The Godfather's Heartbroken Lover novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Opening Day

The gold sign came down at six on Monday morning.

The old Saturday woman's grandson brought a ladder, and Dora held it, and I went up with a screwdriver and took ELETTRA'S off my own door myself.

I handed it down to Dora.

"What do I do with it?" she asked.

"Whatever you want."

She stood it in the gutter beside the trash cans.

Then she took a photo of it and sent it to her mother.

In the window I hung a chalkboard.

Klara's. Bee-sting cake, my mother's recipe. Ask me whose.

At seven I turned the sign to OPEN.

There was a line down the block.

I mean down the block.

Parish mothers with strollers. Old men from the social club. Two of the captains' wives from the church, in sunglasses, pretending they'd just happened by.

The Saturday woman was first, even though it was Monday.

"Two rolls and a slice," she said. "And I'm not paying for the cake. That's for the sign."

"Deal," I said, and my voice went, and she reached over the counter and patted my cheek with her cold little hand.

I sold out of bee-sting cake by nine.

I baked more.

I sold out again by eleven.

At noon the line went quiet.

A black car had pulled up at the curb, double-parked, with its hazards on.

Annunziata got out of the back.

She'd had the weekend to recover.

She was in black again, with her pearls and her gold cross, and her chin up.

She didn't come in.

She stood on the sidewalk in front of my window where the whole line could see her.

"Enjoy it," she called through the open door. "It's my building. I'll have your rent tripled by July. I'll have you out by Christmas. You'll be selling cake out of a cart."

The line went very still.

I came out from behind the counter, wiping my hands on my apron.

Before I got to the door, somebody at the back of the line spoke.

"Ma."

Luca stepped out of the line.

He'd been standing in it.

He'd been standing in it the whole time, near the back, in a white shirt with his sleeves rolled, behind a woman with twins.

I hadn't seen him.

He'd let me not see him.

He walked up the sidewalk to his mother.

"Give me your keys," he said.

"What?"

"Your keys to Shore Road."

Annunziata laughed.

"Gianluca. Don't be dramatic in the street."

"You taught me the street," he said. "Give me the keys."

He held out his hand.

The whole line was watching. The shoe repair man in his doorway was watching. A bus had stopped at the light and the passengers were watching through the glass.

"It's my house," she said.

"It's the family's house. I'm the family. You don't live there anymore." His voice didn't rise once. "Your sister has a room in Staten Island. The car will take you there tonight with whatever you can pack."

"You can't do this to your mother."

"You did it to Klara. In my house. With my grandmother's ring." He kept his hand out. "And you're out of the business. Every building on this block. Every account. You don't collect rent from anyone on Court Street again."

Annunziata stared at him.

Then she looked at the line, like somebody in it would help her.

The two captains' wives in sunglasses looked at the bakery window.

The Saturday woman folded her arms.

Annunziata opened her handbag.

Her hand shook.

She took out a heavy ring of keys and dropped them on the sidewalk at his feet instead of in his hand.

He bent and picked them up.

She got back in the car without a word.

The car pulled away with its hazards still blinking.

Luca put the keys in his pocket.

He looked at me in the doorway.

"I'll pay rent," I said. "Like everybody else on this block. To whoever."

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