Getting Old is the Best Revenge

by Rita Lakin

  Elio bursts out laughing. “OK, what’s the joke here? I’m a busy man. It ain’t April Fool’s, so waddaya want?”

  “Do you know a woman living at Forty-four Magnolia Court?” I ask. Thanks to Evvie there’s no use pussyfooting around.

  Now the humor disappears. He leans his arms on the desk and moves in too close for comfort. I can smell his cigar breath.

  “What the hell is this about?”

  Suddenly the room seems claustrophobic. Even fearless Evvie looks scared. I stand slowly.

  “Mr. Siciliano?” My knees are shaking. “First, may I say, don’t kill the messenger. We’ve come here to help you if you would just stay…calm.”

  “Spit it out!” He’s yelling so loud that I imagine even the girls across the street can hear him, along with all the men on the site. Two male faces peer in the one grimy window. Elio waves them away.

  “Your wife was worried about you—” I begin.

  “My crazy wife never worries about anything but herself. Are you saying she hired you to spy on me? To find out if I was cheating on her! I’ll wring her neck!”

  Now he’s got Evvie mad. “We were supposed to report to her what we found out,” Evvie shouts. “If we told her, she’d wring your neck…or worse. But we came to tell you first. To warn you.”

  “Listen, you old broads, who the hell do you think you are?”

  With trembling hands, I take out our brand-new business cards and hand him one.

  “Gladdy Gold and Associates Detective Agency?” he says incredulously. “You gotta be kidding!”

  Evvie and I just stare at him. He glowers back at us. Through the window I can see the cement mixer outside, churning away. I shudder.

  He slams his fist hard on the desk. Papers fly into the air. “All right!” Elio says. “You bring that jealous lunatic to Forty-four Magnolia Court at eight o’clock tonight! Now get outta here, I got work to do!”

  He didn’t need to say it twice. We ran.

  20

  Showdown on

  Magnolia Court

  Seven forty-five P.M. I am walking with Angelina Siciliano from her little gray house at 37 Petunia Drive to 44 Magnolia Court, two blocks away, where the big showdown is about to take place.

  Angelina, dressed totally in black, is wielding her walker like a pair of skis, slaloming her way angrily from side to side, venom dripping from her moving, though soundless, lips. She refuses to speak to me. God knows what’s going on in her head. When I came to get her, I “accidentally” leaned against her body. It didn’t feel like she was packing a gun. I could only hope not.

  Meanwhile, the girls are hiding in my Chevy, in the dark, in front of the place of assignation. I tried to get at least one of them to stay home so I’d have room to pick up Angelina. Their response to me? Not a chance. Or I could have left the girls standing on the sidewalk and driven the car around the corner to get Angelina. Their response? No way. Stand outside in the dark and get mugged? Some associates I have. So, walking it would have to be.

  Earlier, after dropping the girls off at home, I had gone to Angelina’s house to report on our terrifying visit with Elio. I explained that after her husband had heard that he had been caught, so to speak, in the house of another woman, he had demanded a meeting tonight. At that very same house.

  If she hadn’t been only four and a half feet tall, Angelina might have hit the ceiling at that news.

  “Who asked you to tell him? I paid you to tell me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, it was a judgment call.”

  “Ya think I’m gonna pay you for that? It was none of your business to talk to him.”

  “But Mrs. Siciliano—your threats—” I began.

  She cut me off and pounded at her heart. “Such agita you give me.” She grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed viciously at an imaginary stain on the sink.

  I should explain. She and I were in her spotless red 1950s-era kitchen. I subtly positioned my body in front of her knife rack in case she, too, wanted to kill the messenger. When she demanded to know the address, I told her. That made her even hotter.

  “So that’s who it is. Now it makes sense. I knew it. The queen of all fleshpots he goes to.” She spit. “You’re not gonna get me in the same room as that puttana.”

  She refused to tell me who it was.

  “I shoulda guessed,” she ranted. “Old dogs go back to old bitches. And he has the coglioni to tell me to meet him there!”

  “He must have a reason.”

  “Yeah, to rub my nose in his filth. And in my own backyard! Do all my neighbors know?”

