Cal turned, the man skidded to a halt and stared up at him in wonder, as if he was seeing a ghost.
“Shit, f**k me, Cal?” the man whispered.
“Hey, Manny,” Cal returned.
“Cal!” the man, apparently named Manny and apparently someone Cal knew, was now yelling.
I stared as he leaped forward and threw his arms around Cal, pounding him on the back in a way that sounded painful then he pulled back and looked at him.
“Holy f**k, man, Pop’s gonna be frickin’ beside himself, Ma too. They’re both here. Holy f**k!”
“Manny,” Cal said, moving toward me and pulling me to his side with an arm around my shoulders, “Vi gets pissy when you say f**k in front of her girls.”
But Manny wasn’t listening and I wasn’t moving out of Cal’s arm mainly because I was worried that Manny was having a heart attack and I’d have to jump in and attempt CPR (something I’d never done). His eyes had bugged out and he appeared to be fighting for breath as he looked at me, Kate and Keira.
Then he whispered, “Fuck me.”
“Seriously, Man, the language,” Cal warned, his voice going low.
Manny’s body jolted then his face split into a huge smile and he jumped forward, arm extended to me. “Yo, hey, I’m Manny.”
“Hi,” I said back, taking his hand and he gripped mine hard, not shaking it, just holding on tight. “I’m Violet.”
He nodded. “Violet, nice.” Then he let me go and turned to Kate, hand to her. “Hey, pretty lady.”
“Um… hi,” Kate replied shyly, taking his hand. “Um… I’m Kate.”
“Katy, like it,” Manny told her, let her go and turned to Keira. “And you are, sweetheart?”
“Keira,” she took his hand too, staring up at him, openly fascinated probably because, I belatedly noticed, he was a very good-looking, well-built Italian-American.
“Keira, pretty name. Excellent,” Manny finished his round robin approval of our names then he let Keira go, moved quickly toward the door of the restaurant and announced, “Let’s get you in, get your asses in a booth, I’ll get Ma and Pop then we’ll get you some Chianti and a big pie, yeah?”
Without much choice, we followed him; Cal’s hand in the small of Kate’s back, guiding her in front of us. I guided Keira with a hand at her waist. Cal’s arm was still around my shoulders.
I looked up at the green neon sign over the door that said in slanting script “Vinnie’s Pizzeria.”
Seeing it, it startled me as I’d heard of this place. Tim and I had always meant to find it and eat there. Rumor had it that it was a hidden gem, one of the best unknown restaurants in Chicago especially for pizza or pasta which, if that was true, was saying something, it being in Chicago. But it wasn’t easy to find, we knew it was in Little Italy but Tim had looked and they didn’t even have a phone listing. He’d always meant to use his cop resources to find the address but he never got around to it and, in the end, time ran out.
Manny went in first, holding the door and we all piled through. There were benches on either side of the door filled with people, more people standing around obviously waiting for a table and there was a bar, totally packed, again with people waiting for a table. They might not have a phone, evidenced by the fact that these people obviously didn’t have a reservation, but they were far from unpopular.
Once we were in, Manny shoved by us and pushed through the people to the hostess station.
“Yo, Bella, next booth that’s open, Cal and his girls sit there,” Manny ordered a young girl who had to be no more than eighteen and the minute he issued his order her face went straight to attitude and not the good kind.
“Man, you nuts? I got…” her head tilted down and she (and I) looked at the sheet of paper that had scribbles on it, some at the top with a red mark through them, a whole load at the bottom that was just a very long list, her head jerked up and she finished, “about a trillion freakin’ people waitin’.”
“This is family,” Manny explained.
“Everyone’s family,” Bella shot back.
Manny got serious, I knew it by looking at him and listening to him and, if Cal’s arm wasn’t still heavy on my shoulders, I would have stepped back.
“Woman, shut down the attitude, this is my cousin Cal. Get him and his girls in a f**kin’ booth.”
His cousin?
Oh shit, this was Vinnie’s Pizzeria as in dead cousin Vinnie, murdered, like my brother and husband, by Daniel Hart.
I felt my body grow stiff but Bella’s mouth had dropped open, she’d shut down the attitude and she was staring at Cal.
“You’re Cal?” she breathed.
“Yep,” Cal answered.
“The Cal?” she asked.
“Yep,” Cal repeated.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“Language, Bells, Jesus, there’s f**kin’ kids here,” Manny admonished and Kate and Keira giggled.
Actually giggled. On the day of their uncle’s funeral.
If I wasn’t freaked out, exhausted, hungry, dealing with Cal’s lunacy, an unexpected visit to his family and it wasn’t the day of my brother’s funeral, I would have kissed Cal.
Cal heard the giggles, I knew this because his arm flexed on my shoulders, a reflexive action but one that spoke to me.
Then again, I thought a lot of the shit Cal had done spoke to me and I’d been really, really wrong.
“What, we holdin’ a conference? Why’s everyone standin’…” an annoyed female’s voice came at us, Manny stepped out of the way, the voice stopped and I saw a very round but also very attractive older Italian-American woman standing three feet away, still as a statue, staring at Cal.
Then she started chanting, doing that thing with her fingers to her forehead and shoulders. “Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus.”
Then she rushed forward, lifted her hands and grabbed Cal on both sides of his head, yanking it down to her face.
Cal’s arm fell from my shoulders and he muttered, “Hey Aunt Theresa.” She pulled him closer and gave him a loud, smacking kiss on one cheek then the other then back to the other, jerking his head around while she did this and while I stared on in rapt shock that anyone would jerk Cal around this way.
Then she shoved his head away like she was pissed as hell, she lifted a finger in his face and shouted, “You never visit! What? We smell? The bed too lumpy last time you stayed? It’s been two years!”