Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  “You’re welcome. Use your blinker this time. You didn’t on that last turn. I’d think a man who works with cars for a living would know to use his blinker.”

  “Not much use for a turn signal, Mother, on an oval track,” Trey commented patiently. “Unless you want it blinking a continuous left turn.”

  “Well, I still don’t get the connection,” Cinda persisted. “About the pie and the gun, I mean. One has nothing to do—”

  Trey’s lowered eyebrows and frowning expression as he shook his head at Cinda, giving her a clear don’t-go-there signal, cut off her words. Not that she appreciated it. Looking peeved, Cinda wrinkled her nose at him and turned away, looking out her side window. Well, good, now Cinda isn’t talking to me. This is perfect. Just perfect. Trey made a promise to himself right then that never again would he go to another reunion. Not for as long as he lived. Trey turned left onto Mimosa Place. He used his blinker.

  “Oh, no,” Cinda intoned. “Oh, Trey, I don’t like the looks of this.”

  Trey knew exactly what she meant. He didn’t like it, either. The Nickersons’ property, still several houses away, occupied about two wooded acres in a nicer part of town. But right now it looked like a used-car lot. Maybe twenty cars were parked in the driveway and up and down the street. And a crowd was milling around out front of the two-story Southern Colonial house. Trey frowned, wondering what was going on and why all these people would be here. A private party, maybe, before the town party?

  Then, through a break in the gathering, Trey spotted a big black limo parked in the yard, parallel to the house. That explained the gathering. Curiosity had gotten the better of folks. The doors to the vehicle were open. And big ugly men dressed in black stood in front of it, their eyes hidden behind reflective sunglasses, their hands folded together in front of them. There were four of them, each one the size of a professional wrestler. Trey’s gut tightened. Cinda’s words from earlier that morning came back to him. We’re all going to die.

  Then his mother, who’d obviously undone her seat belt and scooted forward to peer between his bucket seat and Cinda’s, sized up the situation admirably. “Ha. Look at that. There’s four of them and four of us. At least we aren’t outnumbered, son.”

  Trey didn’t know whether to laugh or beat his forehead against the steering wheel. But since Cinda laughed, he joined her. God love her, his mother was ever the optimist. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, Mom. At least we’re not outnumbered.” He was trying to picture baby Chelsi’s part in all this when it came to a brawl, as it very well could. What could she do? Bite an ankle? Toss up her breakfast onto a goon’s shoes?

  Trey parked his red machine at the curb about three houses away from the Nickersons’. It was the closest he could get. He cut off the engine, undid his seat belt, and turned to face his posse. “Okay, here’s the deal. Yes, you tricked me into bringing you along by piling into the car while I was still inside. By the way, which one of you hid my car keys in the freezer? Not funny. Anyway, I may have lost the battle to get you to stay at home, but I’m not going to lose the war. By that I mean you all are staying right here in this very car while I go sort this mess out. I mean that. And I don’t want any arguments. You’re not to get out of this car. Do you hear me?”

  Trey looked from one face to the next, seeking a sign of intention to comply. Cinda nodded. His mother nodded. Chelsi, who was happily occupied with chewing on a chubby little fist, just stared at him, her blue eyes big and round. Forcing himself to maintain his stern expression in the face of their wide-eyed sincerity, Trey called the nodding and the gnawing full compliance. Well, finally. He’d actually won one. Maybe the sight of the big men had brought them to their senses. This was a man’s job. “All right then, good,” he said. “We understand each other.”

  With that, Trey opened his door, got out, and closed it with a solid thunk. His mother promptly followed suit. Thunk. Then Cinda. Thunk. She opened the fourth door, got the baby out of her car seat, and closed the door. Thunk. The three women—or rather, two women and a baby held in her mother’s arms—converged like planets aligning and stood together in a knot of solidarity. They stared at him, three sets of widened, imploring eyes.

  “Dammit,” Trey commented, planting his hands at his waist. “I thought you agreed with what I said.”

  Trey saw his mother elbow Cinda into speaking. “We did. You asked us if we heard you, and we nodded that yes we had.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant, and you all know it.”

  “We want to go with you, Trey. We are going with you.”

