Fools Paradise (7 page)

Goomba nodded, still giving her that terrible look over his big moustache. “Now think about two hundred and fifty Badgers. And no Goomba to watch over you. No Bobby Morton,” he spat.

Oh, God, she'd done it, she was between Goomba and his arch-enemy now. And he thought she was siding with the Mortons! “I thought you brought me here because you knew. And it was okay.” Her throat was tight with unshed tears. “You know about everything, Goomba.”

“If I had known about this, I could have....” He looked dark and far away.

She realized that he didn't have any idea what he could have done.
That means it's done,
she thought, first stunned, then joyful.
He can't stop me.

He drew himself up and looked stern. “I forbid it.”

Crossing all her fingers under the table, she said, “Tomorrow's my first day at work.”

For a long moment he stared at her. The rage faded out of his face, and then he reached out to pat her cheek. “My
preziosa.”

His tone was suddenly warm, as if he weren't angry at all.
I never realized what an actor he is.
It was scary.

The table next to them filled up with loud-talking guys in suits.

He said, “You know I want the very best for you. How well do you know this young man? There's a reason why we don't see the Mortons socially.”

Like she didn't know. “You fight with them. You fought with them for years.”

“Not since you were little. Don't you remember?” he said wistfully. “That was your doing.” He sure was yanking her heartstrings today. “You were just a tiny girl. You looked at me and you said, ‘I love you, Goomba, please don't fight.' So, to please you and keep you safe, I stopped fighting.”

“You still run against him for the Executive Board every time,” she blurted. “You're going to do it again this year, aren't you? You always say you won't, and then you get mad at them for something, and you run, and you always lose. Why do you do it, Goomba? Can't you just...let it go?”

“My little peacemaker,” he said mildly. “Why run? I suppose because people should have a right to choose. I believe that democracy calls for a choice.”

That's such a lie.
“Bobbyjay isn't like his family.”

“He owes them loyalty, just as you owe us loyalty.”

Under his gaze she looked down and fiddled with her pickled ginger, feeling guilty.

“How can I be sure this stupidhead is going to remember to take care of my
angelina
? You should come first with your husband, just as you come first with your own family.”

She felt horribly guilty.
He's doing it on purpose.

Didn't help.

“Do I really come first with you?” she said.
Will you tell my cousins to stop pinching me and talking trash to me?

“You're the light of my life,” he said simply. “Does this Morton boy say that to you?” He put his hand over hers. “Once you marry, you're his responsibility. I lose the right to take care of you.” His voice broke, and she saw tears in his eyes.

She choked up. “Oh, Goomba,” she tried to say over the noise of suits drinking their lunch at the next table. Tears welled in her own eyes. Guilt was crushing her.
Lie hard, or he'll guess.
“I'm sorry, but I'm going to marry him. I'm starting at the Opera House tomorrow. After I'm married I'll—I probably—I won't be able to keep house for you.”

At the thought of housekeeping, she felt less guilty.

He honked into his napkin and wadded it into his shirt pocket. “I need more coffee. You sit, I'll get it,” he added, patting her on the shoulder, as if she had been about to jump up and fetch the pot.

He blundered away emotionally between the crowded tables, and Daisy sat back and heaved a huge hot sigh.

She was trapped. Goomba wasn't giving an inch on this feud. She would have to find a way to cool it off before she dared to break her engagement to Bobbyjay. And she had to make sure Bobbyjay wouldn't back out until their families were safe.

The rowdy suits from the next table got up, leaving their trays behind, the slobs. She didn't think anything of it until she realized they hadn't left.

“Hey there, hot thing.”

She looked up. The four of them were standing around her table, looking down at her.

Bobbyjay came out of the cafeteria restroom just as Marty Dit bolted past, leaving Daisy sitting looking hunted. She hadn't yet noticed Bobbyjay. Here in the Opera House cafeteria she looked incredibly young, with all that kiddie makeup and the filmy top and a face like a little girl in a corner with no choices. Bobbyjay's insides gave a twist. He wanted to go sit in Marty Dit's chair and tell her not to worry. But what would be the point? They both had plenty of worrying to do.

If she couldn't handle her family, he sure couldn't. He had his hands full, keeping his Dad from perpetrating more atrocities on the Ditorellis, and managing the titanic ego of the patriarch, Bobby Morton Senior.

While he watched, a bunch of boozy stockbrokers got up and stood over Daisy's chair, looking down her shirt and tossing remarks at her.

Bobbyjay started forward. Then he noticed Marty Dit reappear at his elbow. While they watched, the stockbrokers talked to Daisy and she blushed, her head twisting, trying to answer them all at once. She didn't seem to be having fun.

The shitheads. Marty Dit will settle their hash,
Bobbyjay thought.

But he didn't. The old man stood next to him, watching his granddaughter field stockbroker remarks like he was watching a tennis match.

The tallest stockbroker obviously thought he was irresistible to women. He grabbed Daisy's hand and tried to shove his card into it.

Bobbyjay started forward again.

“Wait, kid.” He felt the old man's hand on his elbow. “Think you're so smart, getting my girl a job at the Opera House? This is what she'll have to face.”

Bobbyjay turned a scowl on him. “You just gonna stand here?”

“Better she should learn she can't handle it now, with me watching,” the old man said, looking serene and evil.

Daisy slapped the guy's card away. Bobbyjay gave up on self control. He slipped between the crammed tables like a quarterback sneaking through a defense line, and stepped hard on the stockbroker's foot.

She looked up, saw him, then looked past him. Her face changed slowly, like a two-mile-an-hour fender bender.

“Hey, Daisy,” Bobbyjay said, as if the stockbroker weren't howling in pain in his left ear. He picked up a chair from a nearby table and dangled it from one finger, looking down at her. “Mind if I join you?”

