Page 76 of Married With Malice

Mama is now dissecting the slice of cake with a fork. She shears off a tiny bite, holds it to her tongue, and promptly spits it out. “Annalisa! What have you done? You were supposed to add cinnamon.”

“I-I did.” This I’m sure of. I remember using half the spice jar.

She shakes her head and takes another taste. “No. No, this is hot, like pepper.”

Pepper?

It would seem like a weird mistake. Except for the fact that there’s one person at the table with an obnoxious history of pranks. Pranks such as ruining desserts with hot pepper.

And he happened to be skulking around in the kitchen this morning while pissed off about his super duper special pen.

Slowly, I turn my head to look at my husband.

Luca’s not smirking. He’s not happy. Not horrified either. If anything, he looks slightly bored by the entire spectacle.

“Anni,” he says again.

Too much. My Christmas cup runneth over. Between too little sleep, too much marital angst and a trio of annoying cooking blisters, the dam breaks.

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” I scream.

“Annalisa!” My father bangs a furious hand down on the table.

I don’t care. Let him screech.

Luca’s slice of cake is untouched because he knows it will taste like shit. But he still doesn’t get to have it. Nope, I’m taking my cake back right fucking now.

The next chain of events is fuzzily surreal.

I lunge across the table to grab Luca’s plate.

My elbow knocks into a lit pillar candle and it falls, lighting a loose napkin on fire.

Daisy throws her glass of wine on the flame and a fire cloud balloons like a circus trick, igniting Mama’s heirloom tablecloth.

Mama unleashes a long horror movie scream.

Luca’s cousin’s baby starts howling.

Sabrina tries to stand up and falls out of her chair.

Big Man Bowie comes to the rescue by grabbing the napkin that started the fire. It singes his fingers and with a yelp he tosses it away, where it bounces off a wall tapestry that probably survived the Renaissance and the plague and multiple bloody revolutions but must be unusually flammable.

The thing lights up like a torched haystack.

Then a skinny guy, one of Richie’scapos,jumps up, yanks his gun out of its holster and wildly spins around in search of more incoming threats.

Meanwhile, the fire jumps to a neighboring tapestry. At this rate the whole house might be turned to ashes but Luca finally has the presence of mind to tear both tapestries from the wall and beat down the flames with his jacket.

Multiple water glasses are thrown on the charred remnants of Mama’s irreplaceable tablecloth and the room is now full of smoke and lots of hysterical people.

Sabrina pops up from the floor with her antlers askew. “Holy shit.” She surveys the scene and then grimaces at her hand. “I think I sprained my wrist.”

I look at Luca and he looks at me.

All at once the fire alarms in the house begin simultaneously shrieking.

16

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