Surprised and evidently charmed, Carlo grinned. “Figures Luca would get snagged by a girl who called him out. Okay, well come meet the rest of the wolves.”
Carlo held out his hand to her, but she just stared at it and then at Luca. The panic at the edge of her eyes gained some ground, and he stepped up between his brother and her.
“Let’s get the meet and greet over with. With any luck, the only grilling happening today will be the kind with sauce.”
Carlo gave him a look, and he shook his head, one quick, hopefully subtle move.
He should have said something to somebody. At least to Carlo—but Carlo was the one he was most concerned about. He had a bad history with a woman with a mental illness.
The rest of the introductions went okay. Everybody gaped like drooling morons at first, but nobody made any rude remarks. The one who once might have, Joey, didn’t talk so much anymore. Sitting on an Adirondack chair, a cannula in his nose and his oxygen tank at his side, Luca’s youngest brother only shook her hand and gave her a halfhearted smile, saying “Good…to meet…you.”
There were a lot of Paganos. And Carlo had invited his business partner. As he greeted Pete Cabot and his date with a handshake, he turned a quick, apologetic glance toward Manny. It was clear that she’d done a count and was preparing for more meetings than she’d expected, but she was holding it together.
Nobody tried to hug her except, as expected, Mrs. D., but Luca was able to step between them and give the old broad a hug himself. Otherwise, everybody was chill, and Manny seemed on edge but basically all right. She had her sassy pants on, and Luca found himself grinning like an idiot, feeling prouder and prouder every time she opened her mouth.
He could tell that he had some explaining to do eventually, but for now, he thought the day was going about as well as he could have hoped. She even let herself be drawn off from him, talking to Carmen and Sabina about her mother’s garden.
While she talked chick talk, he ended up sitting with John, who had not brought his girl, Carlo, and Joey, drinking beer. They had questions, but they were offered as gibes and shit-giving, and he brushed them off. This was not the time or place. Every now and then, he’d scan the area, but she looked content with his sisters.
Luca looked around and tried to see what Manny was seeing. Carmen’s shake-shingle cottage, small but well-kept and cozy. The fire pit ringed with white Adirondacks. Trey and his dog, Elsa, bounding around in the surf with the youngest Pagano sister, Rosa. The Pagano men, all big and dark, shirtless and sunglassed, sitting around laughing and drinking beer. Luca’s father already poking around the grill, getting it ready, their next-door neighbor, now potential stepmother-to-be, standing with him. Carmen and Sabina off with Manny, in deep conversation.
The town crowd pushed at the edges of Carmen’s property line, but on days like today, she didn’t get uptight about it. Still, town people kept a respectful boundary, and so there was an almost physical line of demarcation, where the chaos of the town party stopped and the Pagano family gathering started. Maybe that buffer was helping Manny be okay.
Then, John nodded at a point behind his shoulder, and he turned around to see her coming quickly, right to him. As she got a few feet away, he could hear her muttering, “Turbulence, turbulence, turbulence, turbulence…”
He stood, and she stopped right in front of him. “Turbulence.”
“Excuse me, fellas. Come on, bit. I got ya.” With his arm outstretched, he gestured toward Carmen’s cottage, and she followed him up the beach.
He led her into Carmen’s little house. “Here. See? Quiet.”
“Whoa. This is awesome.”
Carmen’s house was full of color and texture. It made him a little twitchy, but he knew Manny would like it. There seemed to him to be more obvious rhyme and reason to Carmen’s décor than to the bargain-basement riot that was Manny’s place, but there were some similarities. “Yeah. Her taste’s not much different from yours. Hey—I thought you were doin’ okay.”
“I was. And then I wasn’t. Everybody talks at the same time and so fast. I just got tired.” She dropped into a chair at Carmen’s table. “And sad.”
He sat at the table with her. “Why sad?”
“I don’t know if I can say it. But…everybody is so easy with each other. And Trey is playing and laughing with everybody, and just…I don’t know. I never had that, and I never will. I did nothing but make my family’s life harder. I still make things harder. That’s who I am. The girl who makes everything hard. Nobody can relax around me. I can’t even relax around me.”