Page 7

Brick raises his hand, and I smile as his molasses smooth southern accent pours out some knowledge about my husband. “I knew that good man could sing. I heard him a time or two. I know I shouldn’t have been listening to another’s man’s conversation, but his heart spoke to me. He was singing you to sleep, ma’am.” Brick gives me a curt nod. I relish the stories about him I didn’t bear witness to. My eyes mist up again. He used to record songs for me to listen to when I missed him on the long stretches of work that took him away from me. I nod and smile at Brick. I curse all the phones and messages I’ve discarded. I only have a few songs and messages left.

“It was magical and perfect and secret, the way we had to live. I’m not dumb enough to believe you all didn’t know about us. But what you didn’t know was we’ve always been happier than all of you. Your miserable ups and downs and second-guessing love or finding insurmountable ideals floating around to protect you instead of diving in. We were all in from the start and always will be.”

I recross my legs and look at the ceiling as if I could find his face there. This fated star-crossed lovers’ shit is annoying and inconvenient. And as deeply as everyone in the room loves their partners, I think only Sam gets this soul-shattering love I feel turning to darkness as it ebbs away with Sal’s spirit. I shake off those thoughts and smile back at the people who love me.

I speak again for them and for me. I want there to be a record of our shadows, if only an oral one. “You all thought I was a know-it-all or judging your relationships and maybe I was. Mine was always better, and maybe I got jealous and I’m sorry. Because I couldn’t flaunt it. You all got to live life out loud. Mine was always in the margins and shadows behind impenetrable doors and bulletproof cars. You got to walk hand in hand through the plaza and now I never will. He was so close to getting out. You all know that. I wanted sunlight on our relationship and on our love. I wanted to shout it from every corner of every place I’ve ever been. But now I know I signed on for the extreme and there will never be sunlight again, on anything. I know I sound melodramatic, but have you met me?”

There’s a laugh in the room and my friend, Tabi Aganos, moves swiftly and aggressively to the chair next to me. She’s always so blunt and quick to joke or dismiss someone’s feelings because she thinks she knows better. And although her heart is huge, she has a talent for hiding it. I don’t think I can take it if anyone touches me right now, but someone who can tuck their emotions away like she can, might break me. I turn away from her.

And then a sob erupts, and I jerk my head to hers. She’s folded over into herself. I move in front of her, shocked and pull her to me. She lets me take her into my arms, and I let her cry.

“I would have liked to tell him I loved him,” Tabi blubbers out.

“He knew,” I say to her. Other than Josh and his fiancée Elle, Tabi knew him best. She never backed down from him and always felt a kinship with him. They shared that hard on the outside, soft on the inside thing.

She sputters out in a loud sob, “I just want to bust his balls one more time.” And then everyone laughs. “What?! I do.” Everyone’s laughing, including me, and only my most inappropriate friend could do that.

“I do, and I’m devastated. Perhaps you had the right idea all along. I should have guarded at least a little of my heart and kept it for myself. But unfortunately, it’s now buried with him.”

My Salvatore, my Skylark.

Chapter

Four

Poppy

Day 5 (PS)

Sleep is all I can do. It’s all I want to do. I dream not of things that might be, or fluffy unicorns and trees made of Ruffles Sour Cream and Onion potato chips, but of my past. Of the only history that matters to me, my moments with Sal. It’s only when I’m dreaming of those memories does the pain stop.

I’m pissed. He’s gone, which isn’t unusual since the man is mysterious and has only hinted at his life. But I’m not dumb. I Googled Sally Pipes. That brute of a man slipped me a note with some bullshit about how this is for my own good. Showing up randomly, saying impossibly romantic things to me, screwing me senseless for almost seven months, and he thinks he can leave a fucking note? I’m all worked up and before I could stop myself, I was on my way to LA to the address I cribbed from Josh’s desk. Because no, sir, a note is not how you break up with me. In fact, that’s not happening at all. You pushed for this and now I’m in it.

The car slows in a neighborhood that has twisty hills and compounds. I thought I was headed to an office. Even if you’re running a crime family, it’s still a business and should have an actual business appearance. He should not be running things from a house. It does not give off the CEO vibe I think he’s looking for.

This place is far from what he told me the old Italian neighborhoods are like. It’s not a place to flop, as he said. The ports he runs are in Long Beach and San Pedro. The rest of the businesses, from what I understand, he’s trying to leave behind. Not that he’ll tell me anything. I’m in the dark all the time, and this man is trying to get rid of me. Easier said than done.

The car slows. “Are you sure?” It’s banked on one side by a hill and the other side by a cliff with a view of LA that’s enough to teach you not to judge a book by its cover. I’ve always looked down on LA, being from Northern California, but I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Breath is gone.

The car stops. “Get out here. I won’t be able to turn around up there.” I roll my eyes.

“Good luck getting a tip and a good rating.”

I get out of the car and slam the door and trudge up the hill. There’s a set of black gates that are supposed to be menacing, but really, they’re beautifully crafted and complement the property perfectly. He’s all bluster. I know the man underneath.

There are two black SUVs kind of hidden in the trees off the side of the road. I assume they’re Sal’s people, but it all seems a bit excessive. I haul my pink roller bag behind me, and it clacks on the tight brick of the driveway entrance. There’s a call box that I push and instantly four menacing dogs sprint to the gate, teeth showing and a lot of growling. If I weren’t on a mission and single-minded, I’d let my mind drift to the man and how his dogs are a metaphor for him.

“Hi, puppies.”

“No deliveries.” Is all the box squawks. Then I see men moving in the shadows. I look behind me and over to the side, and there’s a strange stillness.

There’s rustling, and I see a large man just past the gate hiding behind a pillar.

“I need to see him, please. You don’t know who I am, but he does, and I’m not going anywhere,” I say defiantly, and then my huffiness takes a backseat to the glint of a gun.

He sputters out, “Shut the fuck up and get down, whoever the hell you are.”

I try to explain, “I only came here to have a conversation with----” My heart stops and the reality of his life comes charging in. Not the abstract but the gun reality. There’s a gun and a guy hiding, and he’s yelling at me. I don’t like to be yelled at, but I’m frozen. “I want to---”