Chapter 9: Both of You Out

Leandro read it over my shoulder.

He was quiet for a second.

"Well," he said. "That's a good picture of me."

"Leandro."

"I'm serious. Look at my shoulders."

I wanted to hit him. I laughed instead, and then I put my face in my hands.

By seven the post had two thousand shares.

By eight my phone had stopped ringing because I'd turned it off.

At nine I unlocked the front door and flipped the sign to OPEN, because that's what Pellegrinos do at nine.

Leandro had gone out the back at seven.

He came back in the front at nine-fifteen with two coffees and a bag of bread for Papa.

"Are you trying to make it worse?" I said.

"I'm trying to make it boring. People who sneak out the back are interesting. People who come in the front with bread are boring."

Papa took the bread.

The first customer came in at nine-twenty.

A Corsetti captain's wife I'd known since high school.

She saw Leandro at the end of the counter, turned around, and walked out without a word.

The second one did the same.

By ten, there had been six of them. Not one stayed long enough to hand me a slip.

An old woman from the senior building on Union came in for her insulin and stopped dead.

"Noemi," she whispered. "Is it true?"

"No, it isn't..."

She was already backing out, clutching her purse.

Forty years. Forty years of filling that woman's insulin, and she left without it.

I called after her that I'd bring it to her door.

The bell rang again at 10:40, and this time nobody walked out.

Vittorio came in with four men.

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