The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  Nicky and Joe left her side only to fetch her another drink, or a tasty morsel from the burdened buffet tables. Enzo’s brothers-in-law were handsome boys. Wealthy. Charismatic. And too young. Tressa had to be in her twenties, while neither of them had yet graduated high school. Nicky would, come May. Even if she were his age, she’d be out of his league. Sophisticated, cultured, classy as hell, Tressa could have any man in the place and she knew it.

  “That’s some tasty dish, eh?” Cami murmured too close over Enzo’s shoulder.

  He sipped his gimlet. “Nicky and Joe seem to think so.”

  “I seen you watching her all night. Do I gotta get out the baseball bat?”

  “Me?” Enzo faced his father-in-law. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Cami tossed back the remainder of his Manhattan, grimaced. “Yeah, I’m kidding you. Mostly. That girl’s got nothing on my Cecilia.”

  “She’s a child.”

  “Twenty-one, her brother says. Nice guy, that Al, eh?”

  “I really haven’t had the chance to talk to him, but he seems so.”

  “He used to live around here, before joining the navy.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I thought he looked familiar, when I picked him up off the ground today.” Cami signaled to the bartender. “Feel like I should remember him or something. I got no fucking memory since I drowned.”

  “I imagine nearly drowning could have that consequence.”

  The vanishing that rocked the Paterson underworld so hard it tumbled into the quaking rifts. Dominic Giancami’s resurrection, only days before his daughter married a minor rival’s son, scooped all the rubble into the palm of his massive hand and crushed the family into something new. Something better. Something more solid than it had been since Prohibition. Even as an eighteen-year-old kid, the timing struck Enzo as too perfect to be coincidence. Uncle Cami had never been that smart. If orchestrated, a defter hand than his had done so. But who? And how? In the years since, Enzo found no answers and didn’t care enough to search. Everything was as it should be, as far as he was concerned.

  Until tonight.

  A server brought Cami a fresh Manhattan, neat with a twist of lemon and a cherry. He took a good swig. “I gotta get my boys off that poor girl,” he said. “Go over there and say something smart.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the university man.”

  “And you’re the host of the party. You could just tell her you want to introduce her to someone or something.”

  “You getting smart with me?”

  “Uncle Cami, come on.”

  “Uncle Cami now, eh?” He laughed, elbowing Enzo in the ribs. “Maria made me swear on my balls I wouldn’t go near her. Go on. Save the fairy princess. I’ll choke the living daylights out of my boys till they get the message to leave her be.”

  Cami shoved him, gently for Dominic Giancami, in Tressa’s direction. Enzo stopped at the bar for another gimlet before doing as he was told. “I’ve been sent to save you from these two pups,” he said. “Nicky, Joe, your dad’s about to choke the living daylights out of you for monopolizing Miss DiViello’s time.”

  “Oh, goodness.” Tressa touched manicured fingertips to her lovely collarbone. “I wouldn’t want you boys chastised on my account.”

  “Here he comes,” Enzo murmured, leaning in. “You better scoot.”

  “I’m not scared of my dad,” Nicky grunted. “I have to see you again, Miss DiViello. I’m not budging until you tell me when and where.”

  “Nicky, come on!” Joe hauled at his arm.

  “Miss DiViello?”

  “Tomorrow, at Woolworth’s.” She giggled. “We’ll have a hot cocoa.”

  “Two o’clock,” he called, and allowed himself to be dragged. Cami was right behind his fleeing boys, signaling to the bartender as he passed.

  “They really are sweet boys,” Tressa said. “So charming and handsome.”

  “You were very nice to be so tolerant. I’m Enzo, by the way.”

  “Yes, we were introduced at the door. Cecilia’s husband.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember. It’s been a bit crazy in here.”

  “But fun.” She slipped her arm through his. “Thank you for rescuing me. I’m accustomed to masculine attentions, but everyone here is so . . . uninhibited.”

  “Not like that in the south, huh?”

  “It can be,” she said. “But not in the social circles I’ve been kept to. Military, that is. The high-ranking kind. Always so formal and genteel. I like it here.”

  “But it is overwhelming.”

