My Mob Fiance Offered Exits, So I Took Them novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Last Cannoli

Carlo and Bianca refuse the last cannoli at each other for a whole pot of coffee while Rosa and Domenico set a rule: whoever uses a courtesy to ask for something puts five dollars in the tin.

Carlo Bellandi arrived at the bakery at noon on Saturday carrying a box of cannoli.

Bringing pastry to a bakery is a statement.

Bringing yellow chrysanthemums with it is the apology for the statement.

"Cannoli," my mother said, taking the box. "How kind. I haven't tasted one in years."

Behind her, in the glass case, sat sixty of our own.

"I wouldn't dream of bringing bread to a baker, Bianca," Carlo said.

"Naturally not," my mother said, and led him to the staff table in the back.

Domenico followed, and Pietro followed Domenico, eating a sample cookie from his pocket.

Lucia and I sat at the end.

There were six of us and a pot of coffee, and the box held exactly seven cannoli.

My mother counted them out onto plates, one each, with a seventh left in the box.

Carlo ate his in two bites and said it was the best he'd had.

My mother said that was impossible, since it came from his own kitchen.

That should have been the end of it.

"Bianca," Carlo said. "Please. Take the last one."

"I couldn't," my mother said. "You're the guest."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Carlo said. "You've fed half of Harlem Avenue."

"And you've fed half of Taylor Street," my mother said. "Take it."

Carlo slid the box an inch toward her.

My mother slid it an inch back.

Lucia took out the green notebook and wrote the time.

"They'll do this until Easter," Domenico said to me, low.

"They'll do it until the coffee's gone," I said.

"Then it's a short lunch," Domenico said.

"It's a pot and a half," Lucia said from across the table, writing.

Carlo rose, picked up the box, and said he would carry it to the kitchen to wrap it for Bianca to take home.

My mother rose and said she would help him wrap it.

They went through the swinging door together, and it flapped twice and stopped.

Pietro got up and put his ear against it, and Lucia, without being asked, got up and put hers on the other panel.

"It's quiet," Pietro whispered.

"They're both holding the box," Lucia whispered back.

I looked at Domenico, and Domenico looked at his hands.

"Since neither of us can ask the other for anything," I said, "I'd like us to have a rule."

"What kind of rule?"

"Anything you want from me, you say in a sentence. With please in it, or I want. Same for me."

He sat very straight.

"I've never done that," he said.

"I know," I said.

"What happens if I use a courtesy?" Domenico said.

"If either of us uses a courtesy to ask for something, it costs five dollars."

Domenico thought about it for a long time.

"I would prefer to know where I stand," he said finally.

"Is that a yes?"

"It is a rule, and I accept it."

"Yes is shorter," I said.

He almost smiled.

"Yes," Domenico said.

He stood and went out to the car without explaining, and the swinging door flapped open and my mother came out with the box.

She sat down, folded her hands, and placed the box in the exact center of the table.

Carlo came out behind her and sat down across from it.

Six cannoli had been eaten.

The seventh sat there between them, and both of them looked at it with great hatred.

At that moment Pietro came back from the door, dropped into his chair, opened the box, and ate the last cannoli in three bites.

Everybody looked at him.

"What?" Pietro said, through the cream. "You were both offering."

"I'll say this for the boy," my mother said finally. "He asks."

"He's been told not to," Carlo said.

"He's very bad at it."

"He is," Carlo said. "He's my favorite."

Lucia wrote that down too.

Carlo thanked my mother for the lunch, kissed her on both cheeks, and left a yellow chrysanthemum on the table.

At the door, he stopped beside me.

"Rosa," he said. "My son is a good deal more frightening than he looks."

"He looks frightening," I said.

"Exactly," Carlo said, and patted my hand.

I thought it was an odd thing for a father to say, and then I stopped thinking about it.

The bell on the door rang, and Domenico came back in.

He carried a green biscuit tin with a picture of a Scottish castle on the lid.

He put it on the table in front of me.

"This was my grandmother's," he said. "She kept it for church money."

"What is it for?" I said.

"Buttons, mostly," Domenico said. "She said if you never ask, that's what you get."

"Buttons?" I said.

"A tin of buttons," Domenico said. "I've emptied it."

He lifted the lid, and inside there was nothing at all.

"For the forfeits," he said. "Five dollars each time. I would like that to be the rule."

He had said would like.

I took the tin and held it in both hands.

"That's a courtesy," I said.

"Is it?"

"Would like is a courtesy."

He looked at the tin, and at me, and the tip of his ear went red again.

Then he took out his wallet, laid five dollars on the table, and dropped it in with his own hand.

The bill landed with no sound at all.

"Rosa," he said. "I want to sit beside you at Mass tomorrow. Please."

"Yes," I said.

He waited for the answer to arrive, and nobody in either family had ever done that.

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