“You mean your criminal empire?” She bobbed her head when she spoke, a graceless gesture and a sign that she’d had a glass too many.
Antonio dropped his fork. “Basta, Tina.”
She turned her palms down and shook her hands, telling us to be quiet because something important was coming. “I work in a fabric factory, at the desk, and there’s a little salumeria on the corner. And the little men sit outside it talking like they’re so important. Little mafiosi. They come into the factory and take their money. Their tribute.” She flung her hands around like butterflies. “They try to take me to bed. You know what I say to them? Your little pistola matches your stupid bald head. Both in your pants. Both can’t shoot.”
“More wine?” I asked.
She pushed her glass to me. “Grazie. And all of the mafiosi…” She held up her pinkie. “Like this. You can’t be in the organization unless you have an okra between your legs.” She put her thumb and pointer finger two inches apart, then held up her hands to Antonio as if he’d objected, which he hadn’t, except to rub his face in embarrassment. “Not Mister Spinelli, of course. With that cetriolo.”
I almost spit my wine. Daniel pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t bust.
She was on a roll, addressing Antonio with a hand cupped as if handing him a golden piece of advice. “My God, you are going to kill someone with that thing one day. This is what I thought.” She put her elbow on the table and wagged her finger at him. “I thought you couldn’t be mafiosi because…” She put her hands up, a foot apart. “But no. Time passed, and you were just like the rest of them.”
She poured wine down her throat and turned to me. “You can have that thing.”
I think I went red. She was imagining me with that beautiful dick, and I felt my barest lust exposed.
“No one woman can keep up with him. He can manage two,” she said.
“Not in America,” Antonio said. “Here, it’s one woman, one man.”
“Sometimes,” Daniel mumbled then leaned back.
She stretched her neck and tilted her head as if bringing her ear closer to Antonio. “Che?”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t heard of it,” Antonio growled.
We’d been through hell together, but this? This was a million times worse.
“Monogamia?” Valentina said with disbelief. “Not for the men in the organization.”
“For this man, it is. I’m sorry, but this cetriolo is for her only.” He took my hand, and though I was proud of that, I also had to shake the feeling that she shouldn’t see any affection between us. “I love her. You waited, I know you waited, until I was the man you wanted me to be. But she took me as I am.”
“A thief and a killer?”
“Alleged,” I said, keenly aware of Daniel’s presence.
She bent her head slightly left then right, left then right, pursing her lips. “We don’t divorce. We aren’t American. I will fight you.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
She huffed as if that was the first time she’d heard him say such a thing. “You won’t make our son a bastard either. I will curse you to hell.”
“I’m going to hell anyway.”
“Can you just fuck her and leave me alone?”
“That’s not up to me. It’s up to Theresa.”
She faced me, full-on, as if expecting me to answer the big questions of her life with a half-eaten manicotti in front of me, my ex on my left, and the love of my life on my right.
“Way to drop it in a girl’s lap,” I said, taking my hand from Antonio’s.
Valentina swooped up the second bottle in one hand and her glass in the other. She came around the table and bent over to whisper, “Let’s go, troia.”
She strode out to the back, ass wagging like a flag, the swinging doors kissing behind her.
“Did she just call me a whore?”
“Worse. Don’t follow her,” Antonio said. “She’s not right in the head when she drinks.”
He started to get up, but I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him down so I could stand. “Stay here and help with the dishes.” I snapped up my glass and went out the back.
twenty-six.