Page 4 of The Fixer

“They broke up in January. Just as well. He’s too young to be settling down.” Elaine Tran is not to bedissuaded from her inquiries into my love life. “What about that man you were dating last year? Frank?”

“Franco,” I correct. “We weren‘t serious. I‘m not seeing him anymore.” I glance at my phone discreetly. Where is Hugh? My brother promised to be home by five to rescue me from this exact conversation, but it’s twenty after and he’s nowhere to be seen.

“Whose decision was that?” my mother asks pointedly.

I take a deep, fortifying breath. Here it comes: the lecture. Any minute now, she’s going to remind me that by the time she was my age, she was married and had already given birth to her first child. “Mine,” I admit. “He wasn‘t right for me.”

My mother throws up her hands in exasperation. “Why not? Was he unemployed? Homeless? Did he beat you?”

Unemployed, homeless, or abusive. In Elaine Tran’s worldview, those are the only acceptable reasons to turn a man down. “No,” I reply. “He has a good job, and I‘m sure his apartment is very nice. It‘s in a great neighborhood. But he thought fashion was frivolous.”

To be fair, even if Franco hadn‘t said that, wewouldn‘t have lasted. He was more interested in his retirement portfolio than he was in me. Maybe I read too many romance novels as a teenager, but I want to fall in love. I want to be swept off my feet by a fairytale prince, someone who makes my heart race and my pulse pound.

Someone like Leo.

I shove that thought aside. Leo made it perfectly clear at Valentina’s wedding that he wasn’t interested in dating me. Enough wallowing. I need to let this stupid crush die and quickly.

My mother predictably takes Franco’s side. “He’s not wrong. You spend all your time in that silly shop of yours, sewing late into the night.” She gives me a critical once-over. “Your skin is sallow, you have dark circles under your eyes, and you’ve put on weight.”

Don’t react. Do not react. “I like your dress,” I say blandly. “Purple is a good color on you.” Every year, I make my mother an outfit for her birthday. This year is a milestone, so I went all out. The fabric alone—a gorgeous, iridescent silk crepe—cost four hundred euros a meter. The skirt is cut on the bias, and to keep the silk from distorting, I hemmed it by hand. It took hours.

But my mother’s face lit up when she tried it on. The effort was worth it.

Of course, Hugh could show up with wilted grocery store flowers, and she’ll still think he walks on water. But that’s just the way it is. My parents have always favored my younger brother, but I refuse to let it get to me. Life’s too short for bitterness.

“You’re trying to change the subject.” My mother’s voice is dry. “I suppose you think I’m haranguing you, and you’re probably right. I worry about you, that’s all. Fashion isn’t the most stable of careers.”

I got my love of sewing from my grandmother, who used to be a seamstress back in Hanoi. But as soon as my grandparents emigrated to Italy, she traded it in for a job as a bank teller. “Sensible hours, steady paycheck,” she used to say. My mother has followed in her tracks, and so has Hugh. I’m the black sheep of the family.

She’s not wrong to fret about my financial well-being. It wasn’t too long ago that I was struggling to pay rent and sneaking into fashion shows and art gallery openings for free food and wine. Two years ago, I was sleeping in the back room of my shop because my business was barely profitable.

“You don’t have to worry, m?. I’m doing fine.” After Lucia Petrucci wore one of my creations to the Palazzo Ducale annual donor gala, business picked up dramatically. Things have never been better. Ieven applied to show in Milan Fashion Week a couple of weeks ago.

“It isn’t just your business I’m worried about. It’s also your personal life. At your age, I already had my first child.”

There it is, just like clockwork. Damn it, Hugh, you were supposed to save me from this.

“Don’t you want to get married, Rosa?” she continues.

“I do,” I reply soothingly. I should leave it at that, but honesty compels me to add, “But I want to fall in love first, and that hasn’t happened for me.”

“Love,” my mother says, as if it’s a four-letter word. Which it is, I guess. “Once again, you have your head in the clouds. Look at your brother. He’s only twenty-two, and already he has a well-paying job. You know what they gave him as a bonus? A brand-new car. A Lamborghini.”

“What? They gave him a car as a bonus?” I ask sharply. This is the first I’m hearing about a Lambo, which is shocking. Boasting about Hugh’s accomplishments is my mother’s favorite thing to do.

But something doesn’t add up. Banks do not hand out expensive Italian sports cars as bonuses to entry-level employees, and my mother knows that. This means Hugh’s involved in something messy,and my mother is burying her head in the sand, pretending not to see it. “Which bank does he work for again, and exactly what does he do for them?”

Before she can answer, the front door flies open, and my brother bursts in. One look at him, and I know something’s badly wrong. Blood pours down from a cut on his forehead, his shirt is torn and dirt-streaked, and he’s shaking. “Where’s b??” he demands. “Is he still at the garage?”

“No, he’s upstairs.”

“Thank God.” Hugh locks the door behind him, moves over to the windows, and closes the drapes. “M?, I skipped lunch. Could you make me something to eat?”

It’s a transparent attempt to get rid of her. My mother opens her mouth. It’s obvious she has a thousand questions for my brother, but it’s also obvious that she doesn’t really want to hear the answers. “Rosa made ph?. I’ll heat it up.”

The moment she leaves the room, Hugh whirls to me. “Rosa,” he says. “Remember when you had trouble with your landlord, and a friend of yours helped out?”

I grow cold. The incident Hugh’s referring to happened more than two years ago. My landlord started to harass me, and I told my friend Valentina,who got a Mafia lawyer, Daniel Rossi, involved. If my brother is looking for that kind of protection. . .

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