  That was followed by a string of juicy curses. Since they were all in Italian I could only guess at the gist. But I heard what sounded like minchia and sfacheen, and plenty of madonnas.

  “I’m not going!” Angelina glared at me, arms folded. “You can take a message to my husband, who soon will leave this world, and his whore: Drop dead!”

  Finally, I stopped trying to convince her. I walked to the front door and opened it.

  “Well, I’ll be there tonight. I’ll send you a written report. And a bill. Good afternoon!”

  That did it. She lunged after me, clutching at my arm to hold herself up. “You better pick me up. I ain’t going in there alone!”

  Like my nosy associates—no way would she miss out on tonight.

  The girls jump out of the Chevy the minute they spot us coming down the street.

  Angelina ignores them. Just as well, since they’ve already had a taste of the Siciliano temper.

  Spotting her husband’s Chrysler in the driveway of the little pink house, Angelina neatly raises her walker and slams it onto the freshly washed and polished hood.

  The front door bursts open. Elio runs out, enraged, fists clenched. I can hear strains of “Volare” coming from the door chimes. Cute idea, I think. Maybe I could get a set that plays “Hava Nagila.”

  “Stu’ gazz’,” he screams at her. “Lunatic!”

  “Minchia!” she screams back. “May it shrivel up and fall off!”

  He stands over her, strong hands itching to commit murder. Since she’s so much shorter, her fists are dangerously close to his privates, which are directly within her reach.

  By now my girls, sensing that violence is about to erupt any second, are backing off, moving closer to my car in case we need a quick getaway. In fact, Ida already has her hands on the door handle. Evvie is signaling—shall we run for it? I wave my hands to tell them to stay put.

  At this moment I am seriously thinking I’ve gotten into the wrong line of work.

  The door chimes sing out again as six middle-aged adults come rushing out.

  Angelina screams at them. “You, too! Traitors! All of you! In the house of that puttana!”

  “Shut your mouth, Angelina!” Elio growls.

  The group on the steps shares the same opinion. They chorus a variation of: “Yeah, Mama, be quiet!”

  I look at my girls and they look back, equally surprised. Mama’s children are in the fleshpot with Poppa?

  Mrs. Take Charge takes charge once again. Evvie calls out over escalating voices, “Why don’t we all go inside? You’re drawing a crowd.”

  And sure enough, other front doors are opening. Windows are being raised. Cars are stopping.

  We all retreat inside to the tune of the door chimes once again trilling “Volare.”

  The house is tiny. In fact, it’s a replica of Angelina’s place. I’m guessing the two houses were built at about the same time. The décor is very similar, too. I am beginning to get the feeling these two women shopped together at one time.

  Elio looks at each of us and announces, “We are going into the bedroom now, and you will all show respect.”

  Barely able to sit up in her bed is an emaciated woman whose head is covered by a scarf. She is surrounded on all sides by medical equipment, and her arm is hooked up to a machine. There are pill bottles everywhere.

  “Aha!” Bella shouts. “That’s what I
saw through the window and that’s what I forgot! Medical equipment.”

  Ida swats her shoulder. “Now you remember?”

  Bella shrugs. “I remember when I remember.”

  The Sicilianos stare at us. “You were looking in the window?” asks one of the guys we saw earlier today at the construction site.

  Elio cuffs him. “Where’re your manners? Introduce yourselves to the snoops—Gladdy Gold and Associates Detective Agency. This one’s Frankie.”

  “Detectives?” says another of the men, the spitting image of his father. He introduces himself as Paulie. Come to think of it, all six children favor their father. Elio must have very strong genes.

  “Who hired a detective, and why?” asks Joey. Then Sal and Louie and the one female, Josie, take their turns echoing his question and introducing themselves.

  Elio wags a finger at Angelina. “That crazy one, your mother.”

  Angelina and the woman in bed stare intently at one another.

  “What is it, Connie?” Angelina says. “What’s wrong with you? You look like hell.”

  “Thank you very much. You look well.”

  “Never mind about me. What is it with you?”

  “I got the cancer. What else?” Connie whispers.

  “You’re dying?” asks Angelina.

  “Do I look like I could swim the Atlantic?”

