Page 71 of Married With Malice

Anni cracks the oven and peeks inside. Satisfied, she closes it again and sets the spice jar on the counter beside the oven. “Until then, I’m going to wait for my cake to finish baking, add the cinnamon and go enjoy a nice hot shower. All I want for Christmas is for you to allow me to accomplish those things in peace.”

I have no intention of interfering with her ‘peace’. She waits for me to offer a verbal agreement to her demands. I don’t feel the need.

After ten more seconds of frosty silence, she turns the Christmas music up and starts cleaning up the mess on the counter. I could offer to help but I won’t.

Anni is annoyed that I’m in the way, still standing in front of the sink. She tries to push me aside and doesn’t succeed so she turns the faucet on full blast and switches to the spray setting.

While I don’t care if she gets my suit wet, nothing good can come from this interaction so I may as well return to my office before there’s another outbreak of petty squabbling.

On my way out of the kitchen, I notice something funny about the spice jar Anni left by the oven. I heard her say she planned to add a dusting of cinnamon to the apple cake when it was finished baking. I wonder if she thinks this is cinnamon, despite the fact that the label clearly says ‘Cayenne Red Pepper’.

I look back and see her moodily filling the dishwasher. “Hey, Anni.”

She fumbles with a plate and spins around, practically vibrating with contempt. “WHAT?”

“There’s flour on your ass,” I say and leave the room.

I’m sure she’ll double check the label before she does something really stupid, like cover Christmas dessert with hot pepper.

15

ANNALISA

“I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas,” Sabrina singsongs as she joins me at the rain-streaked window. She slides her arm snugly through mine and starts sucking on a giant peppermint stick.

Overnight the temperature ticked just high enough to eliminate the possibility of snow. Instead of a picturesque blanket of white outside the huge kitchen window, there are murky puddles and a carpet of dead, muddy lawn grass.

Behind us, our mother’s warm Mediterranean-themed kitchen is humming with voices and commotion.

I’m sure this is driving her nuts.

Giulia Barone is very particular about strange hands touching her appliances, especially strange male hands. I could see the muscles in her neck tightening when Big Man Bowie charged in here with plans to sear a tower of raw hamburger patties.

Considering the dinner menu includes linguine, chicken cacciatore and beef braciole, plus two trays of lasagna from Luca’s Aunt Donna, Big Man Bowie’s burgers will look a little out of place on the long dining room table. No one has the heart to point this out to him.

“One of the new guys?” I ask Sabrina as the shape of an unfamiliar man partially shielded by an umbrella prowls the exterior of the huge detached showroom where my father keeps his vintage car collection.

Sabrina pops the peppermint stick out of her mouth. “I forget his name. There have been a couple of new additions trying out lately and so far they never last long.”

“You mean replacements for Rocco?” Can’t say that I shed any tears when I heard the news that the creep met an early demise.

“Mmmhmm,” she says with the peppermint stick back in her mouth.

I take a look around to judge if anyone else is within earshot. Donna Amato and her two daughters are laughing as they roll up salami slices for an appetizer tray. Big Man Bowie whistlesFrosty the Snowmanwhile flipping burgers at the stove. Daisy smiles, as lovely as if she’s professionally posing, while she patiently toasts hamburger buns on a buttered griddle. My mother is twisting a candy cane striped dishtowel in her hands and trying to mop up Big Man Bowie’s grease splatters the instant he creates them.

“Did you ever hear more details about Rocco’s death?” I ask my sister in a barely audible voice.

I know she heard me. The peppermint stick remains in her mouth and her eyes are glued to the rainy landscape out the window.

Finally, she shakes her head without speaking. The reindeer antler headband she’s wearing smacks into my right cheek.

If you grew up in this house, now and then you’d hear things that aren’t meant for your ears. And you knew better than to repeat what you’d heard. Unless you were talking to your sisters, who you trust more than anyone else on earth.

Sabrina doesn’t lie to me and I have no reason to doubt her firm head shake. But she’s fidgeting and won’t make eye contact, leading me to wonder why.

The official story is that a shitfaced Rocco Vincente wandered into the street and got flattened by a garbage truck. If there’d been any whiff of a hit, my father would have made sure there was hell to pay.

Luca might know more, considering how far his uncle is wedged up my father’s ass. But Luca would have no special interest in Rocco’s fate. He knows nothing of my visceral hatred for my father’s favorite henchman.

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