Chapter 93: Chapter Ninety-Three

Frankie walked back with his father to the women waiting for them at the cemetery entrance. He no longer walked behind but shoulder to shoulder with the man who had raised him. His father took his mother’s hand and walked off while she looked up at him with expectant eyes. Meanwhile, Frankie stopped in front of Gloria and gave her his best attempt at a crooked smile as he grabbed her hips.

“Ready to go, beautiful?” he asked, dipping down to kiss her softly.

Rather than answer, Gloria held his face in her hands and swiped her thumbs under his eyes. “What did he say to upset you?” she asked, her eyes darting between his own.

He rolled his eyes and gave a dismissive shrug. “Nothing. Apparently my dog, Buster, being sent off to live on a farm when I was nine wasn’t true!” he said with feigned shock. “He lied! Can you believe it?”

Gloria’s eyes went past his shoulder to where Stephen’s tombstone stood as witness. “Fine, I won’t press. You can tell me when you’re ready.”

Frankie bobbed his head back toward where Stephen would lie for eternity. “You want to go say hi?”

Gloria’s eyes remained on the slab of stone as she slowly shook her head. “I’m not ready yet.” Her eyes connected with his again and his smile dropped. He nodded in understanding.

“Fine, I won’t press. You can do it when you’re ready,” he said, repeating her own words back to her.

Gloria smiled as he wrapped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her along toward his parent’s car. “I am so ready to get back to the house and lie down,” Gloria admitted with a heavy sigh.

“You won’t have too much time for lying down, Vixen,” Frankie said with a chuckle.

Gloria’s head lifted to look at him and she placed a hand to his chest. “What do you mean?”

“The weekly Donati barbecue. I’m sure Ma will want your help in the kitchen while everyone filters in from church.”

Gloria halted and Frankie stopped with her. “A barbecue?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said, pulling her in again to kiss her forehead and keep her walking. “They do it every Sunday. People from church, neighbors and the like. It’s all very Brady Bunch.”

“Oh God, I don’t know if I can handle that.”

“You can.”

“What if your mom tells everyone I’m pregnant?”

Frankie barked out a laugh. “No way in Hell. A baby out of wedlock? Nah. That’s even worse than a son in the mob. She’ll wait til after the wedding. Tell everyone I got you knocked up on the honeymoon and explain when it is born that it’s a preemie.”

“You remember I’m not actually pregnant, right?” Gloria asked, tilting her head up. “There won’t be a preemie.”

“I could still get you knocked up on the honeymoon though,” he said with a wink.

“With birth control and your tubes cut?” she asked with a subtle hint of humor in her tone.

“Never know. Maybe I’m the second coming, or my second coming will bring it about,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. Gloria shoved him away and he nearly fell into the street as she laughed.

A few hours later, Frankie watched her from across the yard as he sipped on the discounted light beer his father had purchased for the occasion. She was surrounded by his mother and the various aunties and nonnas that lived in the neighborhood. They fawned as she did everything in her power to shrink away from their questions and compliments. He couldn’t blame the old biddies. She looked like a completely different woman in this setting, wearing a white and yellow sundress and sandals with her chestnut hair blowing behind her in the breeze, occasionally sipping her lemonade.

“So, your last week as a bachelor, eh?” Uncle Gino asked with a shove to Frankie’s shoulder that caused him to spill a bit of his beer.

“Appears so,” Frankie said, tearing his gaze away from his woman to give his attention to the half-dozen men conversing together on his side of the yard.

“I’m sure your folks are happy to see you settle down, huh, Frank?” Gino asked with a similar shove to his father.

“Watch the beer,” Frank Senior growled.

“This cheap stuff? Who cares if a bit is spilled, huh?” Gino asked with a laugh, clearly having pre-gamed a bit before coming over. In illustration of his point, he tipped his own bottle and watched with a grin as he emptied a third of it.

“He isn’t wrong,” Frankie said, taking another sip and grimacing. “You should’ve let me buy the good stuff.”

“I don’t have use for your blood money,” Frank Sr. grumbled as he took a hefty swig as if to prove it wasn’t that bad. His lip curled slightly and Frankie smiled against the rim of his bottle.

“Come now, it’s not all blood money. Some of it is more black and blue money,” he responded with a wink.

Frank Senior sighed and moved away to talk with his neighbor, Chaz. Gino gave a loud chuckle before setting a steady gaze on Frankie.

“So you still workin’ for the big man downtown?”

“Accardi Industries?” Frankie asked, always one to be careful with how much he divulged.

Gino gave another shove that sent more of his beer onto the grass at his feet. Frankie’s good humor quickly evaporated. “Come on!! We all know who you really work for and what you really do for him,” Gino said.

Frank Senior walked back over to turn the burgers on the grill beside them. Though he made his best effort to not act like he was eavesdropping, subtlety wasn’t a Donati strong suit.

“Oh yeah?” Frankie asked. “And what is it exactly that I do?”

“You’re second-in-command to the country’s largest mafia family!” Gino hollered, drawing the attention of several people nearby. Frankie took his time sipping from his beer.