  “At first, yes. Would you mind escorting me outdoors? I need a breath of fresh air.”

  “Certainly. Let me get your stole.”

  “No need. We’ll only be out a moment, and it’s rather warm in here.”

  Enzo led Tressa through the ballroom, to the dining room, and through the French doors leading to the patio decorated with lights, holly, and pine. Music, muted but still quite audible, wove about the tipsy and the amorous swaying to the sound. He hadn’t seen Cecilia in a while, but there was Al, leaning on the doorjamb and chatting with a group of young men Enzo remembered from high school but hadn’t seen in years.

  “It’s good to see my brother smile.” Tressa let go his arm. “I never knew he was the melancholy kind. He was always smiling in my memory.”

  “How long has he been in the service?” Though Enzo knew.

  “Five years, but this is the first time I’ve seen him since we were little children.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Tressa laughed, a sound like summer and birdsong. “You’re not like the others.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because Dominic and Joseph would have asked why that was so, probably injecting an expletive or two. Would you like to know why?”

  “If you care to tell me.”

  “We’re orphans, you see,” she said. “Aldo was already a teenager when Mommy and Daddy died, but I was just a bitty thing. My mother’s cousin adopted me. They didn’t want him and refused to let me see him or even write to him. He went to an orphanage, then lived on his own here in Paterson. When I came of age and into my inheritance, the first thing I did was find him.”

  “He never tried to find you when he came of age?”

  Tressa lowered her lashes, her cheeks pinking.

  “I’m sorry. That was buffoonish of me. See? Not so different from Nicky and Joe.”

  “It’s all right.” She glanced up, the Christmas lights dancing in her eyes like lightning bugs. “I will confess, I spent most of the year between twelve and thirteen hating him for staying away. I didn’t understand why he didn’t make the effort when all I did was think about him and wish. Of course, Mama and Daddy wouldn’t have allowed it, but I’d have known, at least, that he thought of me. I’ve come to understand, in the time since then, how painful it all must have been for him. Losing our parents, our brother and sister, and me. Being rejected and left on his own. I don’t blame him for putting it all behind him and letting it stay there.”

  Enzo nodded, sipped his gimlet. “It’s good you found him, then. How long before he ships out? The Mediterranean, right?”

  “At the end of January, same as me.” She giggled. “What I mean is, that’s when I go back to school. I’m hoping we can spend the next month together before we both go back to real life.”

  “How much more schooling do you have?”

  “Three semesters.” She sighed. “After being up north, I hate the idea of going back to my very southern school in Alabama. I understand you’re a Princeton man.”

  “Nicky and Joe been talking?”

  “Oh, anyone I spoke to mentioned it.” She waved, all-encompassing. “Everyone is very proud of you and your education.”

  “I’m the first to attend and graduate any higher-learning establishment,” Enzo told her. “It’s good to know they’re proud.”

 
; “Mathematics. I’ve never been very good with numbers.”

  “Mathematics is more than numbers. A lot more.”

  “Forgive me. I should know better. Most people think journalism is just putting a bunch of words together.”

  “Is that your course of study?”

  Tressa nodded. “Do you think it’s an unseemly occupation for a woman to pursue?”

  “Not at all.” But he didn’t ask why anyone would think that, being raised by Neanderthals and all. “Princeton has a really wonderful journalism department. Unfortunately, the school doesn’t allow female students.”

  Her red lips tightened. “I came up against that quite a bit. Many schools I applied to wouldn’t even let women into their journalism programs. It was frustrating, to say the least.”

  “But it didn’t deter you.”

  “Absolutely not.” She rubbed her arms, gaze going beyond Enzo to her brother. Her eyes narrowed slightly. And then he heard Cecilia’s laugh, deep and husky but not quite her own. He turned toward the sound, saw her waylaid by the pack of young men standing with Al, and that the man’s eyes devoured her that second before catching Enzo’s stare.

  “Did you know my brother, back in the day?” she asked.

  Enzo blinked until he stopped seeing red. “I’m afraid I didn’t. I wasn’t one of the popular crowd. Not like Cecilia.”