  Completely exasperated now, Trey jerked his thumb toward the goons. “Did you see the size of those guys, Cinda? What do you think you’re going to do? Pinch ’em? Pull their hair?”

  “No. I’m going to stand with you and dare them to shoot you in front of your mother and your wife and child.”

  “See there?” his mother piped in. “I knew you two were married.”

  “We’re not married, Mother.” Trey hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his denims and shifted his weight to one leg. He stared at his posse. And got tickled. Hell, it just might work. Chuckling, he waved his hand before him in a sweeping gesture to indicate they should precede him. “All right. Come on. Let’s go. We’ve got a pie in the oven we don’t want to get burned.”

  Grinning their triumph, his posse stepped through the neighbor’s grass to join Trey. When Cinda pulled even with him, he took her elbow and drew her attention. “If you ever tell that Major Clovis of yours about this, she won’t hesitate to make me a soprano.”

  “I know,” Cinda said cheerfully. “She’s very good with a knife.”

  Trey felt sick, then fatalistic. “Then I’d give ten years off my life to see her riding up about now.”

  With that, he fell in between his mother and Cinda, easing their way across the uneven lawns and driveways with a hand at each of their elbows. Impressed on Trey’s consciousness was the mood of the crowd ahead. They were jovial, celebratory. Friendly. At ease. Even at a glance he realized he knew everybody here. Once they’d achieved party ground-zero, his friends greeted him, offering him and his entourage a beer or a handshake or a clap on the back. Men, women, children everywhere—all of them agog at the sight of the limo and its occupants. Just as he’d figured. An impromptu gathering of the curious that had quickly become an event.

  Just then, as Trey was figuring it out, the hometown crowd, the same people who had cheered him on and made him a football god in his high-school days…well, the rotten turncoats now parted for him just as they’d done last night for Bobby Jean. And it was “déjà vu all over again,” to quote Yogi Berra. There she was, Bobby Jean Diamante, not ten feet away. Stunning, as always, the redhead was dressed in white short-shorts and a red, white and blue striped tank top. Her heavy jewelry patriotically bore the stars-and-stripes, too.

  “Wow,” Cinda said quietly. “I feel like I should salute her or something.”

  “I heard that, honey,” Trey’s mother whispered loudly. “That girl looks like the Statue of Liberty after a cheap makeover.”

  “I’ll say,” Cinda followed up, tugging self-consciously at her own modest khaki shorts, as if by doing so she could make Bobby Jean’s shorts longer.

  Trey wisely had no response. For one thing, Bobby Jean had spotted him…Okay, them. Trey tensed, trying to watch everyone at once. “Everyone” being defined here as the four big and silent men by the limo, who had yet to move. The crowd quieted. So did the birds in the trees. The dogs in the yards. The kids running around. Everybody.

  “Hello, Trey,” Bobby Jean drawled, or tried to. Not even her heavy makeup could hide her fat lip, which also made her speech sound like that of a novacaine-induced lisp. Her gaze slipped to Cinda, and she sniffed, raising her chin a notch.

  At his side, Trey felt more than saw his sweetie tense. Then she handed Chelsi off to his mother and all but flexed her muscles. Oh, hell, a catfight was brewing.

  Trey quic
kly greeted his childhood friend. “How ya doing, Bobby Jean?” Then, hoping to head World War III off at the pass, he said, “Bobby Jean, I’ve known you since you were a baby. We had our times together. And they meant something to me. Something good. But what I feel for you now is friendship, one that stretches back a long time. But that’s all. Friendship. I’m with Cinda now. And that’s the way it’s going to be.” Trey firmed his stance in the well-tended Nickerson lawn. “I had some visitors this morning. But they left before I could speak with them. The trail led here. So I came by to see what they wanted. Is your husband around?”

  In the silence that followed what was essentially him calling the man out, Trey heard in his head the haunting music from Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

  Bobby Jean remained unsmiling, her stance as un-yielding as Trey’s. “Yes. My husband is here.”

  “I’d like to speak with him, if I could. Maybe clear this up right here before things get out of hand.”

  Bobby Jean crossed her arms over her ample and almost exposed bosom. “Things are already out of hand. I’ve got a lawsuit against your little wife there.”

