Mafia Chic

“Yes, she is. Was. That woman is Mariella.”

“How come I don’t know them? How come I’ve never met your brother, Grandma?”

“He was struck by the thunderbolt.”

I looked up at my grandmother’s face, still relatively unlined, rosy-cheeked, her dark hair, graying at the temples, pulled up in a topknot and secured with bobby pins. I furrowed my brow. “A thunderbolt? He was hit by lightning?”

She laughed, even as she dabbed her eyes with a little handkerchief she kept in her apron pocket. “No…it’s an expression we Italians have. When you’re older, you’ll fall in love and get married. Maybe it will be someone you’ve known a long time…a friend you suddenly see in a different light. Or maybe you’ll go off to college and meet a boy you could imagine yourself spending the rest of your life with. Someone with good values. But maybe…just maybe…you will be struck by the thunderbolt. That means you’ll look across a crowded room, or you’ll bump into someone on the street…and from the very second you look into his eyes and he looks into yours, that’s it. You know. He is the one. It won’t make any sense. People will tell you that you’re crazy, but you will know. There’ll be this voice, this feeling deep inside…you will just know, and your life will never be the same, because none of it will matter until you finally get to be with him. Your love.”

I looked down at the picture of my long-lost uncle Mario. “So what happened to him?”

“He’s in prison, dear.”

“Prison? For what?”

She hesitated, and then said, “He killed a man.” She said it as if she’d said, “He ran a red light.”

I shivered slightly and snuggled closer to her. “Why? How?”

“Oh…it’s a long story.” She looked at me, and I clearly wasn’t going to let the matter drop. “All right, then. Your uncle Mario saw Mariella at a dance. And that was it. They were both struck by the thunderbolt. You’ve never seen two people more in love than your uncle Mario and Mariella. It was like electricity ran between them. When people were around them, it was intoxicating. You could just feel the way they were meant to be together.”

I hung on her every word. “And?”

“Mariella’s father was not a reasonable man. A very over-protective Sicilian. But a little crazy, too. He decided Uncle Mario was not the man he wanted Mariella to marry. He had already decided she should marry Joey Antonelli.”

“The plumber?” Everyone in our neighborhood knew Antonelli and Sons plumbing. Their vans—all a bright yellow—were always on the streets of Brooklyn.

“Yes. The plumber. Anyway, Mariella’s father sent her two older brothers to scare Uncle Mario. They went to beat him up.”

“Oh, no!”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Only they didn’t count on Uncle Mario being so strong and so in love. It was like he was superhuman. He turned around and beat one of her brothers so hard he killed him right there on the street.”

I shuddered. “But…but couldn’t he tell the police it was only because they were going to beat him up?”

“Yes. He did say it was self-defense. But…the beating was so brutal. And Uncle Mario didn’t have a mark on him. And it was around the time that…well…the judge wanted to teach a lesson to our kind.”

“Our kind?”

“The family. It’s too much for you to understand. But it didn’t go well, the trial. They added some other charges—racketeering. Anyway, he got a prison sentence.”

“And he’s still in jail?”

“Yes. He’s eligible for parole next year.”

“And what about Mariella? Did she marry Joey Antonelli like her father wanted?”

Grandma shook her head.

“Well, what happened to her?”

“She stood by Uncle Mario. She had no choice. She’d been struck by the thunderbolt. She was very sad about her brother, but she still loved Uncle Mario. Her family disowned her. She ended up moving away. She visits Uncle Mario every weekend. She dresses all in black. People say she’s crazy. She dresses like a widow. She missed any opportunity to marry like her friends, to have babies. Waiting…waiting…all this time. Like a penance or something.”

“But they’ll get to be together when he comes out of prison. They’ll finally be together.”

“Yes. But…well, they’ll never be those two young people so in love.” Suddenly, Grandma seemed to think better of telling me the story of Uncle Mario and Mariella. “Oh…what am I telling you this sad story for?” She patted my knee. “It’s in your blood, you know. The passion. Maybe you’ll be struck by the thunderbolt yourself. Maybe you will have that kind of love.”

