Think Twice

“Nothing a hundred proof didn’t cure. I’ll be at your place by noon, so that we can start by one o’clock, okay?”

“What about work? That brief you had to do?”

“The brief is reposado, which is Spanish for legally sufficient, though it can also mean really delicious.”

Anthony laughed. “Reposado is a type of tequila and it means ‘rested.’ ”

“That’s just how I feel. See you at one.”

“Love you,” Anthony said, but she hung up before she could tell him, which was an accident. She slipped the BlackBerry into her back pocket, grabbed her purse, left her apartment, and grabbed a cab to South Philly. She had to make a stop, first.

She got out of the cab in front of her parents’ house, waved to the neighbors, and went up the stoop to the screen door, with its fake-Gothic D in aluminum. She remembered a time when everybody on their block had a D on their front screen, and growing up, she had thought it stood for Door, until she realized it was DiCrescenzo, D’Antonio, and DeJulio. The neighborhood had changed since then, but not the DiNunzios. She opened the door and went inside.

“Ma, Dad?” She dropped her purse on the chair and walked through to the kitchen, which was packed with her father and her favorite octogenarians, his friends The Three Tonys-Pigeon Tony Lucia, Tony-From-Down-The-Block LoMonaco, and Tony “Two Feet” Pensiera-all of whom were sitting at the table, enchanted by resident temptress, Fiorella Bucatina.

“Maria, ’allo, Maria!” Her mother was at the stove making meatballs, and the air smelled like saturated fats.

“Hi, Ma.” Mary kissed her, catching a whiff of AquaNet and fresh bread crumbs. “I thought I’d drop in and see you and Pop.”

“Good, alla good.” Her mother set the meatball in the hot oil, where it sizzled aromatically. “Everybody come here aft’ church, for base-a-ball game.”

“I understand,” Mary said, but she didn’t. Her father never watched the Phillies with anything but his cigar.

“HEY, KIDDO!” Her father grinned, and Mary went over and gave him a kiss on the top of his head.

“Hi, Pop, hello everybody.” She flashed smiles all around, and everybody smiled back except Fiorella.

“Good to see you, Mary.” Fiorella’s black eyeliner looked fresh, her lips glistened cherry red, and she wore a new cleavage-inducing black dress, which was perfect for church, if you were Mary Magdalene.

“MY TURN, FIORELLA!” Her father moved his coffee cup aside and placed his hand on the table. “MY TURN!”

“Here, Mariano.” Fiorella picked up her father’s veined hand, cupped it in hers, and ran a crimson fingernail along one of the lines in his palm.

“What’s going on?” Mary asked, but it was rhetorical. She got the gist, she just couldn’t believe the gist.

“Shhhh!” Tony Two Feet’s eyes danced behind his Mr. Potatohead glasses. He went by “Feet,” making him the only man in South Philly whose nickname had a nickname. And nobody had any idea how he got either one. “Fiorella can tell the future from your hand.”

“Really?” Mary glanced at her mother, who kept frying meatballs, her flowered back turned.

“Yeah,” Feet answered. “She told me I’m gonna come into money. All I gotta do is put ten bucks on Willy Nilly, in the third at Monmouth. He’s a twelve-to-one long shot, but he’s gonna win.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block waved a baggie filled with salt, or maybe crack cocaine. “And she said my prostate’s gonna clear up if I drink this, in hot water.”

“How nice for you both,” Mary said, watching Fiorella run her talons around her father’s thumb.

“Mariano,” Fiorella purred, “this is your heart line. You have a good heart, a wonderful heart.”

“THANK GOD. IT’S THE LIPITOR. MY CHOLESTEROL’S 203.”

Feet elbowed him. “Too bad your weight isn’t,” he said, and they all laughed except Fiorella.

“Mariano, caro, I wasn’t being so literal. Your heart line governs your emotions, and love.” Fiorella kept stroking his hand, and The Three Tonys watched like the little-old-man version of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

“LOVE?” her father repeated, and Mary boiled over, hoisted him up by his arm, and wrenched him out of his chair.

“Pop, come with me. I need to talk to you for a minute.”

“WHY?” her father asked, bewildered, and across the table, Pigeon Tony looked up, his baby-owl eyes round with confusion. If he could speak English, Mary knew he’d call her a party-pooper.

“But I want to hear his future,” Feet said.

“Me, too.” Tony-From-Down-The-Block frowned. “You’re going to mess up the magic, Mare.”

Only Fiorella remained calm, withdrawing her hands. “We will continue when you return, Mariano.”

Her father allowed himself to be tugged out of the kitchen, past his wife, through the dining and living room, and outside. Mary closed the D door behind them and they stood on the stoop in the hot sun. She could smell that he was wearing cologne, and it wasn’t even a Holy Day of Obligation.

“Pop, what do you think you’re doing? Letting Fiorella touch your hand like that? Driving her around? What about Mom?”

“WHAT ABOUT HER?” Her father shrugged in the thin white shirt he always wore to church. “YOUR MOTHER WANTED ME TO DRIVE HER.”

“I saw you at breakfast with her, at a restaurant. Did Mom ask you to do that?”

“SHE GOT HUNGRY AFTER THE HOSPITAL.” Her father blinked against the brightness. “WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?”

“Fiorella wants you to be hubby number six.”

“ARE YOU NUTS?” Her father rubbed his tummy like a summertime Santa. “SHE COULD DO A LOT BETTER THAN A FATSO LIKE ME.”

“That’s not the point, and she can’t tell your fortune, she just wants to touch your hand. She’s flirting with you, Pop, and you’re flirting back!”

“MARE, I’LL FORGET YOU SAID THAT.” Her father wagged a thick index finger at her, and she couldn’t remember ever having angry words with him, especially not outside. The neighbors stopped washing their stoops, garden hoses hanging from their hands and cigarettes dangling from their lips.

“But Pop-”

“BASTA!” Her father showed her a palm, then opened the screen door, and went inside.

Leaving Mary to face the neighbors, suddenly not reposado anymore, at all.

Chapter Thirty-two

Bennie opened her eyes into white light, so bright it hurt her eyes. She didn’t know where she was or what was happening. She blinked, lying still, in confusion. She wasn’t coughing anymore, nor was she gasping. She could breathe. Odors of filth, urine, and sweat filled her nostrils. They told her she was still in the box, but she was alive, which meant that the light could be a hole in the lid.

“My God in heaven,” she heard herself say. The animal must have made the hole, finally scratching his way through, along the long crack in the lid. She felt a sort of gratitude, and wonderment. She passed her hand over her eyes a couple of times, blocking and unblocking the light. She left her hand in the air, catching the light in her palm. She spread her fingers slightly, and a single shaft of brightness shot toward her, like a glowing wand onto her hand.

It’s the sun!

She tried to think, to reason. The box must be outside somewhere, and the animal was gone now. If it was nocturnal, it would be back tonight. She felt a familiar bolt of fear and slammed the hole with the heel of her hand. Pain shot down her arm, but she ignored it. If the animal had made this hole, she was going to make it larger and