  “‘Little wife?’” Cinda all but snarled as she took a step forward. “Who are you calling a ‘little wife,’ you big, overgrown—”

  “Cinda.” Trey put a restraining hand on her arm.

  “Well, she is,” Cinda hissed at him.

  “And I agree. But…look, will you?” He nodded his head in the direction of the four goons.

  The big bodyguards were shifting their considerable weight about as if preparing to go into action on Bobby Jean’s behalf. But then they looked toward the front door of the Nickerson house. A muttering went up from the crowd…about like it had last night at the veteran’s hall just before the two women had started to rumble. Trey thought he knew who’d be in the doorway, had a bunch of bodies not been blocking his view.

  With his hand still on Cinda’s arm, Trey spoke quietly to her. “Don’t let her bait you, honey. Let me take care of this.” Though her mouth was set in a pugnacious pucker, Cinda retreated. Exhaling a modicum of relief, Trey focused again on Bobby Jean. “Look, if you won’t be reasonable, then my business here is with your husband. I don’t want to disrupt your party, but can I see him please?”

  As she was the center of attention, something she loved, Bobby Jean shrugged, her features in a pretty pout. “I don’t see why not. He wanted to see you, too. That’s why he came to y’all’s house this morning.” Her expression became catty, her voice a purr. “Only no one would answer the door.”

  Snorting her apparent outrage, Trey’s mother shifted Chelsi to her hip, leaned toward him, and spoke out the side of her mouth. “I believe she’s calling us cowards, son.”

  Trey leaned down to her. “I believe we were, Mother.”

  Just then, the crowd shifted and people were craning their necks. The four pillar-sized goons left the flashy car and walked, two-abreast, toward the house. Trey swallowed, flexed his hands, and exhaled slowly out his mouth. No one had to tell him that the man himself, Rocco Diamante, was putting in an appearance. Adrenaline pumped through Trey’s bloodstream, readying him for fight or flight. Given his druthers, and being the smart man that he was, Trey knew which one he’d choose. But not in front of this many witnesses.

  “I think something’s happening,” his mother said. She bobbed and weaved in place, trying to see around everyone. “Can you see what’s going on?”

  Without losing his focus, Trey answered her. “No. But I think we’ll know soon enough.”

  He wasn’t wrong. The goons came back into view. A short, heavyset man in a black suit, shirt and tie was in their midst. The five of them were headed in Trey’s direction. All of a sudden this confrontation didn’t seem like such a good idea. “You and Cinda get behind me, Mother. And stay there.”

  Neither woman moved. However, his mother did see fit to announce loudly, “Lord, he looks just like the real Mafia men I’ve seen on the TV.”

  Trey glanced at Cinda and saw her frowning at the man in the middle. “Yes, he does, Dorinda. A little too much like one, actually.”

  BEFORE CINDA COULD do anything, Trey stepped forward, leaving her and his mother to huddle behind him. Peeking around his beloved shoulder, Cinda watched and listened. The men, ever so polite, were introducing themselves, shaking hands, and warily sizing each other up. Cinda looked the goons over…and frowned. Why did they seem familiar?

  More than curious now, she settled her attention on the alleged Mafia don. Something about him, too, was naggingly familiar. She couldn’t be sure…because his hair was dyed. It had to be. That color of shoe-polish black simply didn’t occur in nature. And he was heavier, a lot heavier, than the man she was thinking of. And she couldn’t see his eyes because of the sunglasses.

  But…could it be? It wasn’t as if she could afford to make a mistake here. That could really cost them big time. She settled on listening to the short, fat man talk. Maybe his voice would give him away.

  “…Understand my problem here, Mr. Cooper. I had to come all this way to deal with this situation. I don’t like getting a call from my wife, hearing about her being knocked around,” the mobster said—using a lot of subtly threatening gestures. “You know what I mean, Mr. Cooper?”

  Mr. Diamante’s voice was rasping, husky. New York. He spoke slowly. To Cinda’s ear, a poor imitation of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Or not. She had to be sure. Still, there was something there, something nagging at her.

  “I understand,” Trey said levelly, not the least bit subservient as he stared down at the Mafioso. “I guess Bobby Jean told you what happened? Or should I say why it happened?”