“I’m afraid you don’t have your facts straight, Uncle,” Frankie said, his voice dropping to a deadly degree that made his father give him a side-eye.

“Oh, please,” Gino said, leaning heavily against Frankie’s arm to stay upright. “Say, what does it take to get an invite to that club I’ve heard so much about?”

“About ten million more than you have access to,” Frankie said with a cold grin and a glare that told the old fucker to back off.

Instead, Gino wrapped an arm around Frankie’s shoulder and “whispered” loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear, “What if I had a girl I could send your way? Or to your boss? She’s real hot, young, may take some convincing but…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Frankie grabbed the hand Gino had used to grip him, twisted and shoved him down on the grill, his face two inches away from being seared to well-done like the burgers his father was pulling off at the same time. As Gino yelled, Frankie took another sip of his beer.

“Jesus Christ, Dad, this beer is shit,” Frankie griped, tossing the empty beer to the trash can a few feet away.

“Language,” Frank Sr. admonished.

“Let me go, you twerp!” Gino growled.

“First, I no longer work for the man you’re referring to. Second, you would never be allowed in any of the clubs you’ve heard of for no other reason than you have absolutely no decorum. Third, the next time you try to sell a woman, I’ll be waiting for you in that dump you call a house and I’ll end your fucking life, blood or not. Understood?” Frankie asked, taking another beer his father handed him with a nod.

“Fine,” Gino clipped out.

Frankie pulled him back and shoved him away. Gino rubbed his wrist and walked away with his head held high as if he hadn’t been moments away from having a hard to explain grill scar coating sixty-five percent of his face.

“Burger’s burning,” Frankie noted with a point of his beer.

“Hm. How I like mine,” Frank Sr. said, taking the burger off.

“Sure. Is that what you’re telling people?” Frankie asked, looking out across the yard to check on Gloria again. She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. He sent her a wink. “That I’m in the business of selling women?”

“I don’t tell anyone about what you do. Try to avoid it. What they hear can’t be helped.”

“Hm.”

Both men stared across the lawn at their own women. Frankie realized how similar they must look, standing before the grill, beer held in their left hands, right hands in their pockets, legs positioned apart, keeping an eye on their charges.

“Is it true what you said?”

“You know I know where he lives,” Frankie said.

“About the man Accardi,” Frank Sr. elaborated, poking at a few hot dogs to avoid showing Frankie the hope surely shining in his eyes.

“It’s true. Quit last week.”

“Hm,” he hummed, turning a hotdog over. “What are you going to do now?”

“Same thing. Just new boss,” Frankie said, watching as Nora walked through the front gate with her mother and grandmother. She spotted Gloria and made a beeline. “Speaking of which, looks like the new boss lady is going to need my help. I’ll be back.”

Without waiting to hear his father’s response or see it in his eyes, Frankie wove through the backyard he’d once thrown a baseball to his brother in on a nearly daily basis. Nora gripped Gloria by the arms, while Gloria herself seemed shocked to see her.

“I thought you’d be in Florida, you know,” she said, glancing around at the mixed company. “With the others.”

“No,” Nora said with a decisive shake of her head. “They’ll be safer with the triplets. Besides, I’m needed here, same as you,” she continued, her eyes rising to meet Frankie’s as he stepped up beside Gloria and wrapped his arm around her waist.

“I’m still confused. Why are you here? Did you invite her?” she asked, looking up at Frankie.

Frankie shook his head. “No, Vixen, she’s my neighbor, remember?”

Dawning bloomed over Gloria’s expression. “Oh, yeah, that’s right!”

“Okay, so the confusion turns to me then,” his mother quipped with a laugh. Her pointer finger moved back and forth between Nora and Gloria. “How do you two know each other?”

“Oh… well,” Gloria stammered. He could see her physically trying to decide how much to divulge.

“She’s one of my girls,” Nora explained easily enough with a smile down at Gloria.

Marge looked to Frankie with her mouth open. “One of her girls?” she asked.

While Nora’s full ordeal or what she did for a living now was still kept mostly under wraps, it was well known that Nora did work for a nonprofit. A nonprofit that helped battered women escape abusive households, unfit families and those with no one else to turn to. Marge’s eyes misted over and tears fell as she pushed Frankie and Nora away. She cupped Gloria’s face between her hands.

“I’m so sorry. I heard your name and I assumed…” Marge began, her voice becoming lost beneath her emotion.

Gloria shook her head. “It’s okay.”

“I had no idea of what you’d been through. I only saw my own plight. Growing up as you did… I can only imagine. Forgive me for my prejudice.”

“I can’t forgive you if there’s nothing to forgive,” Gloria assured her before placing her hand over his mother’s.

“I’m so glad you found my Frankie and are to be his wife. If I know nothing else, I know he will keep you safe,” Marge said with steel determination.

Gloria looked up, eyes crinkled with humor as Frankie puffed his chest out trying to alleviate the heavy emotion now weighing them all down. “Careful, Mrs. Donati. I can see his head swelling as you speak.”

Marge waved her hand dismissively over her shoulder at her son.

“So now I’m the one confused,” Nora announced. The three others looked at her with brows raised. “Wife?” Nora asked.