One Life To Live

I finished drying up the last porcelain plate in the bunch, and smiled at Elodie. “A job well done.”

“Indeed my dear!” She grinned. “I must admit, we clipped right through them! Where were you when they were all teenagers?”

I laughed. “Three boys…I bet that was a hefty load.”

She rolled her eyes in amusement. “You have no idea. Even Meg ate quite a bit when she was that age. Well,” Elodie looked around the room, and her gaze narrowed in on the stack of half-full pasta sauce bins. “Melanie? Could I have you bring the spaghetti outside to the ‘fridge? It’s out in the garage. Can’t miss it.”

“Sure,” I replied. As I went over to the table to pick up the bins of spaghetti sauce, I noticed Paulie and Kat sitting on lawn chairs in the yard, Xavier and Meg talking aimlessly on the dinner table, but I didn’t see Lance. He must be in the bathroom, my mental voice assumed. I hadn’t seen him since dinner – he hadn’t stopped in to see me. I was okay with that – he must be chatting with his family. It was probably a while since he last saw them all – he always seemed so busy during the weekdays.

I yanked the back-side door open, and nimbly made my way through it while trying to balance the sauce in my arms. Who knew you needed this much spaghetti sauce to make a batch of mostacolli? However, there was eight people total having had dinner…I was just always used to making for only four people at my house. Most of the time, Dad was away at his job, and it was just Mom, Devin, and me. When Devin got into his junior year of high school, we rarely ever saw him at dinner. He was always off running with his friends and doing God knows what.

I strolled over to the garage, and was amazed by how huge it really was. If you really tried, you could scrunch six or seven cars in here. The refrigerator Elodie was talking about was obvious – it was situated in between the white walls coming together at a corner. Even the refrigerator was enormous. I walked over and opened the wide berth of the door, and something flew out of the side of the door and hit my foot. Cringing as my foot protested in pain, I bent down, setting the spaghetti sauce momentarily on the floor to pick the mystery substance up. I gripped the large container, and turned the label around so I could see what it was.

Spumoni.

I sighed in delight. Italian ice cream. This was the good stuff too – with chocolate, and pistachios, and crushed hazelnuts. Oooh. My mouth was salivating just thinking of it. I placed the ice cream back where it originally was, while it taunted me as I tried to find room to put the spaghetti sauce. I had to rearrange quite a few things, but in the end I managed to fit it snugly between two crates of what looked like parmesan chicken. I brushed both my hands together, and shut the door as carefully as I could not to make anything else fall.

I walked the opposite direction from which I came with the intent of going through the front door to get to my purse in order to call Bethany Lynn. She told me before I left last night that she wanted to know everything about what happened. She still had the bad memory of seeing Lance slug the guy she had set me up with back at the club, but she was said she willing to blame it on testosterone and ‘defending his woman’. She later admitted that it was sexy, and she wished that Freddie would kick some guy’s ass for her sake. I’d laughed, recalling that only Bethany Lynn could make a frightening situation like that into a Romeo and Juliet reincarnation.

As I rounded the corner, I heard voices picking up in a heated argument. I stopped dead in my tracks, and I couldn’t help but listen in to the conversation even if I knew it was considered snooping. As I leaned forward, my ears picked up Lance’s familiar deep, husky voice and Vinny’s aggravated voice spitting back at him.

“-You obviously don’t realize what kind of danger you’re putting all of us in by havin’ her here,” Vinny protested, his voice rising each time he said something. My eyebrows narrowed, what does he mean I’m bringing danger? What could I have done to instill danger on this family? I shut my logical mental voice up, and continued to listen.

“Vin, you have nothin’ to do with this. It seems to me Marino’s just fuckin’ with me, and it has nothing to do with you or the family. So I don’t have a clue what you’re so worked up about.” Lance shot back with anger.

“Nothing to do with the family? Hell, Lance this is just the kind of thing mobsters look for! Weak women who have affiliations with us! They zone in on them to get to us! Don’t you realize that? Marino’s a spy for Giorgio! How could it not relate?!”

My breath stilled and my body froze. I couldn’t comprehend was just happened. I was sure Vinny had made a mistake. Lance was involved with what? Did Vinny just say the Mafia? That could not be true.

“For one thing, you asshole,” Lance’s voice whip-lashed back at him, “Melanie is not weak. Another thing, we don’t go looking for ‘weak women’ in the Mafia – we deal with the bastards that want to fuck with us and take us over. Even if Marino’s a spy, I can fuckin’ handle anything he plans to do with me and Mel. He won’t get close to Melanie – I’ll make sure of that. I’ll break his goddamned neck.”

My back hit against the solid wall of the garage. I felt my breath go faint, and my knees getting wobbly. This couldn’t be happening, I denied. I felt like my perfect façade of our relationship was crashing down. This wasn’t the Lance I knew. I had no idea who this Lance was.

“Okay bro,” Vinny laughed harshly, “when Melanie calls you up and screams at you for getting her into this mess, don’t be tellin’ me I was right and you should’ve listened to me.” I heard him walk away, and mutter to himself.

My face went pale, and my lungs collapsed in my chest. I was short of breath. I shifted all my weight to the wall, and tried to stabilize myself. Lance’s shoe hit the pavement of the driveway, and I suddenly realized he was turning into where I was standing. His figure emerged from the corner, and he abruptly spotted me clutched against the wall of the garage, and his face went into shock.

He thought I was still in the kitchen, I thought. He had no clue I was outside listening to this. My mouth propped open, and all I could muster up to say was, “Who are you?”

His eyes turned wary, and he leaned forward to touch his hand to my arm. I jerked back away from him – all I could think was, I had to get away from here. Far, far away.

“Melanie,” he whispered.

“Get away from me!” My voice rose, terrified. “Don’t touch me.”

“Melanie, please. Let me explain-”

“NO.” I cried, cutting him off. “I-I thought it was just jealousy when you hit that man. I-I thought y-you were….were just t-trying to defend me.” My voice spluttered, and I began to back track.

“Mel. I’m still the same person. You-”

“N-no you're not,” I responded, deathly quiet, “I-I’m leaving.”

“What? No, Mel. Please, let me take you home.” His eyes bored into mine, trying to hang on to me as I was furthering my distance from him.

“No! I’m taking the bus. I don’t care. Just leave me alone!” I was getting hysterical. I made my legs push forward to the end of the driveway, while Lance was trailing behind me.

“Melanie!” Lance exclaimed. I didn’t turn – I just forced myself to keep my eyes ahead, searching for a bus stop. Then, just as I stepped into the road, he grabbed my arm. I flinched, and twisted away from him.

“Melanie, please.” He pleaded. “Just let me drive you home, and I-I’ll leave you alone.”

I tried to calm myself down in order to make a rational decision. Through gritted teeth, I finally agreed, “Fine.”

I followed him to the Cadillac, and hastened to my door before he could make a move to open it for me. I was in auto pilot at this point – just waiting until the nightmare was over.