SEALed With A Kiss(3)

I’m a shitty person. Shame for having even considered an abortion made her swallow hard as she tugged the gear shift into drive and took off down Shore Drive in Virginia Beach, headed for Norfolk. But the fact remained that there were even shittier people out there pulling the wool over other people’s eyes, manipulating the system in their endless quest for power. And if Ophelia Price didn’t call those people onto the carpet to account for their sins, then who would?

Fixing her eyes on the road, she grubbed in her purse in search of the bronzer she usually applied as she drove. Vinny’s chiding voice sounded in her head, arresting her search. Baby, you don’t need to do that. You’re beautiful just the way you are.

Pulling down the visor to look in the mirror there, she studied her reflection critically. Through her turquoise eyes, she admired her smart gray jacket and cream silk top. Back when Vinny had first met her she’d dressed like a hippy, not a professional. Her red-gold hair was pinned up in a loose but elegant knot. She leaned closer to the mirror, spying fine lines around her eyes and across her forehead. Did Vinny, who was all of twenty-five years old now, find her too mature? She would turn thirty in August.

Shutting the visor with a snap, she passed up the bronzer in favor of colored lip-gloss and decided to forego makeup otherwise. If she went on the air later, a makeup artist would put a ton of products on her then. She might be an inherently selfish person, but she didn’t need to risk the secret life inside her for no reason whatsoever.

*

Vinny’s mother still lived in the Italian neighborhood of Bella Vista in the same brick row house squeezed between two others just like it, on a street jammed with cars and sprinkled with debris. Whenever Ophelia took in his old stomping ground, she couldn’t help but marvel at what he’d overcome.

“You’re a saint,” she decided of her husband as he parallel-parked her somewhat new, sunburnt orange Kia Soul between two beaters.

He issued a startled laugh. “Hardly.” He slanted her a funny look. “What makes you say that?”

She just shook her head at his humility. Not only had Vinny resisted recruitment by the local gangs while growing up here, but he’d also helped to raise his little sister when their father ran off and his mother fell ill. “Most people are victims of their circumstances,” she said with a grimace. “But you always take the high road.” Which was probably why she felt like such a loser in comparison.

His purely Italian shrug sloughed off her praise. “Nah, it’s a choice,” he stated. “Everybody has a choice.”

His words echoed in her head as he set the parking brake and punched the button that killed her engine. A frown of worry furrowed his forehead as he took in his former neighborhood. “We should’a brought my car. Someone’s gonna key your car for bein’ so new.”

“Well, that’s why I hit Penny’s mailbox. Now the dent in the fender makes it look like all the other cars.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, that’s why you ran into the mailbox.”

“Yep.” Truth was, she thought she might just need her car to keep her appointment with the lieutenant governor, and she hadn’t learned to drive Vinny’s stick shift—or rather, he didn’t trust her to drive his stick shift.

“And here I thought you wanted your car so you could leave if Mama hurt your feelings,” he replied.

“That, too.”

Vinny squeezed her hand. “She’ll behave herself, I promise. Besides, Bella’s here to distract her.” He gestured toward his little sister’s lime green Escort as he pushed out of the driver’s seat. Ophelia followed suit, rounding the back of the car to help with their luggage. Isabella, now a student at Drexel University, was home for the holiday.

A chilly breeze redolent with the smells of garlic wafted from a nearby restaurant. As they climbed the home’s front stoop, the door popped open. There stood Mama Rose, her doughy arms outstretched to greet them.

“Figlio mio,” she exclaimed, drawing Vinny against her apron-clad bosom as he stepped up to greet her. If his shoulders weren’t as wide as the door itself, the embrace might have swallowed him whole. “Welcome, welcome,” she crooned. Kissing him soundly on both cheeks, she then regarded Ophelia through eyes identical to Vinny’s. The thread of tension between them snapped as she shoved Vinny aside to embrace Ophelia with equal warmth. “Thank you for coming. I cook all day!” she exclaimed, her English as elementary as it had been since Ophelia first met her five years ago. “Come in, come! S’cold outside.”