Page 17 of Fall
6
Natalia
If I can just have a moment alone with Nonna, I’m sure I’ll have my answers.
She’s been off and on the phone to Italy for a while now. Her room is beside mine, and although I can't make out a word she says, I can tell by her frenzied tone that she’supset.
Except, the stylists are here, and so are my two best girlfriends from high school, Cassandra and Tammy Lou.
My two only real girlfriends.
When you're the daughter of a powerful mob boss, the odds of having a teeny tiny circle of friends is unbelievably high. The chances of them poking and prodding you for details about your vacation that never happened are even higher.Cassandra and Tammy Lou have been tag-teaming me all afternoon since they showed up, wanting to know what hot Italian stud I banged over the summer.
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been away for weeks, but neither of them has figured out that I’m putting on an act. I’m distracted and frustrated that Father is keeping me out of whatever’s going on. I have no doubt that they’ve missed me,and that they care. I think it’s the excitement surrounding my birthday that has rendered them incapable of reading me. They’re truly innocent in some ways, oblivious of the fact that they’re walking into a quiet storm brewing in the Romano household.
On their probing about men in my life, they also don't realize that Nonna watches me like a hawk. It sometimes feels like she has eyes behindher head, and both sets of eyes are perpetually on me. Even if I wanted to get laid while I was doing all that sightseeing, it would never happen. Not under Nonna's watch.
First of all, I’m still a virgin. I’ve never even been kissed. My girls should know by now that I wouldn’t give it up to some dark stranger just because I happened to be single in sunny Europe.
Second, I'm promisedto Santori Giorgio. Practically engaged. Not that they know. That arrangement is a tightly guarded secret between the Romanos and the Giorgios. But the truth is, my soon approaching arranged marriage is not the reason I haven't tried to live it up while I was in Italy.
There's only one man I want.
Antonio DeLucci.
And that has never changed.
But it hasn't stopped mygirlfriends from giving me the third degree.
The three of us have been rotating through the stylists that Aunt Francesca hired. While one of us is getting our hair done, the other is being worked on from makeup or picking out a designer dress from the wardrobe stylist that was part of whatever package deal Aunt Francesca arranged. And of course, we all had mani-pedis. The afternoon fliesby with the never-ending string of questions about my trip and updates about their own summer pursuits. In a way, they've saved me from the maddening annoyance of not knowing what's going on with thefamiglia.
For all of Father’s hiding, I’m sure it’s big.
He’s trying to maintain an allure of calm, but I’ve never seen him so worked up.
I just wish he’d trust me.
“Timeto spill, lady,” Tammy Lou says beside me, flicking her wavy bright red hair over one shoulder as she extends her perfect French manicured hand over to me.
"Spill about what?" I ask while the hair stylist puts my hair up in some fancy updo I wanted to try.
“It’s the third time you’ve stared over at that wall. Do you have bionic hearing or something?”
"No, it's nothing, really,"I utter the half-truth, and as I don't believe the half-hearted words coming from my lips, I add, "I'm just worried about my Nonna."
“Is she okay?” Cassandra asks, and as her head tilts, her bouncy blonde curls spring around her heart-shaped face.
“Yes, she’s good. Dealing with some family drama back home.”
"Something's bothering you," Tammy Lou persists when the stylistsleave us alone to take a short break. In a way, I'm comforted that she noticed. She can usually read me like an open book because we've been friends all through high school and she's one of the most intuitive people I know. Cassandra is slightly similar. She's been my next door neighbor since forever. My family vetted her and her emergency room physician parents years ago. So because she's seen mein every possible emotional state, she can tell when something's bothering me.
“Can you believe this crap?” Cassandra blurts out all of a sudden, stretching out her smartphone with the screen facing us,changing the focus to her, thankfully.
“What's that about?” Tammy Lou narrows her eyes at me with the question.
“Remember Steven, that guy I dated as a sophomore?”
"The wide receiver at Saint Francis who dumped you by text minutes before he was supposed to take you to the Spring Carnival?" Tammy Lou recollects correctly, and I nod as the drama from the boys' private school across the street from our all-girls school comes back to me.