  “Then she must have known him.” Tressa tilted her head, crossed arms over her chest. “Don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. I’d have to ask her.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  He blinked again. “Pardon?”

  “I’m afraid it’s quite colder than I thought,” she said. “If you’d like to join your wife, I’ll see myself inside.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t leave a lady to pick her way through the hounds.” Enzo offered his arm. “May I?”

  “Why, thank you, kind sir.” Tressa took his arm. She barely nodded at her brother as they passed. But Cecilia watched them, the fox fur Enzo bought her for the party draped around her shoulders. She didn’t break away from the group of men, though she did wink. Enzo’s crackled heart flaked a trail behind him as he left her on the patio.

  “There she is!”

  The high-pitched squeal made him wince and thank all the angels in heaven he no longer lived at home.

  “Hand her over, Enzo. You, Nicky, and Joe have been hogging her all night.”

  “My sister, Chrissy,” Enzo introduced. “Chrissy, this is Miss DiViello.”

  “Tressa,” she amended. “Pleased to meet you, Chrissy.”

  “It’s short for Christina.” Chrissy groaned. “So babyish, don’t you think? God, you’re so pretty. I love that dress. Did you get it here in town?”

  “Meyer Brothers, actually.”

  “Ooo! My parents would never let me wear anything so daring.”

  “Neither would mine. Thank goodness they will never know.”

  Chrissy laughed, a sound as much like music or summer or birdsong as a cat in heat. “She’s funny. Don’t you think she’s funny, Enz?”

  “Have you seen Patsy?” he asked her instead, giving Tressa’s arm a subtle squeeze. “Tressa wanted to meet her.”

  “Aunt Maria probably has her somewhere. Poor kid never gets put down to play. I’ll find her for you, Tressa. Just wait here. I’ll be right back! Don’t go anywhere! Promise me!”

  Enzo took the same deep breath Tressa did. They laughed together.

  “She’s quite the little character.”

  “Where shall we hide you?” Enzo asked. “Coat closet? Bathroom?”

  “I have an idea.” She took his hand and led him, not to the closet, bathroom, or ballroom, but to the stairs leading to the second floor. Enzo followed behind, slightly stupefied and more than a little alarmed. Closing his eyes, remembering his wife in her fox fur, standing with Al on the patio, he let his awakening, until-now-undiscovered Neanderthal self be led.

  “So much quieter up here.” She let go his hand. Enzo opened his eyes. Strolling along the hallway, hands clasped behind her back, she studied pictures on the wall. “Your wedding photo?”

  Enzo moved in behind her. “Yes, it is.”

  “So young. You were just babies.”

  “Cecilia was seventeen. I was nineteen.”

  “I see.”

  I’m sure you do. Everyone does. “Our marriage was arranged when we were little kids. It’s my good fortune I’ve loved her almost as long.”

  “That’s sweet.” Tressa smiled over her shoulder. God in His merciful heaven, she was beautiful. “Mama and Daddy tried to arrange a marriage for me, too.”

  “Tried.”

  Her soft laughter hit Enzo in the groin.

  “Tried and failed. I will marry for love or not at all.” She moved farther down the line of photos. “Oh, this must be Patricia when she was an infant.”

  “Not even a year old, there.” He pointed to another. “That’s her last Christmas. She wasn’t quite four yet.”

  “So now she’s nearly five?”

  “In March.”

  “I see.”

  Enzo’s insides quivered. “Yes, Cecilia was pregnant when we got married.” With your brother’s child. But she’s mine. Mine.

  “I wasn’t going to ask.”

  “I could see you doing the math.”

  Tressa spun to face him, steadied herself on his chest, and didn’t pull away once she’d caught herself. Marquis-cut sapphire, her gaze, it singed his face from jaw to lips, lips to nose to brow, blazing in his eyes like sunlight on ice. “Numbers fuddle me completely, Mr. Parisi.”

  “Enzo.”

  “Enzo.” His name. Honey on her lips asking, so politely, to be licked off.

  He put his hands in his pockets. “I get the feeling nothing fuddles you, Tressa. Ever.”