  “You just hush yourself up, Trey Cooper, you dog you.” Looking alarmed, Bobby Jean rushed over in a jiggling run and latched on to her husband’s arm, rubbing herself suggestively against him. “Don’t listen to him, honey. All I did was say hello to Trey, and I got attacked. Look at me. I’m the one with the bruises and the split lip.”

  Rocco Diamante patted his wife’s hand but otherwise ignored her in favor of concentrating on Trey. “You see what I mean, Mr. Cooper? We got a problem. Where I come from, we don’t look none too kindly on men who hit their women, much less our women.”

  “We don’t either down here.” Trey’s voice was a growl. “But I didn’t hit her. I’ve never hit a woman in my life.”

  Rocco Diamante bristled. “You calling my wife a liar, Mr. Cooper? Because I’m standing here looking at her fat lip. How’d she get that, huh?”

  Oh, boy, this was getting serious. Cinda looked up at Trey. He crossed his arms over his chest. His mouth was set in a line of stubborn determination. Alarm shot through Cinda. He wasn’t going to say anything—and she knew why. He was protecting her. She couldn’t let him do that. The same instinct that had a parent throwing herself in front of a bus to save her child had Cinda out from behind Trey and in plain view of the Mafia guys.

  Trey gasped and grabbed her arm, but Cinda resisted his tug on her and faced the dangerous don. “I did it. I hit her.”

  You could have heard a Georgia pine needle drop right there on Mimosa Place.

  But the effect of her words—or her mere presence—on the short and stocky man in the expensive suit was astounding. He dropped his tough-guy pose and his mouth rounded with surprise. His cheeks turned red—and his voice changed. It went up about an octave. “Cinda? Cinda Mayes? Is that you?”

  “You know her?” Bobby Jean cried, letting go of her husband.

  “You know him?” Trey cried.

  “He knows her,” spread through the crowd. “They know each other.”

  Cinda shrugged out of Trey’s grasp and approached Mr. Rocco Diamante, Mafia don. As if. Angry, upset, and relieved in the extreme, Cinda stopped in front of the man. “Tommy Jenkins, is that you? It is, isn’t it?” She reached out and pulled the sunglasses off the man. And gasped. “Why, you little stink, I thought I recognized you. Does you
r father know you took his limo and his bodyguards out for a drive down South?”

  Tommy Jenkins, aka Rocco Diamante, looked like he was about to cry. “Can I see you over here a minute, Cinda?” She consented and stepped to one side with him. Tommy immediately began to whine. “Don’t tell my father, Cinda. Please? I did it for a good reason.” He leaned in toward her and lowered his voice. “I want my wife back.”

  Cinda’s whisper matched his. “Well, there she is. Take her. Please. With my blessings.”

  “I can’t. She won’t go.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Tommy, why not?”

  “Look at her, Cinda.”

  “Uh-uh. I’ve seen all of her I want to, trust me.”

  “No, I mean really look at her. And now look at me. I’m a short, fat kid from suburbia. She’d never go for a guy like me. But I love her. So I made up this story about me being in the Mafia, and she fell for me. But then I never did anything dangerous or scary and she got bored and left me. So now here I am like some big man with some clout and she’s buying it. Please help me out here, Cinda. Please? Besides, I have something to tell her.”

  Before Cinda could really process that, Trey stepped up to stand at her side. “What is going on here, Cinda?”

  She shook her head, signalling for Trey to speak quietly. Then she brought her own voice down to a whisper. “Trey Cooper, meet Tommy Jenkins. Tommy and I went to the same high school. Do I even need to tell you that he was the president of the drama club and he’s not in the Mafia?”

  “Get outta here,” Trey said, sounding more like a Mafioso than Tommy ever would.

  Bobby Jean flounced over and gripped her husband’s arm. The woman stood a head taller than Tommy. She looked from him to Trey to Cinda. “What are y’all whispering about over here?”

  Tommy looked a bit ill. Cinda raised an eyebrow at him and then turned to her nemesis. “Look, Bobby Jean, I’m going to be straight with you. I knew your husband as Tommy Jenkins when he was a kid. But that was before he was…inducted into the Mafia as Rocco Diamante. He’s a big man now in the organization. But don’t worry.” She turned to Tommy and winked, making sure Bobby Jean didn’t see it. “His secret is safe with me.”