I jump when I hear a knock at my door and rush over to it. However, instead of Nate, I’m looking at Jessie’s eyes.
“I saw you at the festival yesterday!” Jessie swoops in with a large mason jar. “I was in the wagon behind you, and I just couldn’t manage to catch up, but I did see you there with that handsome Mr. Orso! I brought you some soup. It’s supposed to be cold tomorrow, and this should keep you nice and warm! It’s my own version of minestrone. I wouldn’t share it with your man, though. He’s a proper Italian and probably wouldn’t appreciate my changes. I see you threw caution to the wind, didn’t you, hunny?”
“What?”
“You’re seeing him,” Jessie says, very matter-of-factly. “When I first saw him here, I admit I was a little concerned. Then again, maybe it is for the best. I mean, as long as it’s all okay with you, who am I to judge?”
“As long as what’s okay?” I shake my head, not understanding what she means at all. “What were you concerned about?”
Jessie mashes her lips together, uncharacteristically silent as she fiddles with the lid on the jar.
“Jessie?”
“I don’t like to gossip.” She holds the jar up, examining it carefully. “I think you better keep this in the fridge. I don’t think it sealed right for freezing.”
“Thank you very much for the soup,” I say, taking the jar from her and putting it in the refrigerator. “Now please tell me what on earth you’re talking about! Why were you concerned about me dating Nate?”
“Oh, hunny.” Jessie sits heavily in the kitchen chair. She fans her face, though it’s not hot in here. “I always worry about you young girls. He’s a bit older than you, isn’t he?”
“No, he isn’t. We’re the same age.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” She sighs. “It’s not like you aren’t consenting adults and all that, but things are different these days. When I was a girl in this town, no one even dreamed of such a thing.”
“You’re being very vague, Jessie. I have no idea what you’re talking about. You said I should be careful with Nate, but I have no idea why.”
“Why? Well, the jealousy, of course! I saw how those other women were looking at you when you were standing with him. I can’t imagine what they must be saying!”
My mouth drops open, and my eyes probably look like they’re trying to jump from their sockets. Jealous? Of me and Nate?
“I…I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Not thought about it!” Jessie laughs heartily. “Girl, those ladies are absolutely beside themselves. With you on his arm, Nate Orso is officially off the market for the first time in history! Before, there was always a chance, and now they know there isn’t.”
I shake my head. I have no idea how I’m supposed to respond to this information.
“Richest single man in town!” Jessie says. “And hot as a tin roof to boot!” She laughs. “I can still say that. I might be old, but I’m not dead yet! They never did have a chance though. I think if any of the girls in town interested him in the slightest, he would have grabbed one of them up long before now. Not like it used to be, I guess.”
“How did it used to be?”
“Back in the day, the Orsos—and the Ramsays, too, for that matter—never had a relationship with someone from town. Rosa Orso came from Chicago originally, and her mother came from New York—from an Irish family. That created a bit of a stir. Rosa was related to one of the big Chicago families, rumor has it. The older Orso brother who died so horribly last year, he was engaged to a woman in Seattle. I think they might have even been betrothed! I know that woman Antony Orso was dating a few years back was run right out of town when she got knocked up. It was quite the scandal! Those families always marry each other, not outsiders.”
“You make them sound like royalty.”
“Aren’t they, though? I know you’re young, but you aren’t blind.”
“Well, yes, I’ve seen the way Nate’s treated. But what did you mean by ‘those families’? Which families?”
“Well, you know…Italians. Italians from certain families.” Jessie laughs and waves her hands around in the air a bit, which doesn’t seem to indicate anything. “Though I suppose there are Irish families, too. There’s history to back that up already. You’re Irish, aren’t you? All that beautiful red hair!”
“Um, a bit. Scots, too.” I think about this for a moment. Yes, Aunt Ginny had been both Irish and Scottish, but me? “Honestly, I don’t know for sure.”
“Well, we’re all a bit like that, aren’t we? I mean, take my family—aside from the obvious, I’ve got Spanish and some Native American in me! And my dearly departed husband was English and white as a sheet!” She laughs.
She continues on, but I’m no longer listening. Those Italian families. A plethora of movies about crime lords, the mobs in Chicago during prohibition, and most anything Edward G. Robinson was ever in scroll past my mind’s eye like a DIY video set just a little too fast to keep up with the information.
Is Jessie saying that the Orsos are a…a crime family?
How many times have I asked Nate about his work only to be met with vague answers and misdirection? Anytime business is mentioned in my presence, Nate and Antony sequester themselves from the group to deal with it. What about all the family deaths—including Nate’s father though he has yet to mention anything about it? I wouldn’t even know his father was dead if it weren’t for Nora.