  “You look like you’re dead already.”

  “You always did have a way with words, Angelina. It won’t be much longer.”

  Elio addresses us. “Fifty years she stops talking to Connie. Sisters and best friends they were. Never apart. Back and forth from each other’s house twice a day. Turns into hate. Over nothing.”

  “You got that right,” Angelina says. “Over you. A whole lotta nothing.”

  “Don’t start,” he threatens.

  “Fifty years!” says Ida, flabbergasted.

  “Fifty years,” echoes Bella. “You can last that long without seeing a relative?”

  Connie manages to lift herself up slightly on the bed. She looks at Angelina, sadness in her eyes. “Right after the marriage. What did I do that you should hate me and shut me out?”

  “And make all our lives totally screwed up,” contributes Josie.

  A roomful of mournful faces look to Angelina for some explanation. Cornered, she lashes out at Connie.

  “Did I need you walking in and out of my house to check on me? Was I as good a cook as you—you, with the perfect marinara sauce? What about the sex? Did I want you inspecting my marriage bed to maybe see if I knew what to do? I was a new bride. I needed my privacy. And you two, always laughing together. As if you had secrets.”

  Elio is astounded. “You were jealous of your sister? Did I ever once compare you? Didn’t I show you love? All these years you shut her out? For that?” He pauses. “Women!” he adds, as if that explains everything.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t have a crush on my Elio.” Angelina throws at Connie.

  “Sure, I found him attractive, but once he gave you a ring…”

  “So, why didn’t you get married? So I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”

  Connie manages a small shrug. “Every family has a spinster they can feel sorry for. I was it.” She leans back on her pillow, exhausted from the effort. “Did I deserve to have to sneak around to visit your babies, my niece and my nephews?”

  Elio says, “I brought our children together with their aunt years ago. It was the right thing to do.”

  “Traitor!” Angelina cries.

  “Lunatic! You had no right to deprive them.”

  Elio turns to us snoops, frozen in place, mouths open in amazement, and pleads his case. He gestures toward Connie.

  “My sister-in-law gets sick. She’s all alone in the world. She asks me to help. Is it so terrible? I buy a few groceries, cook her a little broth sometimes. So I’m twenty minutes late getting home. Maybe thirty. Is that a federal crime? Can I tell her what’s going on? No. She’d cut my head off.”

  He whirls toward Angelina. “You think I’m cheating on you? Did I ever cheat on you in fifty years?”

  Angelina folds her arms and turns away with a lofty shrug.

  Josie puts her arm around her dad. “I come over and help Auntie Connie take a bath.”

  “My job is to take out the garbage for her,” adds Frankie.

  “I drive my aunt to the doctor,” says Joey, the youngest, proudly. Angelina looks at all the shining faces sending love toward Connie.

  For a moment, there is silence. All eyes again are on Angelina. Her face contorts. Eyes narrow. Mouth a thin, tight line. Her hands clench and her body seems to lift from the very floor.

  Suddenly there is a bloodcurdling wail. Angelina covers her mouth, trying to hold back her hiccupping sobs. She abandons her walker and runs to the bed, scrambling to find a way through all the tubes and bedclothes to reach her sister.

  “Connie,” she blubbers, hugging her as hard as she can. “I’m an idiot! I shoulda had my head examined years ago.”

  Connie, using what little strength she has, hugs her back. “Angelina,” she bawls, “I shoulda broke down the door and made you talk to me.”

  “I shoulda got down on my hands and knees and begged you to come back in my life!”

  “All those years. What I went through. I had to hide in the back of the church for the baptisms and the confirmations. I had to miss every celebration. Christmas. Easter. We had to exchange gifts behind your back. I missed how we always went shopping together. The cooking together. But most of all I missed my sister.”

  “Mamma mia, I missed you every day.”

  “Me, too.”

  Now there’s a lot of blubbering going on around the room. And hugging. Everyone talking at once.

  I beckon the girls. Time to leave. Nobody notices us walk out.

  When we reach the front yard, Ida, Evvie, Sophie, Bella, and I are also hugging and blubbering.

  “Italians are so emotional,” Bella says.

