Page 83

Forty-Three

Poppy

The world flips pretty fast. It’s dusk out and we’re speeding down a deserted straight away which tells me we’re far from where we need to be. The blood I see is leeching towards my new shoes. I fixate on the pattern as it sways and swirls. The motion of the van mirroring the roiling of my stomach. It’s macabre, and I’m trying to figure out which direction we’re moving based on the blood’s evolving pattern.

Poppy, the happy-go-lucky, gossipy, little sister chef, has taken a backseat to Mrs. Pietro. I hope to return to her soon but for now; I am this. I’d like to think I’d know if he was already dead. It never felt real when he was ‘dead’ before so maybe I’d feel that piece of me leaving this earth.

“Mrs. Pietro, strap in please,” Johnny Grocer says.

“Can I remove this thing off my face?”

“Yes. But don’t fucking leave that seat.” They don’t know me very well if they think I’m just going to sit here. I make eye contact with Johnny in the rearview mirror and he nods slowly. Holy shit. He’s still Lou’s crew. I’m not going to die, at least not right now. Later, most likely, but not now.

He’s careening out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields. Johnny Grocer pulls over, and the other guy asks, “What the hell are you doing?”

“We need to ditch the body you made,” he scolds him, and the other guy looks sheepish. I sit and nod quietly at Johnny. I’m clutching my bag as I unhook my seat belt to slide away from the body. My eye is swelling shut, but I don’t have time to worry about that. Johnny deposits the keys on the driver’s seat deliberately. Then he jumps out and wrenches open the side door, hooking the bloody man’s torso, arms dragging him out.

“We need to fucking string her up.” He looks at me and approaches. I don’t think as I kick him as hard as I can out of the van, my heel nailing him in the fucking heart. He’s stunned as he falls backwards on top of the dead body, and the two bodies tumble onto the road. I throw the door shut, lock it, and jump into the front seat. I fumble with the keys when the other guy bangs on the passenger side window. He raises his gun and just as he’s about to shoot me there’s a bang, and he crumples from view. Standing in the window is Johnny Grocer. He yells, “GO HOME! They’re at his mama’s house. Go, Mrs. Pietro. Poppy, get the fuck out of here now.”

I rev the van and take off into the darkening night. I glance back and see him dragging them into a field. That’s the last I see of Johnny as I turn off the road with all the blood. After five minutes of panting and trying to get my shit under control, I look around. There are more lights and civilization. I don’t know where I am, but I’m not dead. I can build on that.

“Fuck! Where is Siri when you need her?” I’m blowing through empty stop signs. And turn down another random road, and it looks like I’m headed into a village. Whether it’s Sorrento or not remains to be seen. “Hey Siri, can you fucking help me out?” I say to the ceiling like she’s the almighty and can somehow hear me.

A disconnected voice answers me, “Ciao. Come posso aiutarla?”

“OH MY FUCKING GOD! SIRI!” she asks what I needed. I know that much. Okay.

“Che cosa?” she asks. What thing do I need?

I’m sure if someone looked in this van and saw my battered face, I’d be hauled to the Italian version of the gulag for questioning. And I really don’t have time for that.

“Hey Siri, can you speak English?” No answer. Fuck. Italian. Remember any Italian. The word Prosciutto keeps rolling over my mind. Because dried ham is going to help in this situation.

“Um, Ehe Siri, Dov’è il Sorrento,” I ask her. Where is Sorrento? I don’t know if the tense is right. I asked like I would ask where is the bathroom. I hope she understands stumbling rudimentary Italian.

“Sì. Sì. Ottenere indicazioni per Sorrento. Gira a sinistra tra 200 piedi.”

Shit. Siri, we’re going to do this in Italian. Fuck. Is that right or left?

“Ehe Siri, what does sinistra mean in English? Fuck.”

“Como?”

Ok, my knuckles are white on the steering wheel as I approach another stop sign with no clue where to go. There’s no one around so I sit here for a moment and think through how to talk to Siri. I glance in the back, but I can’t see the phone. It must be wedged somewhere in the van. I smash the buttons up front to try to get GPS, but I can’t hook it in. Basic Italian. She can answer.

“Come si dice sinistra en inglese?

“Left.” Left. Holy shit. I turn left. I can do that. I’ve been turning left my whole life. I’m a genius at left.

I swing the van toward the stop light. “Ok, Siri. Now we’re talking.” I’m not sure why I haven’t gotten more proficient in freaking Italian?

I talk to myself as I try to get back to Sorrento. “But then, of course, who would have predicted I’d need to know directions back to a house I didn’t know I owned and have only been to once in order to save my dead husband’s life. You can’t plan for that. It’s a fly by the seat of your pants moment. Am I right, Siri?”

I pull my foot off the brake, and it makes a schlrup kind of noise. “And don’t forget, I have shoes so sticky in a dead man’s blood that it’s hard to move them between pedals.” I shiver as someone beeps at me. I raise my middle finger. I glance into the rear-view mirror for the first time to see myself and wow.

“Siri, I am gruesome.” I press lightly on the forming bruise and swing a right at Siri’s insistence. My face looks like a racoon’s mask splattered in blood everywhere but where the blindfold sat. “Jesus, Sal’s going to kill that dead guy.”

I careen around the twisty streets, hoping Siri is leading me to the ocean. Once I’m there, I can get to Sal’s house. That part of the drive I was awake for. He told me to go home. I assume Johnny Grocer meant this home. Oh, shit what if they’re in Sonoma at my mama’s house? Oh God. What if he meant there? My home, not Sal’s. Oh God. What if Enzo’s not here at all and has my family? And this is all a distraction.