The Suite Life

I'd always thought all I wanted was to get over the bridge and have money and success, but I'd come to realize that all I really wanted was love. Without that, what do we have? A whole lot of things that can be sold and a whole lot of nothing in our hearts.

THE SUITE LIFE

Suzanne Corso's companion novel to her stunning literary debut

BROOKLYN STORY

Chosen as one of
USA TODAY
's “New Voices of 2011”

“
Brooklyn Story
rings true. . . . A universal story of longing, loyalty, and growing up. . . . Corso gets the Brooklyn dialect pitch-perfect and keeps the pace brisk.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Corso puts her straight-talking personality into her well-written debut novel.”

—New York
Daily News

“A familiar story . . . [that] escapes the formula with a true female voice.”

—
The New York Times

“A wonderful and moving nostalgia trip. Corso is a gifted and sensitive writer, and her debut novel is straight from the heart.”

—Nelson DeMille,
New York Times
bestselling author

“Wonderful. . . . You're hooked from the first sentence.”

—Olympia Dukakis, Academy Award–winning actress

“Tragic yet triumphal . . . a must-read.”

—Lorraine Bracco, Academy Award–nominated actress

“This story explores the mind and heart of a young girl struggling for her identity in a soulless world. Heartbreaking and sensitively written. A very unusual coming-of-age story.”

—Armand Assante, Emmy Award–winning actor

For Samantha,

the greatest gift a girl like me could have

God bless the child that's got his own.

—
Billie Holiday

“. . . twenty-five years to life . . .”

Those were the words uttered by the judge as he passed sentence on Tony Kroon, my longtime abusive boyfriend and soon-to-be ex. A loyal mafia henchman who had managed to kill someone in the course of a botched bank robbery and get caught, Tony was being sent down—and I was finally free of him. As he was being led away in handcuffs our eyes met briefly. Tony's were as stony cold as ever and mine were already fixed on the future—at nineteen, I finally had a future to look forward to.

The Brooklyn Bridge and all in between that separates Bensonhurst, the world in which I grew up, from the fascinating and fulfilling life that I was certain was awaiting me in Manhattan. And I finally had my passport in hand—an appointment that very afternoon with an editor at an important New York publishing house who had read my manuscript and wanted to meet me. For as long as I could remember, I'd been writing, keeping journals, and dreaming of being a published author. Somehow I'd always believed that my writing would someday provide my ticket out of Brooklyn. Now it seemed that day had finally come.

Nothing was going to stand in my way and everything was going to be different from that day on. The destitute life my
frail, divorced mother lived would never be mine. There would be none of the alcohol and drugs that were her crutches, none of the sickness in body and mind that had consumed her. None of that for me.

“Samantha Bonti?” a smiling young woman asked as she approached me in the publisher's waiting room, hand outstretched in greeting. “I'm Kim, Lucy Hastings's assistant. Sorry to keep you waiting. I'll take you in now. I know Lucy's been looking forward to this meeting.”

And with that, no more than two hours after seeing Tony being led off to prison and out of my life, I was sitting across the desk from the woman I absolutely
knew
would be my future editor. Her comfortable but cluttered office was piled high with manuscripts, and, as I looked around, I was flattered that, of all the submissions she clearly received every day, she had thought enough of mine to schedule this meeting.

Lucy was probably in her mid-forties, casually but professionally dressed in what I would soon learn was the quintessential New York professional's black sweater and tailored slacks. As I started to tell her about the many truths behind the fiction I had written—including growing up with an alcoholic and drug-addicted mother, living on welfare and food stamps, and being trapped in an abusive relationship with Tony, all the while receiving constant support from both my Jewish grandmother and my church—it seemed as though she was as taken with my stories in person as she had been with my novel. As we finally said our good-byes Lucy assured me that I'd be hearing from her soon, and I left feeling pretty good about myself, confident that they'd be making an offer. I was already envisioning my book stacked up in front of the store at Barnes & Noble.

After pretending to have a doctor's appointment to take the meeting that would launch my career as a writer, I went back to my office temp job at a financial firm on Wall Street and then
home to my five-story walk-up studio in Bay Ridge—and I waited. And waited. But as the weeks dragged on and I had yet to hear the words that would change my life forever, I couldn't stand it any longer. I needed to know what was happening.