I looked down at the picture of my uncle Mario and the beautiful, tragic Mariella. And I knew one thing. I never, ever wanted to be struck by the thunderbolt.

Chapter 1

“Jackson is going to take a dive in round three,” I said, glancing at the television as I passed through the living room, where my roommate sat with her boyfriend of the moment, a boxing buff.

Dave eyed me the way men do when they assume a woman doesn’t know the first thing about sports or the difference between a Phillips head and flat-head screwdriver (for the record, the Phillips head is shaped like a cross on the end). “Jackson? A lot you know about boxing. He’ll go all twelve and take the decision.”

I stopped in my tracks and whirled around. “Wanna bet?”

“I hate to rob you of your hard-earned money, Teddi, but you’re on. Five bucks says he’ll go the distance.”

“Then let’s make it interesting. Hundred bucks…and the loser cleans the kitchen.” I stood in the doorway of the living room and cast a backward glance to the kitchen, where a porcelain tower of dishes was precariously leaning in the sink.

“A hundred bucks?” He was handsome, I’d give Diana that. Nice biceps. But then Diana always had handsome men following her around. I called her Lady Di, and her British accent, Paris fashions and catlike eyes made her stand out, even among New York City’s trendsetters. However, something about this guy annoyed me. He was too cocky, a trait I was certain Lady Di would discover very quickly. She tolerates fools and assholes less than I do.

“Yes. A hundred bucks and the dishes. Unless you’re afraid a woman will beat you,” I said, emphasizing “woman” as if I had said “herpes” or “vomit.”

“You’re on.”

I strode across the living room and stuck out my hand. “Then shake on it.”

Dave shook, firmly I might add, and I sat down on the love seat to watch the boxing match. “What round is it?” I asked.

“Second.” Lady Di spoke up, her smirk barely contained. She knew that, other faults aside, I never took a sucker bet.

The bell signaled the end of round two. Jackson looked to be in terrific shape. His muscular back and coffee-colored skin glistened with sweat, but he wasn’t even breathing heavy. His opponent, “Rocky” Garcia, was nine years older—a lifetime in boxing years, sort of like dog years—and he already looked tired. The guy was known as a “bleeder,” sustaining cuts above the eye that would pour down his face, blocking his vision. If you’ve never actually watched a boxing match, then you might not know cuts like that entail sticking a Q-tip directly into the gash. Boxing is not for the squeamish. And though Garcia was the champ, no one expected him to win against Jackson.

Dave leaned back on the couch and stretched. “I’m going to take Diana out to Whiskey Blue with our hundred bucks—which we’ll blow on a bottle of champagne. And we’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”

I rolled my eyes, then focused on the television set. When the bell rang, Garcia came out with a flurry. Left, right, left jab. Uppercut. The announcers were getting excited, shouting into their microphones. The crowd in the MGM Grand in Vegas rose to their collective feet. Jackson shook his head from side to side, as if to clear it from the small pounding he took. Garcia came at him again with a series of body blows and then—wham!—Jackson hit the canvas like a man who’d just had a safe fall on him in a cartoon. He was caught square on the jaw.

Dave leaned forward on the couch, in shock, screaming at the television set. He stood up and leaned still closer to the TV, not believing his eyes. “Get up, you loser! Get up!” Dave was willing the fighter to climb the ropes and stand again, in the way men have of believing the athletes on television can actually hear them through some miracle of technology. But Jackson just lay there, as I knew he would. The fight was called, the champ held up the belt he retained with the victory, and I stuck out my palm.

“A cool one hundred, please.”

Stunned, Dave pulled his eel-skin wallet out of the back pocket of his beautifully cut pants (Italian, no doubt). Lady Di tried to look appropriately sad that he lost, but she couldn’t look at me for fear we would both dissolve into gales of laughter.

“Here,” Dave said through his teeth, seething. He handed me five twenties.

“Fastest hundred I ever earned. Thanks…and Dave?”