“Who the fuck are you, Gomer?” one of the other stockbrokers said in an unfriendly voice.

Bobbyjay put his hand on Daisy's shoulder and then glanced up innocently. “I'm her fiancé. Who are you?”

The other stockbrokers looked at each other. Their tall buddy had limped off.

Bobbyjay swept the rest of them out of his way with his chair, planted it beside Daisy, and sat down.

“You okay?”

“Oh, God.” Her face was white.

“Your grandfather should be here any second.” He glanced over his shoulder. Marty Dit had disappeared.

She looked sick. “He's punishing me,” Daisy whispered. “He did this last time. At the train station.”

So she knew what her grandfather was up to. “Train station?” Bobbyjay said, feeling like the fender bender was turning into a three-car pileup.

“And the time before that, at the baseball game. I went to the bathroom and he gave me money to buy Cokes and some guys...bothered me. It took him forever to come find me.” Her sloe eyes filled with tears. Bobbyjay put his hand over hers again and she squeezed it hard. “I was so scared.” Her face hardened. “He did it on purpose!”

“You were how old?” Bobbyjay said.

“Fourteen.”

Bobbyjay bit back fifty-seven swear words.

“Thank you for chasing them off, Bobbyjay,” she said, with a look that turned his insides to jelly. She blinked away tears.

Her grandfather plopped into his seat opposite her. Bobbyjay started. Daisy got up with a sniff. “I gotta go pee.” She gave Marty Dit a searing look and swept off.

Bobbyjay exchanged glances with the old man. “I didn't tell her what you said,” he muttered. Marty Dit's eyes narrowed. Bobbyjay took a deep breath. “Yet.”

They played stare-down for a minute. Bobbyjay knew he couldn't afford to break first.

The old man's face was a mask of wrinkles. He smiled. “Point to you, son. I'll leave her in your hands. You can keep her safe at the Opera House.”

Bobbyjay thought with a sinking feeling of all the roughnecks he worked with. “Uh, I gotta go back to work.”

In the elevator he wondered if Daisy would challenge the old man over what had happened. All in all, he was glad he wouldn't be there to find out.

Daisy had put herself together by the time she came back from the bathroom, but she was still sick to her stomach over Goomba's betrayal. So much for his protection. Out on the town, at home, or on the job, she now knew exactly what his love was worth.
Home cooking, bleached and pressed handkerchiefs, and a spotless house.
Oh, and no complaints, ever. Not Daisy, nosirree, she loved him so much, she would cook and clean and wait on him and his worthless male descendants forever. Thinking of Tony's foul mouth and grab-ass games, she felt her tummy roil.
I'll show him. I'll never complain again. I'll just get a job and move out.
She hadn't the faintest idea how much an apartment cost, but she vowed here and now that she wouldn't spend a penny of her paychecks until she had enough.

Goomba didn't meet her eyes. “What a nice young man you got for a fiancé,” he said. “I won't have to worry about your future welfare any more. A great guy, a steady guy.”

You jerk.
She did an eyeroll.

“What's for supper?” he said.

Their day out was over.

Marty Dit called his best friend as soon as Daisy started supper. He took the phone outside, away from little pitchers.

“Compagno,
I got problem.”

“I got your back,” Badger said easily. “'Sup?”

Marty Dit lowered his voice, though Daisy was inside and on the other end of the house. “You know that
ritardato
Bobby Morton?” Between the two of them, there was only one Bobby Morton, Bobby the first, the sonofabitch. “He got my Daisy a job at the Opera House.”

“What, making lattes in the coffeeshop?”

“No,” Marty Dit said, pausing to add importance to his revelation. “Working electrics.”

There was a pause. “No.”

“Yes. She starts tomorrow.”

Badger drew an audible breath. “You must be shitting stageweight yourself. Who's gonna cook your supper?”

Marty Dit scowled at the hydrangea bushes. “It ain't about my supper, it's about my
angelina
in that snakepit of fucking deckhands. She's still got no sense. I took her to the Opera House cafeteria for lunch and a bunch of stockbrokers hit on her. She was hopeless,” Marty Dit said, omitting to mention Bobbyjay Morton's role.

Badger grunted. Thank God Badger understood. It was Badger who had dragged her butt out of a karaoke bar at two o'clock on a school day three years ago, and brought her home to her Goomba for judgment. Badger had a soft spot for the kid.

“I can't have this,” Marty Dit said, his voice cracking.

“The kid's a walking candy store,” Badger agreed, and Marty Dit winced. “What do you want me to do?”

“You can't get a gig over there?”

“Yeah, I guess I could,” Badger said, sounding reluctant, and Marty Dit cursed under his breath. “Only I'm putting Morrissey through the Pavilion for four days. How about I drop by the Opera House on my dinner break?”

Marty Dit squinted at a blue jay rocketing by. “You can get over there in that time?”

“If I park like an asshole,” said Badger, who never parked any other way. “What do you want me to do? Scare off the
strumenti?”

Marty Dit closed his eyes, thinking. “No. No, she probably won't get into too much trouble on her first day. The real assholes will scope her out first, figure out what kind of protection she has. Maybe the first day will scare her enough.” He thought. Then a golden idea occurred to him. “She's probably still got a crush on you. Talk to her.”

Badger groaned. “Aw, Marty, do I hafta?”

“It's puppy love. She can't hurt you.”

“I'm working on a dancer in the Ring cast.”

“So make her jealous,” Marty Dit said in a hard voice. “Make 'em both jealous. You know your business best, goddammit,” he said, thinking of all the women Badger had had. It was only because Badger had been in the cradle at the time that he hadn't been the one to steal the love of Marty Dit's life, instead of Bobby Morton. And now a fucking Morton was stealing the light of his life again. “Do it.”