The first time I called Lucy's office to follow up, Kim of the warm smile and outstretched hand told me that Lucy was “away from her desk.” The next time she was “on another call.” As my calls become more frantic and the excuses less believable, I spent my days at work jumping whenever my phone rang, afraid even to go to the ladies' room for fear that I'd miss that all-important call. At night I curled up in bed with my arms wrapped around a pillow and my fingers wrapped around my rosary beads, endlessly repeating my Hail Marys.

When Lucy finally did return my calls, she was apologetic but brutally honest. Unfortunately, she said, they wouldn't be able to publish my book after all. My stomach bottomed out before she could even finish the sentence. I was crushed. I gathered my wits and thanked her for her time before asking her reasons for passing. She paused, momentarily at a loss for words, and then sighed and admitted: “Because my publisher can't take the heat . . . I'm so sorry, Sam. I wish . . .”
Things were different? Yeah, me too.
“I wish you the best of luck with your book.”

That's all I needed to hear. I had visions of Tony's underlings making thinly disguised threats from a series of smelly Brooklyn phone booths. There was no point even trying to argue with her. It was clear to me that I'd never be able to change her mind, not with Tony continuing to meddle in my life from behind bars.
Shit!

In retrospect, I can't imagine why I had never considered that Tony could reach all the way from his prison cell across the bridge and into that publisher's office to continue controlling my life. I should have known better, but I was, after all, only nineteen and still naïve, despite everything I'd been through with him and with my mother.

Now, just over ten years later, I'm a bit wiser if not yet much better off. Whenever I think about all my big plans, I remember the old saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plan.” If that's true He must be doubled over and splitting a side at the cosmic joke that has been played on me.

I'd had to set aside my dreams of going to New York University and graduating with a degree in literature, and instead got a job straight out of high school to support myself. But whenever I began to doubt my path in life or feel sorry for myself, I thought of the foundation of love and encouragement I'd been given by my grandma Ruth and my faith in the Blessed Mother.

With the constant presence in my life of these two women who were always “there” for me, I knew that I'd be able to do whatever it took to achieve my goal of being a strong, independent woman and, ultimately, a published author.

I'd already come quite a way from the time when my mother died and I had to borrow money from friends just to pay for her funeral. I had steady temp work at a new brokerage house and had recently been put in charge of payroll, so let's just say I added a few hours here and there. I had to eat, right? With the bump in hours and pay that came with that mini-promotion I was already eating a little better and had a bit less stress when the rent came due. And the best part—I no longer owed anyone a dime.

Once Tony was transferred to a federal penitentiary in Kansas about five years ago, I'd stopped looking over my shoulder and jumping every time the phone rang. Although the manuscript for
The Blessed Bridge,
the novel I had written based on the years I spent with Tony Kroon, had been gathering dust on a shelf in my closet for years, I was submitting short stories and features to minor outlets, and I was deep into another novel that I was sure was destined for a better fate—as was I.

All things considered, my life wasn't all that bad, and I was still on track, albeit not in the express lane. I told myself that I was simply living my own version of
Girl, Interrupted,
and it could have been a lot worse. They say that when one door closes on you, God opens another. I still had my whole life in front of me, plenty of time to find that door, and I reminded myself to focus more on the positive, as Priti, my best friend at work, was always counseling me to do. Priti Sarma was a pretty woman with finely chiseled features who had emigrated from India with her family. Things hadn't been easy for her family either before or after they landed in America, and yet Priti was full of life and optimistic to a fault. Although I tended to guard my privacy and not get too friendly with the people in the offices where I'd worked over the years, Priti's exuberance and the hope that she exuded were infectious. I'd become accustomed to keeping friends and coworkers at arm's length—my suspicious nature
a by-product of my entanglements with the mob. But after a decade of cautiously looking over my shoulder, I began to let my guard down and was grateful for my friendship with Priti. She taught me about India and her family's customs, which intrigued me, and she introduced me to the Buddha and the Hindu faith, which fed my curiosity about all things related to God. Her beliefs didn't threaten my own, as I'd already decided long before that every path of pure worship had the same end.