  21

  Death by Pirate

  The yearly Orphans’ Play Day, held by the exclusive Sarasota Springs Women’s Club, was a major social charity event. This year the women had chosen Happyland Fantasy Park as their destination. This colorful amusement park was a great favorite of the orphans. The girls, from eight to twelve years old, excitedly walked in pairs, each line of six following its own individual leader.

  Photographers clicked after them everywhere they went.

  The Pink Poodle group was led by wealthy socialite Elizabeth Hoyle Johnson. At fifty-nine she was still considered a beauty. Her platinum blond hair was styled forever the day she had her first sight of Kim Novak in Hitchcock’s film Vertigo. She was dressed in a luscious pink backless sundress with matching straw hat and white strappy sandals. Pink was her girls’ color, so it was hers, as well. Her girls were all dressed in brand-new rayon dresses and matching ballerina slippers, a gift from the charity.

  They were babbling happily away as they skipped from ride to ride, every spot a photo opportunity. Girls eating pink cotton candy. Girls screaming with pleasure as they rode the Fantasy Chip and Dip ride. Mrs. Johnson was a good sport: she went on the rides with them and pretended to be frightened, too. But she only went on the gentle ones. Her severe asthma kept her away from the more demanding rides.

  Every once in a while the Pink Poodles met up with the other groups—the Purple Puppies and the Blue Bassets—and there was much happy chatter back and forth. Even the socialites were calling out to one another and having a good time. It was a day they could let down their hair and pretend to be young again.

  When the Pink Poodles arrived at the Pirate Cave, they were so far ahead of the other groups they had even left the photographers behind.

  Elizabeth, holding back her giggles, told the girls to be scared, very scared. “If the pirates get hold of you…” She made a strangling motion with her hands. The girls squealed and held on tightly to their buddies.

  The empt
y gondolas pulled up on the rail tracks, and from around a corner came the operator of the ride. He was dressed in an elaborate pi-rate costume. Elizabeth gasped. He had a parrot on his shoulder. She could feel her throat constrict. As long as she could remember, she’d had a phobia about birds. Years of therapy and it had never gone away. But she hid her fear. She didn’t want to spoil the ride for her girls. They giggled as they tumbled into their seats and the mean-looking pirate pretended to be menacing. The girls squealed and laughed at his big mustache and huge gold hoop earrings and big black hat and black eye-patch. The noisy bright green parrot on his shoulder cackled, “Don’t go in there, dearie…”

  Elizabeth was about to join the last two girls in their gondola, but the muscular pirate stopped her. For a moment she held her breath as the parrot leaned close to her. The pirate led her to a seat by herself in the next gondola back. A moment later she was disappearing into the pitch-black tunnel after the girls.

  Deafening screams came from all sides of the cave and whizzing lights zigzagged every which way. Pirate dummies popped out to have vicious cutlass fights with each other, and bats seemed to swarm down all around them. The girls kept ducking their heads and laughing, gripping the edges of their gondolas.

  They passed a huge, gleaming treasure chest squatting on the ground, its dazzling make-believe jewels piled high. And on the top, a skeleton wearing pearls around its neck was sitting and grinning at them. It was so close, the girls could have touched it, but they reared their bodies as far back as possible and screamed in terror as their gondola careened around a curve in the track into the next frightening pirate scenario.

  At that moment Elizabeth Hoyle Johnson was pulled off her seat by the wicked-looking pirate.

  He kicked the skeleton out of his way and pushed her down against the chest.

  “What…why…” she stuttered. “What are you doing?”

  To Elizabeth’s surprise, the pirate yanked off his mustache and eye-patch. “Why, it’s you,” she said, upset. “What are you doing here? This is not a funny way to say hello…”

  “Not hello, Beth. Good-bye. No more toys for you.”

  He released the parrot and on command it dived down at her, over and over again, screeching. Elizabeth clutched at her throat as an asthma attack came on full-strength. She was unable to breathe. Her hands groped for her purse, where her inhaler was kept. The satisfied pirate shoved the purse out of her reach. She looked into his eyes and saw no mercy there. The pirate waited as her eyes grew big, then closed. He felt her pulse and smiled.