Page 69 of A Week Away
Cass said, “Luca seems really upset.”
Aunt Josette shrugged. “Yeah, it seems genuine. But that’s men… crying about messes they’ve made themselves.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
September 17, 1996
Tuesday afternoon
We followed Aunt Josette into the kitchen. The room was filled with women, mostly older. There seemed to be two old women for every old man in the living room. They wore somber colors and simple aprons. It suggested a Hollywood depiction of women from a small Sicilian village. Right and wrong at the same time.
The kitchen itself was transformed. Suddenly, there was everything you needed to make a feast for hundreds. Obviously, they’d brought it all with them. If Joanne had been hiding it all somewhere, I hadn’t found it.
Cass introduced me to the women. I couldn’t keep their names straight two minutes after I’d been told. One of them was in her late thirties, tall, thin and beak-nosed. A cousin. Bella? Della? She seemed to be doing nothing but cutting onions, her eyes red from it. One of the old women poked her. Presumably to get her to talk to me, since I was the subject at hand. She pushed the other woman’s hand away.
I was offered wine, something called rosso. I turned it down and had a lemon soda forced on me. Bella was made to give it to me.
“You have a wife?” the oldest woman in the room asked.
To put an end to the Bella’s misery and to go along with my cover story, I said, “Yes. Yes I do.”
The old woman said, “Hmmmphf.” As though my being married was a personality flaw. I imagine I’d have been stabbed with a kitchen knife if I’d mentioned my longtime boyfriend.
I stuffed my mouth with cookies, hoping I wouldn’t be asked any more questions. That didn’t stop them from staring baldly at me.
Aunt Suzie stood at the stove stirring a large pot. One of the other women reached for a jar of spice and was about to shake some in when Suzie stopped her.
“No, no, no… It’s lamb stew. You don’t put oregano in there.”
“Basil?”
As she waved the woman away, I heard the doorbell ring. Someone was arriving. I stood close to the swinging door in hopes of hearing who it might be. I heard a man go to the door, I think it might have been Luca. Another man said a few things. Then the door shut and their voices got further away.
Cass tapped me on the shoulder, and I followed him out onto the patio where I’d spoken with Joanne about thirty-six hours before. Not even two days. Carla and Rose Amato were out there, looking tense and seemingly in exile.
When she saw me, Carla said, “You know, neither Rose nor I could remember your name after you left. Why do you think that is?”
“Oh, well… it’s Nick,” I said, as though saying my name was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. “I’m sure I told you.”
I hadn’t, but better to make her think she’d forgotten something than for her to think I wasn’t telling her something.
“Did you ever find your card? You said it was in your other jeans.”
“That was a little fib. I’m not actually a private detective.”
“Shocking,” she said, dry again. As dry as a summer breeze in Palm Springs.
“I met Cass in an AOL chatroom about finding missing relatives.”
“Who are you missing?” she asked me.
“My daughter. Thankfully, I found her. She’s doing well. Back in school. After that experience, I felt like I should help others.”
“It’s so terrible what happened to your mom,” Rose said. “How can you bear it, Cassidy? You must be destroyed.”
Not really the kind of thing you should say to someone who’s probably destroyed. The boy made a strangled sound, so I said, “He’s doing remarkably well. He’s thinking about going to stay with his Aunt Suzie.”
“The Di Stefano’s will hate that,” Carla said. I could swear she almost smiled.
