arielle replied.
They all nodded in agreement and then finished eating their food. Lania loved these nights when it was the seven of them together. It brought back so many fond memories of dorm room slumber parties and other college shenanigans. She’d do anything for any one of these women and knew they’d do the same for her. They exemplified what true friendship meant, and she felt herself getting teary-eyed.
After they’d eaten all the cannoli’s, Arielle, Kimara, and Jade looked like they were ready to head home. Deciding it was best to do the same, she stood up and heard her cell phone notification of a text message. Looking down at the screen, she saw it was from Mario and blushed.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know who that is from,” Olivia teased, and Lania shook her head.
“I’m playing hard to get, so he can message me all day and night. He won’t be getting any sugar from me,” she told them and decided to turn her phone off for good measure once she got back to her condo. She’d have to confront him sooner or later but needed to talk to her father first. Maybe she’d take Gorgio’s call next time, after all.
Everyone got their things together, gave each other a hug, and left. On her way to the car, she looked up at the bright blue sky. “A hurricane,” she murmured softly. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Chapter 17
LANIA HAD TO GO and open her big mouth when she was leaving Rachaela’s townhouse that night. A few days later, the storm had not only become a tropical storm in that short time, but it was already reaching sust
ained hurricane winds. The National Weather Service said ‘Allie’ would be upgraded to hurricane status within the next few hours.
She sat there in bed, eating cookies and cream Gelatto from the pint while she waited for the next set of commercials to air so they could get back to the storm track report. It looked like Kimara was right although she was still holding out hope that it’d either fizzle out or go a different route. The meteorologists kept talking a bunch of mumble jumble about fronts and high pressure troughs. Lania had no idea what any of it meant and probably wouldn’t have even cared if it wasn’t something projected to impact her.
When the news returned, images of Miami and all of South Florida after Hurricane Andrew flashed upon her screen. The anchorman recalled an article from the Miami Herald that was written on August twenty-fourth of 1992. “Hurricane Andrew, the most fearsome storm to hit South Florida in decades, howled ashore early today with a hundred and thirty-eight miles per hour winds and left a path of destruction from Fort Lauderdale to the Florida Keys.”
Lania rolled her eyes as she thought about the storm she’d only heard stories about. The news station didn’t go as far as saying that the one in the Atlantic would be anything like this one. That was all she needed to hear. She took another bite of her dessert just as her phone rang. She reached for her cell phone, but it fell off the nightstand and onto the floor. When she grabbed it off the carpet, she must have hit the answer button, instantly upset with her clumsiness.
“Melania,” she heard faintly through the receiver.
Unable to hide her irritation at the sound of Mario’s voice, she picked up the phone and replied, “What the hell do you want?”
She heard his chuckle, which grated on her nerves much like someone scratching nails down a chalkboard. Well, maybe it isn’t that bad. Still, she’d been doing such a great job at avoiding him only to have the carpeted floor thwart her efforts.
“I’ve been trying to call you all week.” Mario paused. “I might’ve thought you exited the land of the living if it had not been for me seeing your car outside Basilico.”
“You’ve resorted to stalking now,” she remarked sarcastically. “I don’t remember that in your book of tricks, so I should consider myself lucky.”
Mario growled, and even with the sound being somewhat muted, it still made her body tingle. Something else that did, as well, was the fact that he’d been checking up on her. She knew it wasn’t for the reasons her body wanted him to, but the gesture was enough to flood her body with heat.
“I’m not playing any games with you, Melania,” he answered.
“Yeah, well, whatever.” Lania rolled back over onto her back and muted her television while flipping through the channels. “I’ll repeat my earlier question. What the hell do you want?”
“For starters, I wanted to see how you were after the other night,” he started to say until she interrupted.
“Did something happen the other night, De Palma? If so, it must have been forgettable because I don’t remember anything at all.” Lania was very satisfied with her answer and could only image the scowl he was sporting at her deliberate attempt to shatter his massive ego.
Most men, especially the one on the other line, hated to feel like their sexual prowess was being questioned. The most disappointing part was that she couldn’t see his face while doing so. She’d settle for the silence that greeted her after that admission.
Lania had spent the better half of her teenage years hearing about his many sexual conquests. At one point, she’d actually counted them all until the number grew too large to manage. Mario’s reputation preceded him, and what seemed like the entire female population of Jupiter Island and the surrounding Port St. Lucie area chased unmercifully after him. It was a pathetic showing at her high school, and she’d always prided herself on knocking his ego down a peg or two, whenever possible.
The silence didn’t go on for long because she’d heard him clear his throat. “We both know what happened, little girl. I’ll spare you the details of how you begged me to fuck you and then later, most likely woke up the neighbors as you screamed my name.”
Ugh! She really despised this man. At the same time, she also wanted an encore presentation of that night. However, she’d keep that information to herself. “I see your recollection is different than mine. If you didn’t call to talk about that, then for the third and final time, what the hell do you want?” she asked him.
