Page 90 of Caught Up

Ryan’s cheeks pinked, and they dropped their gaze. “Yup.”

I zeroed in on it. “You think he’s cute.”

Their eyes flashed wide. “What? No.” Ryan was a horrible liar.

Taylor set her coffee down. “Oh my god, you do!”

I poked Ryan’s side with my fork. “You can’t hit on your employee, you ho bag. It’s unethical.”

“He’s not even my employee yet!” Ryan argued, squirming away.

Taylor and I spent the next five minutes teasing them until they finally caved and showed us Ben’s social media.

“Oh, he’s pretty,” I said.

Taylor agreed, grabbing the phone out of Ryan’s hand and punching the screen with her finger. “Oops! Just followed.”

The blood drained from Ryan’s face. “I’ll kill you this time.”

With a shriek, Taylor went sprinting toward the stairs, Ryan hot on her heels, Walter hot ontheirheels.

I sighed as I watched them disappear up the stairs, praying the insulation was thick enough to smother the noise they were making.

My grandparents’ store occupied the first floor of ahundred-year-oldbuilding in the heart of Little Italy. They were bothfirst-generationAmericans, their parents fleeing Mussolini and the rise of the fascists in the 1920s.

This country loved shitting on immigrants, despite the fact that almost everyone here was descended from them, and back then, the Italians had been the chosen group to bear the brunt of that hatred, with laws enacted to limit their immigration and prejudice against them running amok. They were often ostracized and segregated to certain areas, forced to band together to keep safe and preserve their culture while surrounded by people who wanted to tear it apart. That was part of why there was a “Little Italy” in almost every large city in North America.

My grandparents had been determined to claw their way out of the poverty that ran rampant through the old neighborhood back in the day, and, seeing a need for a deli, they scraped and saved until they were able to open one. It started small, operating out of the front room of their tiny apartment, before slowly becoming profitable enough that they were able to rent out a storefront. Now, over fifty years later, Nonna owned the building outright, the ground floor housing a largedeli-cum-generalstore, and the second floor outfitted with adecent-sizedthree-bedroomapartment that my sister and her family had moved into when they’d taken over the store after Nonno died.

The bell above the door chimed when I walked in, announcing my arrival. It was midday Sunday, and all the churches in the neighborhood had just let out. The place was packed. I wove my way through the familiar aisles, memories of running up and down them as a toddler, and then later, stocking shelves as a teenager, flooding my mind. Everyone knew everyone here, and I stopped several times to exchange pleasantries with my middle school history teacher, a girl I’d played soccer with, and, awkwardly, the first boy I’d ever kissed. Neither of us made eye contact. I was sure we were both remembering the way he’d come in his pants and then panicked and said he’d pissed himself like that was somehow better.

Hugo, mybrother-in-law, saw me approaching and flipped up the section of counter next to the register so I could slip through. He was a big man, tall, husky, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. If this were a Scorsese movie, he’d be cast as Goon #2, wearing a full tracksuit and smoking a cigar in the background of a scene while theA-listersdiscussed offing someone in the foreground. Most of the time, he put his size to use working guard detail at the estate of Lorenzo Brusomini, the current head of the mob, but on Sundays, Kristen had the day off, and Hugo took over the register.

“Hey, good to see you,” he said, leaning down to give me aone-armedhug.

“You, too,” I said, squeezing him back. “Is Kristen upstairs?”

“Yeah,” he said, releasing me. “Go easy on her, eh? This kid’s giving her a harder time than the other two did. One second, Joe,” he told the man waiting to check out. He turned back to me. “Capiche?”

I nodded, keeping my mouth shut instead of pointing out that of the two of us, I wasn’t the one who started shit. Hugo was Kristen’s husband; it was his job to take her side.

“Hey,” he called as I headed toward the storeroom door. “Be quiet going up. She just put the kids down.”

“I will,” I said, slipping into the back.

I paused when the door clicked shut behind me, taking a deep, calming breath filled with the familiar scents of my childhood: coffee and parmesan and fresh basil and the sweet hint ofanise-flavoredbiscotti, all paired with thegym-socksmell of sliced salami, soppressata, and prosciutto. It sounded disgusting when listed out, but to me, it was heaven. I felt safe in here, protected, reminded of my grandparents taking me and my sister in and giving us the best childhoods they could.

With one last inhale, I passed through the door in the back corner and took the stairs up.

“Kristen?” Iwhisper-hissedafter using my key.

“In here,” she hissed back.

I followed the sound of her voice into the living room, where she was sprawled out on the couch, a book in her hand. She lay on her side, her other hand around her burgeoning belly, where my third niece or nephew was incubating, or growing, or whatever the term was. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she wore sweats and one of her husband’s old shirts. There were dark circles under her eyes that made me wonder if she hadn’t been sleeping, and suddenly, I was less concerned about how she treated me than I had been before coming over. My sister was clearly having a hard time, and even though we didn’t get along that well, I still cared about her.

“How you doing?” I asked, weaving around discarded toys as I made my way closer.

She set her book down and lifted the plastic tub just beside her on the floor. “Well, I’m six months into this pregnancy and still have to cart an emergency puke bucket everywhere I go, so you tell me.”

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