  Fingers like ivory piano keys straightened the lapels of his jacket. A red fingernail traced the line of his jaw, his lips. Nip her finger. Kiss parted lips. Bend to that creamy, dreamy shoulder and leave a claiming mark. She wouldn’t scream and slap his face. Tressa would blaze brilliant under his touch, against his kiss. Enzo could almost feel the heat of it, and he’d more than earned the fall from grace.

  “Tressa, I—”

  “In another time and place,” she said, “you’re the kind of man I could fall for, Enzo Parisi. Intelligent. Educated. Well-mannered and just a little wild. Handsome, too. You’re very handsome, did you know?”

  “My . . . my wife thinks so.”

  Again, soft laughter kicked him in the groin.

  “Cecilia, yes. I think I will grow quite fond of her. She’s a pistol, as my granny used to say. Yes, quite fond. It’s fitting, I think.” She backed away. “It must be getting late. It’s time my brother and I go. If I’m to meet Nicky at Woolworth’s tomorrow, I need my beauty sleep.”

  She needed no such thing, of course. Relief chased shame set free by the distance Tressa put between them. And he’d thought himself somehow more evolved than the beloved Neanderthals? What did it say about a man who could hold jealousy in check, but barely survive lust?

  “Would you fetch my purse and stole?” she asked. “I believe the coatroom was full when we arrived and they put them up here on a bed.”

  “Okay. Sure. Wait here.” Enzo darted down the hall to Aunt Maria and Uncle Cami’s room, where coats and bags and stoles were piled high on their bed. His hands shook. His arousal eased. Already his brain sorted through the whys of how Tressa could affect him so primally. Beauty aside, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the less obvious aspects. In the end, he’d done nothing to be ashamed of.

  But you would have, had she kissed you.

  Spotting Tressa’s white ermine was easy enough. Her beaded clutch was tucked inside. Underneath it was a man’s coat with a navy insignia on the sleeve.

  “Let me help you with that.” He draped the fur stole over shoulders at least as soft and nearly as white. “I got your brother’s coat and hat as well.”
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  “Thank you, Enzo. You’re very kind.” Tressa snapped open her clutch, pulled her wallet from inside.

  “No tipping, thanks,” he tried to joke, but she only pursed a smile at him and shuffled through the contents.

  “This is for you.” She tucked something small and square and paper alongside the handkerchief in the breast pocket of his jacket. “Don’t peek until I’m gone. Promise me.”

  “Um . . . sure?”

  “That’s not a promise, sir.”

  “All right. I promise.”

  “I believe you.” She patted the pocket. “And don’t let anyone else see it. You’ll thank me, I swear to you.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re confusing the hell out of me, Tressa.”

  “Just what a girl loves to hear from a handsome man.” She giggled, once again the girl who’d enchanted Nicky and Joe all evening. “I’ll be in touch. Good night, Enzo. Thank you for rescuing me. Twice.”

  She grabbed him by the back of his head, stood on tiptoe, and kissed his lips. Twiddling her fingers, she left him in the upstairs hallway, outside his son’s nursery. The sway of her hips, subtle. The turn of her heel, like magic. And the back of her neck, that luscious neck, taunting him with what he hadn’t tasted. He wanted, damn it all to hell, he did. Al and Tressa DiViello walked through the door, into all their lives, and Enzo was no longer a man he recognized. How quickly everything changed. How delicately balanced their lives had been. And he’d never once suspected.

  Taking out the bit of paper—a flimsy photo like the kind from a photo booth and not the expensive portraits lining the hall—he broke his promise to her. Enzo stumbled, looked closer at the little girl in the picture. The child that could be Patricia given another year or two. The likeness was not just uncanny, but exact.

  And the little boy. Dark hair and eyes. Smiling. Holding his kid sister in sturdy, little-boy arms. On the back, in faded script—

  Aldo and Tressa Wronski

  Coney Island, June 3, 1944

  Bolting for the stairs, he nearly fell over himself and down them. At the door, Tressa and her brother, Aldo—Wronski, not DiViello—were being waved off by Uncle Cami and Aunt Maria, Nicky and Joe. And Cecilia. His Cecilia.