“What I initially came over that night to do, Melania. I wanted to talk to you about your father.”
That was yet another topic of conversation she’d really prefer not to discuss. “Oh, yes. I remember. He betrayed me to do your bidding. It’s so nice of you to remind me about that.” Lania rolled her eyes and then added, “That subject is really none of your business, so I think that concludes our business together.”
“He told me you’ve been avoiding him the same way you’ve done me. Since you’re in the tantrum phase, let me know when you’re grown up enough to hear the truth,” Mario told her.
Now, it was her time to scowl, and she did. “How dare you tell me to grow up, De Palma? You’re the one who—”
“I can remember when you were five and I took your favorite doll. I fed it to an alligator and recorded him ripping Mrs. whatever her name was apart,” he interjected.
“Mrs. Fancy Pants,” she murmured as memories of that day returned. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Mario chuckled. “I remember that after you placed your hands on your hips, I expected you to run me through a verbal wringer, but to your credit, you turned around and walked away. I remember that it was at least two weeks before you’d even speak to me.”
Lania stayed silent, remembering how hard she cried when she made it inside. She was so distraught, and at five it felt like a death in her family. Unbeknownst to Mario, her parents helped her place all of Mrs. Fancy Pants’ clothing and toys into a chest so it could be buried in the backyard.
Mario continued. “And then there was the time that you were ten and I was twelve. We got sent to the same summer camp that year and a few of the boys in my cabin helped me break into your cabin in the middle of the night. We were all wearing white masks on our faces and scared the entire group of girls. Some cried and others peed their pants, but not you, Melania. You simply rolled your eyes and turned over in bed. You didn’t talk to me for about two weeks then, either.”
Yet again, he brought back memories she’d prefer to have kept buried. The girls were told earlier that afternoon not to watch horror movies before going to bed. They didn’t listen and when the older boys broke into their cabin in the middle of the night, it was as if Jason rose from the dead to murder them. It was a cruel joke but nothing surprising to her.
“And there were so many slumber parties that I crashed and—” Mario recalled, and she could hear the hint of amusement in his voice.
“So, what you’re trying to say is that you’ve always been an asshole,” she offered up.
“You’ve called me that plenty over the years, Melania, but the point I was trying to make is that when you’re upset, you simply give me the silent treatment,” he answered, and she knew he was right. “I’m just surprised that you actually answered the phone this evening. Usually, I have to wait at least another week before you grace me with this playful banter.”
“And had I not dropped my phone, I would’ve made you wait that long and more this time too,” came her retort.
“I’m sure you would’ve too.” Mario chuckled and then lowered his voice to that same raspy tone that made her core clench. “If you’d rather me come over and do the talking with my hands then you only need to say the word.”
Lania snorted. “I bet you’d love for me to be all ‘baby, please, come over and warm my bed’ but I don’t think so. I have a few words for you but a single gesture would be better.”
“It’s better that I can’t see that gesture because I’d probably take it as an invitation,” h
e warned her, and she could hear the playful tone in his words.
“All a woman has to do in front of you is breathe, and you’d take it as an invitation.” And Lania was serious. He was the proverbial playboy and always had been. “Now, as much as you enjoy this back and forth conversation, I have other things to do, so if this is all…”
Mario cleared his throat. “I truly only wanted to call to talk to you about your father. Please call Gorgio and let him explain his actions and then afterward, I will explain mine.”
She sighed deeply. “Fine! I’ll call him in the next few days.”
“Good girl,” he told her and her stomach did somersaults at the praise. “And good night, little girl. Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“Night,” she said and then glared at the phone as she ended the call. Bed bugs. She felt her skin crawl at the mention of insects. It reminded her of another time at summer camp when Mario and his friends had released a bunch of different creepy crawly creatures onto the beds in the girls’ cabin. “You’re such a fucking male,” she said aloud and then started to look under her blankets for signs of anything.
So much for a good night’s sleep. She’d now spend the entire night fending off imaginary predators. She shuddered one more time before getting ready for bed. As she turned her attention back to the television, she saw two women dressed as nuns. When the latter mentioned her purpose for being there, Lania giggled. “We’re collecting lingerie for sexy needy people,” she said at the same time. The women on the Golden Girls were expecting a storm much like most of Miami was tonight. The meteorologist mentioned it being a few more days out, so she’d worry about it later. For now, she’d watch her favorite show until she fell asleep.
Chapter 18
MARIO SCRUBBED HIS HANDS down his face and then leaned back in his chair. Frustration filled him and the conversation a few nights earlier with Melania did little to ease his mind about where things were headed between them. He’d hoped that her father would’ve filled her in on what he’d gotten in return for helping him, and then he could tell her why he’d ever asked Gorgio for help to begin with.
