Page 15 of Married to the Mafia

Caroline shakes her head. “I’ve got one word for you, Rose. Divorce settlement.”

“That’s two words.”

“Why not say yes? He’s clearly rich. You marry him, make sure you don’t sign a pre-nup. Then get lawyered up and take him to the cleaners. Could earn yourself a small fortune.”

“Wow.”

“That’s what I’m doing with this dumb ape.”

“Right here,” Eddie says. “I’m right here.”

“Shush, honey. I’ll still blow you after I clean out your bank accounts. For old time’s sake.”

“Gee, how romantic.”

I tap the table. “Can we get back to me for a second? Are you seriously saying I should say yes?”

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, it’s worth considering, isn’t it?”

“No, it is not. If I ever get married and that’s a big if, it’ll be for love, not because some douchebag in a suit is blackmailing me.”

“Blackmail? How is he blackmailing you?”

Clive reappears with an enormous plate of pancakes. He dumps them in the middle of the table and then walks off without another word.

“I love coming here,” Eddie says. “Such a friendly vibe.”

“Shut up,” Caroline snaps at him before turning back to me. “What do you mean by blackmail?”

“He said that if I married him, he would rebuild the shelter like he promised, but if I didn’t, he wouldn’t.”

“Wow,” Caroline says, running a hand through her hair. “That’s quite the asshole move.”

“Yep.”

“But why you? Why would he even want to marry you?”

“I’ve no idea. I think it’s some kind of prank and I’m the punchline. He says I’ve got until eight tonight to decide. Now I know I started this, but can we talk about something else?”

We eat, and the conversation moves onto last night. Memories come back to me, helped by my friends reminiscing about what we got up to. The baseball cap they bought me for being Cardinal Chunderhead. The toilet bowl handstand. The flashing of my panties to the town statue.

Turns out they carried me home, exactly as I promised they wouldn’t need to. Put me to bed too and left my cellphone on charge before they went.

We finish lunch and agree to meet up at Larry’s tonight. They want to be there when I take the call at eight. I know what I’m going to say. I’m going to say no. There isn’t a chance in a million that I’ll agree to marry him. Not a shot in hell.

6

Rose

Rose

It’s amazing how fast your life can change. Days can go by with monotony and regularity, doing the same things repeatedly. Then one day, in an instant, everything can change and you’re never the same again.

That’s how I felt when mom got her diagnosis. Again when she died. Hours, weeks, months of her slowly slipping away. Then, just in the click of a finger, she was gone, and I had no mother anymore.

This is a day like that. I’m just walking home from the diner, not thinking about much at all, when a black van slows on the street and starts keeping pace with me. I turn and look at it in time to see it stop. “Get lost, creep,” I say to the driver.

He looks panicked. He jumps out and runs over to me. “She’s dying,” he says, running back to the van, swinging open the door at the rear. “Please, help me. I think she’s choking. My little girl. Help me!”

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